Temperature Data Logger

GL200 Midi Data Logger

The GL200 midi data logger accepts voltage, temperature, humidity, pulse and logic signals. The sensors are connected via rear mounted screw terminals. WIth its channel-to-channel isolation, wiring errors or overloaded channels will not affect neighbouring channels. Its built-in 3.5MB non-volatile memory retains data even if the power supply is interrupted. The included software provides real-time waveform monitoring, data upload and data export to spreadsheets.
Included With Each Midi Logger 1. OPS022 Software 2. 100 to 240 Volt (50/60 Hz) AC Adapter
Optional Accessories Available1. 6 Hour Battery Pack (#B-517)2. DC Drive Cable (#B-514)3. USB 1.1 Memory Stick for additional 1GB of data storage .

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Humidty Sensor

Humidity transducerTA50 series

Features・Analogue output・Accurate measurement of relative humidity・Excellent durability・Interchangeability within 2%RH tolerance

Specifications:

Measuring range of humidity

0 to 100%RH

Applicable range of temperature

-5 to +55°C(Electronics)

-25 to +100°C(Sensor)

Measuring accuracy(at 25°C)

TA502:+/-2%RH (10 to 90%RH), +/-3%RH (2 to 10%RH, 90 to 100%RH)

TA503:+/-3%RH (10 to 90%RH), +/-4%RH (2 to 10%RH, 90 to 100%RH)

Response time

15sec.(Using membrane filter, 90% response)

Driving voltage

DC9 to 25V

Output

DC4-20mA: 0 to 100%RH

(Load resistance(RL)【Ω】≦(Source voltage-9)÷0.02)

or

DC 0-5V: 0 to 100%RH

DC 0-1V: 0 to 100%RH

DC 1-5V: 0 to 100%RH

(Consumption current: Less than 4mA)

Insulation resistance

More than 200MΩ(DC500V 2minute period)

Options・Temperature sensor(Pt100Ω)・LCD, LED display・Sintered metal filter cap・EMI shield etc.

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Benefits of collaborative control

If manufacturers wait until their robots break before they perform maintenance, their production lines can be down for a long and costly amount of time. A team of five partners from universities and industry pulled the technology together to develop a robot monitoring tool that alerts any problems before they become too costly. The ROBCOM project found a clever mix of sensors and signal processing which was then tested both in the laboratory and in action, in industry.

Robots are an important part of the modern manufacturing industry. Automation removes human exposure to dangerous working conditions and it can make production much more efficient.
Many robot users adopt a "fix it when it breaks" approach to maintenance. Repair work is only carried out when the robot fails and causes an unexpected and costly interruption in production. The ROBCOM (Robot Condition Monitoring) project team decided to develop an integrated on-line and off-line expert system to monitor the condition and evaluate the performance of industrial robots. This system can detect and classify incipient failures or decalibration trends of the robot before any major problems occur. As a result, production time lost through robot maintenance is minimised.
Which faults to monitor?

The five project partners, from both industry and universities, began by selecting a set of relevant robot errors. They first chose the errors that occur most frequently in industry such as backlash in gear transmission, gear wobble and bearing problems amongst others. The team then considered whether or not it would be possible and useful to simulate and analyse the errors within the project. Some of the defects, for example, are too application dependent or could not be simulated without damaging the robot.
With their list of errors, the partners selected sensors that would be able to make the appropriate measurements. These included measuring vibrations, the power consumption and speed of the robot motors and the robot's end-point position.
Besides detecting deviations from normal robot behaviour, the new system should also be able to trace back to the cause of the anomaly. To be able to do this on-line, it is necessary to incorporate a lot of sensors and this raises the cost, as well as decreasing the possibilities to apply the system in industry. The chosen system allows the user to perform on-line monitoring with a limited number of sensors. When defects are detected, the system will suggest some new, sometimes off-line measurements.
Tapping the potential of new technology

To characterise, detect and quantify the errors in the machine, the project team developed several well-known and innovative signal processing techniques to detect and quantify errors. The final expert system was successfully evaluated on a test robot that had a series of defects. The tool gives a report on the current status of the robot and, in conjunction with the developed test procedures, advice for further action. Along with these laboratory tests, an industrial test bed of robots allowed the researchers to evaluate the system in a more realistic environment and to evaluate the overshoot behaviour of robots.
"The know-how and the experience gained through this project showed that the approach is promising and that it is general enough to be applied on different robots and even on different machinery when it is correctly tuned," says Hendrik Van Brussel, the project's coordinator. In general, the systems, with easy-to-use menu structures to guide users through the mathematical toolbox, will be applied to enhance quality control in industry - mainly the automotive sector.
Everyone's a winner

