PC/104 Consortium Announces Design Contest Winners

An anonymous reader writes "The PC/104 Consortium announced the winners of its annual design contest today at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Francisco. One winner was an autonomous model helicopter developed by a team from the University of Southern California (USC). From the writeup: 'Not only can AVATAR fly without human intervention, it can also perform GPS waypoint navigation, autonomous vision-based landing and autonomous sensor-based take-off, and image processing from three Firewire cameras.' Check out the cool photos and other details!"

y2k problem?

[njchick]

pc104? Maybe they meant pc2004?

How long..

[n3m6]

How long before the april fool jokes start coming in?

PC/104

[Otter]

First thought: they need a consortium to make 104 key keyboards? Is there a PC/105 consortium also?

Second thought: what is the difference between 104 and 105 key keyboards, anyway? Whenever I do a Linux install, I never have the energy to count them (and which ones do you count?). I just go with 105, figuring it must be better.

Third thought: here's a link to the PC/104 site [pc104.org]. I still don't understand what it is, exactly, but then I'm just another person holding forth here on computing despite knowing nothing about non-desktop systems.

Re:PC/104

[Xiver]

I'm 100% sure that PC/104 does not refer to a type of keyboard. This [slashdot.org] comment kind of lays it out.

Explanation: what is PC/104?

[Jim Morash]

PC/104 [pc104.org] is a standard for embedded computers, based on ISA (and now PCI with PC/104 Plus). There are many companies that offer PC/104 compatible products, both single board computers (SBCs) and add-on modules for GPS, wireless networking, all kinds of digital or analog I/O, motor control, DSPs, etc. etc. The boards are a little over 3.5" square and vary in price, typically $200-$600, with processors from a 386 to a Pentium III. They are typically industrial-temperature qualified and shock-hardened, and used in many applications in robotics, avionics, factory automation and other places where small, harsh-environment computers are needed.

A.V.A.T.A.R.

[oDDmON oUT]

Skynet beta is here *now*!

What size bird is that?

[KyolFrilander]

That's a hefty looking chopper - any word on how big it is? Or is it just a perspective thing because of the ginormous landing skids?

Re:What size bird is that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just found the AVATAR's site [usc.edu] on Google. The heli chassis used is a Bergen Industrial Twin [bergenrc.com]. Looks like I was a bit off: 22 inches high (stock, the AVATAR's skids obviously add a few inches), 59 inches long, and 810mm (2.66 feet) long blades.

And apparently they're iBOT cameras, not Quickcams. Not that anyone cared.

More...

[wan-fu]

helicopter coolness [stanford.edu]

Re:More...

[krumms]

I didn't actually read that article, but I had a lot of fun racing the menu up and down the page.