Hasta La Gadget!

The police as well as military have had their fair share of help from animals such as bloodhounds and guard dogs on the field, but how about enlisting an unfeeling, unflinching individual that does not tire out or show any emotion? Yes, I am referring to a robot, and the Bergen County Police recently demonstrated an underwater search robot that can make dives into murky, contaminated water, sparing the officers in a wet suit from doing so along the way.

Known as the SeaBotix LBV-200-4, this is a mini remote operated vehicle which carries a video camera and is driven by a small motor. Being tiny enough to fall under the category of a “carry on luggage” on an airplane, it has a fair share of interesting tools at its disposal to help the police with detective work, including sonar imaging to make out objects under zero visibility situations, in addition to a bunch of interchangeable grabber arms that will be able to be controlled remotely to perform whatever tasks that are required when the need arises. Neat, no? At least these robots need not surface for air. Heck, you don’t even need to pay them overtime.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: DARPA’s Cheetah Robot outruns Usain Bolt, Baby-driven robots have a bright future ,

Remember the Cheetah robot, developed by Boston Dynamics for DARPA? It wasn’t long ago that the robot hit a top speed of 18mph, which seemed insanely fast for a hunk of metal with four legs. Now the quadruped ‘bot has smashed its own record, running faster than the world’s fastest man.

DARPA just posted video footage of Cheetah running at a top speed of 28.3mph for a 20-meter split, which is actually faster than Usain Bolt’s record time of 27.78mph. Granted, Cheetah was running on a treadmill, but I still wouldn’t ever want this thing chasing me down the street. There’s no way you or I could escape its hurtling mass. Check out Cheetah as it breaks its own land-speed record in the video clip below:

Just don’t ever give Cheetah any sort of stabby weapons, or else we’ll all be done for.

[via DARPA]

If AscTec’s Hummingbird quadrocopters continue to fly around in your nightmares, you might not want to watch their latest video — even if they resemble hypnotic robot fireworks. Ars Electronica Futurelab and Ascending Technologies teamed up for this latest show, programming 50 LED-equipped quadrocopters to frolic over the Danube last week. Watch them dance after the break.

Continue reading 50 quadrocopters take to Austria’s skies for synchronized swarm (video)

Filed under: Misc, Robots, Alt

50 quadrocopters take to Austria’s skies for synchronized swarm (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Inebriator will be everyone’s favorite party robot. It mixes cocktails while you wait, and because it’s a ‘bot it will do so with precision and without complaint. How’s that for a drinking buddy.

An Arduino Mega 2560 microprocessor controls the stepper motor that drives the drink shelf, the control interface that contains a small LCD as well as a few buttons, the valves that control the flow of booze and the robot’s many LEDs.

Head to The Inebriator’s website for more details, although one crucial piece of information that’s not there yet is whether this will be a commercial product or not.

[via Lifehacker]

Big Dog is the huge quadrupedal robot that stomped its way into our hearts a few years ago with its wild gait and hydraulic whine. Now, however, there’s a new Dog in the mix, the StarlETH, a smaller robot made at ETH Zurich. This guy may be tiny but he’s uniquely suited to running through and over obstacles and in environments that Big Dog may not be able to tackle.

This wee robot can right itself if it falls and runs at 1.5 mph. It also handles obstacles a bit better than Big Dog and has improved hip movement. You can see it fall below – it has active and passive damping so it can either right itself in one motion or bounce around a bit to fix its gait.

Starl stands for Series Compliant Robotic Leg and is designed to handle multiple terrains and environments. It’s a bit small right now but scaling this monster up should give Big Dog a run for its money.

via PlasticPals