Robotics

New competition robotics solutions from Innovation First

By Darren Quick

14:17 February 10, 2008 PST

February 11, 2008 Educational and competition robotics product producer, Innovation First, Inc has announced the introduction of the new VEX RCR Mini robotics platform and VEX 802.11 Wi-Fi Control System. The VEX RCR Mini provides a low cost robotics solution for elementary, middle and high school students and the VEX 802.11 Wi-Fi Control System enables simultaneous operation of hundreds of robots wirelessly. These new additions expand upon the company’s VEX line of products, which help promote science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education amongst students and hobbyists. Read More

Georgia Tech offers Robotics Ph.D

By Emily Clark

20:01 January 31, 2008 PST

February 1, 2008 With the global robotics market expected to significantly expand over the next five years, including gains in both the service and personal robotics fields, the College of Computing at Georgia Tech has announced that it will now offer the first interdisciplinary doctoral degree in robotics in the US. Read More

Applied Robotics introduces Smart Gripper 2.1

By Emily Clark

23:04 January 10, 2008 PST

January 11, 2008 Employee-owned Applied Robotics has released a new intelligent closed-loop direct-drive gripper known as Smart Gripper 2.1. Designed to deliver precise gripping capabilities with a powerful programming interface, it offers easy integration with commercial robots and Its gripping fingers can be designed by the user to ensure custom use. Read More

WowWee's Rovio: 3-wheeled, Wi-Fi enabled robotic home surveillance

By Emily Clark

01:03 January 9, 2008 PST

January 9, 2008 Have you every wondered exactly what your cat or dog gets up to when you’re not home? WowWee Robotics, the pioneering company behind Robosapien, has unveiled its new WiFi-enabled, remotely-controlled robotic webcam platform at the International CES. Known as Rovio, the 3-wheeled telepresence allows you to interact with its environment, surveying the home or office remotely through streaming video and audio transmitted via the Internet to your cell phone, PC or video game console. The self-docking robot has the ability to act semi-autonomously using NorthStar smart navigation - a directional system that works like a micro-GPS, enabling Rovio to know where it is, locate the position of other objects, and accurately navigate through its environment under its own control. Read More

Pleo: the dinosaur brought back to life

By Jude Garvey

00:33 January 7, 2008 PST

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

Honda's ASIMO: am I seeing double?

By Emily Clark

16:07 December 13, 2007 PST

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

iRobot announce new mapping payload for PackBot

By Emily Clark

22:28 December 12, 2007 PST

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

Robotic concerto: Toyota expands vision for intelligent helper machines

By Noel McKeegan

16:34 December 6, 2007 PST

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

QinetiQ trials remote-controlled fire fighting vehicles

By Noel McKeegan

15:57 December 4, 2007 PST

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

Remote controlled, multi-tasking climbing machine

By Noel McKeegan

22:30 November 20, 2007 PST

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

Team Tartan takes DARPA Urban Challenge win

By Mike Hanlon

13:49 November 4, 2007 PST

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

Six teams finish the DARPA Urban Challenge

By Mike Hanlon

18:50 November 3, 2007 PDT

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

By Mike Hanlon

13:00 November 1, 2007 PDT

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

KUKA Robotics introduces new robotic palletizing solution

By Noel McKeegan

00:13 October 11, 2007 PDT

October 11, 2007 KUKA Robotics Corporation has announced a new robotic packing solution for pallets designed to virtually eliminate package damage caused by conventional palletizers without impacting on speed. Read More

Asimo's world tour continues

By Emily Clark

00:33 October 8, 2007 PDT

October 8, 2007 ASIMO is quite possibly the world’s busiest non-human celebrity with recent appearances in Estonia, the Isle of Man, Barcelona and even Disneyland in the US as part of a stage show. His world tour continues with a trip now planned to the land downunder, Australia. Read More

Robotic surgery in zero gravity

By Darren Quick

21:39 September 25, 2007 PDT

September 26, 2007 Silicon Valley based independent non-profit research and technology development company SRI International has announced it will conduct the first ever robotic surgery demonstration in a simulated zero-gravity environment. Read More

Adept Quattro high-speed packaging robot

By Darren Quick

19:50 September 23, 2007 PDT

September 24, 2007 Vision-guided robotics specialist Adept Technology has unveiled a new high-speed kinematic robot with a unique four arm design exclusively for high-speed pick-and-place applications. The Adept Quattro s650, is being exhibited in fully automated cells at three major international shows from September 24 to 27, 2007. Read More

