Hasta La Gadget!

See that guy? He’s for real. He’s also from Pittsburgh. A team of wizards from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center is presently building a new “human-scale” robot in order to compete in DARPA‘s Robotics Challenge. Part of its charm revolves around the rubberized tracks on its feet as well as on the extremities of each of its four limbs — not surprisingly, these are engineered to help it maneuver in some pretty sticky situations.

According to the institution, it’ll move much link a tank, but it’ll also be able to chug along on the treads of just two limbs when needed, such as when it must use one or more limbs to open a valve, or to operate power tools. Oh, and in case you’re curious, CMU has affirmed that it’ll “be able to perform complex, physically challenging tasks through supervised autonomy,” which sounds precisely like the kind of vague description an ill-willed robot would explain to its master before completely taking over his / her life. Just sayin’.

Filed under: Robots

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Via: Technabob, Geekosystem

Source: Carnegie Mellon

A while back DARPA issued a challenge to researchers and educational institutions to help construct a robot that could meet a series of specific tasks. The competition had a prize of $2 million and was called the DARPA Robotics Challenge. The goal of the challenge was to have entrants build robots that have four limbs and possessed strength along the lines of a human.

One caveat for the program was that the robot had to have the dexterity needed to be able to climb ladders and use tools. Carnegie Mellon University is one of the educational institutions that participated in the challenge. The robot created by the University is called the CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform or CHIMP.

The robot has an interesting motivation system using triple-jointed limbs that are able to move on tank treads over roads and rough ground. The robot is also able to lift itself up and travel using two of the tracks while using claw-like manipulator arms to climb ladders, move debris, or turn a steering wheel. DARPA is seeking robots it would be able to enter facilities during serious accidents, such as the accident that occurred at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

Robots that enter the competition also have to be able to operate without a power line or a wired connection. CHIMP uses onboard processing power for balance, collision avoidance, and navigation. The design was accepted by DARPA into the top group of Robotics Challenge entries. The first round of tests for this group of robots, including the CHIMP will begin in June. The first challenges are purely based on software. Physical task challenges will happen in December.

[via The Register]

Carnegie Mellon University builds CHIMP for DARPA Robotics Challenge is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The US military has proven to be a premier worldwide fighting force, or at least that is what popular culture depicts, and here is another creative approach to warfare in the seven seas. They intend to make use of fleets of tiny ships which will perform as platforms for unmanned aircraft (aka drones) to land and take off, now how about that? According to the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), this solution is a possibility since they need to increase their airborne “surveillance and reconnaissance” capabilities

Deploying Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from land is easy, but from the sea? That could prove to be quite a headache, considering the need to refuel in between missions, and currently can only be launched from large aircraft carriers that possess long runways. The new project has been called Tern (Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node), which is definitely apt considering there is a sea-bird of the same name which is famous for its endurance.

Considering approximately 98% of the world’s land area is within 900 nautical miles of ocean coastlines, Darpa predicts that more conflicts will be fought out at sea in the future.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: BigDog Gets A Helping Hand, Pentagon Opens Networks To iOS Devices Next Year,

There are plenty of drones hovering overhead, but I have to say that mounting one of these ultra-high resolution cameras on one will make them very useful for Big Brother. Pretty soon, they’ll be able to spot what you’re having for breakfast from 20,000 feet in the air.

The highest-resolution surveillance system in the world was developed by DARPA and it’s called the ARGUS-IS. It features a camera that’s got a whopping 1.8 gigapixel resolution. The camera was designed to be used with drones like the Predator, and the ARGUS-IS (Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance – Imaging System) can spot a six-inch object within a ten square mile radius from 20,000 feet in the air.

The high-res cam doesn’t reveal facial features, but you can easily spot details like birds flying around and the color of somebody’s clothes.

The meta-camera is made up of a 368 sensors, which are just like the ones found in smartphones, but the ARGUS-IS uses its robust processing power to assemble these images into one giant image. The combined cameras can stream around 1 million terabytes of video, which is 5,000 hours of HD footage per day.

The images you see here were captured back in 2009, so one can only imagine the image resolution they could capture with today’s improved digital camera tech.

[via ExtremeTech]

DARPA is looking for input from companies in the electronics industry, researchers, and other interested parties on technology that sounds like something out of a Mission Impossible movie. No, they don’t want exploding sunglasses or anything like that. The research group is looking for electronics that are able to disappear into the environment by dissolving on command.

According to DARPA, after a military battle it’s not uncommon for key electronic devices to be left lying on the battlefield. The fear is that these devices could be picked up by the enemy and repurposed or used to glean intelligence that could harm the United States, its soldiers and allies. DARPA is seeking input on a way to develop electronics that could simply dissolve into the environment on command.

The program is called Vanishing Programmable Resources VAPR. DARPA has issued a special announcement for a Proposers Day could be held before a full solicitation. Participants are asked to conduct basic research into materials, devices, manufacturing, and integration processes as well as design methodology to develop electronics such as an environmental and biomedical sensor that can communicate with a remote user. The key aspect of this is for the electronics to be able to dissolve into an unusable state on command. Last year, researchers showed of self-dissolving electronic circuits which melt after a pre-set amount of time, but offered no on-demand triggering mechanism.

“Commercial off-the-shelf, or COTS, electronics made for everyday purchases are durable and last nearly forever,” said Alicia Jackson, DARPA program manager. “DARPA is looking for a way to make electronics that last precisely as long as they are needed. The breakdown of such devices could be triggered by a signal sent from command or any number of possible environmental conditions, such as temperature.”