GCtronic
GCtronic is active in the fields of electronics, robotics, mechatronics and computer science. It proposes services and consulting for development of projects, products, software and system integration. The company sells and supports its own products as well as third party ones.
The main expertise is project development and integration; from the global problem to the final solution!
NEWS
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October 2024. The elisa-3 robots are really interesting for the swarm research community. Here is a nice video that shows the usage of local communication together with a central computer exchanging data with 37 elisa-3 robots simultaneously. For more information refer to the wiki.
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Mai 2024. An OLED display is now available on the shop for the Pi-puck extension. You can show useful information about the robot state or display some nice graphics. For more information refer to the wiki.
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March 2024. GCtronic continues to support its users: recently we extended the examples available for the elisa-3 robot, if you are interested have a look at the wiki.
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January 2024. GCtronic developed a new Pi-Puck module for indoor positioning system based on Ultra Wide Band. Have a look at the video. For more information refer to the wiki or contact us. The Ultra Wide Band extension for Pi-Puck is available in the shop.
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December 2023. The GCtronic team worked on releasing an updated system that includes ROS2. You can have access to the new system image from the wiki.
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November 2023. Elisa-3 is our smallest educational mobile robot. Just 5 cm in diameter. During the last months we produced a new batch for several requests. Now we have a new assembly with magnetic wheels so that the robot can move also on vertical walls. For more information visit the wiki.
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August 2023. Python is a popular programming language supported by a large and comprehensive standard library. A Python library is now available for the elisa-3 robot, you can start playing with it following the guide in the wiki.
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June 2023. Under the supervision of Prof. Mondada at EPFL, 68 groups of students worked in the last months on "Micro-projects" using the robot e-puck2. The EPFL course is called “Embedded Systems and Robotics”.
Winner of the GCtronic Award is the project "robot espion" by students Paul Lanfermann et Jérémie Moullet. Congratulations. See video.
A special mention also to an original automatic parking concept by students Luca Sidoti Pinto and Victor Van den Heuvel, see video.
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March 2023. GCtronic just launched a new production of the range and bearing extension, that is especially useful for swarm research. We implemented also some firmware optimizations in the e-puck2 firmware for best performances with this extension; a new release of the e-puck2 firmware is available here.
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December 2022. Our elves are at work to satisfy the demand of our robots: 500 new e-puck2 robots, 100 new elisa-3 robots and 150 new Pi-puck extensions :-)
GCtronic wish you Marry Christmas and a Happy New Year. |
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May 2022. The Pi-puck extension is now compatible also with the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. You can expect a 5 times faster overall speed. |
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December 2021. GCtronic made some efforts for maintaining available the range and bearing extension that is important especially for the swarm research community. Here is a nice video that shows the usage of the module with 28 e-puck2 robots. GCtronic wish you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. |
| November 2021. GCtronic updated the list of publications related to the e-puck robot with more than 180 publications. This confirms that the e-puck robot is one of the best platform available for robotics research and that there is a big and active community around the e-puck. You can find the complete list here. Please feel free to contact us if you have a publication missing in this list. |
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October 2021. GCtronic is involved in third party integration and innovation projects. The last example is the new electronics controlling the wonderful competition pistol of Morini. Apart controlling the shooting, the embedded accelerometer and gyroscope give useful insight to the user via Bluetooth on the smartphone App. See the video. |
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August 2021. An example on how to form a mesh network with the e-puck2 robots is available in the wiki. Some of the benefits of a mesh newtork are: self-configuring, self-healing and great coverage. A video of the example is also available if you want to see the robots in action. |
| June 2021. Automotive research is an hot topic nowadays and the e-puck2 robot can help simulating and testing new algorithms in this field...here is an initial project (see video) developed by Loris Tracchia, an intern at GCtronic, in which some robots navigate a city trying to handle the crossroads using only the onboard sensors. The project will continue by improving the software side, but also by integrating new hardware (e.g. an UWB module simulating a GPS). Feel free to contact us if you want to collaborate on this project. |
