Automaton

Curvilinear Camera Detector could Revolutionize Robot Vision

2008-08-07T17:06:10Z

Image: Optics.org With the potential to revolutionize robot vision, National Science Foundation (NSF) funded US researchers from the University of Illinois have developed a silicon camera detector with a hemispherically shaped surface. Made using the same silicon technology as modern day detectors, they can be 'stretched' into shapes matching eyes found in biology, such as insects, or even the human eye. This is highly beneficial as it greatly improves the field of view, as well as other benefits reported by the researchers. The technology involves using traditional rigid silicon wafers, 'dicing' them into individual pixels, then laying them onto a stretchable membrane with interconnecting wires for transmitting data. The researchers say that because the technology is based on established materials and manufacturing processes, improving the current 256-pixel sensor resolution would not be difficult. More information can be found on BBC, AZoNano.com, and Optics.org....

iRobot to sell police 'bots won in xBot lawsuit

2008-08-06T22:52:29Z

Photos: iRobot If you'll recall, late last year iRobot accused a small company called Robotic FX, founded by a former iRobot employee, of stealing IP to create a competitor robot, the Negotiator, which looked suspiciously like an iRobot PackBot. The two machines were the subject of a disputed US $286 million Army contract and, later, a lawsuit. In the end, iRobot prevailed. It won both the contract (called the xBot program) and the lawsuit (sort of: the two sides settled and Robotic FX was dissolved). Now iRobot is enjoying the fruits of its victory. Turns out the company is taking the Negotiator developed by the ill-fated Robotic FX and making it their own. The idea is to have a PackBot-like robot that is stripped down and cheaper for use by police departments and security firms. Wired's blog has the details: Like Ahed did in his early days, iRobot will be marketing the Negotiator to police forces and other public safety departments around the country. One of the only major changes is where the things will be built: in India, instead of on the assembly lines of Ahed's still-unnamed defense contractor partner. The new Negotiator will also be much cheaper than the early edition: $20,000 a pop, "about the cost of a squad car," notes iRobot executive Joe Dyer. It's also less than a quarter the price that Ahed (or iRobot) was going to give the military for its xBots. ... The xBots were supposed to handle bombs, with a mechanical arm. The new, joystick-driven Negotiator comes equipped with just a video camera -- so it'll be a cop's unmanned scout, and not much more. The formal press release, which makes no mention of the previous dispute, is here. Thanks, Rex!...

Robots podcast discusses robotics blogs, media coverage, more

2008-08-01T15:36:50Z

The Robots podcast, a great show with news and interviews created by a group (which includes Automaton's own Markus Waibel) from the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL, in Switzerland, has a new episode. The guests are Steven Rainwater, a founding editor of the popular robots.net, and Mikell Taylor, one of the world's most prolific robotics bloggers ;) -- and, yes, an Automaton contributor! Although Mikell doesn't mention her prom date 'bot, she talks about how her robot geekness came about and also about blogging and her job as an AUV engineer at Bluefin Robotics. Listen to the show here [MP3], and check out future episodes at robotspodcast.com....

Video: NYC Soldering Championship

2008-07-31T20:20:33Z

Since many robot makers are fond of a soldering iron, I thought I'd post this video here. Produced by Spectrum's Josh Romero and Monica Heger. Some details: IEEE Spectrum stopped by Ignite NYC, where Bre Pettis and the NYC Resistor hacker collective hosted a contest to see who had the fastest soldering iron in the city. The contestants all raced to build a TV-B-Gone kit, and the first to turn off the TV won....

"It is never 'not my job'." Professor Michael Gennert on Robotics Engineering at WPI

2008-07-28T12:00:00Z

Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Mass is a small science and engineering university more in the company of flexible, innovative institutions like Harvey Mudd College and Olin College than the tech behemoths MIT or CalTech. Focusing on interdisciplinary and practical education, last fall they kicked off the country's first undergraduate robotics engineering program. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with Professor Michael Gennert, the current director of the Robotics Engineering Department. Prof. Gennert was kind enough to answer many of the questions I've had about the major since I learned about it last year. Read on for the interview -- and high school students, take note! An application to WPI may be in your future!...Continue reading...

