Robot

Robot parachutists hit the mark

By Mike Hanlon

Two US Marine Corps' skydivers made their first combat zone landing earlier this year in a remote hot spot in Iraq's Al Anbar Province. The landings were significant enough to go down in history but there was little fanfare as the aim of the exercise was to supply remote troops in a combat zone - the Sherpas, as this robot parachure controller is known, each rode a pallet of rations to the drop zone, controlling their chute from two miles high to within 200 metres of their target. Read More

Fujitsu Develops Human Task Support Robot

By Mike Hanlon

Fujitsu Laboratories and Fujitsu Frontech have announced their joint development of a service robot that can provide support for various services in offices and commercial facilities. The newly developed robot features functions that enable it to provide such services as greeting and escorting guests onto elevators, operating the elevators, moving parcels using a cart, and security patrolling of buildings at night. Fujitsu Frontech Limited will commercialise the robot, with sales scheduled to begin in June 2005.

Fujitsu Frontech Limited will commercialise the robot, with sales scheduled to begin in June 2005. Details of the robot are to be presented at the 22nd Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan scheduled to be held from September 15 at Gifu University in Japan. Read More

Miniature robot for exploring your inner self (quite literally)

By Mike Hanlon

A fantastic journey in medicine is beginning with recent advances in miniaturisation by Japanese company RF System Lab. The Norika 3 RF Endoscopic Robot Capsule brings the body alive with live video of the patient's gastrointestinal system. Norika 3 uses a 1/6 inch colour 410,000-pixel CCD camera inside a micro capsule that is swallowed by the user. Image technology allows for variable focus by disc type magnets and a profound and dynamic range of microscopic data. The capsule camera travels through the digestive system and can be controlled by rotor coils for tilt control by remote operation with a joystick. Lighting volume can be adjusted and switched to infrared spectrum for multiple analyses. Read More

More inductees into the ROBOT HALL OF FAME

By Mike Hanlon

And the winner is - Shakey the Robot! It's not the Oscars but it is the robot world's closest equivalent - the Robot Hall of Fame, an annual award to honor landmark achievements in robotics technology and the increasing contributions of robots to human endeavors. Established by the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University in 2003, the Robot Hall of Fame honours two categories, robots from Science - which have served a useful function and demonstrated real skills in accomplishing the purpose for which they were created - and robots from Science Fiction. Shakey enters into the Hall of Fame this year in the Robots from Science category. Read More

HAL and Artoo win a place in the Robot Hall of Fame

By Mike Hanlon

Carnegie Mellon has announced the 2004 inductees to the Robot Hall of Fame at the Carnegie Science Center. The robots honored in this first annual Hall of Fame event included NASA's Mars Pathfinder Microrover Flight Experiment (MFEX), better known as "Sojourner"; Unimate, the first industrial robot; R2-D2, the unforgettable droid from the Star Wars movie trilogy; and the evil HAL-9000 computer, featured in the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," created by science fiction writer and futurist Sir Arthur C. Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick. Read More

DARPA Schedules 2nd Autonomous Robotic Ground Vehicles Event

By Mike Hanlon

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense has announced that it will hold a second Grand Challenge for Autonomous Robotic Ground Vehicles on October 8, 2005. Read More

Electrolux Trilobite Robotic Vacuum Cleaner v2.0

By Mike Hanlon

Electrolux, the first company to bring a robotic vacuum cleaner to market in the Trilobite, has released the first second generation vacuum, the Trilobite 2.0. The new Trilobite 2.0 can be programmed to clean at a particular time, has an active infra-red stair sensor and improved navigation algorithm. Read More

The Robots are Coming!

By Gizmag Team

January 19, 2004 Helper, security and companion robots will be commonplace a decade from now. There are already more than 100 robotic commercialisation projects in the global public arena, and a dozen commercially available robots in the Japanese domestic market. In the next two to three years, that number will grow considerably, with research companies forecasting the home robotics market may one day be equal in size to the automotive market. Read More

Toyota announces a coming range of partner robots

By Mike Hanlon

Toyota, the world's second largest automotive manufacturer, has made a clear statement of its intention to participate in the personal robotics market by announcing an internal project to develop partner robots designed to function as personal assistants for humans This year has seen a flurry of activity in the personal robotics area and the heightened activity has encouraged a number of companies such as Toyota, which has been known to be developing robots for some time, to play its hand. Toyota does not see itself solely as an automotive manufacturer, and sees itself as a manufacturer of products which contribute to society. Read More

Korean start-up rocks fledgling robotics industry

By Mike Hanlon

Korean robotics start-up Mostitech has rocked the fledgling personal robotics marketplace by announcing the mid-year availability of a home security robot that will sell for around AUD$1100. Prior to the announcement, the home security robot ics marketplace had seemed likely to become the domain of the Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers which already have several such robots available on the Japanese domestic market for prices in the AUD$15,000+ area. Read More

Artemis - the robot guard

By Mike Hanlon

Japanese robotics company Tmsuk has announced its latest creation, the T63 Artemis Guard Robot. Artemis will autonomously patrol a multi-story building and report back wirelessly to security HQ if it finds anything amiss. Though not yet capable of apprehending any intruders, it is armed with several non-lethal offensive weapons such as a fluorescent paintball gun and the capability to spray a cloud of mist to temporarily blind the intruder. Read More

