Hopefully by now, most of the American robot lovers out there have seen the wonderful movie, Wall-E. In addition to the amazing builders that have create Wall-E models, there are quite a few very well made Wall-E models built out of LEGO bricks. The Brothers Brick have posted two great LEGO Wall-E roundup posts, to highlight some of the creations.
Autosub6000 being lifted from the water
A 5.5m long, 6,100 lb robotic submarine called the Autosub6000 (I wonder if there was a 5000) is getting ready to explore the depths of the Cayman Trough in the Caribbean. The Cayman Trough, which you may remember from the film, The Abyss, has never been explored do to its incredible depths of up to 25,000 ft (the Mariana Trench, by comparison, is 29,000 ft deep). The AUV will be used by the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton (NOCS) on two, month-long, autonomous, exploration trips to plumb the depths of the trough. Autosub6000 will be used to autonomously identify volcanic acvitivty, and mark the location for a ROV, Isis, to take samples. The unique features of the vents are expexted to yield many new species of life.
“They could be hotter than 500C (930F), and if they are that hot, they will probably have quite different chemistry and life forms – we expect to find new species.”
Good luck Autosub6000, stear clear of the aliens.
[Via Slashdot]
Sample output from the SwissRanger 3D camera
A new video camera, developed by Mesa Imaging, captures 3D images at up to 29 fps. The 176×144 pixel camera outputs live video footage with depth information for each pixel. The camera gives precision depth information from 0.3m to 3m, with an accuracy of less than 0.3cm. This amazing sensor is being sold by Acroname for $7,500, but compared to many laser rangefinders, which only capture data in two dimensions, this is quite a deal.
The measurement precision is determined by the amount of light which is reflected from the scene back to the imager chip. As a general rule of thumb when operated indoors, the distance accuracy is approximately 1% of the full range. The distance accuracy can be improved by increasing the modulation frequency or optical power, or by reducing the frame rate.
Data is transferred from the camera to a computer via a USB connection. The sensor uses time-of-flight (TOF) phase detection to determine the distance to objects. The camera illuminates the field-of-view with 1W of IR light, via LEDs modulated at 20MHz. Mesa has several publications listed on their site which further describes the technology behind the camera.
A sensor like this will go a long way in solving the ever elusive problem of letting robots accurately know where they are and what’s around them. Mesa also plans on targeting the video game and medical system markets for their camera systems. For more information about the camera you can check out Mesa’s FAQ section.
