00100	  		HARDWARE
00200	-1  HARDWARE PEAK DETECTOR FOR LASER EXPT.  TWO SETS OF 3 BUFFERS.
00300	0  DRAWINGS ARM,TTL I/O BUS,DAC TARGET CONTROL, TURNTABLE CONTROL
00400		TURRET CONTROL,LASER MIRROR CONTROLLER
00500		GET 1 MONTH OF ELECTRONIC DRAFTSMAN FROM JOB SHOP
00600	1	TV
00700	2	FORCE-SENSING
00800	3	MOD FOR LASER EXPT
00900	4	MOVE LASER AND BEAM SWITCHYARD
01000	5	NEW ARM ASSEMBLY
01100	6	NEW ARM SWITCH
01200	7	SEPARATE ELECTRONICS NEW ARM
01300		CLOSED-LOOP, GAIN AND VELOCITY SPECIFIED BY COMPUTER
01400		VELOCITY CONTROL LOOP
01500		MAKE SURE THAT THIS CAN BENEFIT COLLISION REFLEX
01600	8	DEBUG A/D AND POTS FOR ARM
01700		SEPARATE 14 BIT A/D?
01800	9	DEBUG TV DIGITIZER AGAIN
01900	10	NEW HAND W/ REDUNDANT MOTIONS
02000		IMPROVED VERSION
02100	11	SHAFT ENCODERS
02200	12	NEW TOUCH SENSORS
02300	13	TOUCH INTERRUPT
02400	14	5 FINGER HAND 
02500	15	PDP-6 TTL I/O BUS
02600		PDP-6 INTERRUPTS
02700	16	UNDERFLOW MOD FOR PDP-10
02800	17	TOOL HOLDER
02900	18	TACHS ON JOINTS
03000	19	FORCE SENSING ON OTHER JOINTS
03100	21	NEW A/D FOR TV
03200	
03300	22	QUAM ARITHMETIC BOX
03400		NOT PROPERLY IN OUR DOMAIN
03500	23	panel of motor drivers of different power
03600		as standard interface with mechanical devices.
03700	
03800	
03900	1.  construction algorithms (simple)
04000		as Hitachi
04100	    arches and hard things
04200	2.  assemblies
04300	3.  touch and force
04400	    hardware queue
04500	4.  color constancy
04600	5.  laser for hand/eye
04700	6.  world model for curved objectx
04800		manipulation
04900	7. avoidance
05000	8. retrieval of visual memory
05100	
05200	
     

00100	How can we improve the tv input chain?  
00200		input more bits
00300			video buffer
00400			scan at half the rate,same bandwidth
00500			digitize 7 bits, take lower and upper 4 bits in two passes
00600		improve tv signal
00700			higher signal/noise
00800				improve preamp
00900				improve tube current
01000				filter
01100			use available signal/noise over better range
01200	Any reasonable way to get  in  more  bits  requires  a  7  or  8  bit
01300	digitizer.  A buffer memory is a convenient thing to use.  I would be
01400	happy to slow down the camera by a  factor  of  two  or  four  (where
01500	resolution  is needed). The primary reason for wanting a video buffer
01600	is for 3 color display, which  is  not  of  pressing  importance  for
01700	vision.   For  display, we could again slow down the scan by a factor
01800	of 3 to 6, provided persistence were adequate.
01900	
02000	What intensity resolution can we expect from the camera?  We can  get
02100	about  1000na  signal/2  na  noise.   Thus we have about 500/1 range.
02200	These are distributed in a linear scale.  At high light  values,  the
02300	s/n ratio is quite high.  We don't need all 500 levels.  To quantize,
02400	we would like a linear scale at low light values (up to 32/1)  and  a
02500	log  scale  beyond that. That is about 32xlog(17)+32=160 levels.  The
02600	mods suggested below should improve signal/noise by about a factor  7
02700	(now about 70/1).  The signal/noise ratio is low at low light levels;
02800	we have suggested controlling light levels so that when  we  want  to
02900	peer  into  the  dark, we can let in more light.  The signal/noise in
03000	the dim areas will then be adequate, but the  bright  areas  will  be
03100	driven  far beyond saturation.  Thus, we need a tube which can handle
03200	large light overloads  without  affecting  the  tube  or  the  image.
