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Boston Dynamics made a music video featuring their BigDog Robotic Mule. You’ll see clips of various stages of the robot’s development and testing set to the tune of “Let the Big Dog Eat” performed by Alex Taylor. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Previously at Neatorama: BigDog in 2006.
Still funnier: The BigDog beta version.
Handroid is a new robotic hand that has many potential applications including handling dangerous materials and prosthetic limbs. Is it me or is this arm going to come back attached to an Austrian accented robot looking for John Connor?
If you’ve never thought about describing a robotic limb as sleek and sexy then you’ve never met Handroid. The latest production of Japan-based ITK, Handroid is a five fingered robot hand that moves smoothly using cables attached to motors in the forearm rather than bulky servos embedded in each digit. That design allows Handroid to be lightweight (just 740g) as well as move in a decidedly human manner. Currently, Handroid is remotely operated using a glove, allowing you to flex each robot finger as easily as you do your own.
A robot that can learn, think and act for itself might make some people lose sleep over the possibility of a Terminator-esque robotic revolution, but scientists in Japan feel that this advancement in the field of robotics is a good thing, and may revolutionize how our mechanized workforces handle the tasks they’re designed to perform . Watch as this robot figures out how to do something it was never taught to do-pour a glass of ice water. Utterly fascinating to watch? Perhaps not, but this leap forward in artificial intelligence means science fiction is rapidly becoming science fact. Link -via Wired
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Canadian robot enthusiast DJ Sures built a working Wall-E! He started with a Wall-E toy, but replaced the works inside.
Wall-E is built around an EZ-B Bluetooth Robot controller. All the software functions are handled with the complementary EZ-builder software. All this isn’t revolutionary – our Lego Mindstorms RCX from 1998 could handle object tracking with the Lego camera. Wall-E has 5 servos inside of him as well as an eBay 2.4 GHz wireless camera.
See a video of Wall-E in action at Hack-a-Day. Link -via The Daily What Geek
While robots have thus far have been inspired by human forms, but a new trend in robotics is pushing robot design toward the shape of animals. And this isn’t just that robotic dog that was popular a few years ago; these robots will serve a functional purpose in the new world of “zoobotics.”
Humanoid robots and gadget-y autonomous machines can perform lots of tasks pretty admirably. But when you have a specific need, you need a specifically-equipped robot — which can mean making modifications to existing robot archetypes, or building a specialized ‘bot designed for a sole purpose. Welcome to the age of zoobotics, in which robots are inspired not by people, or restrained by technology like in the early days of robotics. Instead, zoobotics is animal-inspired.
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Engineers from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics in Sydney are working on an autopilot system for gliders that senses thermals and adjusts its course, utilizing the thermal currents to stay aloft. Couple that ability with the technique of dynamic soaring, where the glider flies between high and lower speed air currents to keep it aloft when thermals aren’t readily available, and perpetual flight might become a reality sooner than we ever could have imagined.
If you have ever seen a really good pool player, you may have thought “wow that guy hits the ball with robotic accuracy.” Well now thanks to some researchers in Germany the guy at the pool hall might actually be a robot. Watch video of the pool playing robot in action.
Thomas Nierhoff, from the Institute of Automatic Control Engineering at the Technical University of Munchen in Germany, programmed a two armed robot to shoot billiards…and to do it well. The bot, with seven degrees of freedom in each arm, was able to sink easier shots with up to 80% success…
Fans of science fiction master Isaac Asimov’s classic Foundation Series (or “I, Robot”) are familiar with his “Three Laws of Robotics.”
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
But as we get closer to having actual artificially intelligent robots, would these laws really work or even be practical?
The Three Laws were a fail-safe built into robots in Asimov’s fiction. These laws, which robots had to obey, protected humans from being hurt and made robots obedient. This concept helped form the real world belief among robotics engineers that they could create intelligent machines that would coexist peacefully with humanity.
Joe Romano, a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, modified a robot to sense objects and pick them up without either crushing or dropping them:
This information has already been used to allow the robot to quickly stop after contact before damaging itself or the environment, naturally pass objects to a person, or detect when an object has been set down on a tabletop.
