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ge loose chain to transfer force and adjust for misalignments, the gears mesh directly with each other. Examples of gearboxes can be found on the transmission in a car, the timing mechanism in a grandfather clock, and the paperfeed of your printer.Power suppliesPower supplies are generally provided by two types of battery. Primary batteries are used once and then discarded。 secondary batteries operate from a (mostly) reversible chemical reaction and can be recharged several times. Primary batteries have higher density and a lower selfdischarge rate. Secondary (rechargeable) batteries have less energy than primary batteries, but can be recharged up to a thousand times depending on their chemistry and environment. Typically the first use of a rechargeable battery gives 4 hours of continuous operation in an application or robot. SensorsRobots react according to a basic temporal measurement, requiring different kinds of sensors. In most systems a sense of time is builtin through the circuits and programming. For this to be productive in practice, a robot has to have perceptual hardware and software, which updates quickly. Regardless of sensor hardware or software, sensing and sensors can be thought of as interacting with external events (in other words, the outside world). The sensor measures some attribute of the world. The term transducer is often used interchangeably with sensor. A transducer is the mechanism, or element, of the sensor that transforms the energy associated with what is being measured into another form of energy. A sensor receives energy and transmits a signal to a display or puter. Sensors use transducers to change the input signal (sound, light, pressure, temperature, etc.) into an analog or digital form capable of being used by a robot. Microcontroller systemsMicrocontrollers (MCUs) are intelligent electronic devices used inside robots. They deliver functions similar to those performed by a microprocessor (central processing unit, or CPU) inside a personal puter. MCUs are slower and can address less memory than CPUs, but are designed for realworld control problems. One of the major differences between CPUs and MCUs is the number of external ponents needed to operate them. MCUs can often run with zero external parts, and typically need only an external crystal or oscillator. Utilities and toolsROBOOP (A robotics object oriented package in C++): This package is an objectoriented toolbox in C++ for robotics simulation. Technical references and downloads are provided in the Resources. CORBA: A realtime munications and object request broker software package for e