Live from RoboCup 2009 Day 2

This week Richard Allen, Physicist, NIST, will be live blogging from RoboCup 2009 covering the MEMS-scale robot league.

June 29, 2009:

Today the teams arrived.  Remember that picture from yesterday.  Here is what the hall looks like today:

The Nanogram demonstration was assigned what is nearly ideal space.  We are immediately at the entrance of one of the two halls.  The first thing that everyone who enters this hall will see is our display.  Until we have activity, this is what they will see:

(Photo by Michael E. Newman, NIST)

We have had many of the participants from other teams and leagues stop by and look at our sign and at our “playing fields.”

I would like to finish today with a note that I don’t expect would surprise any frequent reader of the MIG blog:  Producing a MEMS device almost certainly requires overcoming a technical challenge.  Many, if not all of these challenges are faced by the researcher attempting to produce a MEMS-scale robot.  We had this fact brought home to us over the past week, as several of our teams decided not to come to Graz, because they had not overcome these challenges in a timely fashion and thus do not have functioning robots.

Perhaps we can collectively brainstorm ideas that might help more universities overcome the challenges and achieve working MEMS-scale robots.  I look forward to seeing your comments.

The views presented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of NIST.

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Live from RoboCup 2009

This week Richard Allen, Physicist, NIST, will be live blogging from RoboCup 2009 covering the MEMS-scale robot league.

June 28, 2009

Maybe I was a bit premature with the end of my last blog entry:

Let the games begin!

RoboCup 2009 is being held in the Stadthalle Graz, the convention center in Graz Austria.  The competitions will be held in two large halls, with stadium seating for many of the events.  There are hundreds of tables throughout the halls for the participants to use.  But the teams don’t show up until tomorrow.  For now, the center is set up and waiting.

The lonely person in the foreground is Craig McGray, my co-worker at NIST; notice the person speeding through on a bicycle in the background.  I don’t think this will be possible tomorrow.

The views presented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of NIST.

Please be respectful when posting comments. We will post all comments without editing as quickly as possible during business hours as long as the comments are on topic and do not contain profanity, personal attacks, or promote commercial products or services.

Live from RoboCup 2009

This week Richard Allen, Physicist, NIST, will be live blogging from RoboCup 2009 covering the MEMS-scale robot league.

June 27, 2009

First, I would like to introduce myself to those who don’t know me.  I am Richard Allen and I am a physicist in the Semiconductor Electronics Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, Maryland U.S.A.  I have been at NIST since 1990.  At NIST my research has been in metrology tools for MEMS (recently) and semiconductor devices.

As I write this, I am on a train, traveling from Vienna, Austria to Graz, Austria.  For the upcoming week, I will be blogging from RoboCup 2009 for MIG.  RoboCup is an international competition devoted to the goal of achieving a team of robotic soccer players who can compete with, and defeat, the human World Cup champions.  Although this goal seems like quite a reach, the target date is 2050.  Soccer was chosen as a means for advancing robotics and artificial intelligence as it is an exciting area, with well-known and well-defined rules and accomplishing this goal will meet many, if not all, of the outstanding technical challenges faced in robotics.

Now the question might arise as to why I am here this week and why MIG asked me to blog this competition:  About three years ago, Michael Gaitan, my co-worker from NIST, proposed to the RoboCup organizers that a MEMS-scale league be developed.  The key parameter defining these MEMS-scale robots are that the largest dimension must be no larger than 300 micrometers.  I will discuss the technical issues associated with these devices over the next few days and I suspect the reader will see many areas where the technical issues associated with making these robots work map to those challenges faced by MEMS device manufactures.

Let the games begin!

The views presented here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of NIST.

Please be respectful when posting comments. We will post all comments without editing as quickly as possible during business hours as long as the comments are on topic and do not contain profanity, personal attacks, or promote commercial products or services.

Is the electronic compass the next whiz-bang mobile device feature?

By St.J. Dixon-Warren and Rob Williamson, Chipworks, Inc.

With the new generation iPhone 3GS that was just announced, Apple is trying to stay ahead of the pack for smartphones. The new feature that captured our eyes is the electronic compass (also called a magnetometer.)  This is another example of a relatively simple technology being elegantly applied with a sophisticated software interface.

One of the leaders in the magnetometer space is MEMSIC, and while they did not win the iPhone socket (won by the AKM AK8973), they are a forerunners to get design wins as more electronics integrate this technology.

The target device discussed here is the Electronic Compass Board (ECB) evaluation module from MEMSIC (figure 1), and it contains both their novel thermal accelerometer and an electronic compass.

