Denning Mobile Robot Company facts for kids
The Denning Mobile Robot Company from Boston was one of the first companies to sell ready-made autonomous robots. These robots were mostly bought by scientists and researchers. Other early companies in this field included Real World Interface, Inc. (RWI) and Nomadic Technologies in the United States, and K-Team from Switzerland. They all helped meet the need for robots that researchers could use right away.
RWI made a robot called the B-21, Nomadic made the XR4000, and the small Khepera robot came from the Swiss K-Team. However, these robots were very expensive. Only a few advanced students and military researchers could afford them. Then, in 1995, the more affordable Pioneer robot was introduced. This robot was a team effort between RWI and ActivMedia Robotics. Its lower price helped many more people get into mobile robotics research.
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How Did Research Robots Develop?
By 1999, the Denning company was no longer in business. In 1998, RWI joined with ISRobotics to create a new company called iRobot. This company later made the PackBot, a robot controlled by remote. iRobot started focusing more on robots for military use, moving away from autonomous research robots. Nomadic Technologies also stopped working in this area. However, MobileRobots Inc and K-Team kept providing robots to the research community.
In 2003, a government agency called DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) asked Segway to turn fifteen Segway PTs into special robot platforms. These were called Segway Robotic Mobility Platforms. Segway delivered these units to DARPA in April. In June, DARPA worked with SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego to give these robots to 14 different government and university research groups.
Moving Around Inside Buildings
Research robots became much better at moving around inside buildings during the 1990s and 2000s. Ready-made robot bases like the Pioneer, PatrolBot, PowerBot, and PeopleBot offer everything needed. They have sensors to see, ways to move, and computers to think.
These robots can create maps of buildings and find their way around right out of the box. They use methods like SLAM (which means they map their surroundings while figuring out where they are). They also use a type of Monte Carlo method to locate themselves. This creates a map that humans can easily understand. This map helps control and track the robots as they move.
Evolution Robotics offers software called VSLAM (Visual SLAM) that uses a single camera. This system uses visual pattern matching instead of range-finding sensors. However, it cannot create a map that humans can easily read. Other groups are building VSLAM systems using two cameras, called stereo cameras. Since stereo cameras can measure distance, they can create maps and track robots. Robots like the K-Team Khepera and Segway-based platforms can connect to outside computers to use this kind of software.
How accurate a robot's movement is depends on its sensors and how fast it can calculate. Laser sensors can be very precise, often within 1 centimeter. Digital stereo cameras are less precise, depending on the distance. Vision-based systems need more computer power than simple laser systems. However, they might use a special computer chip called a digital signal processor built into the camera. Because of cost and accuracy, cheaper vision-based systems are often found in robots for homes. More expensive laser-based systems are used in commercial and industrial robots and automated guided vehicles (AGVs).
Moving Around Outside
When robots are outdoors, they mainly use GPS (Global Positioning System) to figure out where they are. But satellite signals can often be lost if there are tall buildings or trees in the way. When GPS signals are lost, robots usually use dead reckoning and inertial motion tracking.
Dead reckoning relies on how much the robot's wheels turn. But this method can build up errors over time if the wheels slip. Inertial motion tracking uses special sensors called rate gyroscopes and accelerometers to measure movement. The accuracy of this method depends on how good the sensors are and how well they are set up. The Segway RMP 400 and Seekur robots are two types of platforms made for outdoor research. Most other outdoor research robots are put together from existing vehicles.
In smaller outdoor areas, some robots, like the John Deere Gator, simply use radio beacons placed around the edge of the area. They use a method called triangulation from three or more beacons to find their location and navigate. Beacons are also used inside factories by older AGVs.
How Are Robots Programmed?
A lot of the software used for programming autonomous robots is Free Software or Open Source Software. This means anyone can use, change, and share it. Some examples include:
- Robot Operating System
- Carmen from Carnegie Mellon University
- Player/Stage/Gazebo from the University of Southern California
- The ARIA APIs from MobileRobots Inc.
- URBI, which also has a Free Software SDK, is used in many universities.
There is also commercial software available. One example is Webots, which has been developed since 1998. More than 500 universities have licenses to use it. Webots works on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X computers. In June 2006, Microsoft Research started offering free test versions of a Robotics Studio software kit. This kit could be used with Pioneer robots in a simulated environment on Windows XP.
