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Issue #224 Aprilh 2009
Design Evolution
by C. J. Abate
As I’ve said here before, most quality new designs are the sum total of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of earlier projects, applications, and programs. When you see a project in this magazine, you can think of it as a single point in the long timeline of technological evolution. Looking ahead, you should consider each project, idea, and program described in these pages as a contribution to future projects. You and your fellow readers will take what you learn and put it to good use during your upcoming endeavors.
This month, we feature interesting robotics applications. These robots are the progeny of countless other robotics applications that are easy to find and study. Look no further than your stack of past Circuit Cellar magazines to read about many of the designs that influenced the development of the robots we use today. A few Circuit Cellar articles immediately come to mind: J. Bingham and L. Magnusson, “Inertial Rolling Robot” (Circuit Cellar 200, 2007); E. Leland, et al, “Robot Localization and Control” (Circuit Cellar 188, 2006); M. Chao and L. Ming, “GPS-GSM Mobile Navigator,” (Circuit Cellar 151, 2003); M. Dvorsky, “Fighting Fire with Robots: How to Build a Mobile Robot Base,” (Circuit Cellar 128, 2001); J. Stefan, “Navigating With GPS,” (Circuit Cellar 123, 2000); B. Reynolds, “MicroBot: Programming Intel’s 8749 for Robotic Control” (Circuit Cellar 92, 1998); I. Cyliax, “Robot Navigation Schemes,” (Circuit Cellar 81, 1997); and C. McManis, “Sensing Obstacles with Mobile Robots,” (Circuit Cellar 73, 1996).
In this issue, Guido Ottaviani contributes to the development of new robotics control systems. In the first part of his series titled “Robot Navigation and Control,” he describes how to design a navigation control subsystem (p. 14).
Starting on page 22, Hanno Sander describes a novel vision-guided robotics application. His exciting balancing robot design was on display at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, CA, last year. Perhaps you saw it in action?
In “Wireless Mobile Robotics,” Scott Coppersmith presents a compact, Wi-Fi-enabled mobile robot (p. 41). He mounted a webcam on the top of the robot so it can transmit real-time images to a remote laptop.
In the final robotics-related article, Jeff Bachiochi introduces the topic of programmable robotics (p. 56). He describes how to upgrade and develop an existing robotics platform.
If you’re interested in timing applications, Thomas Bereiter’s article is right up your alley. In “Networked Timing,” he explains how he built a timer with advanced planning tools (p. 31). The irrigation control system generates handy information such as zone activity.
Turn to page 51 for a review of the FAT file system. In this first part of the series, George Martin covers the process of opening files and performing operations.
Tom Cantrell closes the issue with an article about one of his favorite topics: 8-bit chips (p. 64). Although 32-bit chips get a lot of attention these days, Tom explains that 8-bit chips are alive and well.
Good luck starting your next project. Feel free to share your ideas and design experiences on the Circuit Cellar Discussion Board: http://bbs.circuitcellar.com/phpBB2/.
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