Archives for August 6, 2009

National Instruments Demonstrates Robots at NI Week

Yesterday, I visited the expo for NI Week.  National Instruments showed several applications of its products in various robots.  The one I found most interesting was the Delta Robot powered by NI Softmotion.  This robot plays the knife game or five finger fillet as it is sometimes called.  Only it plays without a knife on a glove inside a clear lexan box.  (Don’t try this at home!)  And you can watch a You Tube video of someone doing this for real.  But again, if you value your fingers, do not try this at home or anywhere else for that matter!  The robot version I saw is much safer since the “hand” is a glove only.  In the video link below, you can see the Delta Robot in action.  I did have the chance to watch this in person, but I did not have a video camera with me.  Luckily, someone has posted the video on You Tube.  You can watch it here.  Now, what is creepy, in a real-life follows fiction kind of way, is how this reminded me of the scene from James Cameron's Aliens.  In the movie, the android plays the knife game with only a tiny little cut as a result.  So, here we are with the real version of this-sans android. The purpose of the robot, of course, is deeper than playing a game.  It is a demonstration of the state of motion control in robotic systems and has many real-world applications in industry.

There many other great robots at this expo.  I hope to write about some of the other robots in a future posting.  Meanwhile, make sure and look at the video on You Tube.  And check out the link to the article below, it is a general overview of NI's purpose for this year's conference.

Credit:  AEGMexico

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 6, 2009, 2009 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ — NIWeek — Executives from National Instruments (Nasdaq: NATI) discussed how NI products are helping address global challenges during the 15th annual NIWeek graphical system design …

National Instruments Focuses on Addressing Global Challenges With … – TMCnet
Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:02:00 GMT

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