The partners complementary skills and backgrounds were a major part of the project's success. All have plans to make use of the results in different ways appropriate to their own business or research activities. Krypton Electronic Engineering in Belgium will broaden their product range by incorporating the robot condition monitoring methodologies into their existing products. They are setting up a predictive maintenance strategy for industrial robots. Current sales estimations for two of the systems are 10 sales per year at 30,000 ECU per unit and 50 at 12,000 ECU per unit.
Data Analysis Products, a Belgian consultancy, are applying the know-how they gained to serve their customers. This will help communicate the results to industry. Depending on the feedback they receive, they will sell the system of the further developed product. The industrial partner, Reis, is improving their in-house quality assurance and giving their clients better information about their products.
Partners from the research community, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and CIM Centrum Delft, will also continue their work. The former is pushing the results forward into the field through networks and other projects. They will also form the basis of future PhD and Master degree theses and make an appearance in lecture courses. The latter also plans to teach some of the results in its courses and will complete follow-up work in new research.

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SRV-1 Mobile Surveillance Robot

Mars Rover for your Home

Explore the dangerous terrain of your home or office with the SRV-1 Mobile Robot. This palm sized bot packs tank-like treads, a 32-bit ARM processor and a mini video camera. The included wireless transmitter interfaces via USB with any PC up to 300 feet away. The Java based host software supports Windows, Mac or Linux OS and features a built-in web server to monitor and control the SRV-1 Robot with a web browser anywhere in the world. Live video from the robot updates at a few frames per second and runs at resolutions of up to 320 x 240. The built in proximity sensors can be toggled on or off to assist when driving the robot manually. An autonomous roving mode allows the SRV-1 to explore independently while avoiding obstacles. Video surveillance recording can be scheduled based on time or date and saved as an AVI video file. Built in web based user-management controls who has access to pilot the robot or change settings. Multiple users can watch the live video feed from the robot without having access to control it. The included software is completely open source on both the host computer end and the robot firmware. Budding programmers can exploit some other nifty features of the robot such as visual object tracking.


Important Note:
The SRV-1 Mobile Robot comes fully assembled and ready to use, but requires some basic technical knowledge of Java and the command line to set-up the software. If you feel comfortable tinkering and have had experience configuring a basic web server you should be in fine shape.

For more info please visit at SRV
and More Info

SENSOR

SENSORS used to condition monitoring.
Please visit at Sensor Page

www.ni.com

Click here to see more about sensors (Motion,Vision,Thermal) on National Instrument site.Please visit/Click Here

More About Robot Technology Used in Hospital

Robotic and Computerized da Vinci™ Surgical System

In general, robotic surgery systems are designed to offer surgeons additional precision and control in complex minimally invasive procedures.
The da Vinci™ Surgical System from Intuitive Surgical, Inc., incorporates advancements in robotic and computer technology.

Minimally invasive surgical procedures are performed through small rather than large incisions and minimize trauma to tissue, muscles and vessels. Patient benefits are less blood loss, less scarring and faster recovery times.

Robotic systems like the da Vinci™ Surgical System enhance minimally invasive techniques in complex procedures. The da Vinci™ system allows the surgeon to view the surgical site in three-dimensions with 10 times magnification. Three surgical arms provide articulated movement that replicates the movement of the surgeon. (Click here to view video on Robotic Surgery)

Robotic assisted minimally invasive surgery may benefit patients as follows:

* Smaller incisions
* Reduced pain and trauma to the body
* Less blood loss and fewer transfusions
* Less risk of infection
* Shorter hospital stays
* Faster recovery and return to work
* Less scarring

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Robotics used in Hospital

Robot Nurse are ready for Hospital

Prototype robot nurses could be bustling around hospital wards in as little as three years, according to scientists in Germany who have developed ground-breaking software.
Robot Nurse

Amazing robots

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The Rubiks cube solving robot RuBot II

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Robot Slide Show

Slide Slow

Robot-Assisted Radical Prostatectomy LiveStream

Shawnee Mission Medical Center will host its third live surgical Webcast on Thursday, November 2, at 7 p.m., when urologist David Emmott, MD, performs a robot-assisted radical prostatectomy using the da Vinci™ Surgical System.

