Human beings make tools. Animals make tools. A tool gives an advantage over adversity and guarantees survival. Will the same happen if a robot makes a tool?
Researchers at ETH Zurich are on a mission to not only have robots make tools, but they are teaching the bots how to use them. Their goal is to simplify the complexity of this type of robot, while at the same time giving it extraordinary capabilities like creating its own parts, fixing itself, and even creating other robots from printed parts and integrated motors.
So far, their robot consists of a mechanical arm with Hot Melt Adhesive (HMA) capabilities. This means that at the end of the mechanical arm is just a hot glue gun that can be used to create parts layer by layer. In their effort to avoid complexity, it has no manipulator mechanisms, instead it only uses the stickiness of the printed parts to move them and place them.
The project has only just been started. In a demonstration of their progress, ETH researchers showed that their robot is capable of creating tools and thus performing tasks that it would not be able to do otherwise. It took the robot about an hour, but it was able to create a cup with a handle to transport water, an impressive task for a robot with no hands.
Next, the team or researchers are working to give the robot perception capabilities to eventually achieve a completely autonomous robot. At the moment, the robot can only create simple shapes in about an hour’s time; a long way away from creating an entire mechanism, but even bots need to take it one HMA layer at a time.
As I am sure your mother told you, dogs are a huge responsibility to take care of, and if you don’t have the time, chances are you do not have the energy. But, this does not deter many people from getting dogs anyways. For this reason, the company Go-Go Dog Pals has created an interactive dog toys that run on energy that is not your own.
The latest Go-Go Dog Pals creation is a remote control car designed to withstand the predatory chase of the dog. This is not your ordinary dog toy, it comes with a dual 280mm high torque motors, its 4 wheel drive, double suspension so it can be driven on many terrains. The chassis resembles a groundhog, and is made of a smooth durable plastic. The most impressive feature, it can go as fast as 21 mph.
The idea is that you sit back have fun controlling the Go-Go Dog Pal while watching your dog go crazy in the chase. It is difficult to actually catch the toy because of its smooth chassis except for its tail. But if your dog does catch the antenna tail, it only weighs 3.9 pounds so there is no worries of pulling it out. Even if Rufus does fulfill its killer instinct, all parts are replaceable.
The remote uses a long distance 2.4 GHz digital radio control system and the Go-Go Pal comes with a rechargeable Ni-Cd battery and a cool $300 price tag. We love our dogs, so what is $300?
(Left) Burritob0t platform (Right) The bot does not print the tortilla, unfortunately (via Marko Manriquez)
Robots have been showing their love for making food over the past few years like Suzomo’s SushiBot which can pump out thousands of the tasty rolls and the MIT BakeBot that mixes up cookie batter ingredients from scratch. It seems all the major cuisines are being slowly represented from our mechanical friends, but none have the unique technique of printing up delicious burritos like that of Marko Manriquez’s Burritob0t.
The robot uses a Mechatronics/Gantry 3D printing system with RAMPS (RepRap Arduino MEGA Pololu Shield) electronics, based in-part from RepRap’s self-replicating manufacturing machine, as the robots base platform. To actually build a burrito, the robot needs a 3D model representation of the ingredients (cheese and beans) which is done through the use of ReplicatorG software that converts the STL/3D model to GCODE. Once the robot has the converted code, the ingredients are fed into two MakerBot Frostruder MK2 compressed air delivery syringes which pump out ingredients based on the 3D model onto a tortilla.
Marko designed Burritob0t for his thesis project at ITP (Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU) as a way to examine the relationship between fast-food practices (conveyor-belt edibles) and human nutritional habits. While the robot does not actually build a burrito from scratch, it does print up 3D piles of tasty ingredients with digital perfection.
Arduino robot used for promotion of RobotC (via RoboMatter)
Robotics and software coding can be daunting to a beginner, but software company RoboMatter works diligently to make these fields accessible to beginners and hobbyist. Their software is already compatible with LegoMindstorm and others platforms alike that aim at brining robotics to the main stream. Now, RobotC has announced they will expand their code to be compatible with one of the biggest development board platform there is, Arduino.
RobotC has released a public BETA version of their code for Arduino. To use RobotC with your existing Arduino, the Arduino will have to be updated to version 3.12. Once this is done, the same version of RobotC is compatible with Arduino as well as NXT, Cortex. This new version will support the Diecimila, Duemilanove, MEGA 1280 and MEGA 2560 and UNO Arduino boards.
