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Robot submarine gliding across the Atlantic Ocean
An unmanned submersible operated by Rutgers University's Coastal Ocean Observation Laboratory (COOL) is "flying" -- underwater -- from New Jersey to Spain. The remote-controlled undersea glider will travel more than 3,800 miles, and will collect key scientific information on the temperature and salinity of the Atlantic Ocean.
"The big advantage is, it's totally unmanned," according to Conrad Lautenbacher, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which sponsors the submersible. "It's very efficient and can be used to obtain the same kind of data we gather from ships."
In general, sea gliders are Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) that use small changes in buoyancy in conjunction with wings to convert vertical motion to horizontal, and thereby propel themselves forward with very low power consumption. While not as fast as conventional AUVs with propulsion systems, gliders using buoyancy-based propulsion represent a significant increase in range and endurance compared to vehicles propelled by electric motor-driven propellers. The sea glider has a battery-powered data collection and satellite communication system. The U.S. Navy as well as NOAA have been developing such sea gliders for several years.
During its trans-Atlantic cruise the glider will periodically rise to the surface of the ocean to transmit data up to a satellite. But most of the time the COOL glider will travel at depths between 15 feet to 300 feet below the surface. The COOL researchers will share all collected oceanographic data with the Navy and other interested agencies. The lack of a propulsion system will aid in data collection, alleviating self-noise interference.
The Navy is also looking into glider-type AUVs -- which it calls UUVs for Unmanned Underwater Vehicles -- for several missions, primarily to undertake environmental measurements in areas where surface ships or aircraft (dropping sensors) cannot easily operate. And, of course, flotillas of such unmanned gliders would be much cheaper than manned research ships and craft.
The COOL-developed submersible is yellow, less than 8 feet long, and weighs about 130 pounds. Developed by Rutgers University, the craft will also provide the university with other important information, such as how long the craft’s batteries will last and systems reliability. Larger and more capable AUV/UUVs are being developed by the Navy under the auspices of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command’s systems center in San Diego and the Office of Naval Research.
According to the 2000 Program Guide to the U.S. Navy, the highest priority missions for Navy UUVs, presumably including gliders, are intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; mine countermeasures (i.e., locating and mapping mines); and anti-submarine warfare. Sea gliders could be very useful in collecting environmental information for ASW operations. An unmanned submersible operated by Rutgers University's Coastal Ocean Observation Laboratory (COOL) is "flying" -- underwater -- from... more -
Robot skateboarder
This is Plen, who seems to be able to roller skate and ice skate as well. So is this real? I thought the robot that could climb stairs was scary, now this one can humiliate you in the park. This is Plen, who seems to be able to roller skate and ice skate as well. So is this real? I thought the robot that could climb stairs... more
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Anti-immigration robot secures Britain's borders
Tens of thousands risk their lives to cross into Britain each year by clinging underneath trucks transported on ferries. The border agency has a robot dubbed "Hero" that is capable of ferreting out these stowaways using a combination of cameras and sensors. Tens of thousands risk their lives to cross into Britain each year by clinging underneath trucks transported on ferries. The border ag... more
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A Dinasaur that wanders round a museum in LA
This animatronic Dinosaur is surely the closest we're ever going to get to having a real one about, or at least I hope so.
Apparently it was fancy dress and this guy had a point to prove... This animatronic Dinosaur is surely the closest we're ever going to get to having a real one about, or at least I hope so. ... more -
Robot cyclist
A Japanese robotics company has developed 'Murata Boy' - a cycling robot that can move and balance on his own.
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Next generation robot warplanes
UK-headquartered arms globocorp BAE Systems has shown off a raft of new robotic concepts this week at the Farnborough Air Show. But the newest and biggest kid on the BAE droidplane block is the Mantis, a large and powerful twin-engined technology demonstrator project whose wraps came off on Monday for the ceremonial inking of an MoD contract.
In essence, it's a fairly normal unmanned aerial vehicle of the same general type as the well-known American Predator and Predator-B/Reaper. The exact capabilities and subsystems are being decided, but Mantis will have visible and infrared imaging, a ground-scanning radar, and in all probability a laser-dot pointer for precision guided munitions. The model here at Farnborough was shown with mockup smartbombs and "Brimstone" missiles attached, too (Brimstone is the Europeanised version of the successful Hellfire tankbuster, already employed on attack helicopters and Predators).