Figure 1: MEMSIC eval board

The creation of a MEMS magnet is almost a perfect example of elegant simplicity. Does anyone remember a book called, “101 Things a Boy Can Make” by author Arthur C Horth?  Somewhere, in the middle was a project for building an electromagnet using a screwdriver, some wire, and a battery. Many a young engineer did just such a project. Well, MEMSIC certainly didn’t build something quite that simple, but its engineers must have has a touch of nostalgia in taking a simple concept to a whole new level to meet the complex demands of hand-held devices.

One of these is the need to have it detect the earth’s magnetic field, regardless of what direction the device is being carried or used, since most consumers would not tolerate an application that forces them to hold the compass perfectly still and level. To achieve this MEMSIC has used three sensor chips, and simply ‘bent’ the circuit board to achieve the 3^rd axis, as seen in figure 2. Despite this, the package is only 1.2mm thick.

Figure 2 – X-Ray of Magnetic Sensor

Figure 2 – X-Ray of Magnetic Sensor

According to MEMSIC the magnetic sensors are anisotropic magnetoresistive (AMR) sensors.  They feature special resistors made of a permalloy thin film, which during manufacture are exposed to a strong magnetic field to orient the magnetic domains uni-directionally, establishing a magnetization vector.  An external field such as the earth’s makes the magnetization rotate, and this changes the film’s resistance.

The magnetoresistive sensors are arranged within a Wheatstone bridge circuit, so that the change in resistance is detected as a change in differential voltage, so that the strength of the applied magnetic field can be inferred.

A very strong external magnetic field could upset, or flip the polarity of the film, changing the sensor characteristics.  To allow for this a strong restoring magnetic field must be applied.  This is enabled on chip with a magnetically coupled strap.

A compass feature combined with inertial sensors promises to improve the dead reckoning capabilities of mobile devices, and reduce the energy drain caused by GPS.  It will be very interesting to see what new apps for the iPhone 3GS will appear, now that it will contain a true eCompass.

For information about Chipworks reports and services please contact insidetechnology@chipworks.com or contact the author at sdixonwarren@chipworks.com.

From the floor of Transducers ’09 Day 4

Continuing coverage of Transducers 2009 from Paul Werbaneth, VP Marketing & Applications, Tegal Corporation.

Day 4: We’ve been making jokes this week about the stimulus money being flashed around now in MEMS, but, all joking aside, it does seem like the Research community is in a buying mood.  These approved budgets have surely been long in the making, nothing that could really be attributed to the quick-injection dollars handed out over the last six months, but no matter where the money’s coming from, it’s a positive and reassuring message.

Funded research for Science and Engineering — That’s great!  We’re still investing in the future.

If you go back to the model that it takes twenty-seven years in MEMS from concept to commercialization, then some of the cutting-edge research being launched now will just about make it to the market in my lifetime.  (I hope.)

Personally, I’m waiting for a personal attendant robot in my later years.  Maybe a really sharp Toyota PizMo, or one of those Honda ReadyMates.  (I’m afraid my robot’s not going to be coming from GM.)  It’ll have tactile sensors like I see in some of the Transducers posters today, it’ll have a full medical diagnostic kit, made by the BioMEMS folks, to let me know how I’m doing on my diet and with my exercise, it’ll have a big flexible display for news and entertainment, and it’ll be sitting there when idle harvesting energy from secret harmonies only robots hear, and maybe running on its microfuelcells when it’s up and ambling about.

Lease or own?  We have some attractive deals.

Walking near the Colorado Capitol last night, street people are out in force enjoying the warm evening (and probably ducking later due to sudden showers).  One guy is in preacher mode, holding a thick hardback book with a tattered but intact cover.  I look a little closer:  this isn’t a bible he’s holding, it’s a copy of The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectation, by Christopher Lasch, first published in 1979 (looks like an original copy).

Wow, heavy, I have to stop to talk.  “I’m an Air Force major,” says the preacher, a guy about my age.  I ask, “Have you read that book by Lasch?”  “Yes, it’s literature, and every word in it is even more true today than when first published.”  I agree it must be literature if the book is still being read these thirty years later, but that remark strikes the wrong tone for the major, and I start moving away.  “I’m an Air Force major!  I’m an Air Force major!  And you, you’re a journalist!”

He means that to be damning somehow.  (Is it?)

I think, “No, not a journalist.  Just a first-time blogger”

Now signing-off.

From the floor of Transducers 2009, thanks for reading.

Paul