Programming Robot Controllers

The book I read to research this book was Programming Robot Controllers by Myke Predko which is a very good book that I bought from a car boot sale. Actually this book was published in 2003 and is only of interest for its coverage of legacy hardware. I daresay if the author had jumped in a time machine and travelled to the present day he would barely recognise the current robot technology. In this book many robots are programmed in C which is the native language of the Windows operating system so a computer can understand it without it being compiled or translated. Often you can use Notepad as an assembly program. Of course nowadays languages like Python are used and they are controlled by inexpensive computer kits like the Arduino and Raspberry Pi. With the leaps and bound processor speed and memory capacity have increased these are no longer an issue either. High end robots like those used in CAM or computer aided manufacture might use a specialist program and LISP the programming language used with AutoCAD which also has other applications. Somethings have remained the same like interrupt requests to slow down the program and sensors if the robot has to move about. Sound sensors activated by the sound of the robot bumping into something are unreliable and can’t distinguish it from someone clapping for example. Ultrasound and light sensors are better. Many robots use one of the versions of USB to communicate with a computer. In this book the predominant interface was RS232-C which is now ancient. Many of the robots had erasable memory and to watch when erasing instructions you didn’t remove the compiler or assembly program making further programming impossible. One type of memory used was EPROM where instructions could be erased by shing an ultra-violet lamp on the memory chip. I mainly bought this book because it was priced at just 25p but it is an interesting book probably difficult to recommend unless you are interested in legacy technology.

Hybrid Reality

The book I read to research this post was Hybrid Reality by Parag Khanna et al which is an excellent book that I bought from kindle. This book is only around 80 pages but is rather interesting as it is about how the world will change in around the next 30 years. If you look at the world now you will see many of the problems like the proliferation of private armies, recession, unemployment and stock market slumps have always been with us in one form or another. In the cases of stock market slumps and recessions it follows cycles. A lot of what will happen in the future can be predicted. We can also see trends like things getting smaller to the extent in future they will probably be implanted in people like continous access to the internet and each other via this. There will be an emancipation of people in places like Africa for example currently workers are expected to work in poor and high risk conditions in cobalt mines which is a necessary element in technology. Conditions for people like this will improve. Countries like India and China will continue on their paths to super power status. More and more money in those countries will be ploughed in to technology research. Ultimately robots will gradually replace human workers. Currently in South Korea robots are being used instead of teachers to teach English to children in rural schools. Silicon chips will become a misnomer as biotechnology takes over in this regard and the transistors on chips are likely to get smaller and smaller until they reach atomic particle and sub-atomic level. Currently research is going on in this. Technology of the existing kind will get cheaper and cheaper and more and more plentiful. Everyone will have a tablet of one sort or another. America due to its multi culturalism and huge amount of resources will still play a major role on the world stage but it is likely to become more of a level playing field. One thing America because of its huge amount of different races is lots of ideas which can’t be replicated by other countries. I did thoroughly enjoy this book which I think as with any good technology book really makes you think. Naturally I recommend it.

 

Programming Arduino

The book I read to research this post is Programming Arduino Next Steps: Going Further With Sketches by Simon Monk which is a very good book that I bought on kindle. The programs you use with an arduino are called sketches. The arduino is an open source kit computer that is often used in things like home automation and robotics. Because it is open source there are many arduino compatible boards by other manufacturers compatible to varying degrees and often with variations in their hardware that is included. Many of these boards are built in China. The most commonly used by Arduino is the Uno which can be used with a variation of linux on an SD card and it’s worth noting it has flash memory but a program can only be flashed to it approximately 10,000 times and then it is rendered useless. There is a Arduino Due board that has a 80 MHZ processor compared to the Arduino Uno’s 16 MHZ processor but the former uses 3.3 V compared to the latters 5 V. This book contains various projects mostly with the Uno but some with the Due which the latter also has a programmable USB port in addition to a connecting USB port. The Arduino Uno is a robust design helping it work with things like home automation and has the ability to read vary readings meaning it can be used with suitable other components to read things like current and voltage.

Robotics

The book I read to research this post was Robotics A Very Short Introduction by Alan Winfield which is a very good book which I bought from kindle. The term robot was coined by a Czech author in a science fiction novel. Probably the science fiction author most associated with robots is Isaac Asimov who wrote I Robot among other books. The idea in that robots will be like people’s helpers is likely to start to become a reality by about 2020. By 2025 most families will have at least 1 robot do something like housework or gardening. As there was a revolution with computers a similar thing will happen with robots. Industry has already embraced the idea of robots. Everyone knows that robots help build cars but what about repairing work where natural gas is being drilled. Often it would be impossible for a human to get to it and what about milking cattle, it’s a form of robot that does this. There is development in building predator robots that can digest house flies or slugs which can incorporate energy cells. These robots could use a very low current and be slow moving or release a fragrance to attract pests to a compartment where they can be digested. In the case of slugs they are notoriously difficult to detect but do reflect red light. For example they are cold blooded and could easily be confused with leaves and dirt. There is also an idea of having several robots of simple design that group together to do a task and if several malfunction the ones working can take over for them. There is even the idea of varying the specifications and even having living robots much like genetically enhanced farm animals and crops we have today. You can see this book covers a whole plethora of different types of robots. This book isn’t all that long but is a good read.