My childhood dream is almost a reality, a real life Transformer.
Designed by Kenji Ishida and JS Robotics, the bot houses 22 servos to perform the transformation. In robot form it is based on the widely copied bipedal humanoid platform. You can see these humanoid bots in a lot of competitions in Japan. There is no information on the bot at JS Robotics
This bot is the latest in a series by Kenji Ishida, version 8 to be exact. See version 7 below.
Wilfried Stoll and an engineering team from Festo in Germany have designed a robot that can compose and perform its own music after ‘listening’ to a melody. The robotic system, called Sound Machines 2.0, simulates two violins, a cello, a double bass and a viola with each using only one string. The string is loosened to change notes by an electric DGE drive unit that runs parallel to the string with a pneumatic cylinder that moves a wooden hammer which strikes the string to play the note.
To make music the robots first listens to a musician playing a melody over a MIDI capable synthesizer or xylophone that’s connected to a computer where modular synthesizer software processes the signal and sends it to the robots in real-time. The computer actually composes the music in its interpretation with the help of open-sourced software that’s programmed with special algorithms that are derived from John Conway’s Game of Life cellular automaton. Once the computer writes the music it is then pieced out to the robots accordingly. The music is heard through the robots own amplifiers and 40 watt speakers which makes the music sound more spatial with a better sense of depth, as opposed to using one speaker for all 5 robots. While the robots don’t exactly play like the string section of the New York Philharmonic, they do play pretty well even if it sounds like the music from TV show Buck Rogers.
(Left) Egestion Vessel for the EcoBot III (Right) Sludge and water distributor for EcoBot III (via Bristol Robotics Laboratory)
Robots are not only difficult to design and build, but they are also a challenge to handle after a project has ended. Robots are manufactured using resilient materials but many are toxic and non-biodegradable and so have a negative impact on the environment if they are not retrieved and disposed of safely.
Dr. Jonathan Rossiter from the University of Bristol and Dr. Ioannis Ieropoulos of the University of the West of England, are embarking on a project that will tackle this problem head on.
To do this, they have received a grant of over £200,000 from the Leverhulme Trust. The team will attempt to build a robot completely out of biodegradable materials. They will apply this technology to an existing project they call the "Ecobot," which is a robot that uses Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC) technology for energy. MFCs function by extracting electrons from the microbial metabolic processes as they feed on things like sugar, fruits or even insects. For this reason, the Ecobot is a perfect candidate to go full biodegradable.
Biodegradable robots will change the way robots can be used for research. Currently, a lot of effort must be put into keeping track of the robot and salvaging them once they are not operating. But if Rossiter and Ieropoulos are successful, researchers could unleash hundreds of robots with no worries of environmental damage after the robots stop functioning.
Exploring other planetary bodies is both costly and risky for human explorers. While money is a big factor in celestial exploration, the time and resources it takes for a human to travel extraplanetary is the biggest factor. How would we get the fuel to travel back to earth? What about food and what toll would it have on human bodies travelling that long, even to our closet neighbor Mars? These are some significant hurdles for us as humans, but not so much so for our mechanical robot friends when it comes to other-world exploration.
This is precisely what Stone Aerospace engineers are looking to do with Project VALKYRIE. The project, led by Bill Stone, is a collaborative effort that includes participants from CU, UCSC, LSU and Los Gatos Research to send a robot to explore the oceans on Jupiter’s moon Europa. The robot, called ‘cryobot’, the team will use is a 6 ft by 10 in cylinder that’s equipped with a high-powered fiber-optic 5000 watt laser to cut through Europa’s icy crust enabling the robot to get to the water underneath the surface.
The power source for the laser (unknown at this time) will remain on the moon’s surface tethered to miles of fiber-optic cabling, which would allow the robot to navigate the large sections of ocean. Cryobot will also feature an astrobiology sensor that will enable the robot to make an ‘educated’ guess of sorts at taking core samples that might contain life. It will also deploy a series of sensors to collect additional information for future return missions with a payload tailored for that particular mission. NASA has recently given the team $4-million in funding to field-test the autonomous robots capabilities at an Alaskan glacier where it will penetrate the ice at depths of 10 to 50 meters.
