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Showing posts from October, 2021

CPU, temperature, memory, and disk usage

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Because software must be able to swap usage between applications, CPU, memory, and disk usage should never be close to 100 percent.  Here you can see in what way the green CPU usage suddenly drops and then goes up again. If there are large fluctuations in CPU usage, you need to check to identify the processes that are triggering them and if they can cause a perfect storm above 100% processing capacity.  SUGGESTIONS ON BEST PRACTICES: • Total CPU <80% - Processes will grow to 100% for short periods of time, so keep your average CPU usage low enough to be efficient. • Total Reminiscence <70% - Similar to CPU usage, all programs will need swap space and the ability to allocate additional chunks of memory. • Total Disk <75% - SSDs are so cheap now that you shouldn't be going anywhere. If the disk reaches 95%, you should disable the robot's ability to move or interact, as processes can arbitrarily start to die for no reason due to file I / O failures. • Proce...

Deployment on Mars: mapping and location tutorial

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This is the fourth in a sequence of blog about the open source Mars Rover. Most of the concepts discussed here apply to other wheeled robots as well. You can read part 1, 2 and 3 at these relations. walk in the street When I send my Mars Rover on a mission to the grocery store or to drop off another robot at a co-worker's house during quarantine and my cellular connection is not good or I don't want to interfere it, I need the robot to drive autonomously . To do this, the robot must understand where it is in the world and where the obstacles are. In recent years, it has gotten pretty straightforward. We will follow the steps to configure the two most used packages for 2D SLAM and localization, gmapping and amcl, in order to produce high fidelity maps of the robot setting. Use SLAM to make a map, then use location to continually update the robot's location after that map is created. Don't go anywhere without a rock solid odometry The package that we will see is...

18 ways to stabilize the computational resources of robotics

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TLDR - Below are various stories about how robots failed and specific things to validate in your robotic system to minimize hidden failures due to resource issues. In most robotics equipment, value for money is overwhelmingly overlooked, leading to a lot of headaches and lower overall performance. “More than half of the engineers we surveyed did not know what their CPU usage was like, but raised concerns about it. " I will review a set of learnings over the past 3 years with design patterns and best practices for tuning high-quality, high-performance robotic software. rover on the fence If a robot becomes unstable, it can lead to a host of failures, including the scariest (and the one I've seen multiple times), the fleeing robot.These best practices have been built over time through many experiments trying to debug both the code in the multiple bots we tested and many of our clients' bots, and then we find that we didn't know. Not enough to be successful. the...

Deploy Ag Robots in time for harvest with Freedom Pilot

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Industrial robotics Labor shortages and growing concerns about sustainability have led to the placement of a variety of automata in the field with more to come: harvesting, harvesting, fully robotic greenhouses, precision farming, mowing, pruning , phenotyping, sowing and classification. BuiltIn recently showcased a number of robot apps, the Robotics Industries Association (RIA) showcased a number of apps on their 2019 blog: Cultivating Robotics and AI for Sustainable Agriculture. And with COVID-19, that constant flow of demand is suddenly peaking. The trends have become hot issues that need a solution now. Forbes noted last month that with the border closures to migrant workers in Cornwall, England, they are left without people to pick vegetables that are ripening in the fields. The food will rot if they cannot find a solution. This is not an isolated problem: Monterey County, where much of the production of specialty crops in the United States comes from, conducted a survey which fou...

How human is the future of robots?

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 The future of robot * Header photo credit: Cyan Robot Robot is constantly evolving and machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies are designed to make robots more sophisticated and advanced than ever. However, robots should not be seen as intelligent beings or intelligent things, which is a trap that many people fall into. Instead, think of robotics affecting your life as a computer. Your computer can't solve general questions, and neither can robot. But if you know its purposes and make specific requests for it in a clear and understandable way, you will perform repetitive tasks effectively. Robotic arms  Do more robotic arms mean less human work? Or more efficient manufacturing? These are questions that we get asked a lot. However, it is clear that more robotic arms do not mean less human work. In fact, they can lead to more humane job. According to a reporst from the World Economic Forums, robots could displace 75 million jobs worldwide by 2022, ...

