Robot Prison Guard Undergoes Trials in South Korea

Equipped with 3D cameras and behavioral recognition software, a robotic prison guard is undergoing field trials in South Korea. The robot is autonomous but can also yield control to an operator via an iPad application. The purpose is not to physically interact with the inmates but rather observe and report, for now. It's no robocop, more like a pimped out roomba, but I think it's an interesting use of technology none the less. 

Catalyst Powers Robo Jellyfish

Researchers from several Universities including Virginia Tech and the University of Texas at Dallas have combined forces to create a robotic jelly fish that uses a coating on it's skin in reaction with sea water to propel itself. "using a combination of oxygen and hydrogen gases to contract its "muscles," or "nano-platinum catalyst-coated multi-wall carbon nanotube sheets, wrapped on the surface of nickel—titanium shape memory alloy," I'll be honest, I have little idea what that means but it's cool none the less.

The schools are working on behalf of the US Navy and their findings could have a "broad range of applications for both military and civilian uses."

Source: Yahoo!

From Pack Mule To Automated Killing Machine - Can You Say Skynet?

Defense contractor Northrop Grumman claims that the .50-caliber M2 machine gun it mounted on it's CaMEL, Carry-all Mechanized Equipment Landrover, for the Association of the U.S. Army’s Washington conference was for impact only. "Quite frankly, a weapon on a robot brings people into the booth" says Jon Aderson.

The company has sold 60 CaMEL units to the Isreali military, which traditionally carry up to 1200 pounds of equipment at up to 7 miles per hour. The US military also is said to be interested in the device, which version of the device is not really clear... Anderson calls the gun mounted one on display at the conference a "new application".

I love robots but I believe this breaks at least one of Asimov's three laws of robotics! 

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/what-robo-haulers-need-now-big-guns/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Index+3+%28Top+Stories+2%29%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#ixzz13eDOrLQ3

Scottish Hospital To Use Robotic Workers

The new £300m Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Larbert, Stirlingshire will open in August with a small army of robots wandering dedicated hallways and looking after many of the non medical duties involved in running a hospital. According to hospital chairman Ian Mullen "Members of staff will use a hand-held PDA to call up the robot to move meal trays, or linen, or whatever. The robot will come up in the service lift by itself, pick up the item and go back into the lift." The robots will be able to detect obstructions and send signals to doors to open or close them once they've passed through the threshold.

"Traditionally clean and dirty tasks are carried out by the same person," infection control nurse Lesley Shepherd told the BBC. "Here, you'll have the robots that do dirty tasks, so they may take dirty linen or clinical waste away, and you'll have robots that do clean tasks, such as bringing meals and clean linen to patients. They have separate lifts so there's no way they can cross, which is great." 

More detail including video at BBC News.

Is Skynet Closer Than We Think?

In a Globe and Mail article today entitled One robot, one vote? Neil Reynolds brings attention to the fact that robotics has progressed beyond what most of us are aware and that as the result Asimov's 3 laws of robotics will not suffice, it's not 1942 after all... and the lawyers might be pushing the agenda here, but Reynolds raises some interesting questions. Did you know that South Korea currently has robots patrolling it's border with Kim Jong Il's North Korea? or that the South Korean government is aiming to have a robot in each household by 2020? There has been much press about Japan's aging population and a thriving robotics industry working on machines to assist the elderly, but who will be responsible for decisions made by these machines or for their expensive upkeep? 

"The American Bar Association runs a permanent expert committee on artificial intelligence and robotics. In April, the committee published a number of special reports – on the state of AI in telemedicine, on advanced wiretapping and on military drones. In the May issue of The ABA Journal, the association will publish “Robot Rules” – an analysis of pending U.S. legislation that will, for the first time, assign liability for the actions of robots."

Have a read, it's rather thought provoking.

A Look At Robotics

The Globe and Mail | Technology section is running a 5 part piece on robots with excerpts from the book Sex, Bombs and Burgers, by technology journalist Peter Nowak. It's worth a peek if you are as smitten with robotics as I am. Part 2 published today, looking forward to the rest of the week!