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May 2021. Here are the best semester projects with e-puck2 robot developed at EPFL. e-puck2 becomes a 4-color wall plotter by Vincent Nguyen, have a look at these videos video1, video2 and repository. e-puck2 balancing robot by Josquin Tille and Vincent Philippoz, have a look at the video and repository. Plotbot by Théo Gieruc and Guillaume Krafft, have a look at the video and repository. And a last video that shows how to have fun with the e-puck2 robot ;-) |
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June 2020. And the winner is...this year the GCtronic prize goes to Gabriel Maquignaz and Maxime Poffet for their semester project with e-puck2 robot at EPFL: the robot learns to associate a dance pattern with a sound track and then it reproduces the dance when it is listening to that sound track, have a look at the video. A special mention is given also to Pierre Oppliger and WIlliam Galand for recognizing a ball independently of light conditions with e-puck2 robot, have a look at the video video. |
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May 2020. We implemented some basic concepts of local infection transmission and proximity tracing exploiting Bluetooth 4 on our robot e-puck2. The goal is to provide an open source framework and to visualize the positive effect of proximity tracing APP within a pandemic such as COVID-19. Have a look at the video and for more information refer to the wiki. |
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February 2020. Robots on the water! We announce our new robot "boat-bot", a small catamaran for research on any water surface. Now you have a good reason to go to the beach....
For more information have a look at the product page. |
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January 2020. EzyMark now with a very visible windsock. Production is on going and first unit sold and delivered.
For more information visit https://www.ezymark.net. |
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December 2019. The e-puck2 robot is now equipped with infrared local communication to let the users develop their swarm algorithms. For more information have a look at wiki. |
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November 2019. Some successful tests were performed on tracking the e-puck2 robots through a color marker placed on top of them. A standard USB camera was used. For more information have a look at wiki. |
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August 2019. Robots on the water! GCtronic is developing a new robotic platform floating on the water. Used first as a sailing mark, is also a great research platform to address fundamental questions on the 2/3 of the planet surface. For more information refer to www.ezymark.net. |
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June 2019. Charging wall for Pi-puck is available. Now the robot can autonomously charge itself for an endless fun. You can order the wall charger from the shop. |
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May 2019. Omnivision V3 is available. Together with the new Pi-puck, now the Omnivision extension is more powerful but cheaper! For more information refer to the wiki |
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April 2019. Pi-puck is available. join the community of Raspberry Pi with the richness of the e-puck 2 sensors and actuators. For more information refer to the wiki |
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March 2019. First 500 e-puck 2 delivered to happy users. New production batch is launched. |
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February 2019. GCtronic will present the new Pi-puck extension and many others products at the European Robotics Forum in Bucharest, 20-22 March 2019. See you soon. |
| December 2018. Good news on the e-puck2 software side: the Bluetooth and WiFi branches of the main microcontroller firmware were merged. Also the wiki is expanding with many useful informations for the users. |
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September 2018. GCtronic will present the new e-puck2 at the conferences IROS in Madrid 2-4 Oct, and DARS in Boulder 15-17 Oct. At the exhibitions you will be able to see and touch all the robots of GCtronic. And a new e-puck extension will be unveiled... |
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July 2018. The e-puck2 software development is continuously expanding the robot features: now the WiFi communication is supported, you can control and receive sensors data through WiFi. For more information refer to the wiki. |
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April 2018. The e-puck2 is going well, more than 100 robots are already employed on the field. Hurry up because the launching price of 700.- is valid until the end of April, then a single robot will cost 850.- and starting from a set of 3 robots the price will be 800.- each. |
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January 2018. The new version of the widely used e-puck robot is here...the e-puck2 has same shape and mechanics but a more powerful controller, USB, Time of Flight sensor and WiFi to name a few. For more information visit the e-puck2 robot product page. It was designed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in collaboration with GCtronic. |
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