TNERA

Yes, Happy Easter!

Yes, MG995 is not ideal, but it is what I have.

Here is an updated picture that shows the motion & restriction of the right servo arm, as well as how it translates to the knee.  It is in orange and in the code/diagram theta2 is this knee/servo. What I see by drawing this, is that I only need to take the 'supplement angle' from beta (180-beta), and that should be the correct angle for the servo.  With additional protection restrictions to keep it between min-max.

the black bar is a push rod or cam(?). it runs parallel to the hip/upper leg. it push/pulls the knee at the same rate.  It forms a parallelogram with the upper leg. The motion of the right servo arm is independent from the hip servo, that upper triangle the bar is connected to is 'free' of the hip servo, but rotates on the hip servo axis.

Here is a short video of the non-IK version moving up down. It has 370g of weight on it.

https://www.youtube....rts/_2CwU8cZ-0Q

Hi, I barely have enough experience, that I doubt I could be dangerous...  . Most of my experience was telling engineers to get it done.

Check your connection methods.  I do believe Modbus RTU is a serial protocol, and would not support any IP addresses for communications. Typically it would be RS485 or RS232.

Don't confuse it with ModBus TCP which would be caried over an addressable network.

Hostely, to debug, I would post your question to a good LLM like ChatGPT 4.0.  This might help you down the path to discovery.

Good Luck!

As a follow up to this thread with recent news.

The Agtech startup Small Robot Company failed to raise new funding and was forced to shutdown. The company is in the UK and has previously were able to raise 13m in 6 rounds. They had 50 staff. Perhaps this was some indication of how hard it is to raise funds currently due to high interest rates.  or just that the market is difficult, as stated in this article.

From The Robot Report:

Agtech is a competitive market

Several global startups are competing in this market for smaller format agtech mobile robots. These autonomous mobile robots are designed for smaller farms, and especially for high-value crops. These companies include Burro, farm-ng, Naio Technologies, and SwarmFarm. farm-ng recently closed a $10M series A, and Burro recently announced the launch of its newest model, the Burro Grande.

This news comes on the heels of other recent bad news for some robot companies in January, including the RoboTire bankruptcy, the termination of Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot, and layoffs at Locus Robotics, Vecna Robotics and other companies.

Here is the full article: https://www.therobot...-shutting-down/

Here is a quadruped!

Look at how fast this little guy gets around, with out bumping into anything.

Hi All,

Has anyone heard of the robot challenge ELROB?

ELROB 2024 - European Land Robot Trial

I guess this is similar to the DARPA robotic challenges. It is open to 'non-profits' and is for demonstration purposes.

It will be held in Trier, Germany on 24-28 June

unfortunately, I don't have my team together.

The sign up deadline is 31 January.

Here are the scenarios for 2024.  On the page, they have PDFs that describe in detail

• Transport - Convoying
  (transport with two vehicles)
  Scenario description
• Reconnoitring of structures
  (3D mapping and search for OPIs)
  Scenario description
• Transport - Mule
  (shuttle between two locations)
  Scenario description
• Search & Rescue (SAR) / CasEvac
  (find and drag a dummy body)
  Scenario description
• Reconnaissance and disposal of bombs and explosive devices (EOD/IED)
  Scenario description
•  

Yes, that is a daunting task!  The amount of money required is tremendous, for larger Ag hardware startup. It really indicates that currently startups will be research projects that get spun out and funded using the existing relationships between universities and state.  Or it would be an existing industrial manufacturer that has its own R&D.  I am afraid for an individual, it would be difficult to spin up a company without already have raised Seed, or some other existing finance.

This is a big difference from software - since the marginal cost of developing it is mostly people-time, not Steal and Silicon.

I am still inspired. But, it might put Ag-Tech out of my reach. 

I have developed a few additional business cases.  As I said, there are a lot out there.  Ideas are cheap! its the implementation that is tough.

and Oracid said I can change my mind in a second when i want! . 

Wow! thanks Mike, Sandro, for the excellent -sage- advice!

"Do you already have a clear understanding of your application?"

"try to find someone with at least some experience in your field of application"

"For you, this means at least finding a farmer willing to let you test in one of each fields"

I know how essential these points are. I think this is going to be hard for me. I don't live near vineyards now, and to be really successful, you need to have the robot in the mud trudging up and down the rows. Trying to SLAM in irregular settings, on hills, in different amounts of leaf canopies. And only with this experience do you learn the true understanding of the application.  This is a point of dedication.