Ramen Noodle Preparing Robot

A restaurant in Minami-Alps, Japan, has some unusual help in the kitchen... "Momozono Robot Ramen," has a robotic chef of sorts, built by the shop's owner at his own expense. According to the Mainichi Daily News "Customers can place their orders on a computer in the shop, customizing various aspects such as the levels of soy sauce, salt, and richness of the soup. Uchida says there are 40 million different flavor permutations." Owner Yoshihira Uchida studied electronic circuits and motors at several universities and worked on noodle-packing machines at a food manufacturer until his retirement last year. The need for a machine came from his customers at his side business, a noodle shop, they often suggested his noodle's were too strong or not strong enough and so he decided to give them the controls by allowing them to customize their orders through a computer interface. The robot interprets their orders to prepare the perfect soup mixture.

Tiny Robot Handles Tough Terrain

From the folks at iRobot comes a little device that deploys from your pocket and is capable of handling itself over rough terrain. I envision a mounted/embedded camera for surveillance, though the video makes no mention of it's intended uses.

A New And Improved Asimo

Honda's famous robot "Asimo" is growing up and learning as he goes... check out this impressive video of the little guy acquiring knowledge via sight and verbal queues. He's come a long way from simply walking about and climbing on stairs.

Autonomous Robots Used By Staples, Zappos, and Gap

Autonomous robots are making order picking easier for several big retailers. The robots made by Kiva Systems look like an over-sized orange Roomba and are charged with the task of finding the appropriate shelf that holds an item and delivering that shelf to a picking station where a human picks and packs the product.

"It's a major game-changer. There's no question about that. You can increase productivity immensely," said Michael Levans, editorial director for a group of supply-chain trade magazines like Logistics Management. "The Zappos guys claim that from the moment you put your order in and it is submitted to the time the box is on the dock and ready to be put on a truck is 12 minutes."

Check out the video...




Source: Wired

Hobbyist Creates Humanoid Robot, Looks For Investment

Le Trung, a 33 year old inventor living in his parents basement is building a humanoid companion named "Aiko" and is seeking investment to get the job done. "She can recognize faces, she can identify medication, she can even butter your toast," he says. "Her fingertips are still made of cardboard, see. I don't have money for titanium," With about $24,000 invested and his credit cards run up, the unemployed inventor continues to work on a shoestring budget hoping to attract the money he needs to finish the job. "I'm attached to it, but do I sleep with it? No," he says. "It was just less threatening to develop a female robot."

Trung's vision is for Aiko to be humanoid helper for hospitals, retirement homes or airports.

Globe and Mail story.

Guitar Hero Playing With Robotic Precision

Cyth Systems (San Diego) has built a Guitar Hero playing robot that uses a camera to see and recognize the notes flying by and pneumatic fingers to depress the buttons with great precision. You have to see it to believe it...



"We have 5 groups of pixels on the screen corresponding to the 5 notes we might need to play," says Ivan Gagne, Systems Engineer with Cyth Systems. "We relied on the light intensity of the pixels in each of those groups. We couldn't rely on the color of the notes because during the game all the notes turn bluish white when you activate star power. We also couldn't rely on the shape of the notes because, at times, they turn into stars. If that light intensity value exceeds a predetermined threshold, we know we need to hold down that key and actuate the strum bar after a predetermined delay while the note travels down the screen to the bottom "play line". If a note was there for more than ~1/4 second the machine activates the whammy bar to score additional points on the sustained notes. There's another threshold where the intensity has to drop before it can consider the note "played" and therefore ready to start playing another note. The imaging, the region of interest, and the light intensity functions were all built into NI's vision toolkit for LabView."

Honda's Wearable Assistive Walker

Honda has unveiled a robotic walking aid that they claim reduces stress on the legs and knees of the wearer and enables them to preform tasks by expending less effort. "This should be as easy to use as a bicycle," said engineer Jun Ashihara at Honda's Tokyo headquarters. "It reduces stress, and you should feel less tired." The device is computer controlled and looks like a bicycle seat with legs. Honda envisions it's auto factory workers donning the devices to enable them to perform their tasks more easily, this is especially important to the company considering Japan's aging population.
CNN has more detail here.

Robotic Fish Form Hunting Party

Researchers at the University of Washington are developing fish like robots that have the capability of working autonomously but share information with each other to form a Hunting Party. “There’s no human directly telling them what to do,” explains Kristi Morgansen, UW assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics. She adds that, “They have a program on board and they’re getting various sensor information, either from their on-board sensors or stuff that’s transmitted over a wireless channel.”


RoboFish from James Eagan on Vimeo.

