Interconnection between robot platforms

Dear all,

Though a bit late (due to the a long Christmas period),
I have read with great interest all the information related
with this project.

We at the Robotic Intelligence Lab in Jaume-I University
of Castello (Spain), are a young group (10-years) but
with strong experiencie in working with several robotic
platforms. Since the beginning, we had special interest in
overcome the limitations of a robotic platform through
the interconnection and transparent building of distributed
robotic applications.

First, we began with a modest Zebra Zero manipulator, and we build
a TC/IP-based communication layer with a Unix workstation.
The Zebra was controlled by a PC running MS-DOS. We implemented
a sockets-based system which allowed us to replicate the robot
C library in a UNIX workstation, where each library call was
mapped to a network packet sent to the PC.

Later, we acquired a mobile robot (a Nomad XR-4000) and
we planned to integrate it with the manipulator. Since the
mobile platform works under Linux, our distributed solution
should work directly. Unfortunately, the Zebra is now out of work,
and it has been replaced by a Mitsubishi PA-10.

For this new arm, which is programmed under Windows-NT,
we are working with a CORBA implementation. The whole
system consists of all the sensors of the mobile platform
(sonars, IR, laser rangefinder), a stereo vision system
mounted on the robot hand (with two Cognachrome vision
processors), a wrist force sensor, and of course the manipulator
itself. A PhD student is also actively working in teleoperation
through Java agents.

In addition, we have an ADEPT ONE manipulator, and recently
we have purchased a PUMA-560 with the open controller
developed by Trident Robotics.

Our group consists of 6 full-time researchers / professors,
and 3 PhD students, with several undergradute students
working partillay in implementation issues.

I'm not sure if it still possible to become a member, but
anyway we would be very satisfied in sharing our experience
with other interested groups.

With best regards,

Enric Cervera
Robotic Intelligence Lab.
Jaume-I University of Castello
Spain

http://titan.act.uji.es/robot  (not-very-well mainteined, sorry :-(