Hasta La Gadget!

It’s easy for a robot to perform in a sterile lab environment, but only a select few devices — like Boston Dynamics notorious AlphaDog — have proven themselves in the wild. However, the University of Pennsylvania’s X-RHex Lite has also made that leap, as it were, and a new video shows just how talented it’s become. In it, the droid puts all of its running, jumping and grabbing talents together to perform flips, chin-ups and even Parkour-like moves over campus obstacles. The researchers hope it’ll perform rescue missions or research in tough environments one day, but until then, gaze in awe at the video after the break.

Filed under: Robots

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Via: Gizmag

Source: University of Pennsylvania

We’ve been hearing and seeing a lot about Tesla‘s Model S sedan, which is an all-electric car that looks to break all stereotypes about the greener technology, with CEO Elon Musk proving that electric cars don’t need to be small compact go-karts. However, we’ve never seen the inside of the Tesla factory where they make the Model S, until now.

Wired was able to get a look inside the Tesla factory floor and see how the Model S is made. Of course, robots are a big part of the production line, with a whopping 160 robots lining the factory to complete certain tasks like cutting metal, welding it together, and shaping components.

However, Tesla also has a huge army of human workers as well. In fact, they have 3,000 of them to do the more skillful and detailed work that robots just don’t have the capabilities to perform. Perhaps the most impressive thing about the factory is that the car starts with all raw materials, meaning that the Model S starts out as a roll of sheet metal, and almost all of the parts needed are made in-house.

From there, robots cut the sheet metal into panels and presses carve out and shape exterior car parts, like the hood, doors, trunk lid, fenders, etc. Once the body shell is put together, it’s taken to the painting department where robots prep, primer, and paint the body shell. From there, it goes to general assembly, where workers play a more important role, like installing the interior and engine.

In the end, it takes anywhere from 3-5 days to make a Tesla Model S, and while the company relies a lot on automation and using robots (even for installing the interior car seats), Tesla’s 3,000 employees make sure that the finer details are complete and a Model S is ready to hit the road.

Tesla Model S factory tour shows Elon Musk’s robot army is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Self-driving cars will take to public roads in the UK before the end of the year, the UK government has confirmed, though as in the US a human backup driver will be required behind the wheel. Initial trials will see the autonomous cars of researchers such as those at Oxford University venture off the private property they’ve been tested on so far, and onto quieter rural and suburban roads, a Department for Transport [subscription required] paper outlines, and are part of the UK government’s attempt to cut congestion with a total of £28bn ($43bn) in overall investment.

Autonomous cars won’t get all of that funding, but the loosening of restrictions on where they can be driven will at least give researchers the opportunity to refine their systems. The Oxford team has been using a modified Nissan Leaf as the basis of its system, fitted out with a combination of laser arrays and cameras to track the environment around it.

According to the government paper, cars will navigate “using knowledge of the environment in which they are driving” though it’s unclear if that means they will need to be pre-prepared with mapping data. “They maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front at a set speed and without deviating from their lane – all without the driver’s input” the paper suggests.

Such systems – lane control and the ability to follow traffic – are already available on commercial vehicles, though they fall short of full autonomy. The 2014 Mercedes S-Class, for instance, includes Distronic Plus, which can control steering and the accelerator/brake, navigating lanes and following vehicles in front. It also has active lane-keeping assistance, together with brake-assist which can automatically boost braking power when the car spots crossing traffic or pedestrians.

Volvo is also experimenting with similar technology, including using traffic-identification cameras to flag up potential hazards to the driver. The Swedish company has also developed a self-parking system which could work as an autonomous valet.

Meanwhile, self-driving cars have already racked up a significant number of public road miles in the US, with Google’s project perhaps the best-known. Commercial vehicles are some way off yet, but the US government is already considering the evolving requirements of licensing and driver tests.

For instance, while fully-autonomous cars – classed “Level 4″ by the US NHTSA – might remove all of the responsibility for the driver, they’re still completely far-fetched. Instead, “Level 3″ models, capable of self-driving for the most part, but potentially requiring human intervention in unusual circumstances, might demand new testing to recognize the changing role of the person behind the wheel.

VIA BBC

Self-driving cars get UK green-light for public roads in 2013 is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Love or hate haunted houses, it’s hard to deny the fact that their ability to turn otherwise rational adults into whimpering shells of their former selves is, to say the least, fairly impressive. And now, thanks to the new Haunted Mansion Backstage tumblr, you can see exactly how they turn all that dated robotic tech into some of our worst nightmares.

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Volvo has revealed self-parking tech that allows drivers to drop their car off at a parking garage and have it automatically navigate to a spare space, summoning the vehicle from their smartphone on their return. The system, installed on a Volvo concept car, can not only drive itself to a free location but avoid other

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