Events
TORC to Showcase Blind-Driver Vehicle at AUVSI Conference
BLACKSBURG, Va. (August 9, 2011) – TORC, a leading developer of robotic technologies for unmanned and autonomous vehicles, will showcase the NFB Blind Driver Challenge® blind-drivable vehicle at AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems North America conference.
The outfitted Ford Escape, which uses TORC’s ByWire XGV™ robotic research platform and other intelligent vehicle technologies from its Robotic Building Blocks product line, will be on display at TORC’s Booth 1133 Aug. 16-19 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
The vehicle was driven by blind person at the Daytona International Speedway as part of the National Federation of the Blind’s Blind Driver Challenge. The blind driver was able to negotiate hairpin turns while avoiding obstacles ranging from cones and barrels to other moving traffic.
For unmanned systems researchers, developers and integrators, the ByWire XGV™ provides an integration-ready drive-by-wire controlled ground vehicle platform with integrated safety and an onboard power management system, enabling developers to stay focused on developing advanced robotic technology.
In addition, TORC’s leadership team is participating on expert panels during the AUVSI conference:
• CEO Michael Fleming will discuss TORC’s experience in a panel called “Driverless Cars, From Conception to Reality.” Fleming will weigh in on what it takes to make driverless cars a reality, including technological advancements being made today and future plans to bring this exciting revolution in transportation to life.
• Andrew Culhane, Business Development Manager for TORC, is presenting a technical session titled “Repurposing of Unmanned Ground Vehicle Perception Technologies to Enable Blind Drivers to Hit the Road.” He will be joined by Dr. Dennis Hong, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Virginia Tech, to discuss his research on non-visual interfaces that can provide a blind person with the necessary information to independently operate an automobile.
ABOUT TORC
TORC enables engineers to rapidly integrate robotic systems through a suite of modular, customizable products. TORC’s Robotic Building Blocks product line is used by leading academic, commercial and government organizations to shorten the development process, lower costs and mitigate risks. These products have been used on more than 100 mobile robots ranging from 15 pounds to 15 tons. TORC provides solutions for drive-by-wire conversion, emergency stop, power management, autonomous navigation and operator control. For more information, visit http://www.torcrobotics.com.
TORC to Speak at National Military Robotics Conference
BLACKSBURG, Va. (May 12, 2011) – Andrew Culhane, Business Development Manager for TORC, a leading developer of robotic technologies for unmanned and autonomous vehicles, has been selected to speak at Military Robotics, a national conference featuring some of the industry’s top experts.
Culhane joins a distinguished panel sharing the latest information and insight on military robotics, an industry that’s expected to grow to almost $10 billion worldwide by 2016.
Culhane will present information about the productization of robotic building blocks to enable technology reuse for military and commercial applications.
The conference will be held June 9-10 in Arlington.
About TORC
TORC enables engineers to rapidly integrate robotic systems through a suite of modular, customizable products. TORC’s Robotic Building Blocks product line is used by leading academic, commercial and government organizations to shorten the development process, lower costs and mitigate risks. These products have been used on more than 100 mobile robots ranging from 15 pounds to 15 tons. TORC provides solutions for drive-by-wire conversion, emergency stop, power management, autonomous navigation and operator control. For more information, visit http://www.torctech.com.
NFB Blind Driver Challenge Team Chooses TORC’s ByWire XGV as Base Research Platform
Next Generation of Blind-Drivable Vehicles Using TORC Robotic Building Blocks Product Line
BLACKSBURG, VA (October 13, 2010) – TORC, a leading provider of modular unmanned vehicle technologies, is pleased to announce its products are being used in developing the next generation of NFB Blind Driver Challenge vehicles. The ByWire XGV vehicle, driven by a blind driver, will be demonstrated during the 2011 Rolex 24 at the Daytona International Speedway.
Mark Riccobono, Executive Director of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) Jernigan Institute, says, “The National Federation of the Blind issued our Blind Driver Challenge to encourage partnerships with universities and technology manufacturers to develop nonvisual interface technologies that convey essential information about the driving environment to a blind driver in real-time. Having nonvisual access to this information will empower the blind driver to use his/her capacity to safely and independently operate an automobile. On January 29, as part of the pre-race activities of the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the resulting evolution of nonvisual driving interface technologies will be demonstrated using a Ford Escape that has been converted to the next generation blind-driver vehicle. A blind driver will independently operate the vehicle, in front of tens of thousands of spectators, to demonstrate that a blind person can safely perform various driving functions. This monumental milestone that brings us ever closer to the development of a road-ready vehicle for the blind is a direct result of the partnership between the National Federation of the Blind, Virginia Tech, and TORC.”
