Sep 27

Raytheon revamps Sarcos exoskeleton, creates better, faster and stronger XOS 2 (video)

Posted in: military, robotics, Today's Chili, video, wargadget

When we first laid eyes on the Sarcos XOS military exoskeleton three years ago, its sheer power and dexterity left us in awe… but as you can see immediately above, that wasn’t enough for Raytheon. Today, the defense contractor’s unveiling the XOS 2, a lighter, stronger robotic suit that uses 50 percent less power for dropping and giving us several hundred pushups. Video and a press release after the break don’t specify the suit’s military duties (they’re focused on instilling the notion that the XOS 2 is a real-life Iron Man) but we can definitely imagine these causing some serious damage if Hammer Industries decided to weaponize that high-pressure hydraulic frame.

Update: We previously stated that the suit didn’t need to be tethered to a power source for operation, but that information was incorrect.

[Thanks, SmoothMarx]

Gallery: Raytheon Sarcos XOS 2 exoskeleton – press pics

Continue reading Raytheon revamps Sarcos exoskeleton, creates better, faster and stronger XOS 2 (video)

Raytheon revamps Sarcos exoskeleton, creates better, faster and stronger XOS 2 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 09:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 20

fuRo Core bipedal robot can squat with a 100kg payload, puts your puny muscles to shame (video)

Posted in: Japan, research, robot, robotics, Today's Chili, video

What’s nearly two meters tall, weighs 230kg, and can lift the equivalent of a generously proportioned man? No, it isn’t the ED-209 from RoboCop, but rather the latest robotic biped from Japan. The Core project that’s being developed by the fuRo lab in Chiba’s Institute of Technology may look and sound quite a bit like your favorite rogue drone, but its objective is rather more peaceful. The hope is to deliver increased mobility for handicapped people — beyond what wheelchairs can provide, hence the bipedal locomotion system — and things seem to have gotten off to a good start with the ability to safely balance a 100kg load while performing squats. See that feat, along with some clumsy first steps, after the break.

Continue reading fuRo Core bipedal robot can squat with a 100kg payload, puts your puny muscles to shame (video)

fuRo Core bipedal robot can squat with a 100kg payload, puts your puny muscles to shame (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Sep 2010 10:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 17

Audi robot arms take over London, write messages with LEDs day and night (video)

Posted in: london, RobotApocalypse, robotics, Today's Chili, uk, video

Here’s yet another fine preview of the inevitable robot apocalypse — car-assembling arms in the city center overlooking us feeble humans. For now, though, these machines are merely part of an Kram/Weisshaar art installation dubbed Outrace. Throughout the week-long London Design Festival, you can go to Outrace.org to submit a short text message that you wish to be displayed in Trafalgar Square, and with a bit of luck, the monitoring staff will pick up your greeting. What happens next is that the eight LED-equipped Audi robot arms will start scribing your message in the air, which is then captured by the 36 long-exposure cameras surrounding the stage (even during the day, courtesy of welding glass filter), and it’ll end up on the LED board as pictured. Stuck outside London? Fret not, as you can see the beasts in action via the website’s live video stream, or you can watch bullet-time videos of each text submission on Outrace’s YouTube channel — you can see our message in both clips after the break. Enjoy!

Gallery: Audi robot arms take over London, write messages with LEDs day and night

Continue reading Audi robot arms take over London, write messages with LEDs day and night (video)

Audi robot arms take over London, write messages with LEDs day and night (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sep 08

Program Your Own Robot with PR2

Posted in: robot, robotics, Robots Robotics, Today's Chili

Thumbnail image for pr2.png
Robots need to be useful, whether it’s vacuuming the rug, picking up things, or bringing you a soda. Willow Garage’s PR2 leaves it up to you to decide what it will do.

With the PR2, the hardware is taken care of. It’s up to you, the robot-maker, to take advantage of over 1000 software libraries available to decide what it will do.

It has a lot of potential, with powerful “brains” and a full sensor suite. The brains are a pair of onboard Xeon servers with eight cores, 24GB of RAM, and a 2TB hard disk drive. Power comes from a 1.3kWh battery and onboard chargers.
 
Perched on top of an omnidirectional base, the PR2 ships with a 5-megapixel camera, forearm cameras, and gripper tip sensors as part of its arsenal of sensors. PR2 navigates its surroundings using the two LIDAR optical remote sensors to know where things are located. It has two arms and grippers.

It has strong network capabilities, such as a Gigabit Ethernet network with 32GB backplane switch and dual WiFi radios and a base station.

The hardware is all yours for the price of $400,000. For that price, I would need the robot to clean my house, cook me dinner, and give me a massage.

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Aug 16

Flobi robot head realistic enough to convey emotions, not realistic enough to give children nightmares (hopefully)

Posted in: germany, robot, robotics, Today's Chili, video

We’ve seen our fair share of robots meant to convey emotions, and they somehow never fail to creep us out on some level. At least Flobi, the handiwork of engineers at Bielefeld University in Germany, eschews “realism” for cartoon cuteness. But don’t let it fool you, this is a complicated device: about the size of a human head, it features a number of actuators, microscopes, gyroscopes, and cameras, and has the ability to exhibit a wide range of facial expressions by moving its eyes, eyebrows and mouth. The thing can even blush via its cheek-mounted LEDs, and it can either take on the appearance of a male or female with swappable hair and facial features. And the cartoonish quality of the visage is deliberate. According to a paper submitted by the group to the ICRA 2010 conference, the head is “far enough from realistic not to trigger unwanted reactions, but close enough that we can take advantage of familiarity with human faces.” Works for us! Video after the break.

