Sharp has worked hand in hand with Gundam Front Tokyo in order to deliver a range of Halo robot vacuum cleaners which are based on the Sharp Cocorobo vacuum cleaner, where it is able to carry out a conversation with you. We are talking about a vacuum cleaner that is capable of helping you keep the room clean without having it talk back or pull a long face, especially after a particularly long day at work. Basically, Halo is a robot character who has appeared in different Gundam anime and video games, which has resulted in it being a mascot for Sunrise anime studio and Gundam franchise. (more…)
While you were trying to pass Poetry 101, Cornell seniors Le Zhang and Michael Lathrop were creating an apple-polishing Lego robot that automatically erases your prof’s chalkboard. A final class project, the toady mech uses an Atmel brain, accelerometers for direction control, microswitches to sense the edge of the board, magnets to stay attached and hot glue to keep the Lego from flying apart. As the video below the break shows, it first aligns itself vertically, then moves to the top of the board, commencing the chalk sweeping and turning 180 degrees each time its bumpers sense the edge. The duo are thinking of getting a patent, and a commercialized version would allow your teacher to drone on without the normal slate-clearing pause. So, if designing a clever bot and saving their prof from manual labor doesn’t get the students an ‘A’, we don’t know what will.
When the robots come for you, at least they won’t scratch the walls. MIT research into autonomous flight has delivered a robotic plane that can thread its way, at speed, through enclosed and indoor conditions, without requiring preconfigured flight plans or GPS navigation. The plane has significantly longer flight time than autonomous helicopters, though introduced a fair few problems of its own.
Unlike helicopters, which can hover, rotate on the spot, easily travel in three-dimensions and go sideways, planes must keep moving and have reduced flexibility in where they can redirect themselves. MIT’s solution was a custom-designed aircraft with shorter, chunkier wings that combine tight turning, the possibility of relatively low speeds without stalling, and reasonable cargo capabilities for the AI smarts and camera equipment.
Inside, along with the cameras which allow for the bird’s-eye view in the video below, the plane has a laser rangefinder, accelerometers and gyroscopes to track whereabouts in the room it is, what speed it’s traveling, acceleration, and more. At any one moment in time, the plane is figuring out 15 different values, MIT says, and part of what makes the new system special is a duo of algorithms – one fast and rough, the other slow and accurate – to first filter out the most relevant data and then crunch only that.
It’s not all magic, at least not yet. The plane must be preloaded with a high-res digital map of the area, unlike helicopters which are capable of building their own maps. That’s next on the MIT team’s agenda, however, boosting the algorithms and building in more visual information to the other sensors.
Of course, an alternative approach might be pairing the best of helicopters and planes, using both in sequence. An autonomous helicopter could enter an unknown area and quickly gather reconnaissance data of the environment, taking advantage of the flexibility of movement to be more comprehensive, and then be followed by an autonomous plane using that fresh data but bringing greater flight time to the table.
If you’re flying a robot indoors, chances are it’s a quadrocopter. The ability hover and maneuver on a dime is essential to whipping around the confined spaces of a lab. Researchers have figured out a way to overcome such obstacles with a fixed-wing aircraft, using laser range finders, sensors and an Intel Atom processor to churn through all the data. To demonstrate just how accurate the on-board navigation systems are, the team of scientists took the autonomous plane to a parking garage with ceilings just 2.5 meters high. Why is that important? The vehicle has a wingspan of two meters — leaving little room for error. To see the plane in action, check out the video after the break.
Meshworm is the latest robotic creation from researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University. You can try beating this earthworm-like robot with a mallet, but the thing just won’t die.
This robot is made from “artificial muscle” made from a flexible mesh tube segmented by loops of nickel/titanium wire. The wire is there to contract and squeeze the tube when it is heated by a flowing current. When you cut the power, it returns to its original shape, creating propulsion just like a worm.
Not using traditional moving parts makes it pretty tough. Big surprise, DARPA has their hands in this project too, not that this worm would be good for gathering intel or helping soldiers.
It does however have potential medical applications, like making them into next-gen endoscopes or something.
While hitting it with a mallet or stepping on it didn’t kill the thing, blowing it up, setting it on fire or drowning it just might do the trick.
Designers at MIT have created an autonomous robot with the ability to inch forth like an earthworm while it remains impervious to most bashes, drops, and rough terrain. It’s called “Meshworm”, and Sangbae Kim, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, notes that it’s a new step towards squeezing through tight spaces and navigating rough terrain in the future. Will we see a robot earthworm plodding around Mars the next time we head out? We shall see!
