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Posts Tagged ‘future of robots’

It runs along a guide rail, keeps its balance after two guys try to tip it over, and rights itself after lying on its side, not unlike your pet getting up from its nap.

As we heard earlier this week, AlphaDog is designed to carry 400 pounds, last 24 hours and carry enough fuel for a 20-mile trip. It is also significantly quieter than its predecessor, BigDog, which further solidifies AD’s position as leader of the pack.

This video shows a lab prototype undergoing early tests, according to Boston Dynamics. It's being developed under DARPA's Legged Squad Support System (LS3) project. DARPA and the Marines are expected to take this beast for a walk sometime in 2012.

[IEEE Spectrum]

Boston Dynamics is building a bigger, sturdier version of the military’s future trusty companion, and will likely unveil it within a few months. The company’s founder and president, Marc Raibert, shared the LS3 robot's progress Tuesday at a keynote speech at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. Apparently LS3 (Legged Squad Support System) has been nicknamed BullDog, according to IEEE Spectrum.

Alas, no fun video yet, as Boston Dynamics is apparently waiting for permission from DARPA to release it.

BullDog, like BigDog, is designed to carry hundreds of pounds of gear for armed forces, ambling over rough terrain and following humans without complaint. The larger version will carry 400 pounds, last 24 hours and carry enough fuel for a 20-mile trek. It will also be able to jump over obstacles, and more easily regain its footing after it falls over. BullDog will also have greater navigational autonomy than BigDog, IEEE says.

The most significant change may be that it’s significantly quieter than BigDog, which is quite obnoxiously, buzzingly loud:

Granted, a prancing, unstoppable four-legged metal beast probably doesn’t need stealth to look awesome and surprise the enemy.

BullDog is a 30-month, $32 million project funded by DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office and the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. The project started in early 2010, so we anticipate a full unveiling sometime next year.

Until then, content yourselves with some of BigDog’s greatest adventures.

[IEEE Spectrum]

Few robots can run period, but only Mabel can run with such human-like qualities, according to Michigan researchers. Its weight is distributed like a human’s, with a heavy torso and light, flexible legs. Springs in the legs serve as tendons, allowing Mabel to bound like a real runner — it spends 40 percent of each stride in the air, while other running robots are more like speedwalkers, lifting off the ground for only 10 percent of each step.

The robot started off walking quickly over flat surfaces, and its programmers started improving the feedback algorithms that help it maintain its posture, according to a Michigan news release. Mabel does not quite run free, only moving attached to a metal bar like a horse at longeing.

Mabel’s programmers believe the robot’s realistic gait could be helpful for several applications, from powered prosthetic limbs to robotic exoskeletons. Or imagine a legion of robot runners that a human could ride, ostrich-style.

Home robots and rescue robots with a human stride could also be more effective than the cautious, two-step gait of other humanoids, according to Jessy W. Grizzle, who leads the lab where Mabel was built.

“If you would like to send in robots to search for people when a house is on fire, it probably needs to be able to go up and down stairs, step over the baby's toys on the floor, and maneuver in an environment where wheels and tracks may not be appropriate,” he said.

Mabel was built back in 2008 and researchers have been tweaking its design and programming. In the most recent tests, Mabel reached a top speed of 6.8 miles per hour, a pretty good clip. Watch it run below.

[University of Michigan via IEEE Spectrum]

Henry Evans suffered a brain stem stroke at age 40 and is now paraplegic. He was able to regain the use of one finger and can slightly move his head, which allows him to use computers. His wife, Jane, helps him with every other task.

Last year, Evans saw a PR2 on the news and wondered whether one could help him with simple functions, so he contacted Willow Garage and Georgia Tech professor Charlie Kemp, according to Willow Garage’s blog.

For the past year, the team has been working on various new interfaces and programs to help Evans perform more tasks on his own, through the Robots For Humanity project. Small movements of his head and finger can control the PR2 and direct it to perform tasks autonomously, like rolling around a building, opening drawers and putting items away. With the PR2’s help, Evans was able to scratch an itch on his face and shave himself for the first time in 10 years.

In terms of bringing robotic assistance into the average household, these are small steps, as Willow Garage’s president and CEO, Steve Cousins, points out in the video below. But to someone like Evans, they’re a huge leap.

