Research Work Using Quanser 6 DOF Telepresence System Published in a Prestigious Journal

Researchers from Imperial College, UK, and University of Calgary, Canada, focus on understanding forces exerted during surgical procedure - a prerequisite to successful design and application of robots in microsurgery. They summarized their results in a paper, recently published by a prestigious International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery.

Quanser 6 DOF Telepresence System

As an experimental platform, the research team used Quanser 6 DOF Telepresence System, combinig HD² High Definition Haptic Device and 6 DOF Denso Open Architecture Robot in a master-slave configuration allowing for high-fidelity teleoperation with haptic feedback.

Click here to access the full paper online.

To learn how other researchers have used Quanser systems as experimental platforms for their research, visit www.quanser.com/research_papers and download the whitepaper "The Quanser Platform for Control Systems Research Validation."

To learn more about the project neuroArm, visit www.neuroArm.org

A Simple Way To Build A Great Robotics Lab

How many tools do you need to add to your lab to significantly expand its teaching and research capabilities?  Quite possibly, you might only need one, because that one tool can open the door to a whole new range of capabilities and possibilities.

In our experience over the past 20 years, many educational institutions that take even a small step to expand their lab can actually result in a great leap forward in their teaching and research capabilities, not to mention their ability to attract top students.

Consider the robotics lab, for example.  If a given lab has an inexpensive Omni Bundle Lab Solution from Quanser, it possesses a sure and simple way to teach haptics to students and allow them to gain real experience in quickly creating virtual environments. But should it add a single DENSO open architecture robot, it’s well positioned to accomplish a great deal more.

The Omni Bundle Lab Solution from Quanser

As a small industrial-style manipulator, the DENSO allows you to teach more sophisticated aspects of control and give your students experience with a real-world industrial robot.  With its small footprint and sophisticated capabilities, DENSO applications include but are not limited to teleoperation, robot-assisted surgery, rehabilitation, welding and pick-and-place activity. A whole new range of haptics and teleoperation experiments – and industry-applicable experience – is now available to your students. 

The DENSO Open Architecture Robot, enabled by Quanser

This dynamic combination of robots offers benefits at the research level as well.  With DENSO’s open architecture, your grad students can design their own projects and expand their research capabilities as well.  Should they plan to publish their research, they can count on the experimental results that the DENSO and Omni will give them. 

Quanser packages involving the Omni and DENSO robots are solid building blocks that engineering educators around the world are using to build great robotics labs. One such lab is found at Tel Aviv University in Israel.  There Dr. Gabor Kosa is using the DENSO and the Omni to teach teleoperation. The DENSO is also being used for entire control experiments, and to do work in system identification as well as inverse kinematics.  (Below is a demonstration in Dr. Kosa's lab of the DENSO tracking a wand.)

Whether big or small, a great robotics lab is created with carefully chosen building blocks. For many teaching and research labs around the world, DENSO and Omni Bundle Lab Solutions from Quanser represent a solid foundation on which to grow.  To request a personalized demonstration of these robots, simply email info@quanser.com.

Small Robots, Big Results

When it comes to engineering education, small colleges and world-renowned universities have more in common that you might think.  They all want to have versatile, effective teaching labs that offer students engaging learning experiences and the opportunity to do advanced research. 

A first-rate engineering lab would leave them well positioned to attract the best students for their programs. Such a lab would also help motivate students to get the most out of their curriculum, explore new areas of interest, and graduate with industry-ready skills.

Centennial College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is a community college with a well-regarded Engineering Technology program. Recently it turned to Quanser to help them teach haptics and robotics to their students. To do so, Centennial selected Quanser’s Omni Bundle Lab Solution, which consists of three components: the Phantom® Omni robot, QUARC® control design software and associated curriculum; along with the DENSO open architecture robot. 

In the video below, the Omni robot is connected to the DENSO robot with a force sensor that yields haptic feedback. the smaller Omni controls the larger DENSO, and interacts with it on both virtual and real objects.