Zeno robot learns through artificial intelligence

By Emily Clark

23:18 September 17, 2007 PDT

September 18, 2007 For the last decade Honda’s ASIMO humanoid robot has been the most visible public face of personal robotics but Hanson Robotics and Massive Software have partnered to change all that with the arrival of Zeno, a robot that can see, hear, talk and remembers who you are. Read More

M-ELROB robot challenge seeks European entrants for 2008

By Loz Blain

06:58 September 4, 2007 PDT

September 4, 2007 Europe’s answer to America’s DARPA challenge is currently seeking entries for 2008. The Military European Land Robot Trial (M-ELROB) is calling for European civilian entrants keen to test their robot minions against several military scenarios in front of a panel of judges. The aim is to find robotic solutions that can be deployed in the near future to help save soldiers’ lives. Read More

Honda's new generation ASIMO robot goes to Disneyland

By Emily Clark

04:52 August 30, 2007 PDT

August 30, 2007 A new version of Honda’s popular humanoid robot, ASIMO, is now appearing in its very own stage show at Disneyland in California. Twenty years in the making, the first generation ASIMO has undergone numerous improvements and has even appeared as a spokesperson for Honda , featuring in a series of television advertisements in the UK. Read More

Toyota’s new Tour Guide Robot

By Shaun McKeegan

06:30 August 24, 2007 PDT

Toyota has unveiled a new Tour Guide Robot that features completely autonomous motion, jointed fingers, image recognition and complex verbal communication skills. Both Toyota and Honda (which has spent more than 20 years developing Asimo the humanoid robot), will leverage their already established global sales networks to become key players in the robotics market over coming decades. Toyota will become the largest car manufacturer in the world this year and with cars getting smarter and smaller and robots evolving to be able to carry people, a new era of convergence in personal mobility is on the horizon. The direction is predictable, but who knows what form it will take… and we can't wait to see what they do next. Read More

Location and semi-finalists announced for DARPA Urban Challenge

By Noel McKeegan

17:35 August 9, 2007 PDT

August 10, 2007 It might not have the publicity, crowds or glamour of a Formula 1, NASCAR or MotoGP event, but the DARPA Urban Challenge is unquestionably the most important motoring event that will take place on Planet Earth this year viewed from an historical perspective. That's because the competing cars will be driven entirely by computers and the ground-work is being done to finally remove the most unreliable part of the automobile - the human being that drives it. The rules of engagement have been known for some time, but now the venue has been named - the Urban Challenge will take place in Victorville, California at the site of the former George Air Force Base on November 3, 2007. Thirty-six semi-finalist teams have also been named to compete at the National Qualification Event (NQE) will take place at the same location, October 26-31, 2007. Read More

A robot that walks on water

By Loz Blain

July 27, 2007 The NanoRobotics team at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) are working on a robot that walks on water, mimicking the Basilisk, or "Jesus Lizard" that's famous for its ability to dash across a water surface on its hind legs. Researchers see amphibious potential in the water-walking robot, as well as a possible efficiency boost in comparison to a boat, because a vehicle that runs across the surface of water experiences very little viscous drag. Computer simulations have been encouraging, demonstrating a few possible efficiency gains in the design and motion over the evolutionary model provided by the Basilisk, particularly with the option of using two or more sets of running legs. Several leg designs have been tested (see one in action in this video (MP4)) but the researchers are still working on an operating prototype. Read More

Lightweight robot bridges gap between industrial and domestic functionality

By Noel McKeegan

July 13, 2007 We all know how important it is to get along with colleagues in the workplace and robots it seems, are no different. With this in mind, industrial robotics manufacturer KUKA has developed a Light Weight Robot (LWR) that hints at a new era where intelligent machines perform service-oriented roles alongside humans. Though still designed for a role in industry, the LWR is able to “sense” its human counterparts and work alongside them in a more harmonious fashion. Read More

RoboCup 2007 underway in Atlanta

By Noel McKeegan

July 3, 2007 RoboCup 2007 kicks-off today in Atlanta where nearly 300 teams from 37 countries are gathered to compete in the annual showcase of artificial intelligence at the Georgia Institute of Technology. RoboCup presents an ideal platform for the demonstration of robotic traits such as multi-agent collaboration, strategy acquisition and real-time reasoning and not only that – it’s an engaging spectator sport. In addition to competitions for small, medium, humanoid and four-legged robots, this year’s tournament sees the debut of the Nanogram League, a competition involving soccer-related agility drills for microscopic robots. Read More