The Mantis has some special sauce not usually seen on current Predators and such - it will use onboard processing, allowing much less bandwidth to be used in downloading radar data. This potentially spares the British forces' pay-as-you-go PFI satcomms budget, and could be a popular feature. Likewise, the Mantis is intended to fly autonomously as much as possible, avoiding the severe pilot-manpower burdens associated with most of the present-day Predator fleet.
“As a company, we have not got drawn into the ‘me too’ group of unmanned air vehicles,” said BAE robocraft chief Mark Kane in a statement earlier this week. “We have skipped a generation and whereas most current UAVs are remotely piloted or have some automatic functions, ours are fully autonomous.”
This would seem about all the autonomy you actually want in current wars like Afghanistan or Iraq. Super-UAVs which can fly an entire mission without any communications back to a ground station might have some advantages in big wars against sophisticated enemies, but wouldn't need - and wouldn't be allowed to use - full autonomy above today's battlefields. In any case, by Wright's description, the Mantis in particular - unlike BAE's other MoD demonstrator, Taranis - isn't intended to be independent. Primarily a surveillance and recce platform, Mantis would lose most of its point if it never told anybody what it could see.
Asked what Mantis would bring to the party that wouldn't be available from other companies sooner and almost certainly cheaper, Wright said that a big advantage for Mantis would be "sovereignty", in that the machine's support and parts base would be British rather than under foreign control. But he was reluctant to say hand on heart that Mantis wouldn't incorporate any overseas kit or need any overseas backup, and understandably so - that would make it a very exceptional aircraft indeed. Just one of the candidate subsystems (the Selex Galileo PicoSAR radar being considered for Mantis) is at least partly Italian.
All in all, the Mantis does indeed look a bit like a "me too" system. BAE have seen the explosion in UAV use - especially by the military, but more and more in the civil sector - and they are determined to catch up with the leaders, ideally at the taxpayers' expense. Mantis has actually been under development for some time, and it seems plain that BAE would need to do it whether or not they had any seed money from the UK MoD. Even if that weren't the case, it's hard to see why the MoD would care - it is already flying Reapers, and would buy more right now if it had the money.
The MoD having recently stated that it can buy brand new Reapers for £10m a pop, it seems reasonable to suppose that actually the Mantis pricetag is being withheld so that people won't ask why we don't just buy X number of Reapers or Sky Warriors instead - or even, perhaps, Y number of desperately-necessary Chinook transport choppers, armoured vehicles or whatever. After all, there's a whole other government department in charge of business subsidies. UK-headquartered arms globocorp BAE Systems has shown off a raft of new robotic concepts this week at the Farnborough Air Show. But th... more -
Leonardo da Vinci's lost robot knight on display
Fairly recently in the study of Leonardo da Vinci, it was theorized and determined that he built robots. Famous roboticist Mark Rosheim submitted a paper with his proof to the Leonardo Society. . It was accepted and he was comissioned to recreate it for the BBC. It is designed to sit stand and move arms and uses two hand cranks, It has been displayed around the USA and is normally on display in San Diego Museum of Man.
Even Bill Gates referenced it in his article about robots in every home and Dan Brown (in Da Vinci Code) uses excerpts from Rosheims paper to describe a miniature version of this robot.
There are many photos at http://www.leonardoshands.com/artman2/publish/leonardo-...
Also check out video and research showing that Leonardo depicted Christ in Last Supper with a syndactyly (webbed) left hand on Current as well as at www.Leonardoshands.com Fairly recently in the study of Leonardo da Vinci, it was theorized and determined that he built robots. Famous roboticist Mark Roshe... more -
Shiny Vstone Blackox Robot
Full of hype in the robot world at the moment is the Vstone Blackox, which goes on sale in September and has 20 movable axis points allowing it a an impressive and natural-looking range of moves. Of course, with a pricetag of around £3,800 it'll probably be a while before I'll be able to get hold of one of these to replace my dancing penguin... Full of hype in the robot world at the moment is the Vstone Blackox, which goes on sale in September and has 20 movable axis points al... more
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Viral Video Film School: Fireworks
Brett's guided tour of the most ridiculous 4th of July videos on the web.
