Robot Explorer Log 10 Mission Control

Mission Control at Humanoido Labs, for Robot Explorer and sending of intelligent life to other planets at the outer fringes of the Solar System, is modestly modeled after NASA's new upgraded control center. Credit: NASA

ROBOT EXPLORER LOG 10
MISSION CONTROL
So now you've created a new life form, sent it to a new world and it's exploring the surface. You'll need a mission control center to gather its images, data, findings, and discoveries.

The Big Brain machine initiative continues to expand. Recent projects include Robot Explorer, designed to explore strange and erie new worlds at the outer fringes of the Solar System. Establishing and maintaining contact with remote robotic autonomous intelligent beings requires a control center, i.e. Mission Control, for the gathering of images and various telemetry signals for analysis.

HISTORY
The previous construction of Mission Control was a command center to control massive space telescopes and included the earthen supercomputer to conduct and make their projects possible.

NEW MISSION CONTROL
The new Mission Control is designed with several purposes, though primarily for establishing contact with autonomous intelligent beings created by the laboratory which will explore new distant worlds. 

SETUP
The current setup is a desktop proof of concept using frequencies centered around 1.2 GHz on four channels, and additional channels in the UHF, VHF range for long range wireless operations.

EXPERIMENTS
Experiments conducted include the camera eye on a robot that feeds images into a micro-miniature 1.2 GHz transmitter. The camera eye and transmitter remain on board the robot and wireless send images to the base station on one channel. This channel includes video and audio bands.

CONVERSION
The base station at Mission Control has a 1.2 GHz receiver that converts the signal to standard NTSC composite 1V p-p (AV) and feeds it into the TV. The TV has audio/video AV input.

MORE CHANNELS
A second Parallax Propeller chip, known as the sensor chip, transmits data telemetry on the VHF band USA channel 3. This is received directly by Mission Control's multi-band analog TV. Data transmitted includes information from sensors and various parameters including the condition of the robot and its decisions.

RECORDING TELEMETRY
The  TV monitor also has video out which can feed into a VCR or other digital recording device for a record of the mission's proceedings.

Robot Explorer Log 9 Interplanetary TV Monitor

INTERPLANETARY TV MONITOR FOR
ROBOT EXPLORER - LOG 9

Robot Explorer is designed to transmit images and telemetry to a base station with a monitor. The monitor receives data on TV channel 3 by analog and also requires AV input to display images from a receiver. The system gathers images from the robot on a remote solar system planet or moon.

The TV is not an easy find in Taiwan, since the country has moved from analog to digital cable and wireless stations no longer exist. Analog TVs are becoming more scarce as they are no longer made in Taiwan. So this "analog and digital" TV with multiple capability was a real find!

The Taiwan-made Poptron 5.6-inch TFT-LCD TV/Monitor, model PRVC-010, runs either in a car from the cigarette lighter adapter or a wall power supply. It receives UHF/VHF bands and American channels. It includes a whip antenna, remote, and a good array of plug in capability for AV video in and out, power, external antenna, earphone, band selector, etc. The AV is in standard NTSC composite 1v pp format. It includes a swivel mounting base stand. Controls include brightness, color, volume, on/off, and channel up down.

Uses include direct wireless reception from a Parallax Propeller chip on TV USA channel 3 for programming and a remote operations channel for telemetry. It can also direct connect by NTSC AV from a Propeller board, for programming the chip. Used with a receiver, it can display images from a miniature wireless camera and serve as a scientific monitor in a laboratory or a base station for interplanetary operations.

LINKS
http://poptron.en.ec21.com/LCD_TV--409079_409080.html