Robots24

Coming In An experimental bomb squad robot from 2001 shows off its dexterity. Photo by Randy Montoya Before sending any people in, police sent two robots to check out an Ohio shooter barricaded in his house. An Ohio man has been charged for shooting a robot. Michael Blevins was charged with vandalism of government property, after drunkenly firing at a police robot in his house. Perhaps what's more interesting is that the police used a robot at all. On February 23, police responded to a call that 62-year-old Blevins was making threats and had fired a gun in his home, the local Chillicothe Gazette reports. When police arrived, Blevins refused to answer the door. After verbal negotiations failed, police sent two robots into Belvins' house instead of human officers because they believed Blevins had a lot of firearms. Blevins allegedly shot the larger of the two robots with a pistol. Police eventually arrested Blevins, whom they reported as being highly intoxicated, and searched his house...

Playing fetch with BigDog just got a whole lot more fun. And destructive. We've described Boston Dynamics' DARPA-funded BigDog robot as a lot of non-canine things over the years. "The offspring of a bull and a spider," a "robot sherpa" and a "robot pack mule," for example. The latest trick in the rough-terrain robot's bag is decidedly more dog-like: It's learned to play fetch. Except when you play fetch with BigDog, it's the one throwing. Large cinderblocks, to be precise. Using a robotic arm where its head would be (making it look even more mule-like), it has added moving around heavy objects to its repertoire -- in addition to obeying voice commands, keeping its balance on slippery ice, traversing slippery and uneven terrain and carrying 340-pound loads. Like an actual animal, it uses the strength of its legs and torso to help power its motion (and trots around like a nervous warhorse). "This sort of dynamic, whole-body approach is routinely used by human athletes and animals, and...

Hal Suit Cyberdyne Which means we're one step closer to robotic exoskeletons. Hop aboard. We've been following the HAL robotic suit for a while now, and for good reason: Look at that thing! That looks like the future right there. And now it's gotten a worldwide stamp of safety approval. This is how HAL works in a nutshell: Hop in, move an appendage slightly, and the suit detects the movement. After that, it guides your natural movement, but with robotic efficiency. So if you're a senior citizen that has trouble getting around, you can move your arm slightly and let HAL help you reach the top shelf. It's powered by a 22-pound battery attached to the waist, and the leg braces can help the wearer walk, and even climb stairs. It's already been available for rent in Japan, where it's produced by the manufacturer Cyberdyne, and now it's the first nursing-care robot to be approved based on the draft version of an international standard for robot safety. (The draft is expected to be approved...

Moving things: not as simple as it sounds. Robots are all thumbs. The human hand is remarkably complex, and although we've seen some interesting attempts at replicating it, we're not quite there yet. Instead, some engineers are teaching robots to make do with what they have. Two MIT students recently unveiled algorithms that robots could use to "think" their way through picking up and placing an object, and they used PR2, picker-upper 'bot extraordinaire, to demonstrate . The first algorithm, from PhD student Jennifer Barry, shows a robot ways to push objects near the edge of a table so it can more easily grab them. The algorithm focuses in on the object, disregarding some of the several spatial dimensions it has to work in. From the MIT release: Add in a three-dimensional object with three different axes of orientation, which the robot has to push across a table, and the size of the search space swells to 16 dimensions, which is too large to search efficiently. Barry's first step was...

Running Roach University of Pennsylvania ModLab Running cockroaches are pretty good at regaining their footing when faced with obstacles, like the sole of your shoe. Cockroaches can recover their footing before their nervous systems even kick in to tell them how, according to new research. This means their legs recover passively, without needing instructions from the command center--a useful lesson for people trying to design better multiple-legged robots. Shai Revzen, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science plus biology at the University of Michigan, is studying cockroaches with a goal toward building better robots. He designed an experimental setup that records high-speed imagery of the insects scurrying across a small bridge. The roaches run onto a platform that is then released from an elastic spring, sending it swinging sideways with great force. It's equivalent to Revzen running and being tackled by a sumo wrestler, according to a university news...

Pneupard takes a stroll From "Pneupard: A cheetah robot with artificial muscles" by Adaptiverobot on YouTube Watch it nimbly stride over wooden blocks, metal inclines and what looks like those foam puzzle pieces babies play with. With its long limbs and slender body, this new robot looks a lot like a wild cat--a leopard, maybe, or a cheetah. In comparison, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) famed cheetah robot is practically obese. For now, however, the DARPA cheetah is much more capable, using all four legs to run at speeds up to 28 mph. The "Pneupard," on the other hand, doesn't yet have working front legs and can only walk awkwardly. (It's like a cheetah with a walker, as one IEEE Spectrum commenter noted.) But Pneupard's creators, a team of researchers from Osaka University in Japan, aren't looking to race against the DARPA cheetah. Instead, they hope to learn more about natural cheetahs' locomotive secrets, which in turn will help build more agile...