As Centennial College’s lab demonstrates, the Omni and the Denso are a formidable combination for engineering teaching and research.  There are several reasons why.

The small Omni Bundle is an effective, inexpensive way to teach haptics and robotics to undergraduate and graduate students. Quanser recently increased its capabilities, updated its course materials and made it even easier to use; it’s more ”plug and play”, which busy students and researchers appreciate.

These new capabilities reflect the latest updates in Quanser’s QUARC 2.2 rapid control design software. The updated Omni Bundle’s curriculum also reflects the recent QUARC updates. Curriculum topics include experiments in robot kinematics, trajectory planning, joint level control, workspace level control, haptics and more.  Request your sample curriculum now.  

The compact DENSO robot offers great industry-level precision, flexibility and speed.  As one of the world’s most commonly-used industrial robot arms, it combines high speed and repeatability with powerful load-handling capability.

When the Omni and DENSO are linked, the result is a high-end tele-operation platform that lends itself to all levels of teaching and research. Ultimately, this dynamic haptic and robotic lab combination helps achieve two desired outcomes: students gain significant real-world robotic control experience, and engineering schools graduate new engineers with skills they can use immediately in the workplace. 

With tools like these, it’s clear that any engineering school can achieve advanced results no matter what its size.  Request a demo of the Omni Bundle at info@quanser.com.

New Reasons For You To Consider The Omni Bundle Solution For Your Lab

Engineering educators around the world have told us how pleased they are with the Omni Bundle - a lab solution for teaching haptics and robotics inexpensively and safely to undergraduate and well as graduate students.

Quanser has now made the Omni Bundle even easier to use. Plus with its updated course materials, it offers enhanced lab efficiency and a higher degree of student engagement. Ultimately, this provides you with a remarkably strong lab solution to motivate your students-and a new and powerful reason to consider adding the Omni Bundle to your lab.

Here's what's new and how it benefits you: 

1. All controllers are now compatible with QUARC 2.2 using the Phantom Block

• Students will interface with the Phantom Block faster, because several previous blocks have been incorporated into one
• We eliminated the configuration process that set the MATLAB® path and ran the "get tool offset"
• Configuration is now automatic. Students will simply open the course materials and run the Omni   

2. New controllers are reflected in the updated course materials 

3. Haptics Labs now use QUARC Visualization Blocks instead of VRML

• Your students will find haptics experiments extremely intuitive and engaging
• Creating the virtual environment is easier now that VRML has been replaced

Find out more about Omni Bundle lab solution and how it can enhance the capabilities and effectiveness of your robotics lab. Please contact Oliver Zhang to find out more.

Quanser R&D Helps Enhance Safety in Conflict Zones

One of the most sensitive and important areas addressed by robotics research and development is in applications designed to reduce human risk in conflict situations, specifically the risk related to defending against the use of improvised explosive devices (IED). One mitigation strategy is smart robotics development employing stand-off detectors to permit surveillance and protection of vital points and key personnel.

The value of multi-disciplinary experience
Quanser has been chosen as a part of a Collaborative Research and Technology Initiative (CRTI) to complete a project on telerobotic IED neutralization. This project addresses substantial telerobotic-based improvements in a number of areas, including (i) responder performance through an integrated response and remote monitoring platform, (ii) pre- and post- blast investigations involving sample analysis and data collection, (iii) management with no manual input, and (iv) medical triage in hazard situations.

The potential to be remarkably effective
Quanser has been conducting research in the areas of haptics and telepresence as well as unmanned vehicles systems (UVS) control for several years. The introduction of haptics has the potential to shift the way all telepresence systems work for first responders. At the same time, the immersive telepresence capability allows for greater surveillance of vital points and key personnel.

The research is well underway
The research and development for the project have already started in various fields such as telerobotics, 3 D localization and mapping as well as unmanned vehicle control. As an initial step, a unilateral teleoperation setup is implemented between a Sensable's PHANTOM Omni and JACO arm by Kinova. The JACO arm was chosen for this project because of its light weight, being waterproof and silent, low power consumption and its high dexterity and reach.