Final testing will then be done in Greenland where crybot will descend to depths of up to 200 meters using the fiber-optic laser. Successful testing will lead to a full-scale dress rehearsal on a South Pole lake which will approximate the feasibility of sending a science payload to Europa in the near future.
(Left) Technician working on a Foster-Miller robot (Right) Foster-Miller robot platform under repair (via Dave Bullock)
There are unsung heroes out there who have saved countless lives. Like a true superhero, their only response to a those saved is a simple "I'm only doing my job."
The Joint Robotics Repair Detachment (JRRD) keeps the U.S. military's robot armada up and running. Countless lives have been saved using these robots. These bots are almost exclusively tasked with handling IEDs, improvised explosive devices, and other traps and explosives. Without these robots, Operation Enduring Freedom would have casualties beyond comprehension. Thanks to the diverse crew of military and civilian personnel, many still breath today. Some may never even know the bot that saved their life was once before clown up.
Thousands of robots have been repaired throughout the war. One statistic form the JRRD says that within the year of 2009, over 1,800 robots were repaired or upgraded, where 500 were sent back to Afghanistan front line duty. Not only are these robots repaired to 100% operation functionality, but they are done so in the same day. Master Sgt. Ronald L. Helsley (402nd JRRD noncommissioned officer-in-charge) explained, "We repair and maintain all robots in theater, units bring equipment to the shop and if it can be repaired in four hours or less we will do the work and return the equipment to the unit." If the repair cannot be done on schedule, a one-for-one exchange will take place within the time frame. It is that diagnostic eye that will return a bot on a tight schedule, where a minute of delay could mean the cost of a life.
The JRRD handles robots ranging from the single digit pound range to several tons. Repairs are not always for the IED fatality robots. Normal wear and tear find that the bots need replacement treads or wheels, cameras, motors, and faulty electronics. More extreme cases have the repair technicians replacing major portions of the bots, arms, and other mutilated components.
Shawn Wyzlic talking about some of the robots in repair at Camp Victory, Iraq. (Via MilitaryNews)
JRRD is based in Iraq. As the troops return home, their robot counterparts are kept in the fight. Civilian robot technician from Wixom, Michigan, Shawn Wyzlic is based in Iraq, where he is busy prepping robots from their next frontier. Wyzlic explained, "Our primary goal is to maintain the robots we have here [at Camp Victory in Iraq]; our secondary goal is to assist Afghanistan in the transferring of the robot systems from here to over there." Not only are all battle-worn robots repaired, but they are also upgraded to handle the rough terrain of Afghanistan.
"Last week we had a Talon [Foster-Miller robot] blown up. Thank goodness it was a robot. We can lose a million of them, and it's worth it." - JRRD commander Marine Major John Amiss
I was going through my normal websites checking for updates and found this link to online technical books.
They are listing old documents that are no longer covered by copyright laws and they have some very good old classics on the evolution of radio and electronics.
So if you have some holes in your Technical Library give them a look.
As a generous charity for a fundraiser, one brave soul has volunteered to have his head shaved by a robot with three arms (looks similar to Dr. Octopus' extra arms from Spider-Man). The robot is a Multi-Armed Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV ), and was being controlled from an operator through a computer. The charity was for St. Baldrick's Foundation to help cure child hood cancer and the robotics firm helping with the fundraiser and providing their own robot for use was Intelligent Automation, Inc.
The program did a little more than raise money for charity. It demonstrated the flexibility to carry out tasks for their UGV robot. The robot yields three arms, all equipped with cameras, and 29 degrees of freedom. The camera and arm arrangement allows the user to move the arms relative to various frames of reference. As a result, the robot is capable of carrying out tasks that require complex movements and manipulations to objects.
The UGV used has many purposes it can serve. It has shown the ability to handle tools, inspect backpacks, tie knots, breach doors, and IDE disarming. Although the robot gave a far from perfect haircut, it gave a perfect example of how far along robots have come. Not to mention they did have a robot set up for emotional support and one to clean up the hair on the ground. Maybe next time a robot can wash our hair for us too.
Robots have been designed to do just about everything from serving food to bomb defusing, but they don’t typically have the free-range movement that humans do when it comes to navigating uneven terrain. Take climbing a mountainside, wide degrees of motion and agility allow humans (and animals) the ability to handle and obstacle. Bots can only watch.
