Robytes
“TASERed the dog.” He then stores
that information, remembers the
proper signal, and stands ready
to repeat the operation on your
command. He simply waves his little
transmitter arm at the proper device
and engages it. ApriPoko is also said
to possess a camera with which he
can identify particular users. Details
are scarce, but he stands about 11
in ( 27 cm) tall and weighs 5 lbs
(2.3 kg). Perfect for couch potatoes
everywhere.
Laser-Activated Fetchbot
as fetching towels, pill bottles,
telephones, etc. Most interesting is
El-e’s user interface system. Rather
than grappling with a complex control
system based on speech recognition or
body language, the bot is controlled
using a green laser pointer. You simply
illuminate the desired object, and the
robot uses a stereo pan/tilt camera to
analyze the situation, pick up the
object, and deliver it to a nearby
human or, if you prefer, place it on a
nearby table. The team is now working
to expand El-e’s capabilities to include
operating light switches and opening
and closing doors.
Stickybot uses directional adhesive
to cling to smooth surfaces. Photo
courtesy of Biomimetics Dexterous
Manipulation Laboratory.
In 2005, Georgia Tech and
Emory University got together to
create the Health Systems Institute
( www.hsi.gatech.edu), within which
lives the Center for Healthcare
Robotics. Center Director Charlie
Kemp and other researchers recently
demonstrated El-e (pronounced
“Ellie”), a one-armed contraption that
— in addition to having obvious
appeal to Barkalounger jockey’s
everywhere — may turn out to be a
great thing for people with severe
mobility problems. It is designed to
help users with everyday tasks such
Stickybot Features Advanced
Adhesive
It’s actually been around since
April 2005, but Stickybot — a product
of the Stanford University Robotics
in Scansorial Environments (RiSE)
project — continues to be improved
and refined. Several interesting videos
have been made available for
download at bdml.stanford.edu/
RiSE/Downloads, and a related
technical paper (as of this writing)
was slated for presentation at the
recent IEEE International
Conference on Robotics
and Automation (ICRA).
Inspired by geckos, the
creepy crawler is operated
by 12 servo motors and
driven by a PIC controller
with force sensors. The
novel feature is its feet,
which cling to smooth surfaces such as glass, acrylic,
granite, and ceramic tile
using a special directional
dry adhesive. Unlike normal
sticky things (e.g., tape),
it requires a very small
preload to adhere, and
you detach it by reducing
the load. Planned
enhancements include
adding a degree of freedom at the
ankles, allowing the rear feet to
rotate for better orientation, and the
addition of an active tail.
UAVs over Antarctica
Researcher Charlie Kemp accepts a towel
from El-e. Photo courtesy of HSI.
In March, the British Antarctic
Survey (BAS, www.antarctica.ac.uk)
announced completion of the first ever
series of autonomous UAV flights over
Antarctica. In collaboration with the
Technical University of Braunschweig
(Germany), four of the aircraft
completed a total of 20 flights,
including four over the Weddell Sea.
It gets down to about
- 50°C (- 58°F) along the coast, which
is definitely cold enough to freeze
your braunschweiger. Apparently, the
sea freezes and turns white during
the winter, reflects heat, and at least
to some extent helps cool the planet.
To provide a better understanding of
how that works, the UAVs were fitted
with instruments to record the heat
exchange between sea ice and the
lower atmosphere.
The flights lasted for about 40
min, covered 45 km, and collected
100 measurements per second. Each
bird has a wingspan of 2 m, weighs
6 kg, and is powered by a lithium-ion
polymer battery pack. Takeoff and
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