Teleoperation setup with JACO Robot Arm and PHANTOM Omni device

Full joint-level open architecture access to the robotic arm is enabled through QUARC rapid prototyping software which can be used as a stand-alone research and teaching platform. Also, a realistic model of the arm is presented in QUARC visualization in order to test and implement various controllers.

Next steps include the design and implementation of bilateral and multilateral teleoperation using more than one JACO arms to perform a multi-arm teleoperation scheme. The project outcomes will improve preparedness, prevention, and response by alllowing first responders to stand back, investigate and neutralize dangerous situations.

Many applications will benefit from the developed technology, including medical robotics, micro assembly, remote hazardous material handling, resource exploration, sovereign arctic surveillance, and space explorations.

Teleoperating a Denso Robot

A year ago I wrote about our open architecture 6 Degree of Freedom (DOF) Denso robot. Coupled with Quanser's QUARC control software, it offers researchers and students an extremely user-friendly programming environment. That means they can use the industrial grade robot in teaching and research labs, without having to spend their time typing endless lines of low level code to move a robotic arm. No wonder the robot workstation has become increasingly popular with our academic clients and research partners.

As an example, consider the Health Research Innovation Centre at University of Calgary. The setup at the Centre, which includes our Denso Open Architecture Robot Workstation and a high definition haptic device HD^2 is used for research and development of the neuroArm, a robotic arm used for telesurgery.

The video below demonstrates the Denso robot being teleoperated by the HD^2 high definition haptic device. Communication is conducted over shared memory for optimized bilateral teleoperation performance. It can be easily switched to another protocol over the Internet using QUARC blocksets.

The motion of the operator’s hand is captured by the haptic device at a high resolution and speed. This motion then drives the end-effector of the Denso robot over 6 degrees of freedom, i.e., translational x, y, z, and rotational roll, pitch and yaw. The measured forces and torques at the tip of the robot are applied back to the operator through the haptic device.

The monitor, visible at the top left corner of the video, demonstrates an OpenGL visualization of the Denso robot in real-time where some virtual objects are added to the graphics of the Denso robot. These virtual objects represent the virtual fixtures that act on the tip of the robot. When the robot end-effector goes into contact with these virtual objects, a feedback force is calculated based on the simulated dynamics of the objects. The force is then applied back to the user through the haptic device. As a result, the operator will be repelled from certain regions in the robot workspace. One can think of it as a means of guiding the surgeon out of some delicate regions of a brain during the surgery.

Overall, in this setup, the Denso robot, a 7 DOF haptic device, the simulation, and the force sensor are all interfaced to each other on a single PC through QUARC control software. Along with all this is a 1 DOF actuator at the end-effector of the robot, which is controlled through a QUARC serial communication blockset.

To sum up, the 6 DOF Denso Open Architecture Robot Workstation from Quanser is a state of the art, cost-effective solution for all those interested in teaching robotics or doing research in this field. No surprise that its popularity is growing by the day.

Quanser Helps Develop a Rehab Robot for Stroke Survivors

What's the most effective, efficient way to help hemiparetic stroke survivors regain control of their arms so they can get back to performing normal, everyday activities? For Dr. Alex Mihailidis, Director of the University of Toronto's Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab (IATSL), that's not an academic question. It's the subject of ongoing research he's conducting with a team comprised of University of Toronto postgraduate students, rehabilitation specialists from the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute, and mechanical and control engineers from Quanser.

Quanser's involvement began four years ago when Dr. Mihailidis suggested some of his postgraduate students work on this project while interning at Quanser. Paul Lam came to work on initial hardware design with Quanser mechanical engineer Don Gardner, and Patricia Kan worked closely with Quanser software engineer Herve Lacheray to enhance existing game-oriented physical exercises and add artifical intelligence capability to the rehab device. As a result, a first iteration of a 2 DOF upper limb rehab device was designed, built, tested and eventually used in rehab situations.

The first prototype of the of the Rehabilitation Robot for stroke survivors was a device with two degrees of freedom.

