By the time you read this, there will be but a few holiday shopping hours remaining to splurge on the extravagant toy you have been saving for all year. Anyone can go to a retailer and pick up a 63-in. plasma TV, or head to a dealership and drive out with the 2004 MegaPlanetDestroyer SUV Mark V, with heated leather steering wheel. But, when you are done with that and you still have $400,005 burning a hole in your pocket, go purchase two lattes, then call Neiman Marcus and order the His & Her Robots from their holiday catalog (you will need some additional cash for tax and delivery. And gift-wrap). The 6-ft tall, rolling remote-control (sorry, not autonomous) playmates are equipped with computers and video cameras, so they can be sent to fetch groceries in from the car, play games with the kids, or answer the door (scaring the brown off the UPS delivery person, no doubt).
The duo was designed and constructed by International Robotics subsidiary Mannetron, Battle Creek, MI, and they have created other sophisticated robots for entertainment and education. The Nagoya Public Aquarium has a full-size, 16-ft long Mannetron orca on display, “swimming” before a projected background of water. Other ’bots can be seen at trade shows and exhibitions, “speaking” from a pre-recorded script and moving to programmed commands or, in the more-sophisticated versions, tethered to a remote human operator who’s wearing a movement-sensor frame, sensor gloves, a VR headset and a microphone.
The internal workings of Mannetron’s complex custom robots involve electric motors and, in some cases, water-based hydraulic actuators. The robot Max, who stands on a stage that conceals power and hydraulic support equipment, employs a 36-axis real-time motion control system that consists of a master computer with two slaves, and seven high-speed DSP motion control sub processors.
How complex is the robot being sold by N-M? “That particular robot,” says Peter Jungen, chief engineer at Mannetron, “incorporates a level of performance technology that allows the unit to execute very complex motion patterns at the touch of a button. It is additionally equipped with prerecorded macros, which are sequences of motion that allow smooth transition from a programmed routine to being controlled by the operator.”
Max and the Nagoya whale are even more demanding. “Our system requires the motors to track a central position in real time,” notes Jungen. “You can’t really buy that off the shelf for the array of motors involved — ranging from aircraft servos all the way up to large linear motors that we used in the whale. We had to come up with a way for all these motors to operate from the same command protocol, speaking the same language. That’s important for future designs — if we make a dinosaur robot, it will have very large motors for moving the body and very small motors for moving the eyes.”
To manage all of the motion, Mannetron uses centralized control to handle coordination, while distributed control, through the high-performance DSPs, attends directly to the motors actually executing the commands. Describes Jungen, “In a unit like a dinosaur, you have central command coordinating the motions and issues the commands, while sub-units, execute the commands. The N-M robot, on the other hand, has 15 integrated motor/drives. They have to be controlled in real time, and have position updates 30 times per second. A central processor coordinates the commands, while motors with built-in drives execute the commands. It’s like an organization for people — it works best with intelligent people on the floor, who can make decisions that deal with their particular environment, with the overall coordination handled by management.”
For the N-M robot, Mannetron used SmartMotors from Animatics. The standalone package reduced the problem of creating space for a DSP card, servo amp and positioning sensor wiring. The built-in DSP also had plenty of processing power to handle all the low-level real-time calculations, while the central processor’s power was dedicated entirely to coordinating complex gestures.
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By the time you read this, there will be but a few holiday shopping hours remaining to splurge on the extravagant toy you have been saving for all year. Anyone can go to a retailer and pick up a 63-in. plasma TV, or head to a dealership and drive out with the 2004 MegaPlanetDestroyer SUV Mark V, with heated leather steering wheel. But, when you are done with that and you still have $400,005 burning a hole in your pocket, go purchase two lattes, then call Neiman Marcus and order the His & Her Robots from their holiday catalog (you will need some additional cash for tax and delivery. And gift-wrap). The 6-ft tall, rolling remote-control (sorry, not autonomous) playmates are equipped with computers and video cameras, so they can be sent to fetch groceries in from the car, play games with the kids, or answer the door (scaring the brown off the UPS delivery person, no doubt).
The internal workings of Mannetron’s complex custom robots involve electric motors and, in some cases, water-based hydraulic actuators. The robot Max, who stands on a stage that conceals power and hydraulic support equipment, employs a 36-axis real-time motion control system that consists of a master computer with two slaves, and seven high-speed DSP motion control sub processors.
To manage all of the motion, Mannetron uses centralized control to handle coordination, while distributed control, through the high-performance DSPs, attends directly to the motors actually executing the commands. Describes Jungen, “In a unit like a dinosaur, you have central command coordinating the motions and issues the commands, while sub-units, execute the commands. The N-M robot, on the other hand, has 15 integrated motor/drives. They have to be controlled in real time, and have position updates 30 times per second. A central processor coordinates the commands, while motors with built-in drives execute the commands. It’s like an organization for people — it works best with intelligent people on the floor, who can make decisions that deal with their particular environment, with the overall coordination handled by management.”