Operator Teleop - faster, more reliable and with advanced joystick control

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Most mobile, logistic, agricultural and other robots can now operate autonomously 90-98% of the time, however they cannot fully function without human help when they are in an extraordinary situation. Speaking to more than 800 robotics specialists and companies, 68% of them reported that stable teleoperation is critical at some level to deploy robot fleets remotely. It is important to be able to remotely control your robots stably. And it is very difficult to do. The companies asked the energy operators: Skip mission planning and send a robot to a location Resume driving to get the robot out of a safe situation It allows the manipulation and control of elevators and arms. Manually pick an object if you cannot complete it independently Seamlessly switch between robot control modes (driving vs. controlling an arm or elevator) To allow a robot to quickly return to automatic operation. Without it, several companies have reported that their entire production line has repea...

What the robotic technology of the future must have to be successful

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Below are three of the greatest learnings that I have repeatedly seen from meeting hundreds of robotics companies in recent years. These differentiate start-ups that have continued to raise additional capital and enter the market from those that have just created brilliant prototypes but never got off the ground. First, meet a real world need Perhaps the most essential ingredient for successful robotic technology is that it must meet a real need. Seems almost too clear, right? However, we've seen hundreds of robotics inaugurations fail because they started with the technology and then tried to find a solution to a problem. Successful startups are the ones that really know how to accomplish a certain task. They understand an industry and create a answer to a real world problem or an improvement to an existing process. For example, a startup that is researching robotic mowing of large lawns must have at least one person with industrial scale lawn mowing experience. This...

Freedom Robotics Guide to Cellular Routers for Robot Connectivity

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At Freedom Robotics, we have worked with hundreds of robotic customers using LTE connectivity to implement robotic applications. Based on the use case, budget, and reliability requirements, the solutions they have implemented fall into three general categories: Cheap - LTE USB Flash Drive Medium cost: entry-level commercial LTE routers High cost - Reliable high-end routers for business options Here we compile category specific routers that we have implemented for our clients with great success. Low cost LTE USB flash drives Huawei_CellularConnectiity_FreedomRobotics-1 While not a hardened router solution, USB drives (like the Huawei E8372h-517 shown here) are common in robotics. We have seen fleets of robots with this class of router that provide decent connection quality. They are also inexpensive enough to add as a backup or in addition to the other solutions listed here. Specs:   150Mbps downlink and 50Mbps uplink - very fast for an LTE USB dial-up internet ...

Challenge III: ROI is difficult to quantify

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  For the last time, consider our industrial manufacturer's automated seal delivery cycle. The robot performing this task has no problem transporting the joints from point A to point B. However, it takes a human to unload the joints and connect a new cart to the robot so that it can return to point A. for another harvest.  As Peter Drucker has proclaimed, "what gets measured gets managed". With that in minds, it makes sense that simple statistics, such as the average downtime between gasket deliveries, are rarely measured. And, where measurement processes exist, they are vendor-specific, making it impossible to answer management questions like "what's the average downtime of all these manufacturing robots that we buy?" Or "Are the Brand X robots performing as promised?" " The solution: smart data and smart metering  Suppose our industrial manufacturer decide to implement intuitive and transparent dashboards capable of generating standardiz...

Challenge II: robots require an extended grip

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Let's go back to our instance of a stamp distribution loop. Automating this task requires a full-time technician to manage ten robots. The technician should closely monitor the monitoring system to make sure there are no errors. But the robot batteries die randomly. They get stuck due to obstructions. They got lost. In other words, errors will invariably occur. When they do, the technicians should react as soon as possible. But the solution is not always easy to find because it is not always clear which devices are involved, the emergency level, or the root cause. It shouldn't be that difficult to manage and maintain bots. The solution: smarter alert systems Suppose our industrial manufacturer uses a robotic fleet management system that can provide detailed alerts that answer these open questions and pass them through convenient channels. It's time to offer practical knowledge to problem solvers. Freedom Robotics smart alerts provide real-time notifications when...