A third intern, Rajibul Huq, came on board to focus on the device's control software. He collaborated with Herve to build on the control design work done earlier by Patricia. In May of 2010, Elaine Lu joined the IATSL/Quanser team, concentrating on hardware design. Their shared goal was to design a new prototype of the original rehab device that would extend its dynamic rehabilitation capability.

For the robot to be of value to stroke victims, a user-centered focus was key. As a first step, Elaine had sent out an online survey to over 200 rehabilitation therapists, asking for their input on what the robotic device should do and what it should look and feel like to be of rehabilitative use to upper limb stroke survivors. She brought her survey results to Quanser and started to implement them into her design.

Over a four-month period Elaine spent most of her time developing this project in consultation with Quanser's engineers. She familiarized herself with the robotic hardware Quanser had already developed, including the controls we'd already designed, and began working to incorporate some of the ideas her online survey had generated.

A working prototype was completed in April of 2011. Elaine will soon take it to a focus group of therapists and stroke survivors for real-world trials. The trials will highlight what's right and what can be improved. A third prototype will then be built incorporating this feedback.

Based on the feedback from patients and therapists, researchers from the University of Toronto, Toronto Rehab Institute and Quanser developed a new Rehab Robot prototype, now ready for real-world trials.

In the future, Dr. Mihailidis and the IATSL team plan to set up a clinic at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute to conduct clinical trials, using 10 of advanced Rehab Robot prototypes. The eventual goal is to perfect the Rehab Robot for everyday use by stroke survivors in the privacy of their own homes, as well as in rehab clinics.

As the IATSL and TRI researchers, or any of our engineers could tell you, "Engineering a better future" is not merely a slogan at Quanser. It's our focus. It's why we collaborate with the academic and research community.

Coming Soon: A New Robotic System That Gives Research and Training A Hand

In the not-too-distant future, robotics research and teaching will take a significant step forward thanks to some new R&D work currently underway in Quanser's robotics division. The research involves having a prototype of a future Quanser product - a small Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) - being tele-operated through a gesture-sensing glove linked to a magnetic tracking system.

This will open up new and better possibilities for robotic control research and teaching. Researchers, instructors and students can expect a deeper, more intuitive experience as well as a significantly shorter learning curve. Essentially, this new system will extend the capability of our UGVs for research and teaching by adding a new layer of gesture-based functionality.

Click below to view the tele-operation in action. As you will see, the kinematics and Jacobian of the arms are solved. The hand motion and gestures are calculated, mapped in a global frame, and transmitted wirelessly to the UGV rover. The arm is clutched with the operator's thumb and his index finer controls the gripper.

At the macro level, here's how the system and glove "fit" together: a magnetic motion tracking system and the gesture-sensing glove have been integrated into QUARC control software functionalities. This high resolution tracking system computes the translation and rotation motions, i.e., roll, pitch and yaw, in a pre-defined Cartesian frame. The data is used to compute a transformation matrix and conveys sufficient information about the operator's hand motion. The glove itself contains strain gauges that capture the operator's hand gestures.

Using QUARC communication blocks, the transformational matrix and the glove data are transmitted to the Gumstix processor onboard the small UGV. Infrared sensors and an RGB camera are some of the other devices onboard the UGV. The QUARC program receives the motion commands from the station PC.

The kinematics and Jacobian mapping motions of the robotic arm are computed and the commanded motions are translated into joint level PWM inputs for the arm. The PWM commands are applied to the servos using HiQ. (The latter is a data acquisiton board specially designed and manufactured by Quanser to be used onboard unmanned aerial vehicles and small unmanned ground vehicles.)

This project is the result of coordinated research and contributions from the Quanser Robotics Team. Amin Abdossalami, R&D Engineer, was responsible for the controls, kinematics and tele-operations. Cameron Fulford, Engineering Manager, Systems & Control, designed the hardware interface and made it a module inside QUARC. Don Gardner did the final assembly of the robot and shot the video demonstration.

The small UGV with glove tele-operation functionality will join the fleet of Quanser unmanned systems in the near future. We're very excited about its ability to offer researchers and students a better tool with which to work and learn.