Shawnee Mission Medical Center was the first hospital in the region to perform radical prostatectomy using the da Vinci™ in 2002. Since that time, Emmott and his partner, Scott Montgomery, MD, have performed more than 200 procedures -- more than any other physicians in the area.

During the surgery, the entire prostate gland and additional surrounding tissue will be removed through minimally invasive "keyhole" incisions -- allowing the patient to experience decreased bleeding, less time in the hospital and reduced scarring. Traditionally, radical prostatectomy procedures are performed through large incisions, which often resulted in lengthy and uncomfortable patient recovery.

The da Vinci™ Surgical System consists of two main components, the surgeon's viewing and control console and the surgical arm that positions and maneuvers the surgical instruments. ( More Videos and News )

Project Summary

Figure Shows A Robot Nurse


IWARD targets mainly hospitals and healthcare centres to overcome the shortages of healthcare staff – a major issue in European healthcare. Our aging society and economic pressure increase the patients-to-medics’ ratio, having an adverse effect on healthcare quality and performance. Not being able to attend all patients at the right time and not keeping the hospitals clean enough (e.g.MRSA Transmission) also increases recovery time and cost.

To improve the quality of healthcare, these focal issues emerge: fast identification and location of patients needing immediate attention; reduction of human errors; effective cleaning in hospitals; wider reach of specialist medics, possibly attending patients remotely. To achieve this, IWARD presents a robot swarm delivering support to oversee activities in healthcare environments,providing a multipurpose, cost-effective and scalable solution to enhance quality of healthcare.
Four major tasks are: attendance, recognition, communication and suppor(assisting/cleaning).

Attendance means to monitor hospital wards by robots acting as a dynamic swarm. Recognition points out, that the swarm is able to recognize patients or objects needing attention, providing immediate information about the location and needs of the concerned patients. The robots can be equipped with different adaptable hardware components for floor cleaning and delivery of food,linen, medicine etc. All mobile robots are capable of providing patients and visitors with guidance and information. It provides easy to use but high tech interaction interfaces like voice control
through mobile and fix-mounted robots.

The swarm based approach unburdens the nursing staff from the details of robot control and central coordination – reducing the complexity of robot control to that of a chat, having the swarm negotiating which robot to use for each job, shortening the reaction time, reducing human error and increasing efficiency to deliver better patient care.

2010: The year of the robo nurse?

Researchers are working on the creation of robotic ward assistants to cope with staff shortages

Experts from universities in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain and Turkey are working on a multi-million pound research project to cure the ever-increasing problem of hospital staff shortages.

The project, dubbed IWARD, kicked off at the beginning of this month and, if all goes well could potentially see these robotic nurses and other clinical assistants milling about in hospitals and healthcare centres as early as 2010.

Having secured £1.8 million (€2.7 million) in European Union (EU) funding, the consortium of institutions, which includes Cardiff, Dublin, Newcastle and Warwick in the UK, aim to create a 'robot swarm' to help attend to patients' needs more quickly and effectively as well as reducing costs and ensuring cleanliness to minimise the likelihood of Methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) transmission.

"IWARD will mean that hospital staff will be able to spend more time with their patients rather than doing other basic tasks," project leader Thomas Schlegel, from the human-computer interaction division at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, said in an interview with The Engineer.

"The idea is not only to have mobile robots, but a full system of integrated information terminals so that the hospital is full of interaction and intelligence. Operating as a completely decentralised network means that the robots can co-ordinate things between themselves, such as deciding which one would be best equipped to deal with a spillage or to transport medicine."

The robo nurses will be capable or identifying people or things in need of attention and attending to those patients or items. By equipping the robots with different adaptable hardware components, they will also be able to perform a wide range of other tasks such as floor cleaning and delivery of food, linen and medicine.

A suite of inbuilt cameras and sensors will ensure the robots can navigate their way around buildings as well as avoiding collision with fellow robots and other objects.

If a collision with an electronic counterpart is imminent, the robots will be able to warn one another using wireless technology such as Bluetooth.

