Just Plain Cool
Robot Fighter Thoroughbred Set to fly this Fall
Northrop Grumman unveiled the first of two aircraft of an unmanned combat air system (UCAS) during a ceremony for Navy officials, state and local government representatives, suppliers and Northrop Grumman employees. The aircraft represents a milestone in the progress toward the development of an autonomous combat aircraft designed to be deployed from the deck of [...]
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National Instruments shows Robot Partnerships
SciVestor took a tour of the Robotics Pavilion at National Instruments’ NI Week 2008. Anu Saha, NI marketing manager discusses academic and corporate partnerships that feature LabView and CompactRIO technologies.
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Elegant Hexapod Transcends Art, Technology
iC Hexapod is the coolest robot I’ve ever seen. Builder Matt Denton of Micromagic Systems designed and machined the parts, motherboard, controller, and algorithms required to bring elegant animate life to this gorgeous piece of creative engineering, as Denton calls it. Each leg sports three servos giving it 18 degrees of freedom. The head has [...]
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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 the fictional [...]
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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 [...]
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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 robots in action reminded [...]
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The Wiimote Slices and Dices–Literally
If a soldier has to worry about which joystick controls steering and which controls speed he’s going to spend less time thinking about the bomb he’s trying to disarm. David Bruemmer and Douglas Few, both engineers from the US Department of Energy’s Idaho National Lab in Idaho Falls, have modified an iRobot Packbot to be [...]
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DARPA Urban Challenge Photos
As Robot Central continues to pore through its notes and photographs we’ve come across some photos of the challenge. We hope you enjoy them. Although the challenge itself is over, the impact it’s had on the robotics world will continue to resonate for years. We will continue to monitor the progress of companies and technologies [...]
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Central Texas Robot Makes Waves
One of the best applications for a robot is one requiring repetitive and consistent behaviors. The mapping of subsurface characteristics of lakes is just such an endeavor. “These studies are extremely tedious. Detailed mapping requires piloting the boat very slowly back and forth across the same water body. It would be like mowing several thousand [...]
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Urban Challenge Sees its First Robot Fender Bender
I doubt the insurance company is going to cover this collision. At 12:35 PM local time Cornell’s robot, Skynet, stopped itself in front of MIT’s robot. Skynet stayed there long enough that MIT’s robot made an executive decision to pass. It successfully passed Skynet’s DARPA chase vehicle. As MIT approached Skynet, it made another executive [...]
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