Quanser 6-DOF Open-Architecture Robot

Quanser is presenting it's latest DENSO 6-axis articulated robot. The term 'articulated' is used for robots that consist of rotary/revolute joints. These joints are linked to each other in a serial configuration. The first three joints form an anthropomorphic arm while the second three form a wrist robot. This enables the robot to position and orient its end-effector within a large workspace, similarly to a human arm that can access any position and orientation within its reach, except that it has an extra joint.

This 6-Axis robot is open-architecture, powered by our real-time software, QUARC. QUARC's blocksets along with MATLAB/Simulink provide the user with an advanced user-friendly environment which facilitates and accelerates real-time programming of this robotic manipulator.

Quanser's DENSO 6-DOF Open-Architecture Robot has a wide and still growing range of applications, such as tele-operation tasks. It can be used in a robot-assisted surgery as an instrument holder or as a guidance system adding more precision and dexterity to the operation. Another medical applications in rehabilitation and nursing assistance come to mind as well.

In addition to medical applications, Quanser's DENSO 6-DOF Open-Architecture robot can be mounted on an unmanned vehicle as a camera/tool holder in an autonomous or semi-autonomous mission. Again, it can be tele-operated as a robotic manipulator, helping in remote or hazardous environments such as bomb disposal or mine sweeping scenarios. Users can also program the robot to do accurate automated tasks repeatedly in short cycle times. For instance, it can be programmed for such industrial tasks as assembling, welding, cutting, injection, and extraction.

Quanser's DENSO 6-DOF Open-Architecture robot has its place in university engineering labs: Using QUARC, this industrial robot can be rapidly interfaced in a fully open-architecture scenario. That makes it a perfect system to teach mechatronics, robotics, and mechanics. Plus, you can use it for research and development - for instance as a part of a humanoid robot combined with artificial intelligence.

In the above video we are using our high definition haptic device as a master robot to control the motions of the 6-Axis robot in the Cartesian workspace. This is called a bilateral teleoperation setup where the forces and torques at the tip of the robot are measured and applied back to the operator through the haptic device. In order to control the ball on my racket as it bounces up and down, I use the force feedback and apply a scaled motion command. The robot control loop is running at 8kHz while the force/torque sensing is at the rate of 10kHz. The robot is incredibly fast and precise. As a next step, we plan to play a real ping-pong match between robot and human, so stay tuned for this exciting video!

Quanser robot is made to be programmed by humans to assist humans with high speeds and accuracy.

Quanser's New Acquisition - KUKA Robots

It looked like half of the engineering team must have had a birthday a few days ago - they were all smiles, and I thought they were hiding a birthday cake in their R&D area as they all gathered there... Well, it wasn't a birthday cake, but nonetheless a present of some sort. The long awaited KUKA Robots arrived. After unpacking, the rest of us were allowed to pay KUKAs a visit (but don't touch!).

KUKA Robots are a welcome addition to Quanser's Engineering R&D Area

Zuzana: So, what are these toys for, Paul? (Paul is the Engineering Director at Quanser)
Paul: Thanks to the great precision and reliability of the robots, we are hoping to use them for development of teleoperation applications, as well as add them to the line of robotic manipulators we support.

Zuzana: Why did you choose KUKA Robots?

Paul: KUKA is one of the leading manufacturers of industrial robots. The robot we selected is compact yet incredibly precise and fast. It can operate in a tight space, which is extremely useful for the type of applications we are developing. Another key factor was the KUKA Robot Sensor Interface (RSI) that allows for an open architecture interface to an external application like QuaRC, our real-time control software. The common controller interface makes it possible to extend QuaRC's interface to a complete line of KUKA Robots. Working closely with KUKA engineers, we were able to rapidly interface our new robot to QuaRC to enable more advanced research in robotics, control and mechatronics.

Stay tuned for more news from our engineers on Quanser's KUKA robot projects. Subscribe to our RSS for automatic updates.