The goal of this work was to allow the robot to understand the sensory information that arises from contact with the environment, intelligently reason about what is happening in the world, and decide what the appropriate robot response should be. Using this tactile approach, the PR2 can delicately grasp a wide range of unknown objects, such as raw fruit, eggs, and heavy liquid-filled containers, all without crushing or dropping them. The PR2 can also quickly detect contacts between its arms and objects in the world, as well as contact between hand-held objects and the world.
Gimme is a robot/sculpture designed by Chris Eckert that follows people around, asking for money:
My newest art machine, Gimme is an automated panhandler that follows a viewer (or multiple viewers) around the room while relentlessly requesting donations.
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have developed an artificial form of skin. It might be used in the future to give robots or people with prosthetic limbs the ability to feel:
The Berkeley group’s synthetic skin can either be transferred to another material like a plastic or glass by either directly transferring it over from a flat substrate which is then “rubbed” onto a polymer film made of polyamide. It can also be “rolled” onto the surface using a device that works much like a lint roller in reverse; the fibers are deposited to a sticky surface rather than picked up.
The e-skin can detect pressure in the range from 0 to 15 kilopascals, or similar to the pressure needed to perform normal daily tasks. In other words, when your cyber-being goes to clean the wine glasses from last night’s party, it won’t break them, and when your robot goes to make you a sandwich, it won’t flatten it to the size of your silicon microprocessor.
Link via Geekologie | Image: Paramount
Researchers at the Human-Robot Interaction Center of Saitama University in Japan have developed a wheelchair that tracks and follows ambulatory companions. Sensors gauge the distance and direction of a walking person’s shoulders and moves the chair so that it keeps close. When sensors detect a crowded area, it moves behind the walking companion to avoid blocking the paths of other pedestrians. It’s hoped that this design will help ease the workload of people providing care for wheelchair users.
via GearFuse | University Website
If you were hoping that, after the Robopocalypse, you could earn your soylent green by flipping pancakes for our robot overlords, you’re out of luck. Human researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology have taught a robot how to do it. No, they didn’t refine it’s programming; the robot learned how to complete the task:
The video shows a Barrett WAM 7 DOFs manipulator learning to flip pancakes by reinforcement learning. The motion is encoded in a mixture of basis force fields through an extension of Dynamic Movement Primitives (DMP) that represents the synergies across the different variables through stiffness matrices. An Inverse Dynamics controller with variable stiffness is used for reproduction.
The skill is first demonstrated via kinesthetic teaching, and then refined by Policy learning by Weighting Exploration with the Returns (PoWER) algorithm. Compared to policy-gradient approaches, the reward is treated as a pseudo-probability, which allows Reinforcement Learning to use probabilistic estimation methods such as Expectation-Maximization (EM).
After fifty attempts, the robot became a competent pancake-flipper.
via Popular Science | Previously: Rapid Pancake Sorting Robot
Ranger, a robot built by researchers at Cornell University, broke a walking record for an untethered robot when it walked more than fourteen miles in eleven hours without recharging:
Guided by students with a remote control, Ranger navigated 108.5 times around the Barton Hall indoor track, about 212 meters per lap, and made about 70,000 steps before it had to stop and recharge. The 14.3-mile record beats the former world record set by Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, which had claimed the record at 12.8 miles
What I find most impressive is the robot’s remarkably human appearance, as you can see from the photo provided by Cornell University.
Link via Geekologie
The Japanese toy company Tenyo made this robotic butterfly that looks and acts like the real thing. It was on display at the Tokyo Toy Show this year.
Artist and engineer Joan Vallvé made robots that can play the violin and the glockenspiel. They’re on exhibit this weekend at Sónar, a music festival in Barcelona:
The “Violí MIDI” and “Metal·lòfon MIDI” are part of the project to design and construct an automated musical environment. This environment must be able to play live, and that is why it has been designed to be easy to handle, reliable, stable and completely portable. The roots of the project lie in a reflection on the use of robotics as a tool for musical composition and performance. The media and surroundings influence and determine the artist’s creative process. A new environment, a new language and a new interface will produce new creations and new musical styles. This is therefore a new format which calls into question the limits of the concepts of singer-songwriter or musical group.
