List of industrial safety standards
Posted inMisc

Industrial Robot Safety Standards, Abbreviations, Codes & Titles

I recently attended the National Robot Safety Conference for Industrial Robots and found myself confused with all of the safety standards. Here is the sheet that they provided to help identify Standards, Abbreviations, Codes & Titles. If you find any of these interesting and wish to purchase the standards you can go to the Robot Industries Association. Enjoy this list…
husky robot
Posted inMisc Robots

Robot Bases (and other development platforms)

Hi all This is going to be a quick post. There are many cases where instead of building a full robot from scratch, you just want to buy a platform. These platforms can serve as the base of your robot that you build upon, or just as a test platform for developing/testing new software with. Here are some of the…
drawbar pull test
Posted inTesting

Common Robot Tests – Field Testing Series – Part 6

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
robot data
Posted inTesting

Test Analysis – Field Testing Series – Part 5

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
robot testing
Posted inTesting

Test Execution – Field Testing Series – Part 4

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
robot testing
Posted inTesting

Test Preparation – Field Testing Series – Part 3

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
safety first
Posted inMisc Testing

Safe Robots

Hi all Remembering to be (and being) safe is an important aspect of building robots. If you are not do things safely, you might not get the chance to build anything else. I am not going to go into the standard stuff such as soldering, machining, and chemical safety since you can get that in other places. The thing I…
field testing
Posted inSystems & Sensors Testing

Designing for Success – Field Testing Series – Part 2

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
velodyne laser
Posted inSystems & Sensors

Sensor types (modalities) for robots to experience the world

Hi all There are many different sensor types that can be used on a robot, and most robots will have many different sensor types. I am going to talk about the common types and avoid some of the more application specific sensors such as environmental, radiation and chemical. When I think of sensors I divide them into two categories. You…
robot testing
Posted inTesting

Why Test Robots? – Field Testing Series – Part 1

This post is part of a series on testing robots with a focus on field testing. It will start with why we test robots, work its way through planning for a field test, to performing the test, and finally what to do after the test. We will conclude with a description of many common tests that we subject our robots…
robot builders bonanza
Posted inMisc

Robot Books: The basics, the middle, and a lot of math.

Hi all Here are my recommended robotics books. I hope you enjoy. Please put your favorite robotics books in the comment section below. This first book Robot Builders Bonanza is a hobbyist level book but I still recommend it. This book introduces the basics of mechanical, electrical, microprocessors, and sensors that are used in modern robots. It is some good…
software flow in a robot
Posted inSoftware & Algorithms Systems & Sensors

Software that Forms a Robot

Hi all While many people find it boring, one thing that has always interested me is the software infrastructure of a robot. By infrastructure I mean the code that all robots have and that binds everything else together. This includes the things like the interprocess communication (IPC) method, the system executive, the health monitor and the user interface. I will…