Robat Wing A robotic bat wing lets researchers measure forces, joint movements, and flight parameters - and learn more about how the real thing operates in nature. Breuer and Swartz labs/Brown University This Robat is designed to work like a real fruit-bat wing. A new 3-D printed robotic bat wing can emulate the flapping motion of a real bat, helping biologists simulate how the mammals fly and helping aerodynamics researchers study new flapping-wing aircraft. In the process of building and modifying the robotic wing, researchers at Brown University stumbled upon some structural fixes that provide insight into how bat bodies evolved for flight. Bat wings are incredibly complex mechanisms, producing lift and thrust to help the flying mammals quickly chase their insect prey, fly long distances, and nimbly move through dense clouds of their compatriots. A bat's wings span almost its entire body, supported by two arm bones and five finger-like digits covered in an elastic skin that can...

You know that classic trick of balancing a long object on the chin? These quadrocopters can do that too--in mid-air. "Two of the most challenging problems tackled with quadrocopters so far," says Markus Waibel at Robohub, "are balancing an inverted pendulum and juggling balls." It's not clear to me why those are problems that need to be solved, but I'm glad the team at ETH Zurich's Flying Machine Arena is working on them, because this video is awesome. "Inverted pendulum" refers to a balancing act, like a clown balancing a chair on his chin--these quadrocopters are tasked with balancing a very tall, straight pole, while flying. And then they're tasked with tossing that pole to each other. This is an autonomous project; the quadrocopters recalculate the pole's balance and trajectory a whopping 50 times per second in order to perform this highly difficult trick. And considering the total time between a throw and a catch of the pole is only 0.65 seconds, the quadrocopters have very...

iCub Learning The iCub humanoid robot will now be able to understand what is being said to it and even anticipate the end of a sentence. © Inserm / P. Latron Robot iCub uses an artificial neural network to understand new sentences. A robot with an artificial brain is learning languages--even heavily accented ones--by stringing together words and sentences. Peter Ford Dominey and his colleagues at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research taught an iCub toddler-bot to learn speech patterns, and it can think before it speaks. Our brains process spoken words in real time and anticipate what's next, which allows us to hold meaningful conversations (mostly) without awkward pauses to stop and think. This is possible because of connections between the frontal cortex and a brain region called the striatum. Dominey and colleagues built an artificial version--a neural network with a series of recurring loops that can transmit information. They incorporated this into an iCub...

Robots are learning our psychology and are safe enough to work alongside us. Will they seize our jobs too?

I would like to suggest a few follow-up experiments that might shed more light on the "uncanny valley" - the feeling of unease when faced...

PR2 Eyes Downcast Willow Garage What will happen to all the awesome PR2s? Details are pretty scarce, but it sounds like some big and possibly unfortunate changes are coming down the pike at Willow Garage, a favorite name in robotics circles. The company makes the PR2 robot, a two-armed (or optionally one-armed) robot that can do almost anything you would want your adorable robot pal to do. It's been a huge boon for robotics researchers around the world. But it sounds like there may not be any new ones coming. The robotics insiders over at IEEE Spectrum got word over the weekend that the company is dissolving, citing tips from several current and former employees. You can read their report here. Willow Garage replied that it's simply changing, and offers only this cryptic statement: "Willow Garage has decided to enter the world of commercial opportunities with an eye to becoming a self-sustaining company. This is an important change to our funding model." But the news for the robots...

Stress Test Takanishi Lab/Waseda University A new robotic rat helps create models of depression in lab rats. Rats and mice are often instrumental in testing new drug treatments before they reach the clinical use phase. To create the appropriate conditions to test a drug for depression, though, researchers need to induce a model of depression in the test subject. In order to create a workable model of a human mental disorder like depression, anxiety or schizophrenia, rats are often genetically manipulated or have their nerve system surgically altered. Sometimes they are forced to swim for long periods of time. Now, researchers at Waseda University in Tokyo have created a new method: Let a robotic rat terrorize the rats into depression. WR-3, a robotic rat designed to interact with lab rats, bugs the rats until they exhibit signs of depression, signaled by a lack of activity -- when rats are depressed, they move around less. WR-3 is programmed with three different behaviors: "chasing,"...