However, robotics engineers from the University of Texas and Meka Robotics (located in San Francisco) are looking to overcome this obstacle with the introduction of the Hume bi-pedal robot. The team, headed by Louis Sentis from the Human Centered Robotics Lab at UT, has designed the Hume robot to incorporate a HCHA (Human-Centered Hyper Agility) range of movement. To do this, the team used a series of elastic actuators (6 DOF SEA total)for each joint which provides the robot with 6 degrees of spatial movement (including lateral).These powerful modular actuators give the robot its strength, speed, and a certain degree of agility. The Hume design is still in its infancy stage, as there is no internal power source and has yet to acquire feet, but it looks to be a step in the right direction for all-terrain bi-pedal robots. On the other hand, I don’t think robots will replace humans in the sport of Parkour anytime soon.
Building projects with microcontrollers (especially Arduinos as of late) opens minds to an unlimited amount of innovations. Whether the projects are created for fun, or to serve specific purposes, they can always motivate others to be creative. The latest Arduino powered creation comes from Ekaggrat, an inspired individual with a strong interest in science.
Ekaggrat has created a robotic arm that writes down the time by the minute on a dry-erase board. After a minute is up it erases the digit and rewrites the new time. It is driven by four servos that control the arm and hand movements. Two 9G metal gear RC servos move the arm while two 4.5G ultralight servos control the hand movements. Using servos makes it a little loud and noisy and limits the accuracy of the robotic hand writing. However, there still can be improvements to be made such as a change to stepper motors to improve accuracy.
Nonetheless, the creation is truly inspiring and the programming that it takes to complete a project such as this is difficult. Keeping track of the timing, 4 servos, and 7-segment display writing orientation in sync with one another is impressive for a hobby project. This goes to show that the amount of creations possible with technology is limitless.
The Takashimiya department store in Japan decided a great promotion would be a lifelike female android mannequin seducing potential shoppers in their store window. Since its introduction, the bot has done nothing but startle customers and inspire robotics designers.
The creator of this mannequin is Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro, who is well known for inventing the Geminoid-F Robot. The Geminoid is a bot designed to look as real as possible. If realistic is the goal, it will cost them $110,000 USD (10 million Yen) to wheel in the bot. The more recent Geminoid-DK takes realism to a completely new level. The DK was made to look exactly like its owner, Aalborg University Professor Henrik Scharfe. Hop over to the DK's website for more.
Lifelike Geminoid DK in this image. Hard to tell it is fake. (via Geminoid DK)
The idea of the mannequin is to draw in more shoppers by intriguing them to see more and not to scare them from walking inside. The mannequin is the new idea of visual merchandising. Dr. Ishiguro said that android mannequins will be the future of shop displays and the traditional mannequins "will be no more." The mannequin knows when someone is present; now that is creepy. It can also display a range of emotions while being able to nod, yawn, and wink at a passersby.
Although it may be freaky to see, it is not any more strange than the age-old tactic of real humans in the display windows. Even that odd job is being taken over my machines. It's a tough world for us humans.
A group of researchers from Cornell Creative Machine Labs are currently developing an autonomous robot inspired from metabolisms of biological organisms. The goal is to be able to break down larger complex structures into smaller simpler pieces that may be reassembled to create a different type of structure.
The robot clamps onto a specially designed truss using rotational robot-lockable connectors and can traverse the three dimensional structure using three basic motions. Bi-directional gears on the robot allow it move between perpendicular planes, horizontally and vertically along a truss, and 180 degrees around a truss to move from the top to the bottom. In addition, reflectivity sensors are implemented into the robot which give it a sense of location relative to the truss structure, ultimately allowing it to function autonomously.
The sensors and movements are all controlled from on board the robot. The robot carries with it a sensor I/O board, a microcontroller, servo motors, and an on board battery. These simple electronics allow it detach truss beams with 100 percent success rate and reattach them with a 70 percent success rate.
While they would like to use the robot for building deconstruction and repair, that does not stop the researchers from thinking big. One day they hope that it could help repair and construct the space station or any other dangerous tasks associated with the outside of the space station or a shuttle. Meanwhile, the researchers will be working on improving the robot so it will be cable of carrying multiple truss beams at once, and they plan on re-working the algorithms that will allow it to traverse a path of most efficiency based on the final design.