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Poorly equiped troops and loss of a son causes father to create bomb difusing robo...
Technology to protect troops is a subject uncomfortably close to home for Hart, who says the death of his son, Army Pvt. First Class John Hart, left him in "total devastation." Brian Hart can't forget the call he got from his son in Iraq a week before he was killed by a gunshot Oct. 18, 2003.
"He asked me to help him: `Get us body armor and vehicular armor,'" Brian Hart said. "He thought he'd be killed on the road in an unarmored Humvee. And a week to the day later, he was."
The Pentagon contract requires Black-I to supply three of its six-wheeled, electric-powered vehicles this year and provide support.
The military will test two units, while Boston's Logan airport will get one for bomb-disposal duties. If tests go well, soldiers in Iraq could be using the robots as soon as next year, Hart says.
His company also is trying to secure an additional $1.5 million in Pentagon funding next fiscal year. Technology to protect troops is a subject uncomfortably close to home for Hart, who says the death of his son, Army Pvt. First Class J... more -
Robot babies
The idea of a machine that could produce a copy of itself has intrigued some of the greatest minds in history. Rene Descartes heads a list of philosophers, mathematicians and physicists who have long pondered the potential of a self-replicating machine. As have writers of science fiction, who have been also quick to warn of the dangers of unleashing such a powerful technology upon the world. But for both sets of thinkers, the reality of a self-replicating machine has lain somewhere just beyond our reach.
Sitting in his office at the University of Bath, Dr Adrian Bowyer doesn't look like an evil mastermind. Bowyer is a quietly spoken, slightly podgy, twinkle-eyed 55-year-old senior lecturer at the school of mechanical engineering and inventor of the RepRap machine. Earlier this month at Cheltenham's Science Festival, Bowyer and New Zealand scientist Vik Oliver unveiled a RepRap that had the majority of its working parts "printed out" from an earlier prototype. Although the RepRap was first assembled in 2006, this was the first time a parent and child machine had appeared side by side.
Technically, the RepRap is a form of rapid prototyper, the kind used by designers and engineers to streamline everything from aircraft to hairdryers, but it's easier to think of it as a printer of three-dimensional objects. Essentially, the RepRap works like the desktop printer you might have at home, but instead of printing on paper, the RepRap makes hard copy in three dimensions out of plastic from models designed on a computer.
Even before you get into the benefits of self-replication, the RepRap is already an impressive achievement. Bowyer and an army of international helpers - all operating under an open-source license that lets them adapt and develop the blueprint collectively - have managed to scale down the cost of rapid prototypers from tens of thousands of pounds to around £250.
Bowyer describes his RepRap as "potentially an extremely powerful technology" that could "give everybody - ultimately - the ability to make virtually anything for themselves in return for being helped to reproduce". For the moment it makes crude plastic knick-knacks (sandals, coat hooks, door handles and fly-swatters), but it has the potential to develop into something that could make much more sophisticated artifacts, including the ability to lay its own circuitry.
The RepRap itself is a humble thing to see. It's small, little bigger in volume than a portable television, barely more than a frame assembled from long pieces of screw-grooved studding and a large number of plastic parts. At its heart is the all important extruder, which is poised to squeeze out a small film of molten plastic from a nozzle that is fed from a coil of white filament. It looks vaguely like a cut-price textile machine.
Bowyer sets the nozzle to work, producing a simple coathook. Line by line, layer upon layer, the RepRap begins its task. It is an agonizingly tedious process that will take it almost two hours to "print out" each small part. It will take hundreds of hours to make the parts for a "child" machine. Not that that should temper your enthusiasm. If you think back, the first digitised images took hours to process. Now, 20 years later, such things are commonplace, done in a flash on a mobile phone.