Mechatronics Supports Robotics

Quanser's new 2 DOF Planar Robot is a primary example of a mechatronics system. How so you ask? As a graduate of University of Waterloo’s first mechatronics engineering class, hopefully I can shed some light. Let's look at the various disciplines considered to be part of mechatronics and see how they pertain to this particular product.

Mechanical: The system was designed to be mechanically robust. It uses heavy duty machined parts and zero-backlash harmonic drives. In order to make the robot slightly more interactive, a pen mechanism was added as an end-effector allowing the students see the path the robot has taken.

Electrical:
The robot's two degrees of freedom are driven by DC motors (coupled with aforementioned harmonic drives). Although not the focus of this particular experiment, electric motors are an integral part of most mechatronic systems. Also, the pen mechanism on the end-effector is actuated using a 12VDC solenoid.

Controls:
Using position feedback from high resolution optical encoders, the system is controlled using Quanser's real-time control software, QuaRC. The system has built-in software watchdogs that allow students to develop controllers without posing the risk of damaging the mechanism in cases of instability.

When tied all together, this mechatronics system allows a series of robotic fundamentals to be taught in a safe, effective manner. These fundamentals include determining forward and inverse kinematics, dynamic properties of the system and developing a calibration routine. Any senior undergraduate or graduate students will certainly benefit from taking principles taught in class and applying them to a real, physical, interactive system.

Quanser's Mobile Robot Control Framework

Quanser’s Mobile Robot Control Framework (QMRCF) is undergoing extensive development. The software framework of QMRCF, based on QuaRC, includes three blocksets: Interface, Application, and Image processing. These blocksets allow a user to build a model-based controller in Simulink™ and to generate suitable code for Gumstix on Windows or QNX for preliminary testing. QMRCF has been tested on Qbot to implement teleoperation with force feedback and autonomous navigation with obstacle avoidance. The goal of teleoperation application is to remotely control a mobile robot with a joystick. The following video clip shows a teleoperation where an operator was driving Qbot using a joystick and the image feedback from Qbot was displayed on the host Windows PC.

An application of force-feedback in teleoperation is demonstrated in the following video clip. The force-feedback is associated with Qbot's bump sensors. The operator feels the reaction force on a COTS joystick while the bump sensor collides with any objects.

The navigation application defines a target point (p₂) with respect to the initial position of the robot (p₀) using an occupancy map (see Fig. 1). White pixels of the occupancy map indicate obstacles whereas black pixels indicate empty space.

Fig. 1

The navigation algorithm generates motion commands according to the current position of the robot and the target. The robot starts at p₀ and tries to avoid dynamic obstacle at point p₁ (see the following video clip) and finally, reaches the target position at p₂. This method maintains a short-term memory of the previously bumped obstacle's position. The robot, first, moves opposite to the obstacle and then rotates and moves forward to avoid the obstacle. Fig. 1 shows robot’s trajectory from p₀ to p₂.

Further development on QMRCF will include mapping and multi-agent applications.

Rajib

New Robotics and Haptics Curriculum using the PHANTOM Omni Robot from SensAble

The PHANTOM Omni robot from SensAble is a 6 degree of freedom sensed and 3 degree of freedom actuated robot. It's three motors can actuate the end-effector to span the entire X, Y, Z region in its workspace. Position measurement along X, Y, and Z is done using digital encoders while measurement of rotations about these axes (roll, pitch and yaw) is done using potentiometers.

Not only the Omni is small but powerful for its size, it is also a safe to operate, easy to interface and cost effective robot. All these characteristics make the Omni a great tool for teaching or research in robotics and haptics.

We, at Quanser have developed an entire curriculum of robotics and haptics that uses the Omni robot, and the QuaRC software to go through concepts such as forward and inverse kinematic development, position control and force generation as well as advanced haptic applications. The curriculum consists of 10 individual lab experiments all containing pre-laboratory and in lab sections. The first couple of experiments are dedicated to developing forward and inverse kinematics which are basic elements of any robotic application. Later experiments use these developments to perform position control and point to point trajectory following with the robot. Jacobians are covered in a complete stand-alone lab session and the final three experiments in the curriculum become more advanced as they introduce haptic control and virtual reality concepts by having the students design haptic gravity wells, haptic walls and last but not least a haptic ping-pong game!

