Project Robotics

Robots in the Military

BY JIM DAVIS
Cypress Semiconductor
San Jose, CA
http://www.cypress.com

The use of robots in war dates back to World War II with the German Goliath remotecontrolled explosive vehicles and the Soviet Union’s wirelessly controlled, unmanned Teletanks. In today’s military conflicts, the airspace is filled with unmanned aerial vehicles of all sizes—from the hand-launched vehicles of the Special Forces to the jet-powered Predator drones flown by Airmen thousands of miles away from the conflict area; as well as ground-based autonomous and wirelessly controlled robotic vehicles for high-risk patrols to explosive ordinance detonation and disarming. These robotic vehicles support a variety of military missions ranging from covert intelligence gathering to direct support to ground forces and overt military strikes. And we’ve just scratched the surface. http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectrobotics_201012/index.php?startid=5.

Design tools help define the signal path and configure components at the sytem-level. As shown, an ADC is generated based on parameters, such as desired resolution, sample rate, and voltage reference source.

Soft Design and Hard Reality

BY ROB EVANS
Altium, Carlsbad, CA
http://altium-na.com

There’s probably no design engineer more familiar with working at a high level of abstraction than a software developer. Whether it’s creating PC software, embedded applications, Web services, or database systems, there’s a high-level development system and associated language to remove the pain of dealing with the native code. http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectrobotics_201012/index.php?startid=9

When the low-level details are handled by reconfigurable interface layers, advanced data flow capture systems can be used to develop an embedded design by defining its functional intent.

Clean Room, Clean Robot

BY RUSH LaSELLE
Adept Technology, Pleasanton, CA
http://www.adept.com

While certain industries have suffered under a straining economy, the consumer electronic supply chain with its cleanroom requirements is growing, and clean-room robotics solutions will play a key part in this growth. This article is an informative guide on considerations to keep in mind when considering automating your clean-room processes. http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/hearst/projectrobotics_201012/index.php?startid=13

The Robotic Hand

Most people do not look forward to surgery. Even under the hands of a trusted doctor or the best expert, there is always risk. Today’s typical operating room consists of multiple surgeons, several nurses, and an anesthesiologist, all of whose jobs it is to see that you get through your surgery, and in so many cases patients are trusting this handful of people with their lives. But what happens when we look at the cutting-edge operating room that includes robots. Will the patient have as much trust or even more? Will the patient expect a better outcome from the surgery?

Some advantages of robotic surgery over conventional surgery include enhanced precision, reduced trauma, reduced fatigue on the surgical staff, and the ability to have experts from all over the world perform surgery remotely. Some of the disadvantages of robotic surgery are the latency if the surgery is being done remotely and the cost — while robotic surgery may cut down on the amount of staff needed in a surgical unit,the cost for the equipment is still extremely high.

But most technology seems to start off high priced and so slow on the start up. Why? Human beings are human. It takes us a while to change our way of doing things. It’s all about trust and control. It’s easier to trust technology when it’s operating such things as cars, smart phones and appliances than when it’s literally operating on us. I guess the real question here is, how much do you trust the technology that may be responsible for your well being in the future?

Bryan DeLuca