Posted to News on 22nd Apr 2010, 11:09
Webcasts explain the latest robot technologies and applications
National Instruments is hosting a four-part webcast series that covers new robotics technologies and applications. It is suitable for both robotics experts and newcomers, providing a wealth of information that will help participants learn, innovate and design robotic systems for all types of environment, from industrial to surgical and domestic. Each of the four webcasts can be viewed on demand.
Fundamentals of robotics
Learn about how the next generation of embedded technologies, using graphical system design, can help roboticists design, prototype and deploy sophisticated robotic architectures.
Sense, think, act for unmanned robotic system
Most mobile robots perform three tasks: sensing the environment around them; making a decision based on a predefined task or the environment sensed; and acting to perform a predefined task by adapting to its environment. From prototyping using the new out-of-the-box Single-Board RIO LabVIEW Robotics Starter-Kit, to advanced industrial deployment with CompactRIO, learn how graphical system design tools like NI LabVIEW are helping roboticists design sophisticated robotic architectures by seamlessly integrating a variety of state-of-the-art actuators and sensors such as Velodyne's LIDAR (light detecting and ranging - a laser-based technology akin to radar).
Robotics and academic research
Hannah Wade, an Academic Field Engineer, presents some of the most advanced, useful and exciting robotics research from the world's top academic institutions. This includes applications in medical assist research, bridge inspection systems, underwater crawlers and other areas of cutting-edge research.
The future of robotics
The final webcast in the series addresses some of the challenges faced by roboticists including the biggest challenge: the need for powerful software to design autonomous systems - software that is not unique to a particular robot or task, that is sufficiently open to incorporate existing algorithms, and that is powerful enough to solve problems we do not yet understand today. This webcast introduces LabVIEW Robotics, a software package that provides a complete suite of tools for designing sophisticated robotic systems. NI's design team created new functionality including the integration of robot-specific sensors and actuators, obstacle avoidance, and search and kinematics algorithms, as well as new visualisation capabilities. Find out why building robots and implementing robotic applications is easier than ever, and how you can benefit from powerful design tools and develop sophisticated robots with elegant simplicity.
To view the webcasts, go to uk.ni.com/webcasts/robotics.
