Servo - June 2010

things that are flexible, not rigid, so their shape isn’t predictable.” In operation, the robot “picks one up and turns it slowly, first with one arm and then with the other. It uses a pair of high resolution cameras to scan the towel to estimate its shape. Once it finds two adjacent corners, it can start folding. On a flat surface, it completes the folds — smoothing the towel after each fold and making a neat stack.” I’m still not ready to bring out the hats and horns, but I have to admit that folding towels neatly seems to be beyond my own capabilities. If you want details, you can download the full report at www.jkeckert.com/free downloads/towels.pdf.

“Snookie,” the robotic blind Mexican cave fish.

UAV Navigates Murky Water

Also designed for navigating difficult aquatic environments is “Snookie,” developed by researchers at the Technische Universität München within the framework of the Co TeSys (Cognition for Technical Systems) organization ( www.cotesys.de). The Plexiglas and aluminum AUV — measuring 80 x 30 cm and driven by six propeller gondolas — employs sensors that are based on a blind Mexican cave fish (called Astyanax), which navigates via a “lateral-line” organ found only in fish and some amphibians.

Introducing Pololu’s new line of

Maestro USB Servo Controllers

Conduct a symphony of servos.

Three control methods: USB, TTL serial, and internal scripting Free configuration and control application with motion sequencer Channels can be used for digital I/O or up to 12 analog inputs Individual servo speed and acceleration control for each channel Up to 8 KB of internal scripting memory (~3000 servo positions) 0.25 us servo pulse resolution with pulse rate up to 333 Hz

Pololu's 6-channel Micro Maestro and new 12-, 18-, and 24-channel Mini Maestros take serial servo controllers to the next level by incorporating native USB control for easy connection to a PC and programmability via a simple scripting language for self-contained, host controller-free applications. Whether you want the best servo controller available or a versatile, general-purpose I/O control board, these compact devices will deliver.