GIVE IT A THOUGHT : Robotics

The field of robotics has never seized to amaze most of us and very recently a robot which responds to human thought is ready to step into our world. How cool is that?? Scientists and technologists have worked up a method to control a robot through the signals of the brain. I know it may seem hard to believe but it is true, nevertheless. This process needs the production of proper brainwaves, which are received by a cap. This cap has electrodes which are specially designed for this purpose and they reflect the thoughts of the person giving the instructions. This has been tested on a humanoid robot which received signals by scientists and moved from one location to another and performed the tasks as deciphered from the scientist’s brain signal.
These instructions are however very limited. Because they can only move forward pick up a few objects and transfer it to other locations. The team behind the achievement of this odd communication between the robot and the human have got about ninety four percent accuracy. This is what proof of concept illustration is all about. The researchers behind this project are from the University Of Washington. The person who operates the robot is the one who wears the cap containing the electrodes and watches the robot in action because there are cameras mounted on the robot which help us to monitor its action. When the objects to be handled are in view the robot sends the information to the computer screen.
The objects to be handled are highlighted on the screen and when the person happens to see the desired object highlighted the brain registers surprise and therefore sends the signals which allow the robot to pick up or handle that particular object. The path of the robot’s motion is also decided in a similar manner. In the near future the researchers intend to make the robot perform more complicated tasks and help them to adapt a lot better to the circumstances and the environment. The point is to make the robot handle objects which will help us in our daily lives to do the work in an efficient manner.

Neck movement operated wheel chair for People affected with Quadriplegia.

The crux of our paper is to design a feasible method for the locomotion of the people

affected by the disease called QUADRIPLEGIA. The field, robotics has drawn our mutual interest

and it is because of this field we were both able to think of such an idea. Within this enormous

subject there is a classification of robots which are known as autonomous robots. These are

machines which are capable of performing the task without any human intervention. The whole

system here has a brain of its own and it can take particular feed back from the environment and

act according to the circumstances. This kind of an efficient closed loop feedback system is pretty

difficult to fabricate, the errors involved are numerous. However, with a little knowledge from a

workshop in the IIT(Bombay) we were able to think of a prototype and work on it as of now. The

wheelchair we are proposing is almost autonomous. It just requires a mere bend of the neck form

the affected patient in order to activate and perform the task according to the signals generated

by the accelerometer which is the major component of this wheelchair, the fact that an

accelerometer can be used as a sensor which has the capability to measure and generate signals

according to the tilt it is given is considered in this paper. Quadriplegia is a condition in which the

victims have lost sensation and mobility in their both lower and upper parts of the body. As it

affects all the four extremities, this condition can also be called as TETRAPLEGIA. The

accelerometer used is AS7260KB31003. It is fixed in the neck of the quadriplegia patient. The

angle of the neck movement is measured and transmitted to the microcontroller. The

microcontroller has an inbuilt ADC which converts the analog output voltage of the accelerator to

digital signal. For every angle, the microcontroller is programmed to perform certain specific

operations. The DC motor is fixed to the wheel chair. Based on the signal from the microcontroller,

the wheel chair moves in four directions namely, forward, reverse, left, right. An IR sensor is also

fixed to the wheel chair in order to avoid accidents with the obstacles it meets in its way during

locomotion.

The photos shown are the photos of the mother board, the main sensor(accelerometer) and the complete prototype.

By,
Harini Sekar & Kunal Bajaj

Hot-SPOT robotics!!!

Wondering what I am talking about?? well, the topic for discussion is resistance spot welding which is used by many aeronautic and automobile industries as one of the major processes for joining workpieces(metal of course!)... There have been proposals of a lot of ideas for welding and the joining of sheet metals but resistance spot welding by far remains the most cost effective and efficient among them.

In the current time period it has become common to use welding guns which are driven by a servo motor since their performance and output quality are a hell lot better than their predecessors the pneumatically driven welding guns. The accurate control of the servo motors position and torque is what makes these guns a lot more easy to use in the field of work. The position and velocity of the welding guns are determined by the frequency of the pulses which are being sent to the servo motor.

