Technabob » embedded

Gurubhakts: Gesture-Controlled Leader-Follower Robots

Technabob — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 02:32:34 +0000

Not to be confused with Guru Bhakti, the GuruBhakts are special robots designed to operate in a “follow-the-leader” mode. The ultimate plan for these ‘bots is to allow a remote driver to steer a single robot into a hazardous environment, and the other robots would follow in turn from that single set of actions.

The compact wheeled robots were developed by engineers Saurabh Palan, Jitender Bishnoi and Rahul Khosla under the guidance of Professor Rahul Mangharam at the University of Pennsylvania for an embedded systems course. Basically, the way the little guys work is that the user holds the “MahaGuru” (a FireFly wireless node) in their hand, and hand gestures tell the “Guru” (leader) bot which direction to go. Then the “Bhakts” robots fall into formation and follow the Guru.

Simply tilting the MahaGuru to the left or the right sends the Guru in the corresponding direction, and his followers – like lemmings – fall in order. .

I wonder if you drove Guru off a cliff, would the Bhakts follow blindly, or would they recognize their own mortality and stop before they plunged to their demise?

[iRoboticist via NOTCOT]

Marvell Plug Computer 3.0: the Latest in Plug-and-Play Computing

Range — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:53:46 +0000

We always heard ridiculous things about the future. In fact, I’m sure that I’ve heard that in the future, computers will be as small as a power plug. Well that’s actually partly true. Marvell has been producing plug-sized computers for a while. Their latest has just been announced.

Marvell just launched the newest version of its Plug computer, the Plug 3.0. It’s based on the Armada 300 processor, and draws less than 1/10th of the power that a typical PC uses. However, it still manages to run at a 2Ghz processor speed and has WiFi, Bluetooth and a built-in 1.8-inch hard drive. Not too shabby, eh?

The case is a lot nicer looking than the previous editions. It’s been rumored that a few big-name brands are working on upcoming releases on this platform. We’ll see how relevant the Plug Computer 3.0 really is later this year. Still, it looks pretty cute.

[via Ubergizmo]

Marvell Sheevaplug: Tiny Computer Fits in a Wall Plug

Technabob — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:23:38 +0000

This weensy little computer is so small that you might accidentally misplace it if you’re not careful.

The oddly-named Marvell Sheevaplug (I think I went to college with him) is about the size of your average gadget’s power adapter, but it actually contains a complete computer (sans video output). The device has a 1.2GHz CPU, 512MB of flash memory and 512MB of RAM, which should be plenty for running a web server or other Linux applications. It’s got a built-in Gigabit Ethernet port for network connectivity, and a USB port, so you might even be able to hook up a DisplayLink device without any video card.

The compact PC uses very little power (just 5 watts), and (of course) doesn’t require any sort of external power adapter. It looks like Marvell is going after larger distribution relationships at this point, but they are selling developer kits if you want to tinker with one for yourself. You can get your hands on a SheevaPlug developer kit (which looks a bit more clunky than the svelte production model above) over at Globalscale Technologies for just $99 (USD).

[via Boing Boing Gadgets]