Robotica Exotica

Self-Parking Wheelchair

This self-docking wheelchair is a very nice marriage of technology with necessity. As can be seen from the video below, getting the wheelchair onto its platform from where you are sitting is quite a challenge, and making the process automatic is a great application of technology. I am not sure if the guidance is based on video or laser ranging, but it looks very cool. The engineering "trick" is to see the essence of the problem (docking) without being distracted by the much larger problem (autonomous driving). This is the way that robotics becomes more and more acceptable to society.

Using the new system, the user opens the door of their van and presses a button to lower the front seat so they can climb in. A remote control is then used to drive the chair round to the back of the van.

From here on, a computer inside the vehicle takes over. Using radio signals and laser guidance, it positions the chair onto the forks of a lift that hauls the wheelchair on board, and closes the door.

The process is reversed once the driver reaches their destination.

[...]

he researchers had originally planned to let users dock the empty wheelchair onto the forklift themselves, using the remote control and a camera mounted on the van. But it proved too difficult to position the chair accurately on the lift.

"The real challenge is to dock with 100% reliability. That is something you can't do with remote control," says John Spletzer, a roboticist at Lehigh who helped develop the system.

Instead they developed an on-board computer that uses a LIDAR (light detecting and ranging) system to position the chair. It bounces laser light off two reflectors on the armrests of the chair to track its position and align it with the forklift.

The NASCAR for Rocket Scientists

The NY Times has an article on the new rocket racing league, and all the risk that it entails. This had been coming along ever since Jack Norton and Alexander Lippisch experimented with rocket powered interceptors during WWII.

The Rocket Racing League, a long-promised attempt to create a kind of Nascar of the skies, will hold its first exhibition races this year, its founders said.

The races are promised as a kind of living video game — but louder — with a virtual raceway laid out in the sky that will be visible on projection screens at the site of each event.

Racers in rocket-powered aircraft will fly four laps around a five-mile “track” at anywhere from 150 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground. The planes, designed to fly at 340 miles an hour, will start side by side, two at a time. The pilots include professional test pilots who received their training in the military and a former astronaut.

This is definitely not for the weak of heart!

Jules Verne Auto-Docking

Well, I have been a bit behind in posting anything in a while, but perhaps now with the Mechatronics demo behind me, I will have a bit more time.

In the meantime, some very interesting technological feats have happened, and one I thought to bring to your attention was the automated docking of the Jules Verne space truck to the International Space Station.

After assessing results of two days of trial maneuvers around the station, including having the two craft close to within 36 feet of one another, the Mission Management Team of international partners in the project gave approval for an attempt on Thursday to link the ships.

The Jules Verne, named for the visionary French author, is the first of a new class of robot station supply ships called Automatic Transfer Vehicles or A.T.V.’s. The robot ship was built by the member nations of the European Space Agency as one of Europe’s major contributions to the international station.

[...]

The ship is to maneuver and dock itself automatically using Global Positioning System satellite navigation, as well as a new optical guidance system for close approach to the station. A twin laser system is to fire pulses of light at reflectors positioned on the end of Zvezda to determine the craft’s orientation, distance and closing rate to the space station.

It seems the Russians have been doing this since 1985, but it is still very exciting to see happen.