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Feature Article #1

MoD Grand Challenge: Go Find the Bad Guys

In 2004 and 2005 came the DARPA Grand Challenges–competitions in which vehicles were expected to traverse hundreds of desert miles completely autonomously. In 2007, DARPA brought the robots into a suburban setting for the Urban Challenge.
Last August, we discussed ELROB, the European Land Robot competition in which robotic vehicles were challenged with [...]

Ray Renteria | May 2nd, 2008 | Continued

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Feature Article #2

MIT’s Technology Awakens Mobile Devices–Robots Next?

The SynTactic Analysis using Reversible Transformations (”START”) system is a super information-finding technology that was developed by Boris Katz and his associates of the InfoLab Group at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. It’s a system that’s been running since 1993–long before Google came along.
The system has two syntactic modules: One for [...]

Ray Renteria | April 25th, 2008 | Continued

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Feature Article #3

Colin Angle on the Business(es) of Robotics

Blogging from RoboBusiness in Pittsburgh this week. Much to my disappointment, the Convention Center does not have wireless access, so blog postings are coming out when possible.
Colin Angle, Co Founder and CEO of iRobot spent 45 minutes romping through robotics market business concepts. He presented 21 (I only captured 20 for some reason) [...]

Jonas Lamis | April 10th, 2008 | Continued

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Feature Article #4

DARPA Urban Challenge Team Develops Autonomy-In-A-Box Product

Team Gray may not have advanced to the finals but they’ve got their sights on bigger targets. With their latest autonomy in-a-box they may be positioned to become the Microsoft and IBM of autonomous vehicles.
Chief Engineer Paul Trepagnier explained that the Autonomous Vehicle System, or AVS for short, is a completely self-contained unit comprised [...]

Ray Renteria | November 2nd, 2007 | Continued

Feature Article #5

Formal Study and Military Anecdotes Observe Human-Robot Attachment

When I discovered Joel Garreau’s article Bots on the Ground, I couldn’t believe what I was reading. He described a scenario where a new kind of military robot was being demonstrated to an Army colonel. The robot was long and segmented with many legs and designed to step on and trigger land mines. It was [...]

Ray Renteria | October 3rd, 2007 | Continued

About this Site

About Robot Central
Robot Central is a research and analysis blog covering the emerging robot economy. The global robot marketplace is predicted to grow from $10 billion in 2007 to over $50 billion in 2012, and Robot Central is dedicated to chronicling the bots, builders, and business models that will power that growth.
Robot Central is a [...]

Other Recent Articles

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BoozeBot 9000 Feels Your Pain

Patrons at your typical dank, seedy bar typically want two things from their barkeep- a perfectly prepared whiskey sour and a sympathetic ear. An ear ready to hear all about your tragic life and how nobody loves you. Those attending the misleadingly named Roboexotica in San Francisco last weekend want to outsource [...]

13May2008 | David Hahn | 0 comments | Continued
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WowWee Nails Its First Useful Robot

Earlier this year, WowWee debuted its first practical (and really cool-looking) robot Rovio. The robot sports a complete mobile telepresence pack including camera, microphone, and speaker. It’s WiFi enabled and provides audio and video streams via a web interface it serves up over the internet. You can also control the robot over [...]

13May2008 | Ray Renteria | 0 comments | Continued
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A Real-Life “Iron Man” Exoskeleton

Imagine being able to instantly multiply your strength a factor of 2 to 10. A company out of Japan called Cyberdyne has an exoskeleton suit on the market that does just that. It’s been described as a “wearable robot” that assists in performing everyday things like climbing stairs or carrying heavy things.

Like [...]

5May2008 | Ray Renteria | 0 comments | Continued
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This Week in Bionically Enhanced Critters

As loyal longtime readers of RobotCentral already know, on Mondays we like to review the week’s advances in robotic animal parts. This past week had some truly exciting and disturbing developments.
Our robotic ornithologist readers will appreciate that Beauty the Bald Eagle will soon have a new bionic beak. Idaho Biologist Jane Cantwell has [...]

5May2008 | David Hahn | 0 comments | Continued
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Robots and Your Prostate: What Could Possibly Go Wrong

Leonardo da Vinci was known for many things: painting, sculpting, and of particular interest to RobotCentral readers, a French king commissioned him to build a walking mechanical lion. Which for some reason could produce a chest full of flowers on demand (probably because Leo had not yet invented the chainsaw). But he also [...]

4May2008 | David Hahn | 0 comments | Continued
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They’re Here

This week, an attack by robots crippled a local business. The destruction made it impossible for customers to enter the attraction-based establishment. What’s worse, the robots systematically replaced revenue-generating advertisements with very inappropriate ones.
The business was forced to shut down while it fixed the wreckage and replaced the ads. Only time will tell [...]

30Apr2008 | Ray Renteria | 2 comments | Continued
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Break-Dancing, Stair-Falling, and now Baton-Twirling

Ask a symphony musician what the difference is between a conductor and a chimpanzee, and the musician will likely tell you that some chimpanzees have been shown to be able to communicate with humans. Perhaps a robot can gain their respect, and on May 13th, Honda’s multi-talented ASIMO Robot is going to try. [...]

25Apr2008 | David Hahn | 0 comments | Continued
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Mechanical Works of Art Grace Air, Water

In an effort to improve the technology of bionics, Festo’s Bionic Learning Network has produced several proof-of-concept robots. Two such proofs are the AquaJelly and the AirJelly. The structure and kinematics of these projects are based on their biological model, the jellyfish. The results are nothing short of elegant. Watching these [...]

23Apr2008 | Ray Renteria | 0 comments | Continued
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