06170 [alt-beam] piezo electric crystal

Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #06170

To: "alt-beam@egroups.com" alt-beam@egroups.com
From: michael.hirtle@ns.sympatico.ca (Michael Hirtle)
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 17:45:22 -0300
Subject: [alt-beam] piezo electric crystal

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You may rember a whil back when some said about useing some piezo
electric crystal to make a robot walk, well here it is..........
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980914/14bugs.htm

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Attachment: 14bugs.htm

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Click <A HREF=3D"/usnews/us= info/infosub.htm">here</A> for a special offer.= Click <A HREF=3D"/usnews/newslett.htm">here</A>= for our free newsletter. </TD></TR></TABLE> </TD> <TD WIDTH=3D"317" BGCOLOR=3D"FFFFFF" VALIGN=3D"TOP">  <TABLE CELLPADDING=3D"5"><TR><TD WIDTH=3D"317"> Science 9/14/98 Creepy crawly spies<= /FONT> Tiny robotic insects may soo= n serve as military scouts BY BRENDAN I. KOERNER The military calls it "situational awareness": the ability to detect how ma= ny hostile tanks await in the next valley, or if bombed-out buildings are f= illed with snipers. And it is an advantage that has proved difficult to att= ain: Spies, satellites, and U-2s have all failed to keep commanders from bl= undering into ambushes and mismatches. "The worst thing is just not knowing= where the enemy is," says Ephrahim Garcia, a mechanical engineering profes= sor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. It's "having the sense that some= body's out there trying to get you but having no idea of where the enemy mi= ght be."Garcia is working to free future American troops from the terror= of the unknown. He envisions tomorrow's soldiers coming to a hill, halting= , and reaching into their packs for cigar-shaped tubes. From every tube eme= rges a robotic spider, or a robotic dragonfly, each no longer than 3 inches= . Equipped with cameras or acoustic sensors, the mechanical insects range f= orward and provide data on the hazards that lie in wait on the other side: = the number of machine gun nests, the position of artillery. Robotic conundrum. Backed by $1.7 million from the Pentagon's Defens= e Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Garcia and a Vanderbilt collea= gue, Michael Goldfarb, are designing such insect-inspired spies. This summe= r, the duo built their first crawling bug prototypes, and they aim to perfe= ct the design within two years. Insect-shaped "micro aerial vehicles" are n= ext on the slate. Along with providing the military with state-of-the-art s= couts, the researchers hope their project alters the way engineers approach= the long-vexing problem of robotic locomotion."In most robotic systems = today, people think if you want to move one joint, then you need to attach = a motor at that joint," says Garcia. "That makes for large, bulky, energy-h= og robots." It also reduces robots to the ranks of expensive toys. Motors a= re only about 60 percent efficient in turning electrical power into movemen= t. So though robots may impress with their futuristic looks, most motor-dri= ven devices have ranges limited to only a few dozen yards, rendering them u= seless for practical applications.When the Vanderbilt pair bid for the D= ARPA grant last year, they beat out 50 competitors by recommending a far mo= re energy-efficient approach. They proposed to use piezoelectric ceramics--= thin, ceramic-coated metal wafers that bend when an electrical current is a= pplied to their surfaces. Such materials already are used commercially to m= ake silent pagers vibrate or to make zoom lenses move.In Garcia and Gold= farb's design, two such strips--built from lead, zirconium, and titanium--a= re sandwiched together, a structure known as a bimorph actuator. When charg= ed, one half of the actuator expands while the other contracts, causing it = to curve. When the brief energy pulse ends, the structure snaps back to its= original form and then can begin the cycle anew. The researchers attached = titanium legs to these vibrating strips. Vibration is translated into motio= n, as the crawler takes 2-millimeter-long forward strides in response to ea= ch oscillation.Since piezoelectrics require only occasional energy boost= s to keep up the vibration, the bugs promise to be up to 50 percent more en= ergy efficient than traditional robots. "If you're in a weight room and you= lift 100 pounds up and down 10 times, that takes a lot of energy from a pe= rson," says Goldfarb, trying to illustrate the principle behind the design.= The same work, he adds, could more easily be accomplished by hooking that = weight to a spring on the ceiling, then displacing it a bit and letting it = bounce up and down by itself. Another common analogy is a child on a swing = set; once in motion, very little pumping action is required to keep moving.= The bugs' energy efficiency should give them ranges of almost 500 yards, a= nd allow them enough juice to carry such intelligence-oriented payloads as = chip-size infrared detectors and quarter-size video cameras. Natural efficiency. The engineers' decision to model their robots af= ter bugs was a natural choice: Biological systems are far more energy effic= ient than anything cooked up in the laboratory. "Most things biological sor= t of oscillate as they walk," says Garcia. "If you look at humans walking a= nd the way our legs act as pendulums off our hips and swing back and forth,= that's a cyclic motion." They were also impressed by the shape of daddy lo= nglegs, whose low-slung bodies and inverted-V legs create a stable configur= ation--important for robots that will have to scamper across uneven, someti= mes treacherous terrain. Additional hardiness comes from the solid-state le= gs, which are free of bearings, rods, or shafts that could get jammed by pe= bbles or dust. "They probably won't survive being stomped on, but short of = that they're pretty tough," says