Personal Robotics Industry set for massive growth

By Mike Hanlon

Tuesday December 9, 2003 The term 'robot' has been in existence for a short time - it was first used in 1920 by Czechoslovakian playwright Karel Capek and comes from the Czech robota, which means 'tedious labor.'One hundred years hence, in 2020, analysts project that most households will own a robot, or at least be considering one. Robotics is already a US$8 billion industry globally, but mostof the robots in use today are industrial robots employed in manufacturing for welding, painting and assembly line tasks. The consumer robotics marketplace is just emerging, with a gross of US$600 million in 2002, comprised mainly of programmable robots which mow lawns, clean floors and amuse children. Read More

Epson develops World's Smallest Flying Micro-robot

By Mike Hanlon

The world's smallest flying micro-robot has been unveiled at the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. Seiko Epson Corporation's FR ("Micro Flying Robot") stands just 70 mm high and uses 130 mm wide contra-rotating propellers powered by a tiny ultrasonic motor to achieve balanced mid-air flight. Read More

Autonomous Robot mowing and mulching system

By Mike Hanlon

Monday November 3, 2003: The Robomow is a fully automatic lawn mower designed to autonomously mow your lawn at the press of a button while you concentrate on more important weekend chores. Read More

Adult-sized, His and Hers home robots

By Mike Hanlon

Wednesday October 8, 2003: Looking for some entertaining, hassle-free housemates whose personality you can program yourself? These interactive, remote controlled, multifunctional robots were designed and built by International Robotics and feature on-board computers that can be fully programmed for communication or automated "performance" sequences. Read More

New robotic devices promise mobility for the handicapped

By Mike Hanlon

The recent news that Swiss and Spanish scientists have developed a successful prototype of a mind-controlled wheelchair is yet another indication of broad range of work being done around the planet to develop mobility solutions for the disabled and aged market. Most importantly, the new system adds a critical dimension to the work being done - machine control via the mind. In a system which might best be described as augmented or assisted telepathy, the new system is reported to use electrodes embedded in a skullcap to monitor the brain patterns of the user, interpret them via sophisticated software algorithms, and control the wheelchair via a wireless link. Read More

Robot surrogate lets you be two places at once

By Mike Hanlon

Out of the office and unable to make that important meeting? Why not send a robot to stand-in. That's the goal of eTravel - a project undertaken by HP labs to create a "Mutually-Immersive Mobile Telepresence" or "surrogate robot" that can do your travelling for you and act as your eyes, ears and voice, regardless of where you are... Read More

A glimpse of a robot-driven future?

By Mike Hanlon

Wednesday July 2, 2003: The Volkswagen electronics research group has been working on the "Autonomous Driving" project for several years and although "Klaus" won't be taking to the highway in the near future, Volkswagen has succeeded in teaching it how to drive. Read More

Evolution Robotics unveils New ER2 Personal Robot

By Mike Hanlon

Evolution Robotics has introduced the ER2 multi-purpose personal robot to showcase its new Evolution Robotics Software Platform (ERSP) which features a new control architecture, breakthrough vision and navigation software components. Evolution Robotics has introduced the ER2 multi-purpose personal robot to showcase its new Evolution Robotics Software Platform (ERSP) which features a new control architecture, breakthrough vision and navigation software components. Read More

Australian design team unveils Robotic Kitchen

By Mike Hanlon

Imagine having a pantry that would talk to the refrigerator and the oven to co-ordinate and prepare meals, all while you dished out the orders from a computer terminal in the office. That's the scenario proposed by the iK (integrated kitchen), a design concept that explores the possibilities of future domestic kitchens Read More

Bluetooth enabled Micro-robot

By Mike Hanlon

The World's smallest and thinnest Bluetooth-equipped micro-robot prototype will be unveiled at ROBODEX 2003 next month in Yokohama, Japan. Epson's Monsieur II has a volume of just 7.8cm3 and weighs 12.5g Read More

Twenty years in the making - ASIMO the humanoid robot

By Mike Hanlon

Honda has come a long way towards realising its vision of creating a humanoid robot since its bi-pedal (two-legged) robot named "EO" successfully took its first steps in 1986. Culminating in ASIMO, the highly-advanced, stair climbing, hand shaking humanoid robot Read More

Exoskeletons: Wearable Robots

By Mike Hanlon

The human body is unsurpassed in the complexity of its design, performance and efficiency, but there are definite limitations to what we can achieve with a frame that's around 6ft high - we can only carry so much weight, jump so far or run so fast before we reach our physical boundary. Machines that overcome these limitations have been with us for centuries, but we are only beginning to explore the possibilities of augmentation - extending our existing capabilities through wearable robot exoskeletons to create superhuman strength, speed and stamina. Read More

Home Robotics... coming to a home near you - soon

By Mike Hanlon

October 22, 2002 Decades after "The Jetsons" and "Lost in Space", you could be forgiven for thinking that the robotics revolution has been slow to take shape. But things are changing fast with the arrival of a range of single and multi-task robotic devices with real practical uses for everyday living are beginning to emerge in the consumer marketplace. Evolution Robotics, NEC, Sanyo and Husqvarna are just some of the companies bringing home robotics to the marketplace so that humans can hand-ball those mundane tasks like mowning the lawn or answering the door to the battery operated help. Read More

Robot cleans all household floor surfaces

By Mike Hanlon

Few would argue with kicking back in front of the TV while the floor around you is being automatically cleaned without any human intervention. The iRobot Corporation's "Roomba" Intelligent FloorVac does just that... Read More