Challenge I: Robots take too long to integrates

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Integration is difficult. There are many moving parts and few widely adopted standards that can fully unite factory automation. In fact, an MIT reports on industrial automation found that robots used in industrial manufacturing plants typically have their own programming language and communication protocol, with around 17-20 different languages ​​in use, most of which are owners. In a simple environment, autonomous manufacturing robots perform the tasks they are asked to perform. But the systems they're supposed to integrate with, 15-year-old programmable logic controllers (PLCs), add to the complexity of the job. The result is longer-than-expected ramp-ups and too much reliance on external System Integrators (IS) who strip tribal knowledge from their systems as soon as they leave the building.  "Can't we just have the robot [insert something that looks simple]?" " Let's take a look at a particular task performed in the walls of an example industrial ...

Robots in the making thought-provoking truths you need to know

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The real goal of automation is to provide a return on investment (ROI). However, we often see that industrial manufacturers go to massive efforts to implement robots in their factories in a way that almost guarantees no return on investment. If you want to automate tasks that bring measurable value to the company, that is, a pragmatic approach, read on. If you want to keep paying big money for rigid automation systems that don't use readily available modern technology, this article may not be for you. At Freedom Robotics, we've worked with thousand of robots, oversaw hundreds of deployments, and witnessed countless successful integrations of legacy technology. In each case, our goals was to automate the tasks that deliver measurable value to our customers. But some attempts at integration have also failed. When they did, the root causes was almost always a lack of practicality. A sobering truth about robots in industrial : ROI is not guaranteed Based on our knowledg...

Why I sleep better at night with Freedom Robotics

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Sleeping is difficult to achieve. Sometimes I wake up with a headache and sore muscles, sometimes I wake up with a stuffy nose, sometimes with dry skin, and other times I wake up feeling great. Why don't I feel good every morning? As an engineer, I decided to get to the bottom of it using data and science. Create a device to collect data Research has exposed that the quality of indoor air plays an important role in the quality of your sleep. With that in mind, my first step was to measure the air quality in my bedroom. I started by connecting a FeatherS2 microcontroller to almost every air sensor I could find: pressure sensors, temperature sensors, humidity sensors, electrochemical sensors, ozone sensors, infrared CO2 sensors and particle and dust collectors. I even included a Geiger counter in case a truck carrying radioactive material passed my house. Fortunately, every sensor I compiled used the I2C communication protocol, so connecting them was relatively straightfo...

Do you think robotics is out of your league? Think again

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 Do you think robots are limited to car factories and therefore out of their reach? Think again. Your next caramel iced mocha latte could come from a robotic barista.  Your coffee is ready Of course, automakers are heavy users of robotics. But robots are also used in a wide range of activities and in many industries. These include healthcare, #$ food and beverage, logistics, military, and retail. Given the current labor shortage, others are likely to emerge. And if you are new to robotics, there are many aids available to you. Large and fast growing The global robotics market is large and growing rapidly. Looking ahead, Mordor imagines global robotics sales to reach $ 74.1 billion by 2026. That's a 5-year compound annual growing rate (CAGR) of 17.5%. In fact, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the demand for some robots. One supplier, UBTech, now offers a disinfectant robot that uses ultraviolet light to clean surfaces and air by neutralizing the genetic mate...

Robot

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TechTarget Donor A robot is a type of automatic machine that can perform specific errands with little or no human interference and with speed and precision. The field of robotics, which deals with the design, engineering and operation of robots, has grown dramatically in the last 50 years. IDC identifies robotics as one of six innovation accelerators driving digital transformation. Others include 3D printing, cognitive computing, next-generation security, and virtual reality or augmented reality. What can robots do? Essentially, there are as many different kinds of robots as there are tasks to be done. Robots can perform some errands better than humans, but others are best left to humans rather than machines. Here are some things that robots do better than humans: Automate manual or repetitive activities in commercial or industrial environments. Work in unpredictable or dangerous environments to detect hazards such as gas leaks. Process and provide reports for corpora...