Robot

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

iRobot Looj cleans up at innovation awards

By Emily Clark

21:43 November 13, 2007 PST

November 14, 2007 The Looj remote controlled gutter cleaning bot from home robotics specialists iRobot has been announced the winner of the Best of Innovations Design and Engineering Award in the Home Appliance category in the 2008 International Consumer Electronic Showcase (CES). Read More

i-SOBOT: the smallest humanoid robot in production

By Darren Quick

20:51 October 30, 2007 PDT

October 31, 2007 TOMY Toy Corporation's i-SOBOT, has been certified as the “smallest humanoid robot in production” by Guinness World Records. Despite its diminutive 6.5 inches stature, the fully articulating and bipedal robot is endowed with 17 custom developed servo-motors, 19 integrated circuit chips, a built in gyro-sensor, 2 LEDs and a voice command recognition chip that can recognize 10 voice commands. i-SOBOT, which has just hit shelves in the US, can also speak over 200 words and phrases, features hundreds of preprogrammed actions including walking, dancing, martial arts, push-ups, soccer - even air guitar, plus over 90 kinds of sound effects and the ability to play five songs. 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

iRobot release Looj gutter cleaning robot

By Emily Clark

01:14 October 1, 2007 PDT

October 1, 2007 Cleaning the gutters is an unloved yet necessary - even dangerous - household chore that is inevitably given the lowest priority until gutters are clogged and overflowing with leaves. The latest offering from home robotics specialists iRobot uses remote control to solve the problem – the Looj blasts out debris and brushes gutters clean while your feet remain firmly planted on the ground. 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

Roomba vacuum cleaning robot range updated

By Emily Clark

18:40 August 22, 2007 PDT

August 23, 2007 Five years since the launch of its original Roomba vacuum cleaner, robotics manufacturer iRobot has released new improved versions of the vacuum cleaning robots. Read More

Robotic surgery: a new age in medical science

By Noel McKeegan

00:06 August 13, 2007 PDT

August 13, 2007 Over the past 100 years modern science has been responsible for some miraculous inventions to aid the delivery of medical treatment such as the x-ray machine, ultra sound technology and the cochlear implant. One of the latest improvements is in the field of robotic surgery, which is redefining the way in which patients undergo procedures. 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

Lockheed Martin achieve autonomous navigation milestone

By Noel McKeegan

July 10, 2007 Lockheed Martin has successfully demonstrated its Multifunction Utility/Logistics and Equipment (MULE) robotic vehicle’s ability to autonomously navigate complex obstacles. The MULE's Engineering Evaluation Unit (EEU) climbed a 30-inch step and bridged a 70-inch gap without operator intervention, relying only on parametric descriptions of the obstacles and the vehicle's self-awareness. This brings the project a step closer to its aim of providing robotic vehicles by 2013 that can keep pace with dismounted soldiers on any terrain whilst providing firepower support, casualty evacuation or enough payload capacity to support two dismounted infantry squads Read More

Bionic arm uses elephant’s trunk as a design model

By Mike Hanlon

July 4, 2007 The more we learn about intelligent design, the more we understand the engenuity of nature, and the latest lesson in this regard has come during the development of a bionic robot arm by German researchers. The technology is expected to be used in therapy to restore the use of injured limbs, and low-cost, flexible prosthetic devices. Such devices could be commercially available within two years. Read More

TASER-armed robots keep police out of harm's way

By Loz Blain

June 3, 2007 Love them or hate them, TASER stun guns have become an essential and effective part of law enforcement armory. Perhaps their main drawback has been that even the long-range wireless shotgun-mounted TASER XREP puts a police officer within 30 feet of a potentially dangerous suspect before they're in range. Now, a new partnership between TASER and iRobot will see the construction of TASER-wielding robots that can be sent in to incapacitate violent suspects without ever exposing police officers to the risk of harm. What's more, TASER has released their Remote Area Denial (TRAD) system, an unmanned device that operates in a network to identify and incapacitate intruders in secured areas. It all points towards an interesting future with embedded moral implications; how long will it be until suspects are told "you have 15 seconds to comply?" 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

LANdroids - self-organizing, self-healing communications network for urban warfare

By Loz Blain

June 25, 2007 Modern warfare is increasingly urban - when you're fighting small groups of anonymous guerrilla insurgents there's no pitched battlefields and American forces are finding that their radio communications are suffering in these Non-Line-Of-Sight environments. The solution? Squadrons of smart communications robots, or LANdroids, each the size of a deck of cards, that can be scattered through an urban environment to create a self-organizing mesh radio network. Each unit constantly repositions itself for maximal signal strength, and if a LANdroid is destroyed, the rest of the units will reposition themselves to restore communications. Read More

Rogun the robot learns to recognise faces

By Loz Blain

June 18, 2007 Around-the-home robot servants are almost starting to become practical - we've had the robot PA, the robot vacuum and the robot beer fridge, now meet Rogun - a robot babysitter and security guard with the fascinating ability to recognise familiar faces. The diminutive humanoid will happily wander around playing with the kids, broadcasting video of them wirelessly to the net so you can see what they're up to while you're at work. He'll also act as a wireless internet or videophone terminal, and keep watch when nobody's home, calling your mobile phone if there's a stranger in the house. Read More

The inhumane treatment of robots

By Mike Hanlon

May 9, 2007 The development of robots for the U.S. Military is primarily so they can do jobs that keep humans out of harm's way. One of the world’s foremost roboticists, the delightfully eccentric Mark Tilden, recently encountered an interesting response while testing an autonomous landmine-detecting robot according to the Washington Post. Tilden is best known as the designer of Wowee’s Robosapien, RoboReptile ad infinitum range of robotic toys, but has worked for NASA and more recently Los Alamos National Laboratory where he is developing a five feet long stick-insect-like autonomous robot designed to step on landmines, get itself blown up, then intelligently adapt so that it can continue onwards with its remaining legs and step on more mines. During a demonstration, where the robot was continually blown up until it was down to one leg, Tilden was ordered to stop by an Army Colonel who was distressed at seeing the crippled robot hobbling toward the next landmine. With his judgement clouded no doubt by seeing humans engaged in the real thing, the Colonel declared the demonstration was inhumane. Read More