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French company Aldebaran sends "Nao" humanoid robot into production

2008-07-26T12:58:18Z

I've had my eye on Aldebaran Robotics, a company based in Paris, France, for a while (and not just because of my love for pain au chocolat). In addition to raising € 5M in venture capital earlier this year, Aldebaran has spent the last three years developing an affordable autonomous humanoid robot called Nao. Nao speaks, emotes, and moves. It runs on Linux and it's powered by a rechargeable battery -- nothing particularly revolutionary there. It sounds like the real novelty will be in the software interaction and mobility (it has 25 degrees of freedom). Initially it's pitched as a research and development platform for the next generation of applications, but eventually they want Nao to be a household robot to assist with tasks. (At only 23 inches tall, though I suspect these capabilities will be relatively limited.) From Aldebaran's website: "Eventually, with many improved behaviors, it will become an autonomous family companion. Finally, with more sophisticated functions, it will adopt a new role, assisting with daily tasks (monitoring, etc.) Featured with an intuitive programming interface, the entire family will be able to enjoy the robot experience. Yet, full of new technologies, our robot will also satisfy the demanding techno-addict's expectations." What interests me the most is the idea that the plan is for Nao to always be user-programmable, even ultimately by the average consumer end-user. Given the problems most people I know have resetting VCR clocks and setting automatic functions on air conditioners, I'm a little skeptical that consumers will want something they have to "train" with any sort of programming interface, rather than just buying a specialized end-product with the necessary behaviors already built in. However, I can't argue with how beneficial it could be to have even a basic understanding of programming in a graphical "block"...

Scoop: Robot dragonfly is smaller than real insect, transmits camera images

2008-07-23T13:57:21Z

Researchers at the Technical University Delft will present the smallest flying flapping robot carrying a camera today. With a wing span of just 10 centimeters and weighing in at a mere 3.07 grams, the remote controlled dragonfly is half the size of Borneo's Tetracanthagyna plagiata dragon flies. The video below shows the DelFly Micro's first test flight indoors. The smaller picture in the bottom right corner shows video data transmitted from the robot in-flight to a ground station. Using image recognition software developed by the DelFly team, objects can then be recognized automatically. This may allow the robot be operated from - or by - a computer. Guido de Croon, developer of the vision-based control system of the DelFly, already has applications in mind. When a university building burnt-out recently he thought of his team's MAVs: "Since there was some risk of collapse, people could not enter it, and we proposed to attempt to fly into it with the DelFly or a quad-rotor." With the new DelFly Micro still in development, a quad-rotor was deployed to survey the site, but was found too large to enter the building. "Unfortunately, we did not succeed in getting in," De Croon explains, "However, we did gain some experience in what problems one can encounter in such a situation." Thanks Guido!...

Atsuo Takanishi's 41-DOF robot toots its own flute

2008-07-23T11:50:59Z

Photo: Takanishi Lab Toyota's Partner plays the violin and trumpet, and Honda's Asimo has even conducted the Detroit Symphony. Atsuo Takanishi wants to build an entire humanoid robot orchestra. Takanishi, a professor of mechanical engineering at Waseda University, in Tokyo, started with a flutist. From John Boyd's "This Robot Toots Its Own Flute" story in Spectrum: Getting the robot to produce a melody turned out to be a monumental task. First, the researchers worked with professional players to create a performance index of what constitutes the best flute sounds. They translated these sounds into mathematical formulations, to which the robot refers. The researchers then programmed the robot’s organs to create a sound. Once a sound was produced, they used the parameters controlling the organs that produced the sound as a base and then adjusted those parameters repeatedly until the sound improved and eventually approximated a target sound in the performance index....Continue reading...

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Crabfu's Putter Bot

2008-07-22T18:27:06Z

Another creation of robot maker and animator Crabfu. I'm a big fan of this guy! His robots are not only simple and beautiful -- they have a lot of "personality" as well. Description from his site: PutterBot uses 2 standard size servos for the tracks, each with the potentiometer popped out, and servo taped to the top of the servo. This is an easy way to make the servos continuous, and you can adjust the trim with the potentiometer or with the radio. The tank chassis is a kit from Tamiya, and directly driven from the servo horns. The tread mesh is not perfect, but it works ok. One micro servo is used for the putter, and another one used for the head, and mounted in the back of the Putter Bot, driven through wire linkage. The reason using a linkage system, instead of directly mounting the head/light to the servo, is to lower the head for a better center of gravity... and it just looks cuter with the head down low. Radio mixing is used, so that the right stick controls the tank movements, and the left controls the putter and head....