[via Willow Garage]

The robot, which first started freaking us out last spring, is designed to help hearing-impaired people improve their speech. It's the most mechanically accurate robot mouth ever, with an air pump to simulate lungs, artificial vocal chords, a resonance tube, a nasal cavity, and a microphone attached to a sound analyzer. It listens to itself and uses a learning algorithm to better mimic the sounds of human speech.

For those of you who did not grow up with Japanese nursery rhymes, you can hear what "Kagome Kagome" is supposed to sound like here, so you can judge the robot's vocal skills.

Definitely not as talented as HRP-4 or Aimi Eguchi.

[IEEE Spectrum]

USA! USA!

Soccer fans, rejoice: America has won the World Cup. Well, the robot World Cup.

In the finale of RoboCup 2011, two Virginia Tech robots took top honors in the adult-size and child-size categories. The full-size humanoid CHARLI-2, making its public debut at RoboCup, won the adult-size robot soccer match with a penalty kick, beating Robo Erectus of Singapore 1-0.

Dennis Hong’s RoMeLa team from Virginia Tech (which is located in America, so feel free to chant) suffered a few setbacks early on, including an accidental decapitation that required a trip to the robot ER and some super glue. But CHARLI quickly rebounded to beat Dutch Robotics 3-0, and tied with team JoiTech, 0-0. The RoMeLa team kept a blog of the weekend’s events here.

Punctuating its victory in the competition, CHARLI also won the coveted Best Humanoid Award, a.k.a Louis Vuitton Humanoid Cup, Hong said in an email. He said the award, considered the most prestigious honor for humanoid robots, will make its debut on U.S. soil. The crystal trophy was in Japan for seven years before going to Germany for two years. Now Team CHARLI has captured the honors for the US.

Apparently CHARLI did not play so well at first, kicking the ball out of bounds and ambling awkwardly, but ultimately it performed better than expected — in a match against Team Hephestus, CHARLI won 4-1, the highest-scoring humanoid robot ever.

In an e-mail to friends and supporters, Hong said CHARLI was “the super star at the venue, with hundreds of spectators gathering at its games to watch its impressive performance.”

CHARLI-2 is an update to the first CHARLI, to whom we introduced you last year.

In partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, the RoMeLa team also built the pint-sized open-source DARWIn-OP, “Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence,” which won first place in the Humanoid Kid Size competition. The Astro-Boy robot was particularly skilled at the throw-in competition, wherein a robot must pick up a soccer ball and throw it back onto the pitch.

Despite CHARLI’s dour, adolescent I-hate-everything pose up above, the RoMeLa team did not win the teenage robot category — those honors went to the University of Bonn, maker of the Dynaped and Bodo robots. (RoMeLa did not enter that category.)

The annual RoboCup tournament highlights robotics research around the globe, pitting respected research teams against each other in a sporting event. The project aims to build a team of robots that can play soccer against humans by 2050. Judging by the winners’ awkward, jaunty movements, we may have a long way to go.

But Hong points out that the "kid size" competition is exciting already. "When the kid size first started, it was as slow and boring as the adult size of today, so expect great things coming for the adult size too in the next few years," he wrote in an email to PopSci.

No matter their size, it’s still pretty fun to watch:

We’ve seen plenty of examples of biomimicry in the robot world, from drones that fly like hummingbirds (pictured above) to caterpillar bots that flip around like a worm in distress. They’re evidence that roboticists are increasingly turning to natural evolution, the master designer of task-specific architecture for 4 billion years, and letting form follow function.

The Economist nicknames this new generation of animal-like robots “Zoomorpha,” as opposed to “Widgetophora” (wheeled or clawed machines like R2-D2) and “Anthropoidea,” the humanoids.

This new phylum would include creations like snakebots; octopus tentacle arms; robofish; gecko bots; robotic seagulls and much more.

The Economist story features some undersea-inspired robots, including a tentacle arm, a clam-bot and even a lamprey with cameras for eyes, as well as robotic shrew whiskers and the gecko-inspired StickyBot.

The robots are designed for specific uses, like using the octopus arm to shut off underwater valves. In many cases, they’re designed to help scientists study the very animals on which they’re modeled — like the clam bot, which is being used to study how shell shape affects an animal’s survival chances. Check out the Economist's piece for a full overview.

In the meantime, we’ll start thinking about genus classifications for these bio-inspired robots. Like Darpawishinae for the defense bots. Any other suggestions?

[The Economist]