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URG-04LX-UG01 launch announced
The new entry level laser range finder will be physically launched at the RoboCup in Graz Austria.
With a small size and equally small price it’s just what the educational and hobbyist market wanted.
As you would expect performance is not quite as sharp as its older brother the URG-04LX (now known as the “Classic”).
On the other hand the single mini USB connection port for power and communication will be seen as an advantage by some.
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Sentek at the RoboCup 29th June - 5th July
I must admit we were quite surprised how “tooled up” the rescue and at home teams were. Almost all robots in these categories were using one or other Hokuyo device; although there were a few lugging around Sick and Leuze units (I’m sure we could cut you a deal in future if you are interested!). The two Japanese rescue teams were using a beta model Hokuyo UTM-30LX with scan speeds of 100Hz but reduced resolution. Let us know if you have an application for such a unit and we will see if we can swing a test model, you should be aware that they are pretty expensive though.
The Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01 was well received and we let a few teams have one to evaluate. Hopefully it should reduce the threshold to entry for laser range finding and we might even get some junior teams using our kit next time round.
We even thought you could use a URG-04LX-UG01 on the goalkeeper in the football to ensure that he stayed between the posts. From our uneducated point of view goalkeeper malfunction seemed to be the biggest cause of goals.
Beego the Hokuyo robotic dog was well received especially by the kids and the public. Unfortunately a hard disc malfunction meant that he was retired early.
All in all the show was a great success and we were pleased to be a part of it.
Here are some pictures of robots in the rescue event:
Fraunhofer IPA Technologieforum Stuttgart 6th May
Sentek Solutions were invited to participate in this industry forum in Stuttgart.
In a way it shows the very fuzzy division between factory automation with AGV’s and mobile robotics.
Here we too often have problems, does a customer want an Obstacle Detector? (pre programmable, standalone with defined IO) or does he want a Laser Range Finder? which gives a continuous data stream defining the surrounding area.
This forum allowed us to demonstrate our penetration into the US & Asian AGV and Automation sectors and herald future safety scanners:
Watch this space!
Hannover Messe April 2009
Again this was a great event for us:
Presence in the dedicated Robotics arena and the ability to present a “paper” was excellent.
This also gave us our first opportunity to show off “Beego” our robotic dog which created quite a stir with visitors wondering why this cute dog was following them or us around!
Our forum presentation (click here to view) included a couple of movies showing how you can use a 2D laser range finder to generate three dimensional mapping information.
Below is the movie showing the methodology; using a mobile robot with a rotating and tilted carousel which provides a measurement sphere of up to 8m (UHG-08LX)
And here are the generated results. Not quite real time yet, but pretty impressive!