Automaton

An article in today's WaPo discusses some odd dragonflies seen in New York City recently, which some of the witnesses say look "large for dragonflies" and suspiciously mechanical. Speculation is that they're robotic bugs spying for the US government -- of course, there's other speculation that they're just plain dragonflies, too. Don't be misled by the photo in the article (reproduced here); that's a picture from a lab at Harvard.

But after all the apparent warnings for the tinfoil hat brigade, the article does a nice of highlighting some of the ongoing research into robotic insects. Here's an interesting bit:

In one approach, researchers funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are inserting computer chips into moth pupae -- the intermediate stage between a caterpillar and a flying adult -- and hatching them into healthy "cyborg moths."

The Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems project aims to create literal shutterbugs -- camera-toting insects whose nerves have grown into their internal silicon chip so that wranglers can control their activities. DARPA researchers are also raising cyborg beetles with power for various instruments to be generated by their muscles.

"You might recall that Gandalf the friendly wizard in the recent classic 'Lord of the Rings' used a moth to call in air support," DARPA program manager Amit Lal said at a symposium in August. Today, he said, "this science fiction vision is within the realm of reality."

The United States Department of Defense has released its roadmap through 2032 (link to actual report at the bottom of the page; large PDF warning) for unmanned systems in the military. For this first time, this report includes not only unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) but also unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned underwater and surface vehicles (UUVs and USVs); previous reports had focused primarily on UGVs.

This is a very long but pretty fascinating read, particularly the president's budget through 2013 for funding in the three areas (section 2.4). It's really interesting to see that the UGVs like PackBots and Talons seem to be way ahead of other unmanned systems, with the R&D budget drastically decreasing over the next several years as the procurement budget skyrockets. The UAVs and UUVs, on the other hand, will still have a lot of R&D money pumped into them over the next several years. UAVs seem to be most popular with the highest overall procurement budget.

The report also goes into a nice explanation of the Dull/Dirty/Dangerous mantra that is so popular with American robotics development:

• For the dull, allows the ability to give operators normal mission cycles and crew rest.
• For the dirty, increases the probability of a successful mission and minimizes human exposure.
• For the dangerous, lowers the political and human cost if the mission is lost.

Lower downside risk and higher confidence in mission success are two strong motivators for continued expansion of unmanned systems across a broad spectrum of warfighting and peacetime missions.

There's also some good stuff on standardization and interoperability within the industries, including things like message format and processor speed. This will be good reading for the CTOs and budding entrepreneurs out there.

We've all had those days when we suddenly say to ourselves, "Gosh, I wish I had my very own Predator drone. The things I could keep under surveillance! The neighbors I could buzz! Yes, my life is empty without it." Fortunately, for people like us, there is DIY Drones, a site dedicated to telling you how to build your own unmanned aerial vehicle for under $1000 using things like LEGO Mindstorms kits or BASIC Stamp kits to add navigation and other behaviors to RC airplanes.

Via MeFi. Photo from diydrones.com

Remember those strange dragonflies seen in New York City that some witnesses said looked suspiciously ... robotic? Well, we still don't know what those were.

But if you're into flying microrobots, you can't miss this month's Spectrum cover article, Fly, Robot Fly, written by one of the leading experts in the field, Robert Wood at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab:

There is no more rewarding moment for roboticists than when they first see their creations begin to twitch with a glimmer of life. For me, that moment of paternal pride came a year ago this month, when my artificial fly first flexed its wings and flew.

It began when I took a stick-thin winged robot, not much larger than a fingertip, and anchored it between two taut wires, rather like a miniature space shuttle tethered to a launchpad. Next I switched on the external power supply. Within milliseconds the carbon-fiber wings, 15 millimeters long, began to whip forward and back 120 times per second, flapping and twisting just like an actual insect's wings. The fly shot straight upward on the track laid out by the wires. As far as I know, this was the first flight of an insect-size robot.

Read Wood's full account of his work and see additional photos of this great little flying robot at Spectrum's web site.

Photos: Dan Saelinger and Randi Silberman for IEEE Spectrum

The world's robot population has reached 4.49 million, and that number should nearly double by 2010 to 8.37 million. That's one automaton for every person in Austria, whatever that means! But we've written about that already: we put together these numbers based on data from the latest edition of World Robotics, a survey by the International Federation of Robotics released late last year.

Now we're looking again at this number-filled report and highlighting some of its best stuff. We want to know: What kinds of robots are out there? Where are they toiling around? And how fast are the silicon-brained things multiplying?

First, a recap: The World Robotics study divides robots in two main categories: industrial robots and service robots. The first category includes welding systems, assembly manipulators, silicon-wafer handlers—you know, that kind of heavy, expensive, several-degrees-of-freedom stuff. The second category is divided in two subcategories: professional service robots (things like bomb-disposal bots, surgical systems, milking robots) and personal service robots (vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, all sorts of robot hobby kits and toys).

Below you'll find 10 statistics about the world's robotics market we thought you'd want to know. (All data from the World Robotics study except the world robot population figures -- see note [1] at the end.) The stats after the jump.

In yet another great step towards insect-size robots Petter Muren, current world record holder for the smallest remotely controlled helicopter, today announced plans for his pocket-size "Black Hornet" helicopter. Built by newly founded Prox Dynamics, the helicopter will weigh in at less than 20 grams, and feature a video camera with wireless transmission to stereo-vision goggles. The ultimate surveillance tool, it will be ready for launch within seconds to give immediate situational awareness to police, fire fighters, military and special forces.

Like Muren's previous designs, the "Black Hornet" will rely on his patented Proxflyer rotor system, centered around a dual coaxial counter-rotating rotor. This design combines a number of advantages making it well suited for surveillance applications, including passive stability, high efficiency and a very low noise level.

Muren's past projects include a series of very small to tiny helicopters (see IEEE video), with his current record holder a mere 70 mm long, weighing less than one gram, equal to 1/5 of a sheet of paper. And Muren has big plans for the future: "Our long term goal is to establish a 2% market share in a US$ 3 billion market, currently growing over 10% per year”. With more than 2 million of his past helicopters sold he means business. The first version of the "Black Hornet" is expected 2009.

Image: Prox Dynamics 2008