Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen a hexacopter with six legs, but this quadcopter takes after birds instead of spiders. This particular quadcopter is Vishwa Robotics’ test unit. New Scientist reports that the company is developing leg add-ons for “small US air force drones.” The legs will allow drones to perch on branches, wires and other objects in order to survey and conserve energy.

Vishwa Robotics founder Bhargav Gajjar modeled the legs after those of the American kestrel. A computer controls the drone’s landing based on footage from a camera mounted on the drone: “Just like a real bird, the drone has to brake sharply just above its landing site and perform a controlled stall in order to touch down.” The legs’ strong claws allow a drone to stay upright without using any power. In addition, drones can also use the legs to walk short distances.

Vishwa Robotics is also testing its legs on fixed-wing drones, bringing us that much closer to seeing tiny Valkyries.

[via New Scientist via Gigaom]

I don’t know about you, but I hate swimming in the sea. Why should I risk getting eaten by a shark or strangled by an Octopus when I can be safe on land? Now there is another reason to fear the sea. Robot octopi.

Scientists are studying the cephalopods because they are great swimmers, with a strange swimming technique known as sculling, which uses all eight of their legs. Researchers are working to replicate this movement in robots. A European team working to build a robotic octopus is trying to recreate the movement from the ground up.

They tried a number of motions using rigid legs to determine the success or failure of different strokes. Probably the weirdest part of the demo video is at the end, when it has soft legs. It looks eerily like a real octopus. Hopefully they don’t have the strength to strangle us.

[IEEE Spectrum via Geekosystem]

A group of researchers at the Chiba Institute of Technology in Japan have figured out how to make an off-road wheelchair. They created a robotic wheelchair that can use its wheels as legs, thanks to its four-wheel drive and its two axles.

The wheelchair has built-in sensors that determine how to navigate the surrounding terrain. All the rider needs to do is point the joystick in the direction he wants to go and the wheelchair will figure out how to get there. It’s also kind enough to keep the seat level at all times even when moving on uneven ground. Finally, the wheelchair also has stabilizers that it can use to rotate in place, meaning it can easily turn 180º even in tight spaces.

I foresee a future X-Games division for walking wheelchair tricks.

[via DigInfo.TV via Ubergizmo]

While some mind-control technologies may not amount to much more than gimmicks, there’s also plenty of serious research being done in the field — particularly when it comes to artificial limbs. So far, the majority of that work has focused on robotic arms, but a team of researchers from the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Long Beach, California have now made some progress with a robotic leg prosthesis controlled by EEG signals. As you might expect, things remain a bit limited at this point — not amounting to much more than the ability to start and stop — but the researchers say they’ve been able to achieve a 100 percent response rate with no “false alarms,” and that the results are promising enough to begin tackling additional degrees of freedom like turning and sitting. What’s more, while the system has so far only been tested on able-bodied individuals, the researchers hope that it will eventually be able to aid those with spinal cord injuries and aid in rehabilitation. You can get a quick look at it on video after the break.

Continue reading Researchers tout progress with brain-controlled robotic legs

Filed under: Misc, Robots

Researchers tout progress with brain-controlled robotic legs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Sep 2012 07:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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