[Thanks, Simon]

Continue reading Flobi robot head realistic enough to convey emotions, not realistic enough to give children nightmares (hopefully)

Flobi robot head realistic enough to convey emotions, not realistic enough to give children nightmares (hopefully) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aug 02

Hiroshi Ishiguro creates his creepiest robot yet, the Telenoid R1 (video)

Posted in: Japan, robot, robotics, Robots, Today's Chili, video

Sure, creating freakish humanoid clones is Hiroshi Ishiguro’s primary hobby, but his latest work takes a couple steps outside the Uncanny Valley. The Telenoid R1 telepresence robot trades extremities for an androgynous doll-like body, which researchers at Osaka University and ATR describe as “soft and pleasant” but strikes us as something we’d see crawling out of the depths of hell on stump-like arms. (Perhaps Ishiguro was going for Casper the Friendly Ghost.) The $35,000 prototype transmits both the voice and head motions of a remote operator, allowing dutiful Japanese individuals to visit their elders via internet-equipped PCs, and a final version will actually go on sale later this year for around $8,000 should said elders agree with the latest in puffy white design. Watch a sample visit after the break.

Continue reading Hiroshi Ishiguro creates his creepiest robot yet, the Telenoid R1 (video)

Hiroshi Ishiguro creates his creepiest robot yet, the Telenoid R1 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aug 01

Lightweight robot arm connects to your wheelchair, stoops in your stead (video)

Posted in: Japan, robot, robotics, Robots, Today's Chili, video

Japan’s latest robot arm won’t flip pancakes or do dishes, and you’ll have to control its every move via remote, but it enables a surprising range of motion that some disabled individuals just can’t manage on their own. The RAPUDA (Robotic Arm for Persons with Upper limb DisAbilities) is a modular, wheelchair mounted device that weighs just thirteen pounds, yet extends over three feet to pick up objects (up to one pound) from a nearby table or floor. Its relative sloth and noise may irritate some, but it’s all nostalgic to us — it sounds just like the Radio Shack Armatron that graced our childhood. Now, where did those D-cells go… Video after the break.

Continue reading Lightweight robot arm connects to your wheelchair, stoops in your stead (video)

Lightweight robot arm connects to your wheelchair, stoops in your stead (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Aug 2010 10:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 23

Driverless vans set off on intercontinental trek from Italy to China (video)

Posted in: car, Cars, electric, electric car, electric vehicle, ElectricCar, ElectricVehicle, ev, laser, robot, robotics, Today's Chili, university

You might not have expected the future to look like your granddad’s groovy camper van, but take a closer look here and you’ll find that this is indeed nothing like your forefather’s people carrier. The VisLab team from the University of Parma have taken a fleet of Piaggio Porter Electric vehicles, strapped them with an array of cameras, lasers and other sensors, and topped them off with solar panels to keep the electronics powered. Oh, and lest we forgot to mention: the vans are (mostly) autonomous. VIAC (or VisLab Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge) is the grand name given to their big demonstration: an 8,000-mile, 3-month tour that will ultimately find them arriving in Shanghai, China, having set off from Milan this Tuesday. You can follow the day-by-day development on the blog below, though we’re still being told that practical driverless road cars are a measure of decades, not years, away.

Continue reading Driverless vans set off on intercontinental trek from Italy to China (video)

Driverless vans set off on intercontinental trek from Italy to China (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jul 22

Robot Learns to Flip Pancakes

Posted in: R&D and Inventions, robot, robotics, Today's Chili, video

A robot learning to flip pancakes from Sylvain Calinon on Vimeo.

Flipping a pancake  seems like one of those things you can do when you are just barely awake and still to get your morning caffeine.

Not so, if you are a robot. Then learning how to flip a pancake is quite a task and it can take 50 tries to get it right.

Two researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology–Petar Kormushev and Sylvain Calinon–taught a robot the  technique. The robot needs to hold its hand stiff to throw the pancake in the air and then flex the hand so it can catch the pancake without having it bounced off the pan. Initially, one of the researchers holds the robot’s arm to show it how it is done, after which the robot tries it.

For the demonstration, the researchers used an artificial pancake that’s solid and, as you can see in the video above, clunks every time it hits the pan or elsewhere.

The robot itself is from Barrett Technology, a company that makes an advanced robotic arm called WAM. The WAM arm has near zero backflash or friction so it makes very smooth movements. It can have up to seven degrees of freedom so it offers a range of motions that’s similar to what a human arm can do.

The researchers hope to present the learning from the robot’s efforts at a conference in October. And if you are wondering, what exactly this experiment has achieved, the answer involves the application of algorithms that help learn by imitation and reinforcement.

Video credits: Petar Kormushev and Sylvain Calinon/Italian Institute of Technology

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Jul 08

Robonaut 2 enters final preparations before flying off into space

Posted in: NASA, robot, robotics, space, Today's Chili

Tests, upgrades and final checks are being carried out on the Robonaut 2, the humanoid spacefaring robot that has been in the works since 2007. The baby of NASA and General Motors, this sack of metal and wires has already produced a catalog of 34 new patents and, according to GM, is setting the stage for new safety features in forthcoming generations of its road vehicles. Sensor technology being developed in the R2 could deliver better lane departure warning systems, adaptive cruise control, and more intelligent parking assistance. That’s good news and all, but can we ship it out to the ISS already — we’d rather it be off-world when its instruction set switches from “serve humans” to “serve human meat.”

Continue reading Robonaut 2 enters final preparations before flying off into space

Robonaut 2 enters final preparations before flying off into space originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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