This little beast uses muscles along the length of its body to move forward with contraction after contraction. The device uses two main muscle groups to move, one of them being circular muscle fibers that wrap around its body, the other being longitudinal muscle fibers that run along its length. The tubular body is made of a heat-sealed sheet of polymer mesh, the mesh made of interlacing polymer fibers.
With this body, the tube is able to stretch and contract, just like a spring. The artificial muscle that makes it all move is made of a nickel-titanium alloy fabricated into a wire. The wire was wound around the mesh tube, and a small battery and circuit board was fitted within the tube as well. The board tells the battery to generate a current that heats the wire at certain segments along the body.
As each segment is heated to a certain temperature, the wire contracts. When the wire contracts, the tube is squeezed and the robot is propelled forward – into the future! And it’s pretty darn versatile, too.
“You can throw it, and it won’t collapse. Most mechanical parts are rigid and fragile at small scale, but the parts in Meshworms are all fibrous and flexible. The muscles are soft, and the body is soft … we’re starting to show some body-morphing capability.” – Sangbae Kim
Kellar Autumn, professor of biology at Lewis and Clark College, studies the biomechanics of animal motion in designing soft robotics and also had a bit to say about the project and future projects using similar technologies. Specifically endoscopes, implants, and prosthetics are on the docket here with Autumn.
“Even though the robot’s body is much simpler than a real worm — it has only a few segments — it appears to have quite impressive performance. I predict that in the next decade we will see shape-changing artificial muscles in many products, such as mobile phones, portable computers and automobiles.” – Autumn
Researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University are currently at work on this project as we speak. The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency supported this research as well.
It worked just fine for Pinocchio, so why not animatronic stuffed bears? A group of researchers from the Tokyo University of Technology are on hand at SIGGRAPH’s Emerging Technologies section this week to demonstrate “Stuffed Toys Alive!,” a new type of interactive toy that replaces the rigid plastic infrastructure used today with a seemingly simple string pulley-based solution. Several strings are installed at different points within each of the cuddly gadget’s limbs, then attached to a motor that pulls the strings to move the fuzzy guy’s arms while also registering feedback, letting it respond to touch as well. There’s not much more to it than that — the project is ingenious but also quite simple, and it’s certain to be a hit amongst youngsters. The obligatory creepy hands-on video is waiting just past the break.
We’ve seen a number of options for controlling real worms, but never a worm robot, until now. Enter Meshworm, the latest creation from researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University. The bot is made from “artificial muscle” composed of a flexible mesh tube segmented by loops of nickel / titanium wire. The wire contracts and squeezes the tube when heated by a flowing current, but cut the power and it returns to its original shape, creating propulsion in a similar way to its living kin. Taking traditional moving parts out of the equation also makes it pretty hardy, as proven by extensive testing (read: hitting it with a hammer). DARPA is known for getting its fingers in all sorts of strange pies, and it also supported this project. We can’t see it being the fastest way of gathering intel, but the potential medical applications, such as next-gen endoscopes, sound plausible enough. Full impact tests in the video after the break.
Earthworm Jim would be proud of his mechanical kin – the Meshworm robot that is the brainchild of scientists over at the MIT. Just take a look at the video above of the Meshworm in action, and tell me that you are not mesmerized with its life-like movement. The Meshworm robot is a collaboration between researchers at MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University, resulting in this soft autonomous robot which is capable of making movement through peristalsis, helping it crawl across surfaces through the simple action of contracting segments of its body, in a manner that is inspired by the humble earthworm. The robot is mostly made out of soft materials, and has been touted to be extremely resilient. Heck, stepping on it is not going to damage the Meshworm, even if you were to bludgeon it with a hammer as it slowly but surely inches away unscathed to a safe space. (more…)
You can play the role of Santa Claus with the Roto-a-Matic, a robot that is said to function as a DIY toy vending machine of sorts. Why do I call it that? Well, this unique robot is said to be able to redesign molds and turn them into plastic toys, all of it taking less than a minute to complete. I guess plenty of elves in the North Pole would be out of a job soon, no? The Roto-a-Matic robot is a collaboration between Chicago-based product development specialists Squibbles Ink and designer toy store Rotofugi, where it is heavily inspired by the vintage Mold-a-Rama machine. (more…)
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Sharp has worked hand in hand with Gundam Front Tokyo in order to deliver a range of Halo robot vacuum cleaners which are based on the Sharp Cocorobo vacuum cleaner, where it is able to carry out a conversation with you. We are talking about a vacuum cleaner that is capable of helping you keep the room clean without having it talk back or pull a long face, especially after a particularly long day at work. Basically, Halo is a robot character who has appeared in different Gundam anime and video games, which has resulted in it being a mascot for Sunrise anime studio and Gundam franchise. (more…)