Garcia, who boasts that his creations will= be able to survive four-story falls.Before the bugs can be unleashed on= the battlefield, however, a few major hurdles remain. Chief among them is = a power problem; though the robots will require around 60 volts to start vi= brating, the watch-size batteries being considered can provide only 3 to 6 = volts. To get the bugs moving without the aid of chargers, circuitry must b= e developed to amplify the current, and it must be small enough to fit the = 2-by-¾-inch bugs. Still, the design's voltage requirement is impressiv= ely low; rival efforts to create locomotive robots of comparable size have = needed well over 1,000 volts.Another lingering question is how a robotic= swarm can be controlled. With thousands of bugs roving at once, commanding= each individual unit would be close to impossible. Garcia thinks that a ba= ttalion leader, outfitted with a remote control, would only have to control= a "mother ship," an insect at the fore that would then relay instructions = to other members of the swarm. In the event of the mother ship's destructio= n, the leadership role could be shifted to a surviving robot. The exact det= ails of this control, however, have yet to be worked out.Whether the res= t of the mechanical engineering world believes these obstacles are conquera= ble will be put to an initial test in November, when Garcia and Goldfarb wi= ll present their work to peers at a symposium of the International Society = for Optical Engineering. But DARPA officials and the Vanderbilt group are o= ptimistic that the kinks can be worked out and that assembly-line productio= n of the bugs is nearing. Along with the crawling prototype, the researcher= s have already managed to construct a piezoelectrically actuated thorax for= the flier. Once all design issues are resolved, the researchers believe, t= he insects could cost as little as $10 per unit. The required metals are re= adily available, and the bimorph strips and legs can be cheaply pressed fro= m large sheets. The low price makes the insects potential candidates for= a variety of uses, including delivering lethal toxins on the battlefield o= r aiding police SWAT teams. Or perhaps 10,000 of the mechanical creatures c= ould be dropped on the Martian surface to probe the nooks and crannies Path= finder missed. But those missions are far distant; the bugs' first and fore= most duty will be to give American troops an upper hand and to save them fr= om stumbling into situations too perilous to survive. </TD></TR></TABLE> </TD> </TR> <TR><TD COLSPAN=3D4><IMG SRC=3D"/usnews/graphics/bkoydwnw.gif" WIDTH=3D"602= " HEIGHT=3D"20" VSPACE=3D"0" BORDER=3D"0"></TD></TR> </TABLE>   </TD></TR></TABLE> </CENTER> =09 </body></html> --------------9E7AED148E2B1E0CBDBA52C2-- 6171 Thu, 23 Sep 1999 23:28:53 EDT [alt-beam] PCB Layouts alt-beam@egroups.com, beam@spindle.corp.sgi.com TurtleTek@aol.com Greetings List, It's been a while. I haven't been BEAMing for the past few months but now with winter starting up, I'm getting back into it. So, quick question: Where (websites) can I find PCB layouts for popular circuits (photopopper, SEs, etc)? Thanks, -TurtleTek "I'm back!" 6172 Fri, 24 Sep 1999 13:19:16 -0400 [alt-beam] motor found (i think) beam@sgiblab.sgi.com SG <Sparkyg@seark.net> --=====================_938207956==_ i don't know who was looking for this, but i remeber someone asking where they could get the bg micro motors. i remebered reading about a source on one of Ian's past news items. it was originally posted on 04/02 1:31 PM by Jonathan A Wolter i dug it up for ya... and even included a clip from thier online catalog, (apparently, you take the external gearhead off) heres the info: MIGHTY-MIGHT GEARHEAD MOTOR 2-24 VDC Reversible 50 mA, 40 in/oz max torque, 10 to 1400 rpm Motor comes with external gear train 1-3.4" L x 1-1/16: W x 5/8" H (easily removed). Motor size including built in gearhead is 13/16"L x 11/16" dia. shaft size 5/84" dia x 7/16"L Actual weight is 1 oz. unit has two shaft and mounting holes, the external gear train has 3 holes for mounting. New. Shipping wt 1 lb. TM97MTR3083...........$19.95 hmmmmm, $19.95. so much for inexpensive robotics. heres where they are: <A HREF="http://www.herbach.com/">http://www.herbach.com/</A> --=====================_938207956==_ Attachment: <A HREF="images/06170c.jpg">motor.jpg</A> --=====================_938207956==_ --=====================_938207956==_-- 6173 Fri, 24 Sep 1999 00:18:01 -0700 [alt-beam] Re: motor found (i think) beam@sgiblab.sgi.com Darrell Johnson <wundoba@pacbell.net> SG wrote: > > hmmmmm, $19.95. > so much for inexpensive robotics. > heres where they are: > <A HREF="http://www.herbach.com/">http://www.herbach.com/</A> Depends on what you compare it to.. kind of expensive compared to some of the other surplus motors that show up, but most of those motors are crap. They're sure a lot cheaper than buying new motors from the manufacturers... so get them while you can.. I got all mine when bgmicro had them for cheap, which was a total fluke, and they never expected them to get them back there again. Darrell -- _______________________________ BICOREEOS..they're BEAMtastic!! <A HREF="http://home.pacbell.net/wundoba">http://home.pacbell.net/wundoba</A> 6174 Fri, 24 Sep 1999 21:48:14 -0400 [alt-beam] Hey Darrell J ! beam@sgiblab.sgi.com SG <Sparkyg@seark.net> just gotta tell ya that i visited your site and watched the mov of the 2DOF head - AMAZING ! very very cool! then looked at your regular head, (em, not YOUR head, but your first head. er...ok, your first project head.) thanks for putting up the schematic! I was confused about the LED till i realized it was just an indicator light. (btw, Fled and LED are synonomous right?) i guess hats off go to the Wilfmyster too for designing the circuit. Is this the standard head circuit now? i gotta build one of these fer my desk! -Sparky ps: thing i'm confused about is on the 2DOF, how in the world it knows which engine to fire? hmmm.... <CENTER> <A HREF="index.html"> Home </A> </CENTER> </BODY> </HTML>