Robotic instruments have so far been polyphonic percussion instruments and melodic instruments using plucked strings. Other musical timbres, registers and functions have still to be explored. On the horizon of the project is the creation of an interface adapted to the characteristics of each instrument, making the automated musical ensemble into an automated musical environment. The project is also based on constructive simplicity, the recycling of components and free hardware (Arduino), as well as the MIDI protocol due to its flexibility.
Link via Make | Vallvé’s Website
The Chiba Institute of Technology, a private university in Japan, makes awesome robots. No, not giant missile-firing mecha robots yet. Those are still in early development. But Serkan Toto of CrunchGear rounded up a few videos of the university’s more completed projects, including the above Hyperion 4. This robot is designed to move individuals over uneven terrain.
A team led by Steve Hassenplug built programmable chess piece robots using LEGO’s Mindstorms system. They used $30,000 worth of LEGO pieces to construct this chessboard, which appears to be about fifteen feet across. The robots are programmed to get out of each other’s way and leave the board when they’ve been captured. The video above shows them as flat objects. But Hassenplug also built animatronic pieces, and you can see them at the link.
Link via Geekosystem | Previously: Star Wars Chess Made Made from LEGOs
Maurizio Porfiri, a professor at NYU Polytechnic University, is designing robotic fish that he hopes will be able to infiltrate schools of fish and lead them away from dangers, such as water turbines. He thinks that certain movements by fish establish them as school leaders and that he can mechanically duplicate these behaviors:
Since fish of different sizes and species school together, Porfiri correctly hypothesized that they would not only accept a robotic peer that was larger than themselves but also welcome it as a group leader.
To engage live shoal mates, Porfiri wanted to give the robot other fish qualities. Foremost, it would have to swim silently, and its locomotion would have to closely match that of live fish. To achieve these goals, he employed ionic polymers that swell and shrink in response to electrical stimulation from a battery, propelling the robot.
Link via Popular Science | Photo: NYU-Polytechnic | Previously on Neatorama: RoboSalmon Spies on Fish
Robotics firm Anybots proposes that its robotic avatars could replace the physical presence of people at far away locations. In the future, you’ll be able to attend workplace conferences and tour facilities remotely by controlling one of their robots:
You log in through the Internet and after a few keystrokes the ‘bot, called QB, comes alive, leaving its charging station and ready to meet, brainstorm, greet visitors or just generally creep people out.[...]
The robot avatar isn’t actually meant to replace videoconferencing, but the idea is to be able to participate in more than just meetings. With QB, you can observe a workplace, participate more directly in tasks, or just be there for those casual conversations — all from thousands of miles away.
Three years ago, Alex wrote about another invention of the Anybots company: the world’s first dynamically balanced robot.
Link | Image: Anybots
A robot called the I-Fairy presided over the wedding of Satoko Inoue and Tomohiro Shibata in Tokyo:
The nuptials at this ceremony were led by “I-Fairy,” a 4-foot (1.5-meter) tall seated robot with flashing eyes and plastic pigtails. Sunday’s wedding was the first time a marriage had been led by a robot, according to manufacturer Kokoro Co.
“Please lift the bride’s veil,” the robot said in a tinny voice, waving its arms in the air as the newlyweds kissed in front of about 50 guests.
The wedding took place at a restaurant in Hibiya Park in central Tokyo, where the I-Fairy wore a wreath of flowers and directed a rooftop ceremony. Wires led out from beneath it to a black curtain a few feet (meters) away, where a man crouched and clicked commands into a computer.