In addition to all these advantages the welding time cycle is reduced when the electric servo is used instead of the pneumatically driven welding guns. The time saved would be less relatively when compared with the pneumatically driven mechanism but when it comes to welding a huge number of spots in a car or another work object then the time saved is tremendous!! Just multiply the time with the number of spots you need to weld you will be amazed.. lets say the time saved is 0.4 seconds for a spot and there are thousands of spots in an automobile, I think you will now get my drift.. As we all know life is always equally balanced if there is something positive about something there has to be a negative!! Nobody is perfect you know!!.. So, the servo mechanism has its own disadvantages, the output force accuracy of the servo gun may be higher than that of the pneumatic gun but it is affected by certain factors like temperature, wear and tear, stiffness etc... I hope this was quite informative .. try going through the block diagrams to get a clear idea of what I was talking about...

By,
Kunal.K.Bajaj & S.Karthik Priyadarshan

WHY NOT PROTONICS?????

Did any of you wonder why the term electronics came into existence?? Most of us, and by us I mean engineers who study the field of electronics in India do not know the exact meaning behind this term. Did anyone ever think that the proton which is also another charged particle can be responsible for conduction??.... Well, if that would have been the case then the term used today would be "protonics" rather than "electronics"... Don't rack your brains, I will let you know why exactly we use the term electronics.. The mass of a proton is approximately 1840 times higher than the mass of an electron.. This means that the inertia offered by the proton would be higher and the response time would thus result in a much higher value than that of the electron.. The rate at which we recieve images(frames/second) in a TV set would thus be much lower if we design the device to work under the conduction of a proton... Many such examples can be seen in your day to day life which will make you understand why electronics was coined.... The inability of the proton to conduct or move around as fast as the electron I suppose would be the best explanation for the reason behind the coining of this term... The heavy and inert protons can never hope to compete with the high speed of electrons- we all know that, the lighter the particle weighs the lesser will be its inertia....

My Curriculum Vitae

Curriculum Vitae

CONTACT INFORMATION

Name : Kunal K Bajaj

Cell phone: 9629602940

E-mail id: kunalbajaj23@gmail.com

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of Birth: 16-02-1990

Place of Birth: Chennai

Gender: Male

ACADEMIC INFORMATION

B.E. Electronics & Instrumentation (currently pursuing)
St Josephs College of Engineering( affiliated to Anna University-Chennai)
Aggregate till the 5th semester~83%

Standard X---- Doveton Corrie Boys Higher Secondary School
Aggregate – 90.2%

Standard XII---- Doveton Corrie Boys Higher Secondary School
Overall percentage – 93% …….. Science aggregate – 94.75%

INTERESTS

Robotics- Mobile robotics, solarbotics, autonomous robots, moving manipulators

Creations

1. WALL(metallic) CLIMBING ROBOT for TECHFEST IIT Bombay 2009

2. PHOTOVORE(basic)—hobby project

3. MOVING MANIPULATOR(hobby)

PARTICIPATION IN WORKSHOPS

1. ADDSENSE – IIT Bombay 2009 (On advanced sensors and micro controllers)---- created a GESTURE CONTROLLED ROBOT

2. BOTIX—i-bots school of robotics 2009 (on basic electronics relating to robotics) created an EDGE FOLLOWING and A LINE FOLLOWING ROBOT

3. SOLAR BEAM- KURUKSHETRA'10- Anna University

PAPERS PRESENTED

GLOBAL WARMING—for CRESCIENCE’08 Crescent Engineering College-runner up

SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM- for SINTUS’09 Sai Ram Engineering College- I place
ROBOTIC SURGERY- BEST ’09 SATHYABAMA UNIVERSITY- runner up

BUSINESS PLAN( for production of clean energy)- III PLACE- KURUKSHETRA '10( CEG)

BUSINESS PLAN( for production of clean energy)- I PLACE- KRIYA '10( PSG Coimbatore)

LEVEL OF ENGLISH(CLEARED):

BEC – preliminary ( Business English Certificate from Cambridge University)

SPORTING INTERESTS:

Volleyball, football

(Captained the school volleyball team for the zonal meet)

ACHIEVEMENTS

Two time Winner of the St josephs Scholarship for meritorious students

Winner of the DOVETON Silver Medal ( Given to the student with the highest aggregate in school)

PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES KNOWN

C, C++, exposed to programming in WINAVR studio 4, Basics in Java