"The goal is to swiftly enter the market and establish contact with real clients."

"You can have a nice idea, if you have no investors/clients, your won't go far.."

These points are extremely strong too! - and scare me. . All of my theoretical work has been rooted in who is the customer, and what value would they find. Being able to even get in-front of clients/investors with a good business plan all part of the work. I can work out the details, how big of a vineyard, amount of harvest, or other values streams. Until I get in-front of a vineyard manager with a working prototype... its hard.

I have some experience with software startups.  Writing a software MVP seems trivial compared to a Robot MVP.  What is your experience here? you had good advice on working out the application, developing the value proposition and MVP...  or is that prototype?  the adage goes Hardware start-ups are "hard"!  They require more capital, and even the costs of prototypes require some amount of seed money if it is going to be on scale.

and "=> Consider starting with existing robotics bases." this interesting to me too. It makes a lot of sense. And if my MVP is more about a sensor, computer vision, SLAM, or other, then using an existing base makes a ton of sense.  I just can't afford it... ha ha! (without some seed money)

I hope I don't come across as 'whinny'. I think there is a lot of great opportunity out there, I haven't been able to find the 'right stuff' to kick it off.   I really appreciate the conversation,    It's not the typical PID tuning conversation!

ça par contre c'est assez effrayant ... Car normalement Chat GPT n'a pas de ressource pour parler de Vigibot... Cela montre un ciblage assez précis ...

C'est comme si on avait utilisé mes réponses à moi comme source pour "entraîner " ce modèle ... 
Et non je ne suis pas derrière ce message de spam ...

I thought this was odd, too.  I couldn't find the original introduction thread, but I thought the person might have mentioned Vigibot.  I am guessing here that the spam-puppet-master might have fed the thread into the LLM and generated the output. That might explain how it 'choose' to reference Vigibot in a paragraph.

I also use LLMs on a daily basis. I typically use it as a resource tool to help find details on topics that I don't fully understand. BUT you have to validate the results, everytime.  I find that ChatGPT 4.0 is pretty reliable, but will error on the side of caution if it doesn't think it can provide the answer.  Bard, googles 'older' LLM, is good to get recent event, it has internet access. But, I find that it is DRUNK a lot and provides me with incorrect details when trying to serve up data. (e.g. Asking Bard to make a list of EU companies that provide small inspection robots, it served up a list of 10 where only 3 were close to being correct and the others were not EU companies, or did not supply robots at all. ).  therefor, I think you really have to use them like a tool, and try not to exceed the capabilities.

What I worry about, is when the SCAMMERS start using LLMs to write better Scam emails.    

hopefully, i will have a dedicated AI Agent that can spot these first!

• Will the robots be more successful by automating redundant/dangrous/boring work?
• Or would they really require strong value added services like data intelligence, or the 'killer app' syndrome?

 

• Will it be the labor replacement?
• or the making Ag more digital? Meaning that the value is best found in areas like Computer Vision, and sensors, and data collection.
• Or Are we still missing the 'killer app' that will allow this robotic platform to take off?

Bonne Année!   Happy 2024, All!

The Robot Report has an article on 5 Trends in Robotics for 2024.

5 robotics trends to expect in 2024

I would agree with the projections, especially in seeing an expansion in Mobile Robot Use Cases. I am hoping we start to see more robots in every day use.

One question though, at the end of the article, they suggest that Rust will become the language of choice (or at least more wide spread) in robot software.  What do you think? Is anyone using Rust, or Rust with ROS? 

Quel sera le robot de l'avenir ? Quadrupède, bipède, roulant ? 

Et si c'était les trois en même temps ?

yes! I think the robot labs at ETH already have that answer as well.

Now if we can put x6 7-dof arms on it we will have something really cool/scary. 

 

Je vais profiter de ta période de retrait du quadrupède pour tenter de descendre en dessous des 9s/10m et venir à la TRR avec beaucoup d'ambitions...  

 

ha ha, Me too! 

The improvements are impressive! The focus on better actuators is starting to pay off. 

I am not personally a big fan of humanoid robots. I understand the benefits of being able to work in a 'human' world. However, I find the interest on it taking away from other applications for robotics. There is so much more we could do if it were not specifical the size and shape of a human.