Hi allA few years ago I did a teardown of the classic LMS 291 “brick” that was common on many early robots. Now I had the chance to open up a newer much smaller TiM-100 LIDAR sensor. Lets see how things have changed. See the video below to learn about the SICK TiM sensor. To […] The post SICK TiM LIDAR Teardown appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

Automate is my favorite trade show to attend each year. While there are many conferences that are academic in nature (IROS, ICRA, etc..), this show is geared to actually building and deploying of robotics. Over 725 vendors show up to exhibit to show off everything from motors, fleet management software, grippers, wheels, UGVs, IMRs, bearings, […] The post Automate 2023 appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

This post is part of the Hands on Robot Design series. See here for the full list of posts/topics http://robotsforroboticists.com/hands-on-ground-robot–drone-design-series for information on mechanical, electrical, motion control, computing, sensors, and more. Once we had a drone we needed the sensors and computer to make this drone operate. Keeping with the idea of trying to make […] The post Drone Sensor Payload Design Hands On appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

Hi This morning I got the news that a friend, mentor and colleague for the past 17 years has passed away. I wanted to share a few lessons from Jim. Never be satisfied and always seek perfection, yet also know when a robot is ready to test. Think about your work. If you did something […] The post Jim Teza. How to be a better Roboticist. appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

This is functional dictionary for roboticists, and not a proper dictionary. The goal of making this is to define terms from within the research and engineering world in an easy to understand manner. Try to read through this list to test your robotics terminology. This is a work in progress and I will be continuing […] The post Robotics Dictionary appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

Just sharing this announcement with the Robots for Roboticists community. I have not had a chance to use this yet. I know I generally only share things that I have used, but I felt this was worth sharing. If you try it out, let us know how it works. Announcing Quad-SDK! A full-stack quadruped control […] The post Quadruped Control Full Stack Development Kit appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

I generally try and use Copley motor controllers whenever I can. This is for several reasons including: Reliability Linux software API (for a small fee) which can easily be wrapped for using in ROS Copley, if you are reading this you should make CML available to everyone for free… Same software API for a wide […] The post Setup & Configuring a Copley Motor Controller appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

Radios are used for different things; data, audio, video, etc.. In robotics they are most often used for transmitting data wirelessly. There are many different types of radios available to choose for your robotic system. There are probably hundreds of individual radios to choose from. This post will look at some of the different categories. […] The post Wireless Radio Selection appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

I recently had an opportunity to take apart a Fiber Optic Gyro (FOG). I have always known the theory behind a FOG and that there was a fiber optic cable that was used as the sensing element, however I was not prepared to actually see the fiber optic cable in the sensor. The unit I […] The post Fiber Optic Gyro (FOG) Teardown appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more

This post is part of the Hands on Ground Robot Design series. See here for the full list of posts/topics http://robotsforroboticists.com/hands-on-ground-robot–drone-design-series for information on mechanical, electrical, motion control, computing, sensors, and more. Sensor Selection Based on the system requirements we determined that we needed RGBD cameras in all four directions to help find required artifacts […] The post Sensor Payload – Hands On Ground Robot Design appeared first on Robots For Roboticists ..read more