The fact that there is one complete and stand-alone experiment for every concept makes it easy for instructors to match their laboratory content with the exact material they are covering during the course. In addition the wide range of experiments along with their fairly distributed difficulty level make the curriculum perfect for both undergraduate and graduate level studies.

As the Omni is now one of the devices supported by QuaRC, interfacing to this device's sensing and actuating elements is as easy as connecting a fire-wire cable between your laptop/desktop computer and the Omni and throwing blocks in your Simulink model. The robot's easy interfacing, high safety rating and compact size make it so portable that instructors can even take it to perform in class demonstrations . Imagine having to do that with a CRS or Mitsubishi PA-10 robot with their not very compact accompanying hardware!

Stay tuned as videos of Omni in action are coming soon.

Omni in Action

The clip below shows a "Teach Pendant" exercise: the Omni robot is taught a set of discrete points. During playback motion, the robot traverses each of the taught points.

To be able to "learn", the robot is programmed in a three-steps process. The first step involves creating a routine to teach the points to the robot, followed by creating a desired path between those points the robot should follow. The final step is to create a routine to control the robot along that path.

Out of this World

With the help of The Mathwork's Matlab - Simulink™ and Quanser's QuaRC® real-time control development software, the Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) is expanding its space robotics development.

Having built a good reputation on the nano-satellite project, Quanser was approached by the CSA's Space Robotics group in search for a base platform for their next robotics program. The Space Robotics group was looking for a very specific high -performance system to allow for unhindered research concerning a variety space robotic applications:

• at least 6 degrees of freedom
• payload capacity
• performance flexibility

Following discussions with Quanser's engineering team, a decision was made to use Mitsubishi's PA-10 system (pictured here). However, CSA's Space Robotics group needed the system to be "open architecture" and tasked Quanser with the development.

Quanser then collaborated with both Mitsubishi, the robot supplier and the CSA. Using Matlab-Simulink Quanser developed the models, controller and safety functions of the PA-10 for support under Quanser's real-time control development software: QuaRC.

The CSA plans to begin work on the new platform in October 2008.

Drop us a comment! Tell us about your project using Matlab-Simulink!

Quanser Autonomous Robot: Qbot

Coupled with Quanser's curriculum, the Qbot system can be used to captivate and motivate students through experiments as diverse as wall-following, path-tracking, vision processing and autonomous robotic control.

Video illustrates one of mobile robotic applications: vision-based motion planning. Qbot follows the line based on the image taken by the camera. The wheel velocity is controlled based on image feedback.

Quanser Remote Book-Signing Event at ACC 2008, Seattle

At the 2008 American Control Conference (ACC), Dr. Michael Grimble, author and renowned professor from University of Strathclyde, UK, demonstrated a rotary control that mimics complex hand movements - a truly novel way of autographing books that Margaret Awood invented.

As ACC delegates looked on, the LongPen robotic arm etched Dr. Grimble's autograph on a copy of his latest book (pictured here).


Dr. Grimble some distance away at The Mathworks booth (our partner company), was signing a tablet PC (pictured here) - an interface through which real-time memory calls allow a person to enter their signature and have it remotely written by the system. The LongPen was designed using Quanser real-time control software which is seamlessly integrated with The Mathworks Simulink graphical design environment.

Thanks to Quanser's rapid control prototyping, hardware in-the-loop testing software (QuaRC), and some very smart engineers, when autograph-seeking controls enthusiasts are not too busy reading their favourite books, they can create pretty amazing robots with Quanser’s control hardware and software.

The attendees of ACC 2008 had a chance to win one of two remotely signed copies of Prof. Grimble's latest book. The lucky winners are:
- Mr. Hamid Teimoori from the University of New South Wales, Australia
and
- Dr. Jack W. Langelaan from The Pennsylvania State University
Congratulations!