The aim is to have three working prototype robots by the end of the three-year project.

WaBot-2

An inventor plays a duet with his robotic creation, Wabot-2, at the Tokyo Exposition. Building this kind of robot is a challenging task because the dexterity of the human hand is perhaps the most difficult function to recreate mechanically. Although Wabot-2’s performance may not be emotional, with an electronic scanning eye and quality components, the technical accuracy will be extremely high.

Michael Macintyre/Hutchison Library


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Robot; Invention (device or process)

HOSPITAL ROBOT

Helpmate is a robot that independently navigates through hospital corridors, delivering meal trays, paperwork, and supplies. The robot employs multiple sensors to safely navigate and work in close proximity to people.

Hank Morgan/Science Source/Photo Researchers, Inc.


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Robot

Electronic Nurses

It may not be long before swarms of tiny mobile robots will be giving a hand to the nurses and medical orderlies in hospitals. Wednesday, January 31, 2007 will see the launch of a new EU project led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO.


There is always plenty to do in a hospital, and more often than not, the staff is overworked. “This is where robots can be a real help,” explains IAO scientist Thomas Schlegel, who is coordinating the new EU project IWARD. The abbreviation stands for ‘intelligent robot swarm for attendance, recognition, cleaning and delivery’. “These robots could take over a wide range of tasks: find the doctor, call the nurse, keep the sick-room clean, and show visitors the way. What is more, the mobile assistants can also tell when help is needed in a sick-room, for instance when a patient has suffered a fall. Then they can alert a nurse or an orderly.”

Ten teams of researchers from Germany and seven other countries will collaborate on this project. They all met on Wednesday for the official project launch in Stuttgart. Over the next three years they plan to cooperate in developing a team of robots to support hospital staff. At the end of that period, the little fleet will be tested in hospitals. “What’s really new about these robots is their decentralized intelligence: Each one can act autonomously, but is also constantly in touch with its ‘colleagues’. This creates a swarm with abilities that far exceed those of each individual member,” explains Schlegel.

First example: Supposing robot number one is crossing a corridor and sees an orderly heading for a room that robot number two happens to be cleaning. In this case robot 1 can pass the information to robot 2, which can quickly retreat into a corner to make room for the orderly. Second example: Robot number one is in a cardiac patient’s room. The nurse urgently needs to consult a cardiologist. She can use the robot to broadcast a search message that is received by all members of the squad. As soon as a member of the swarm has found the doctor, it sets up a video conference with robot 1. In this way, the cardiologist is immediately put in touch with the sick-room where his advice is needed.

The robots are to be made as small and versatile as possible, ideally measuring not more than 50 by 50 by 50 centimeters. They will be equipped with a motor and wheels, an on-board computer, a radio module, optical sensors, loudspeakers, a monitor, and cleaning tools for wiping up spills and disinfecting. “All of these components already exist. The important thing for us is not having new hardware, but advancing the development of swarm intelligence,” Schlegel declares. “Our goal is to develop a program that is both powerful and extremely flexible. For example, the robots need to recognize when they are approaching sensitive equipment such as a CT scanner. They must not transmit radio signals there, as these would interfere with the imaging system. The robots can only operate autonomously in such places. Not until they have left the sensitive zones can they re-establish contact with the swarm via WLAN or Bluetooth.”

In the test phase at the end of the project, three or four robots will be sent for practical testing to each of four different hospitals – and so for a few weeks, the swarm will support hospital staff in England, Spain, France and Turkey. Initially, the robots’ duties will be restricted to cleaning and communications. In the long run, however, their decentralized intelligence holds much greater potential, says Schlegel: “Hospital processes are organized centrally at present, but decentralized data administration is perfectly feasible – be it for assignment of beds, for purchasing logistics, for planning the use of operating theaters, or for providing visitor information. Another of our goals in the EU project will be to find out how efficient the system is, and what new opportunities it opens up.”