The NFB Blind Driver Challenge was taken on by Dr. Dennis Hong and the Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) at Virginia Tech, which successfully demonstrated a prototype blind-drivable dune buggy in May of 2009. In June 2010, RoMeLa partnered with TORC to develop the next generation of NFB Blind Driver Challenge vehicles. New and improved versions of RoMeLa’s nonvisual interfaces will be integrated into a ByWire XGV; TORC’s modified Ford Escape Hybrid with its ByWire drive-by-wire conversion modules, SafeStop wireless emergency stop system and PowerHub power distribution modules. The ByWire XGV, which is based around TORC’s success in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge, provides a thoroughly tested vehicle configuration from which the team can add more advanced technologies.
“The ByWire XGV base vehicle has enabled the RoMeLa team to focus on the research and development of nonvisual interfaces for the blind. We have chosen the ByWire XGV for its performance, ease of integration with our system, and most importantly, for its reliability as safety is most important. By leveraging TORC’s commercial-off-the-shelf products, our team of graduate and undergraduate students will enable the blind to drive at the 2011 Rolex 24 and beyond,” said Dr. Dennis Hong, Director of RoMeLa.
While many autonomous vehicle technologies will be used, the goal is not to develop an autonomous vehicle to drive the blind, but rather a vehicle that enables a blind person to drive. The sensing and perception data that would normally be used to autonomously carry out the appropriate driving behaviors will instead be passed to the blind driver through several nonvisual interfaces. The blind driver can then reason about the environment, make control decisions, and directly execute these decisions from behind the wheel. The novel interfaces being developed at RoMeLa include DriveGrip, a pair of vibrating gloves that relay steering information, SpeedStrip, a vibration-based device that relays speed information, and AirPix, a device that uses compressed airflow patterns to create tactile images.
For more information about the NFB Blind Driver Challenge visit www.blinddriverchallenge.org and to learn more about RoMeLa visit www.romela.org.
About TORC
TORC enables engineers to rapidly integrate robotic systems through a suite of modular, customizable products. TORC’s Robotic Building Blocks product line is used by leading academic, commercial and government organizations to shorten the development process, lower costs and mitigate risks. These products have been used on over a hundred mobile robots ranging from 15 pounds to 15 tons. TORC provides solutions for drive-by-wire conversion, emergency stop, power management, autonomous navigation and operator control. The ByWire XGV, a drive-by-wire Hybrid Escape with integrated SafeStop safety and PowerHub distribution systems, provides an integration-ready base platform for autonomous system development. For more information, visit www.torctech.com.
TORC, Robotic Building Blocks, ByWire XGV, SafeStop, and PowerHub are trademarks of TORC.
Additional Information on the NFB Blind Driver Challenge
TORC on Display at the Robotics Summit Virtual Conference
BLACKSBURG, Va. (June 14, 2010) – TORC, a leading provider of robotic systems for autonomous vehicles, will be exhibiting at the Robotics Summit Virtual Conference on June 16. TORC’s exhibit focuses on its Robotic Building Block products and the ByWire XGV, which provides an integration-ready, drive-by-wire controlled ground robotics platform with tightly integrated safety and onboard power management systems. Driven by real-world applications and experiences such as the DARPA Urban Challenge, the design of the ByWire XGV focuses on reliability, safety, cost-effectiveness, and performance.
The Robotics Summit Virtual Conference is a unique, online event that brings together industry leaders for a full day of keynote presentations, online discussions, networking and a virtual exhibit hall where companies showcase their latest robotic technologies.
Be sure to visit the TORC exhibit and participate in a brief survey for your chance to win a free FLIP camcorder. If you are not already registered for the event, attendance is free at bit.ly/roboticsevent.
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TORC Technologies Releases the JAUS Toolkit for NI LabVIEW to Simplify JAUS Standards Based Development for Unmanned Systems
JAUS Toolkit for NI LabVIEW Accelerates Interoperability of Unmanned Systems
Blacksburg, VA – August 4, 2009 - TORC Technologies (www.torctech.com) has announced the release of its highly anticipated JAUS Toolkit™ for National Instruments LabVIEW graphical system design software to provide a simplified approach to JAUS (Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems) development for interoperable unmanned systems.