The "Robofish" have fish like fins rather than propellers to make them more maneuverable and less likely to get caught in kelp, rope, or fishing lines. “Fish are much more maneuverable in small spaces than things that we’ve been able to build in engineering with propellers."

I'm fascinated by these little guys! The video is impressive and the swarming, or shall I say "schooling" abilities are rather intriguing.

ScineCentral.com

MIT's Autonomous Wheelchair

MIT researchers are creating an autonomous wheelchair that can learn the locations in a given building, and take its occupant to any given place in reaction to a verbal command. "It's a system that can learn and adapt to the user," says Nicholas Roy, assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics and co-developer of the wheelchair. "People have different preferences and different ways of referring" to places or objects, says Roy, the aim is to personalize each wheelchair to its user and the user's environment. The wheelchair requires a first time guided tour to learn about it's environment, with the user providing verbal clues as to where it currently is. For instance, as the wheelchair is pushed around for the first time, the patient or a caregiver would say: "this is my room" or "here we are in the foyer" or "nurse's station." MIT News has the complete story here.

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Robotic Web Cam Video

WowWee is getting set to launch it's new ROVIO roving web cam this Friday. The little robot can be controlled via a web connection from anywhere you are. Equipped with LED lights for night time running, microphone, speakers, a self docking feature and in home gps, ROVIO looks to be an interesting little device. Roomba manufacturer iRobot is also preparing for a robotic web cam with the announcement of beta testing of it's ConnectR robot. The ROVIO will be available through Amazon and Hammacher Schlemmer. It will be interesting to see which company dominates this market, I'm inclined to favour the iRobot offering over that of a toy maker but then again I own a Roomba, a Scooba, and have offered my name to the ConnectR beta test so I may be a little biased. The ROVIO videos are quite impressive though...

iRobot Unveils New Roomba Models

In an e-mail to iRobot customers and fanboys, iRobot Corporation has announced 3 new Roomba models. The Roomba 532 and 562 Pet Series robots are dubbed as "Your new best friend in hairy situations" while the Roomba 610 Professional Series "Your new employee of the month". Both the Pet Series and the Professional Series appear to have all of the things we love about Roomba, only beefed up to handle heavy duty dirt. IRobot says this of the 610 "...designed to tackle large spaces and heavily trafficked areas." while the 562 is said to "...features the latest Roomba innovations plus special features to help tackle hairy situations." I've often wondered when iRobot would take the Roomba outside of the home and into commercial operations, now business owners can love Roomba as much as we love our trusty little robots at home!

Exoskeleton Gets Paralyzed Moving

Israeli high tech firm, Argo Medical Technologies, has developed a robotic exoskeleton called "ReWalk" that straps onto it's wearers legs and allows them to stand, walk, and climb stairs with the aid of the device. The user must have good upper body mobility, good control over their hands and shoulders, and still requires the use of crutches. The suit is controlled through changes in centre of gravity and upper body movements. Former Israeli paratrooper Radi Kaiof says "I never dreamed I would walk again. After I was wounded, I forgot what it's like. Only when standing up can I feel how tall I really am and speak to people eye to eye, not from below." The suit is currently in clinical trials at Tel Aviv's Sheba Medical Centre. Check out the BBC for more details and video.

Robotic Moon Excavation Contest

According to this NASA press release twenty-five teams have registered for NASA's Regolith Excavation Challenge scheduled for Aug. 2-3, 2008, on the campus of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The objective of the competition is to build a roving autonomous excavator capable of navigating, excavating, and transfering approximately 330 pounds of simulated lunar regolith, moon soil, into a collector bin within 30 minutes. "NASA is looking for new ideas for excavation techniques that do not require excessively heavy machines or large amounts of power. Excavating lunar regolith will be an important part of any construction projects or processing of natural resources on the moon."

Exploring The Arctic With Robots

Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Pennsylvania State University have created snowmobile like robots, called SnoMotes, to gather scientific ground data on the melting polar glaciers, sea ice and ice caps of the arctic. "Having this potential for the robots to crawl around and make all the measurements for us, in this relatively harsh terrain of crevassed glaciers filled with lakes that are draining … is really a neat opportunity," said Matt Heavner, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau and SnoMote project collaborator. Isn't this exactly the type of job that robots should be doing for us? Well this and vacuuming our floors!
CBC Story here.