The RepRap needs to get much faster before it can even begin to realize its potential, but it is still early days for a device - even though it has been dreamt of since the dawn of the enlightenment - and Bowyer is not done yet. Soon, he plans to design a shredder for the machine, so old items created on the RepRap can be returned to granules of plastic to be reused. Think about it, he says: "You could shred your milk bottles and make a pair of sandals. What's more, when the child grows out of the shoes, you shred them, add another milk bottle, rescale the design and you have a new pair." If nothing else, the RepRap could be the ultimate recycling machine. The idea of a machine that could produce a copy of itself has intrigued some of the greatest minds in history. Rene Descartes heads a ... more -
The barman of the future
The world's first robotic barman has been unveiled at Selfridges with the help of Asahi beer. Not only can he pour beer he can reply politely to customers and stays calm under pressure. Although it took 200 hours to assemble him, the makers claim he is quicker than a human barman and has the arms of a gladiator. The world's first robotic barman has been unveiled at Selfridges with the help of Asahi beer. Not only can he pour beer he can reply p... more
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Creepy Japanese crawling robot
A performance artist from Japan has built a weird crawling robot that looks like an elderly businessman.
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Robo barman
Billed as the world's first robot barman, Mr Asahi pulls the crowds at London's Selfridges department store.
The robot, currently on tour for Asahi beer, promises to deliver service with a smile and no back chat. Japanese beer makers Asahi are expecting to sell their newest recruit for over 100,000 pounds or just over 198,000 US dollars. Billed as the world's first robot barman, Mr Asahi pulls the crowds at London's Selfridges department store. ... more -
Care-O-bot 3: Always at your service
Who doesn’t long for household help at times? Service robots will soon be able to relieve us of heavy, dirty, monotonous or irksome tasks. Research scientists have now presented a new generation of household robots, the “Care-O-bot® 3”.
The one-armed robot glides slowly to the kitchen table. With its three fingers, it carefully picks up the bottle of apple juice and puts it next to the glasses on the tray in front of it. Then it glides back into the lounge and serves the drinks to the guests. This is how artificial assistants might work in future.
Only 1.45 meters high, Care-O-bot® 3 is the prototype of a new generation of service robots designed to help humans in the household. The quick-to-learn assistant was developed by research scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart.
But how does the robot know where to find the items it needs? And what has been done to make sure the robot does not inadvertently touch a human with its arm? It is fitted with numerous sensors to prevent this from happening. Stereo-vision color cameras, laser scanners and a 3-D range camera enable Care-O-bot® 3 to register its surroundings in three dimensions in real time. If a person moves into the radius of its arm, it stops moving. Another feature of the small, flexible helper is that it can move in any direction.
“This is made possible by an omnidirectional platform with four separately steered and driven wheels,” explains Birgit Graf, who heads the domestic and personal service robotics group at IPA. “In this way, the robot can even pass safely through narrow places in an apartment.” The new Care-O-bot® has a highly flexible arm with seven degrees of freedom and a hand with three fingers. This allows it to pick up bottles, cups and similar objects and to operate machines. Force sensors prevent it from gripping too hard. The arm and the grippers were developed by Schunk.
A tray is mounted at the front of the robot, on which Care-O-Bot® can carry items such as the requested cup of coffee. Integrated in the tray is a touch screen via which the assistant can be controlled. “But the robot can also be directed by spoken commands. Unlike its predecessors, it can even recognize and respond to gestures,” explains Graf. Numerous household articles are stored in the robot’s databases.
It knows, for example, what a cup looks like and where to find it in the kitchen. It can also learn to recognize new objects. The user simply places the unfamiliar object in the robot’s hand so that it can gain a three-dimensional impression of the item. However, the new robot does not look like a human being. “We deliberately moved away from the existing, humanoid service robots when we designed Care-O-bot® 3,” stresses Care-O-bot-3 project manager Christopher Parlitz of IPA.
Source: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft Who doesn’t long for household help at times? Service robots will soon be able to relieve us of heavy, dirty, monotonous or irksome ta... more -
Robot evolution
Looking at the past, present and future of robotics.
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Robot Walker
Researchers at Waseda University in Japan have come up with a set of robot legs for people with limited mobility.
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Robot Fish
Meet the world's first self-guiding robot fish, which can move around using in-built senors.
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Robotic water snake
Definitely would not want to meet one of those while swimming in the ocean.
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