In 2000, the United States Senate mandated that one third of all military vehicles be unmanned by the year 2015. Foreseeing the problems of various proprietary systems being incompatible with each other, the groundwork was laid for JAUS, a standard for communications between elements of unmanned systems. In order to achieve the congressional mandate and the military’s goal, the shift from legacy and proprietary development to JAUS-interoperability is inevitable and companies will need to adopt JAUS standards-based development in order to service this growing market.
The JAUS Toolkit for NI LabVIEW hopes to accelerate the widespread adoption of the JAUS standards in both military and commercial markets by significantly reducing the risks and barriers to developing JAUS compliant systems and payloads. Capitalizing on the intuitive graphical programming environment of LabVIEW, the Toolkit extends the many benefits of LabVIEW development into the field of JAUS-interoperable robotics, allowing developers to leverage prepackaged JAUS modules and tools for implementing new or experimental messages and services.
The release of the Toolkit has been a long time coming. TORC has been a supporter and advocate of JAUS for many years, involved in both the development and application of the evolving JAUS standards. TORC has also pioneered the use of LabVIEW in developing JAUS-interoperable unmanned systems. Michael Fleming, CEO of TORC, states, “It’s exciting to finally offer the first and only JAUS software development kit for LabVIEW, a tool which our engineering team uses daily. We’ve packaged TORC’s expertise in JAUS with the benefits of LabVIEW graphical programming, allowing us to simplify complex JAUS protocols into drag-and-drop components. The Toolkit enables new developers to rapidly achieve JAUS-interoperability.”
TORC utilized an earlier version of the JAUS Toolkit in its success as the lead software developer for DARPA Urban Challenge finalist Team VictorTango. Working with Virginia Tech, the team developed the only JAUS-interoperable autonomous vehicle to successfully complete the race. It has since used iterations of the JAUS Toolkit on various projects ranging from internal product development to deployments for government and commercial clients.
“At National Instruments, we are continuously amazed by the many innovative ways people use LabVIEW to design and control revolutionary applications, including breakthroughs in the field of robotics,” said Dr. James Truchard, president, CEO and cofounder of National Instruments. “The advancements TORC brings to unmanned systems technology with this JAUS Toolkit for LabVIEW not only help to illustrate the inherent power and flexibility of LabVIEW graphical system design for robotics, but also enhance the nature of autonomous control in general, and we’re proud to be a part of that.”
TORC will showcase the JAUS Toolkit in the Robotics Pavilion at National Instruments NIWeek in Austin, Texas, August 4th-6th and at AUVSI’s (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International) Unmanned Systems North America 2009 in booth #126 in Washington, D.C. August 11th-13th. Visitors are encouraged to participate in the “JAUS Toolkit Challenge” for a chance to win a Flip Mino™ camcorder. For more information on the JAUS Toolkit, stop by at one of the events or visit us online at http://www.jaustoolkit.com/ to register for an evaluation version of the software.
About TORC Technologies
TORC is a robotics engineering and product development company focused on unmanned and autonomous vehicle systems. TORC is automating dull, dirty, and dangerous tasks by commercializing intelligent robotic technologies into modular, interoperable, off-the-shelf products that enable customers to rapidly integrate and deploy robotic solutions. To learn more, visit www.torctech.com
About National Instruments
National Instruments (www.ni.com) is transforming the way engineers and scientists design, prototype and deploy systems for measurement, automation and embedded applications. NI empowers customers with off-the-shelf software such as NI LabVIEW and modular cost-effective hardware, and sells to a broad base of more than 30,000 different companies worldwide, with no one customer representing more than 3 percent of revenue and no one industry representing more than 15 percent of revenue. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 5,000 employees and direct operations in more than 40 countries. For the past 10 years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company’s investor relations department by calling (512) 683-5090, e-mailing nati@ni.com or visiting www.ni.com/nati.
LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI, ni.com, and NIWeek are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies.
Sales Contact:
Andrew Culhane, Business Development Manager
TORC Technologies
540-443-9262 x 4251
http://www.torctech.com
Media Contact:
David Cutter, Marketing Manager
TORC Technologies
540-443-9262 x 4256
http://www.torctech.com