Robotics
January 7, 2007, We’ve had AIBO and i-SOBOT , now meet Pleo, a puppy-sized robot dinosaur with a programmable personality and cute, realistic looks. The first in a planned series of “Life Forms” designed by a team of designers and engineers at UGOBE, Pleo boasts two 32-bit microprocessors, four 8-bit subprocessors, 14 motors and more than 100 custom-designed gears with interactivity with its owners made possible via on-board Infrared and camera vision systems, two microphones, two speakers and numerous sensors including one in the mouth for "food" detection. Read More
December 14, 2007 Honda has announced a further update to its advanced humanoid robot platform. The latest incarnation of ASIMO has added intelligence technology allowing it to autonomously perform services such as carrying a tray or pushing a cart, work together with fellow robots to share and complete tasks through a constant sharing of information, and even predict the movements of oncoming people and decide for itself how best to stay out of the way. Read More
December 13, 2007 Known for an array of intelligent machines from home helpers to military aides, iRobot has just announced an upgrade to its PackBot with the addition of a Mapping Kit. They new payload is designed enhance the ability of soldiers to manage the dangers of search, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. Read More
December 7, 2007 Toyota has unveiled two additions to its growing family of partner robots - a new mobility robot and a humanoid robot that's dexterous enough to play the violin. According to the company's release, the violin playing robot can perform a variety of delicate tasks with its arms and hands - each of which contain 17 joints - including being able to mimic the human ability to achieve vibrato on a violin. The new Mobility Robot - which shares its design platform with the I-Real personal transport concept recently tested by Gizmag at the Tokyo Motor Show - is capable of transporting its owner or following in their footsteps as a porter, autonomously avoiding obstacles at speeds of up to 4mph. Read More
December 5, 2007 QinetiQ has developed specialized remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) with fire fighting capabilities that can operate in environments that would be unsafe for firefighters. Currently undergoing a six month trial commissioned by Network Rail and the London Fire Brigade, the vehicles are designed to combat the specific issue of fires close to railway tracks that involve Acetylene cylinders - a problem that has been on the rise in the past year causing major delays to commuters. Read More
November 21, 2007 Robotics offers the perfect solution for dangerous tasks that can involve risk to life and limb and often impose huge economic costs. Climbing, in a range of scenarios, is one of those tasks and machines are increasingly offering a safe and efficient alternative in a number of industrial situations. Following several field deployments in 2007, International Climbing Machines (ICM) has announced the success of its uniquely designed climbing machines - portable, remote-controlled devices that can scale virtually any vertical or inverted surface - in difficult assignments including remote measuring and climbing the surfaces of C-5 and C-137 airplanes, decontaminating a vessel in a Nuclear Power Plant, and demonstrating the machines’ ability to climb and remove paint from concrete walls for the Department Of Energy (DoE). Read More
November 4, 2007 The man-most-likely finally got to stand atop the victory dias in the DARPA Urban Challenge today when Tartan Racing’s Chevy Tahoe Boss gave Red Whittaker the victory everyone thought would be his in the 2005 Grand Challenge. Tartan Racing won the US$2 million prize for first, while Stanford Racing’s VW Junior won the $1 million second place prize, reversing the order from the last DARPA Challenge. Third was Team Victor Tango’s Odin. The event was a massive triumph for the educational system of Pennsylvania which provided the dominant winner of the event (from Carnegie Mellon) and the most ingenious and successful of the underfunded “Track B” teams which came from University of Pennsylvania and Lehigh University (Ben Franklin Racing Team). Read More
November 3, 2007 The DARPA Urban Challenge finished here this afternoon with an astounding six teams completing an array of missions over a demanding 60 mile urban course. The logical placegetters in the event were the first three to clear the course, quite some time ahead of the others - Junior (Stanford University's VW Passat), Boss (Carnegie Mellon's Chevrolet Tahoe) and Odin (Virginia Tech's Ford Escape hybrid). No winner has been named on the day, with DARPA due to announce the final placings tomorrow morning at 10am, though Tartan Racing’s Red Whittaker seemed very confident after the event after a completely clean run with no infringements or hiccups and a total time more than 20 minutes faster than the nearest competitor. The calm and confidence after the event did not reflect some of the issues the team experienced on the starting line Read More
Saturday's DARPA Urban Challenge finalists trimmed to 11 teams
The finalists for Saturday’s landmark DARPA Urban Challenge were announced here today and the biggest surprise was that the final field was trimmed to just 11 starters, a decision taken by Grand Marshall and DARPA director Dr Tony Tether in the interests of securing a winner. “It’d be a great shame if one of the robots took out another robot,” said Tether as the final 11 contestants were announced. Most pointedly, Tether also introduced Team Tartan as the team that would be the Number One seed “if we were to give a ranking to the number one", before presenting the plate to Dr William “Red” Whittaker of Team Tartan (pictured). Read More