Hospital Robot Design at DCU

At the end of 2006, the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at DCU teamed up with nine other European universities, research centres and hospitals from Germany, the UK, Spain, France, Italy and Turkey, to develop a robot swarm system for hospitals. The project, called IWARD (Intelligent Robot Swarm for Attendance, Recognition, Cleaning and Delivery) received a 2.8 million euro funding from the Framework 6 Programme of the European Union for a three year period. The project co-ordinator is Dipl.-Ing. Thomas Schlegel from the Fraunhofer IAO institution in Stuttgart, and the DCU team is lead by Dr. Tamas Szecsi, a senior lecturer at the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Most of the partners, including DCU, are also members of an EU-supported Network of Excellence called I*PROMS (Innovative Production Machines and Systems). The IWARD project is an excellent demonstration of the efforts of the network to integrate the research potential of its members.

Although the hospital robots have been described in the press as ‘robotic nurses’, the definition is slightly misleading because the purpose of these robots is not to replace nurses but to help them so that they can spend more time with patients.
Each robot will contain a mobile, self-navigating platform and several modules attached to it to perform the following major tasks:

1. Guidance and assistance: patients and visitors will be provided information about the location of units and wards in the hospital. They can follow the moving robot to their destination. For example, a patient can be guided to the X-ray room, or a visitor to a patient’s ward. The speed of the robot can be adjusted automatically according to the pace of the person. Guidance between floors and/or buildings can be negotiated between several robots. The built-in information system will also allow to get general information (doctors’ names, locations, timetables, services) of the hospital.

2. Delivery: the robots can deliver medical supplies and other materials to patients lying in bed, and medical documentation (X-rays, patients’ files) to doctors and nurses. Each compartment will be equipped with a security device so that only the appropriate persons will have access to them. Authorised access to the content of the compartments will be guaranteed through face and voice recognition.

3. Cleaning: a floor cleaning device, attached to the robot base, will perform continuous cleaning while the robot is moving. This will allow to maintain a high level of hygiene in the hospital. It will also facilitate fast clean-up of spillages.

4. Condition monitoring: sensors attached to the robot will give up-to-date information about the conditions in the hospital (temperature, humidity). The camera system, coupled with image recognition software, can detect unusual situations (patients lying on the floor, objects obstructing corridors). It is also possible to obtain information about the patients’ condition (like body temperature) using remote measurements. The camera-equipped robot can also deliver compressed pictures and video information of patients that can be used to evaluate their condition. This could especially be useful during the night when supervision level is normally limited. The data can also be fed to the information management and retrieval system that would enable the collection of anonymous information about patients’ habits.

5. Surveillance: the moving robots, equipped with a camera and microphone gives an ideal opportunity to provide information for the security system of the hospital. Face recognition and person-tracking systems will be used to improve the hospital security. Areas that can not be reached by the robots will be monitored by stationary cameras. The system can also facilitate to obtain information about patients’ whereabouts.

In order to minimise the cost of such a system and to make it affordable to hospitals, the robot swarm will heavily rely on low-cost standard components and plug-and-play sensors. As opposed to the large individual robots that are currently available in some hospitals, the robot swarm will be based on smaller robots. This should cause less interference with persons and objects in the hospital. Using a quick-fix mechanism, any modules and sensors can easily be mounted on the base at any time.

Users will be able to communicate with the robot system through a specially designed human-robot interface that includes speech, voice and face recognition. In order to maintain a safe interaction between humans and robots, all robots will be equipped with safety devices. The users are not expected to programme the robots; they will only give them high-level, task-oriented commands. Access authorisation will be managed by the robot software.

The mobile robot platform will be able to perform self-navigation in the hospital using vision sensors and a detailed hospital model. The self-learning capabilities of the robots will enable quick and reliable adaptation to a changing environment.
There will be no central computer in the system. Instead, the robots will be equipped with a level of intelligence to negotiate and schedule tasks between themselves dynamically; the robot swarm is a self-organising system. The robots themselves decide which of them is most suitable to perform a given task at a given time. There will be wireless communication between the robots. The interchangeable robot modules can be attached to the robot bases based on demand. Artificial intelligence learning mechanisms will support all robot functions.
The main task of the DCU team is to develop the robot modules that will be attached to the mobile robot base. Each module will be a stand-alone, self-contained unit. Researchers at the other partner institutions will develop the robot base and its control system, the human-robot interface, the software platform and the swarm application software.

The prototype of the system, containing several robots and a realistic hospital model, should be developed by the end of 2009. It will first be analysed in a laboratory set-up, after which it can be tested in real hospital environment. It is hoped that this robot swarm system will contribute to better patient care in hospitals.

More information can be found on the web page of the project at IWARD.