Office Whiz The robot Double can give any telecommuter a physical presence in meetings. Clockwise from top: courtesy Double; Everett Collection; courtesy Tovbot; courtesy Romotive You've already got a crazy-powerful computer in your pocket. Now put it to use in a 'bot. THE TREND The average smartphone today has as much processing power as a 1970s supercomputer-enough (as luck would have it) to act as the hub of a streaming home-audio network, serve as a mobile medical lab, or even run a robot. So now, instead of building robots from scratch, companies can construct models around smartphones. THE BENEFIT In the past, developing the central processing computer and software to get a robot to do even a simple task cost tens of thousands of dollars. By outsourcing brainpower, companies can cut the final price to hundreds. And since apps, not specialty code, determine how a robot acts, software developers can easily update a robot with new capabilities and behaviors. Eventually, companies...

Robots are gradually starting to move into our workspaces – now they just need to learn how to anticipate our every move

RobotsLab BOX The box comes equipped with an AR.drone, a Sphero robot ball, a Mobot modular two-wheeler, and a robotic arm. RobotsLab A new teacher's kit designed to make it easy and affordable (relatively speaking) to bring robots to school. Learning algebra with a robot sounds way better than learning it with flashcards, right? I know I would have had a better time learning quadratic equations if I was using them to do something actually interesting, like figure out a quadcopter's viewing area. That's the goal of this new robot-filled box made by a company called RobotsLab. The Box--that's its name--comes with four robots, many of which are familiar: The fun AR.drone, the Sphero robot ball, a Mobot two-wheeler, and a robotic arm. You also get a teacher tablet full of apps and videos that contain the lessons, a teacher's book, quizzes and printable student assignments. To answer the questions, students will have to solve equations, understand scientific forces and think like an...

Interviewers are likely to lead witnesses astray. It's time for the machines to start asking the questions

Moth Exoskeleton Have exo will ride. The University of Tokyo Scientists put moths in the driver's seat to learn about tracking odors autonomously. If Mothra saw this contraption there'd be some Japanese scientists on the lam. But since she's distracted, scientists strapped hapless male silkmoths into an drivable exoskeleton and lured the specter of nightmares through a maze with female moth love juice as the prize. We know moths fly and navigate well, but it turns out they're fleet of foot too. The moth exoskeleton is a glorified trackball, that is controlled by the legs of the moth running on a styrofoam ball. But it's a ride equipped with air conditioning -- dual fans blow towards the silkmoth antennae. Just to torture the moth some more, researchers partially jacked up the steering to make it a little harder. And then even with an additional wind thrown in the mix, the moths quickly navigated to the pheromone. Here's the silkmoth in action: This isn't the first time scientists have...

Simulation Of Proposed MAVs U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons Wu-chun Feng will be getting $3.5 million over three years for his services. Wu-chun Feng, an associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, is the creator of Green Destiny, a supercomputer so efficient it basically ran on a couple of blow dryers' worth of power. He also made a list for ranking the efficiency of supercomputers, called the Green 500, then turned around and topped the list in 2011 with another computer: HokieSpeed. The next logical step would be to keep making incredilbly efficient computers, but instead, Feng is doing something slightly different: making robot drone-bugs. The Air Force wants someone who can help make more efficient micro-air vehicles, or MAVs, tiny robots that can act do reconnaissance, and they're giving Feng $3.5 million over three years for the career adjustment. Researchers have made 10-centimeter 'bots already, and one scientist got down to 3...

Joe Kloc misses a possible explanation for the uncanny valley - the feeling of unease when seeing a robot with a strong human likeness (12 January...

GE Wants To Build An Intelligent Robot For OR Prep GE An automated OR 'bot could eliminate human errors in sterilization and pre-op preparations that cost lots of money--and sometimes cost lives. It may not seem like it, but a huge portion of a hospital's budget can get swallowed up by its surgical theaters--not in the operations themselves even, but in the prep and recovery of sterile operating environments. And, of course, in costs attributed to mistakes or oversights in the sterilization and prep of those operating environments (infections acquired during surgery reportedly kill tens of thousands of Americans needlessly each year). So GE Global Research is developing a robot that can sort, sterilize, and prep surgical tools automatically, minimizing mistakes and freeing skilled hospital personnel for other less-tedious jobs. Prepping instruments for surgery might sound like an afterthought compared to surgery itself, but it is critical to any operation. Errors can lead to delays...

RASSOR NASA RASSOR drops the scientific instruments of its cousins for 100 pounds of durability. Meet RASSOR, NASA's newest mini-space explorer. What you're looking at is a prototype. But one day, NASA plans to send something similar to moon. RASSOR--pronounced "razer" and short for Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot--checks in at 2.5 feet tall and looks a little bulkier than past generations of rovers. That's by design, NASA says: The robot is built to work through the day, and to last for years doing it. The job at hand: collecting resources. RASSOR will be tasked with digging up lunar soil and dumping it back into another machine on the moon's surface. That second machine then separates water and ice from detritus to make breathable air or rocket fuel. Usually, a significant portion of a rocket's mass is fuel. So if NASA can make fuel on-site with help from RASSOR, it'll mean NASA can send a lot more cargo on the mission. The same process could work on Mars, too....