Link via The Presurfer
Previously: Man Weds Virtual Girlfriend
The Balancing Cube is a robot that can remain balanced on any one of its corners, even when pushed. Six motorized weights quickly move to keep the robot’s weight balanced whenever it is in danger of falling over:
The Balancing Cube is an example of a distributed control platform. Each module….is a self-contained unit with a computer, battery, motor, and inertial sensors (a tri-axis accelerometer and tri-axis rate gyro). So instead of relying on a centralized controller, the modules share their inertial data through a bus network. Then each module combines its own data with the shared data to determine the orientation of the cube — and command its motor accordingly.
The RoboCup is an annual worldwide competition of soccer-playing robots. It’s a challenge that encourages roboticists to create intelligent, fast, and accurate machines. The above video is from a demonstration by Japan’s national team.
via CrunchGear | Official Website
Researchers at Tohoku Gakuin University in Japan have developed a robot that stays balanced on a ball, even when it’s pushed or heavy loads are placed on top.
Three independent rotors spin to keep the robot’s balance atop the ball, and it can move in any direction, using an “omniwheel” akin to the one under Honda’s U3-X.[...]
Dynamically stable robots like this one are better than static bots, which use three or more wheels, researchers say.
They can have smaller bases, allowing them to navigate tight corners. And their omnidirectional abilities allow them to quickly go in any direction without having to turn around.
via Popular Science
(YouTube Link)
Rob Klinkey built this remote-controlled snowplow. Roboplow has a 50 inch blade, six powered wheels, and 660 amps of power. The blade can be pneumatically controlled in four directions. Lights and a mounted camera allow the Roboplow to be driven while out of sight and at night.
via Make
Engineers at Kagawa University in Japan are developing a talking robotic version of the human mouth:
To enable the robot’s speaking abilities, engineers at Japan’s Kagawa University used an air pump, artificial vocal chords, a resonance tube, a nasal cavity, and a microphone attached to a sound analyzer as substitutes for human vocal organs. The robot not only talks, but it uses a learning algorithm to mimic the sounds of human speech. By inputting the voices of both hearing-impaired and non-hearing-impaired people into the microphone, researchers were able to plot the differences in sound on a map. During speech training, the robot “listens” to the subjects talk while comparing their pronunciation to that of subjects who are not hearing-impaired. The robot then generates a personalized visualization that allows subjects to adjust their pronunciation according to the target points on the speech map.
This video has already been used to create mashups currently circulating YouTube. In the links, you’ll find one that presents the robot mouth as Eduard Khil, the Trolololo guy.
Link | Robot Mouth as Trolololo Guy
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Cubestormer is a robotic device from The Lego Mindstorms that can solve any randomly mixed up 3x3x3 cube in under 12 seconds.
via UniqueDaily
Monica Anderson made this robot, which she calls the Icosatetraped. It walks on twenty-four legs made of soft tubing that extend under pneumatic pressure. The robot moves about one meter per minute. The video shows a brief demonstration of the robot in motion, and then provides a photo slideshow of the design and construction process.
via Make | Maker’s Blog
Lockheed Martin’s Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC) is an actuated exoskeleton that helps a soldier carry up to 200 pounds of weight on its frame. It senses the direction that the user wants to move, and then moves in it. In the links, you find a video from the company showing the HULC in action.
Link |YouTube Video | Image: Lockheed Martin
We’ve previously posted about a ceiling-walking robot developed by the robotics lab at Ben Gurion University. Here are four more ingenious robot designs developed at that same laboratory, each of which scales walls using different mobility techniques:
First, a magnetic climber that has compliant magnetic wheels and is capable to climb on ferromagnetic surfaces. This robot can be used for inspection of ship hull or bridges. Second, is a Snail inspired wall climbing robot capable of climbing on non metallic surfaces using hot melt glue. The robot secretes the adhesive at the front and peels off the track from the wall at the bottom leaving a trail behind just like the snail does. Third, is a robot that uses sticky wheels in order to attach itself to the wall. It simply has 3Ms sticky tape on the wheels. It can climb on smooth surfaces like glass. Fourth, is a four legged wall climbing robot for climbing on rough surfaces. It has 12 claws made of fishing hooks mounted on each footpad, and it climbs like cat or other rodents.
via Gizmodo