03300	Blooming  is  the  usual  symptom  even  for tubes which don't damage
03400	easily.  One technique to control blooming is the anti-comet-tail gun
03500	(Philips).   This  requires  mods  to  change  gun  focus on flyback.
03600	Silicon vidicons  with  controlled  low  blooming  are  available  as
03700	special items.   We have been told we can get one at a small premium.
03800	A little blooming is probably tolerable.  This is because we need  to
03900	increase light only for dark areas.  If they are next to a highlight,
04000	the contrast is adequate without increase light.  So a small blooming
04100	of the highlight does not hurt.
04200	
04300	The silicon vidicon has a possible problem whose magnitude we have no
04400	data on.  A few defects can be corrected for.  Any smooth shading can
04500	be  corrected  for.   Pattern  noise  which  is  not smooth (salt and
04600	pepper) must be less than a few percent.  We are  investigating  this
04700	in contact with Philips Labs.
04800	
04900	Besides changing the tube, we can improve the preamp and improve
05000	the filtering.  Phase compensated filters have better transient
05100	response (less ringing) than uncompensated filters.  These are
05200	the easiest solution.  A delay line with multiple taps into an
05300	integrator with t/n integration time is the most simple of the
05400	time domain schemes we have considered.  Clearly, the time domain
05500	and not the frequency domain is of interest to us.  Most of the
05600	standard filter discussions center on frequency domain and introduce
05700	bad things into the time domain.
05800	
05900	Selection of an a/d is not complete.  We need 100 nsec sample time
06000	if we are to speed up to 500 samples/line.  There is an advantage
06100	in getting all the samples on one sweep, in that it requires less
06200	precision in the timing for interleaving; the requirement now is that
06300	the timing must be good to 1/500 to interleave.  The full horizontal
06400	resolution is about 533 and vertical about 400 with 50% MTF.  Clearly
06500	we want 7 or 8 bits.  We also want a reliable device.  The Computer
06600	Labs a/d has been around and we have very good references on it.  The
06700	Intercomputer Electronics a/d we have some doubts about because of
06705	their performance with the d/a which we bought from them.  The other
06710	two devices were not ready when we asked last, and we would like to
06715	get detailed user references on them before we would be content.
06720	
06800	camera interface
06900		a/d 						$3k to $6k
07000			50usec/100nsec/sample = 500 samples/line
07100			Phoenix $3800 8 bits 10 Mhz
07200				$2500 6 bits 10 Mhz
07300			
07400			Datel	$2500 8 bits 10 Mhz
07500			Computer Labs $5600 8 bits 10 Mhz
07600			Intercomputer Electronics  $7350 7 bits 10 Mhz
07700		buffer memory and display 8x256x333x3=2.05Mbits
07800							.8cents	$32k
07900		filters				$.5k
08000			delay line, multi-tap, 10 ns integrator
08100		  or 	phase-compensated filter
08200	
08300		log amplifier			$.2k
08400		silicon vidicon for Cohu	$1.5k
08500		update Cohu			$1k
08600			stabilize deflection system
08700			new preamp
08800			brakes
08900			iris control
09000	
09100	
     

00100	
00200		8 BIT DIGITIZER
00300	CODING
00400	HARDWARE
00500		3 BIT REGISTER RTL DEC CARD
00600		8 BIT SCALER TTL
00700			WITH OFFSET SUPPLY, OR LEVEL CONVERTERS ($49 8 BITS)
00800		TTL LEVELS?
00900		BINARY/GRAY?
01000	FILTERING, SAMPLE/HOLD
01100	
01200	SOFTWARE
01300	
01400	QUESTIONS
01500		MATCH TIMING IN TWO DIGITIZERS
01600		TTL SWITCHING NOISE
01700		SEPARATE THE TWO DEVICES, OLD DIGITIZER AND NEW
01800			USE SPARE SHIFT REGISTER