Robotic sniffer wins Imagine Cup 2008

2008-07-09T10:21:47Z

Students from Singapore's Nanyang Polytechnic university have won this year's Embedded Development invitational challenge of Microsoft's Imagine Cup 2008. Their solar powered robot, dubbed EMS (Environmental Monitoring System), processes air quality on the fly while autonomously navigating indoor and outdoor environments. It then transmits the air's Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), temperature and humidity wirelessly to a remote user. This year's finals in Paris saw 370 finalists chosen from a pool of more than 200,000 students from over 100 countries and regions competing in nine categories centered around the motto: "Imagine a world where technology enables a sustainable environment." The yearly event organized by Microsoft and endorsed by the United Nations is one of the largest student technology competitions. With this year's winners announced, registration has opened for next year's Imagine Cup to be held in Egypt....

Robots the highlight of IEEE Women in Engineering magazine

2008-07-08T01:36:19Z

The IEEE Women in Engineering group has just put out a new issue of their magazine that does a fantastic job of showing many aspects of the robotics industry and the women who have contributed to it. Fortunately, even for those who don't have a paper subscription, there's an online version here. You can download a PDF for easier reading as well. It profiles people like Ellen Purdy (a part of the Army's Future Combat Systems), Helen Greiner (cofounder and chairman of iRobot), and a DARPA Grand Challenge team member, as well as fun stuff like Disney Imagineering and the intersection of robotics, engineering, and music (who knew Guitar Hero was so important to the industry?). I'm pretty tempted to get paper copies of this....

A look under the hood of Kiva Systems warehouse robots

2008-07-02T13:25:20Z

UPDATE: There's no better way to understand Kiva's systems than seeing it in action. Here's a video Josh Romero and I prepared: There's been a lot of press about Kiva Systems, the Boston-area startup that developed mobile robots to automate pick-and-pack warehouse operations. No article, however, has really explained the technology that lets the Kiva robots do what they do -- swarm a warehouse by the hundreds and in a highly coordinated bot ballet deliver inventory to workers, racks of products arriving one after another in seconds, flawlessly. Photo: Joel Eden Photography/Kiva Systems In other words, there have been few or no details about the robots' control system, their mechanical design, and the overall resource-allocation algorithms. Until now. Spectrum has filled this gap with an in-depth article ("Three Engineers, Hundreds of Robots, One Warehouse") by yours truly in the July issue....Continue reading...

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LEGO introduces WeDo kit

2008-07-01T10:00:00Z

LEGO today announced the WeDo kit, which is meant to be not just a younger kid version of the Mindstorms but is designed to appeal to "emerging markets" -- developing countries -- and even interfaces with the OLPC XO computer to do so, which I think is pretty sweet. Like the Mindstorms kit it comes with a kit of LEGO bricks and sensors and has a similar building-block software interfaced based on LabView, though it's simpler and aimed for a younger audience. The press release describes something of the curriculum they have in mind for it: Working in teams, children invent their own solution by building a LEGO model and programming it to perform a certain task. Cause and effect learning is enhanced by the models remaining tethered to a computer; similar to scientists in working labs, children can test and adjust their programming in real time. After reflecting on what did and did not work, students can consult with peers, adapt programming, adjust models or begin again. Unfortunately it's not up on the LEGO website up, and there's no hint on how much it'll cost. Only info at this point is that it will be available in January 2009. Thanks, Trisha!...

"WALL-E" is an adorable movie. Go see it.

2008-06-29T04:48:52Z

I saw "WALL-E" last night with some folks from work and it was universally agreed to be an excellent movie. The characters are fantastic, the animation is as always impressive, and the story is fun. Fans of Apple products will find a few winks to Macs and iPods, and I'm pretty sure EVE is exactly what an Apple robot would look like. For his part, WALL-E bears a striking resemblance to Johnny 5. I can't wait till I can have my own. For now I'll have to do with the LEGO version, I guess. Go see it. Cute WALL-E wants you to. Image from Disney/Pixar...

Robotics Courseware available for free from IEEE RAS

2008-06-24T12:34:13Z

This month's issue of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society's magazine discusses the newly launched RoboticsCourseWare.org, "an open repository for robotics pedagogical materials." From the magazine: RoboticsCourseWare.org is similar to MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative ... the repository is searchable, browsable, and open for downloads. No registration or login is required for accessing the posted materials. Materials are typically made available under a Creative Commons License ... ... we have published materials for four courses: Introduction to Autonomous Mobile Robots; Robotics: Science and Systems; Introduction to Robotics; Motion Planning and Applications. Materials available for these courses include lecture slides and notes, course exercises, examinations, laboratory projects, code repositories, videos, and other media....