Next week the FROG robot will be back in Seville to test the new StateMachine, autonomous missions and the docking sequence for recharging the batteries between missions. There will be some playful content for the demo runs and the researchers will be collecting more material for expanding this to a full tour for the Final Event to be held in September 2014.
The UT Campus robot is having some problems at the Hannover Messe. On the first day it drove around until lunchtime but now protoFROG is at a standstill. This is an outdoor robot with a lot of traction power and the loose-laid carpet is causing the motors to overheat during rotation. Although, by the look of it there is not always that much room to manoeuvre, anyway.
The FROG robot was defined to run outdoors, specifically for the EU project in the Lisbon Zoo and in the Royal Alcázar in Sevilla. As the robot must not only navigate the various terrains at these sites but also be able to turn on the spot the project has been having some difficulties with their choice of tires. What would you choose for a 100 kilo robot that has to handle clean-swept tarmac and paving, either of which may later be strewn with olive stones from the trees. This is the terrain in the Lisbon zoo – and the robots mission also includes some inclines and ramps. Then move the same robot to Sevilla where it has to go from neat paved courtyards onto tiled or marble floors.
And in the past two weeks, protoFROG has had to cope with gravel strewn tarmac, TV studios, and now, loose-laid carpet. That’s a lot to deal with for a prototype.
Willem-Alexander, King of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with the protoFROG UT Campus robot on 2 April 2014.
Thanks to Pollus Fornerod for the photos.
All this week João Freire from IDMind has been working on the protoFROG Campus robot here at the University of Twente. His colleagues, Carlos Marques and André Almeida can be seen in the laptop screen. They were working from Lisbon via Skype to get the content that was prepared by the Marketing & Communications department of the university for the Royal opening of the Gallery.
We have just heard from IDMind that the Campus robot (aka protoFROG) is all ready to be shipped to the Netherlands where it will take part in a very special ceremony. A few days later it will travel on to the Hannover Messe.
protoFROG is actually the UT Campus robot. It is a prototype of the FROG robot with demos of some of the functionalities that are being developed in the FROG project.
The protoFROG will be at the Hannover Messe on the 
stand from Monday 7 April to Wednesday 9 April.
On the 21st of November 2013, the FROG consortium had the review of their work during the second period of the project. The review was held in the Lisbon Zoo and the robot navigated autonomously and showed some simplified presentations at points of interest. Our thanks to the Lisbon Zoo for their hospitality.
Here is a video of the whole demo – watch out for the reviewer testing the robot’s safety measures: Demo for 2nd Year Review
On our way to Lisbon for a second round of experiments before the demo in November. We will perform several navigation experiments with the final FROG robot platform these days. Van ready, here we go!