Robots that know how much noise they are making and use other sounds to mask their progress are better-equipped to sneak up on animals to film them

Swamp Sparrow Wikimedia Commons Further research has been halted after the robot's head was ripped off by angry birds. Male sparrows do indeed get angry, especially when another male is intruding on his territory. Angry birds can fight to the death in whirling masses of feathers and beaks. But sometimes a bird would rather try to bluff and scare off a potential foe, using rude wing gestures to show it's ready to fight and welcomes the challenge (although it might not). To study this in more detail, scientists at Duke University stuffed some robotics equipment inside a dead bird. Duke undergrad David Piech assembled a miniature processor and some servos and put it into a taxidermied sparrow. Then biologist Rindy Anderson and colleagues took it into a swamp sparrow breeding ground in Pennsylvania. The team rigged a speaker beneath a robo-bird perch, so the dummy sparrow would seem to be "singing" to alert other male birds of his presence. It also could move a wing, in a bird version of...

The Digital Embodiment Of Editor In Chief Jacob Ward Big on "tele-" but not so much on "presence." Dan Nosowitz To overcome the physical distance between our New York offices and our editor in chief--who lives and works on the West Coast--Popular Science is exploring the cutting edge of telepresence technologies. Earth circa 1993 was a radically different place. In roughly two decades, technology has completely reorganized our lives, our workplaces, and our interpersonal interactions. We have more means and methods of communicating, of interacting, of collaborating and sharing information than we could have envisioned twenty years ago. It's easy to feel like there is no problem--especially where communication is concerned--that technology can't solve. At least until you run headlong into one that it can't. Popular Science is a magazine about the future and the science and technology that will get us there, but right now PopSci has a technology problem. Our editor in chief, Jacob Ward,...

Robo-Doctor Business Wire Because you've always wanted to see your doctor through an iPad. Robots are taking over the world. Robo-nurses have been around for a while, but in the quest to make healthcare more efficient, another medical robot could soon be coming to a hospital near you. The FDA has just cleared RP-VITA, a telemedicine robot that can navigate autonomously, for hospital use. The doc-bot allows a doctor to consult with patients and hospital staff remotely through an iPad interface. Built by InTouch Health and iRobot (creator of everyone's favorite robot vacuum, the Roomba), RP-VITA can move independently around a busy ICU without bumping into other people or objects. It can be directed by tapping hospital locations on an iPad, and features electronic health record integration. It also has data ports to connect digital stethoscopes, ultrasounds and otoscopes, Fast Company reports. The FDA has given RP-VITA clearance to work in hospitals, so it's now approved to monitor...

Opportunity: A Simulated Self-Portrait NASA Curiosity may get all the kudos these days, but the wizened Opportunity rover continues to log miles on the Martian surface. Today on Mars the robotic rover Opportunity (that's right, Opportunity--remember when we all used to care about Opportunity?) is hitting a major milestone. The rover touched down on the surface of Mars Jan. 24, 2004, just three weeks after its sister rover Spirit landed elsewhere on the planet. That makes today the beginning of Opportunity's tenth year of Mars exploration--not bad for a machine that was designed for a three-month mission. Spirit and Opportunity were sent to the Red Planet in search of signs of its hydrological history (and, therefore, potential past life). Spirit made perhaps its biggest contribution in 2007 when it uncovered a long-defunct hydrothermal system in Gusev crater, an indication that Mars was once home to both liquid water and an energy source, key ingredients for life as we understand it....

DARPA's Phoenix: On Orbit Satellite Salvage DARPA The Phoenix program is building a robot that can repurpose dead satellites into new ones in space. DARPA's vision for scavenging and salvaging dead satellites in orbit continues its trudge toward technologic feasibility. DARPA launched its Phoenix initiative in summer of last year hoping to cobble together a robot capable of intercepting, dismantling, and rebuilding defunct satellites even as they whip through space some 22,000 miles above the Earth. It's a tall order, requiring all kinds of capabilities that are less-than-fully mature, things like robotic autonomy/artificial intelligence, machine vision, and on-orbit satellite refueling. But if a new video released by DARPA is any indication, work on the Phoenix satellite scavenger is progressing. That's not to say a vehicle launch is in the immediate offing, but the video above--illustrated by an animation of how each technology piece would work within the larger concept--shows piece...