Archive for the 'Research' Category

European researchers have developed a robot capable of moving autonomously using human-like visual processing. The robot is helping researchers explore how the brain responds to its environment while the body is moving. The end result may be machines that are better able to navigate through cluttered environments.

The robot is a wheeled platform with a robotic head that uses two cameras for stereoscopic vision. It can turn its head and shift its gaze up and down or sideways to check out its surroundings, and can measure its own speed relative to its environment.

The robot is controlled by algorithms designed to mimic different parts of the human visual system. Instead of capturing and mapping its surroundings over and over in order to plan its route, the way most robots do, this robot uses a simulated neural network to update its position relative to the environment, continually adjusting to each new input. So it mimics human visual processing and movement planning.

[Technologyreview]

Sometimes, there are places technology shouldn’t go and this is one of them. This robot feeds on flies. Well, let me explain. The pegs on the front are designed to encourage spiders to build webs on them. Once flies are stuck in the web, the arms snatch the flies away.

Then, the flies are put in a microbial fuel cell. So, yes, this robot actually feeds on flies. This is a pest control prototype, but it’s just a little too morbid, even for me.

[BotJunkie]

It seems NASA wanted to make a real-life transformer and they have somehow sort of managed to do just that. Meet the Superbot, a robot that is made out of 100 modules that are dropped separately from a plane then scramble together and rejoin to create a rover.

It can transform again, however, by sprouting legs for climbing a sand dune. Once on top of the sand dune, it can form a greenhouse for growing seeds. Sounds elaborate, but potentially pretty cool. Good going, NASA!

[FOXNews.com]

Last week we told you about Psikharpax, the robot rat with the ability to learn. Well now we have some video of the little guy in action. He looks pretty impressive.

The bot uses all of the same sensory organs that a biological rat has. The software also acts like a real rat and can build a mental map of complex environments. Which is how rats navigate mazes so effectively. In addition to being a useful robot, he’s pretty darn cute. He’s bound to scare the bejesus out of cats.

If you think your car has personality, think again. It’s got nothing on RoboCar. In the nearer future, this cute RoboCar will be used by researchers to experiment with autonomous vehicle systems. Each robot is outfitted with a bunch of sensors, from CCD stereo cameras image recognition sensors to accelerometers, proximity sensors and Wi-Fi.

It will act as a platform on which to test their vehicle control tech that’s smaller, more hackable and cheaper than a full-size car. By cheaper I meant about $6000, which is much less than a car.

[Gizmodo]

Octavia is one of 3 MDS (Mobile/Dextrous/Social) robots designed and built by The Personal Robotics Group and Xitome. The other two are Lucas, and Issac. In the video, Octavia gets fooled by magic, just like you would fool a child.

The point is not so much that the robot was fooled, but the point here is the interaction. Octavia is smart enough to solve the trick, but when conned into looking away, can get tricked like the best of us. And like us, isn’t too happy about it.

Thanks Anthony.

Psikharpax is named after the cunning king of the rats, from a tale by Homer. European researchers believe it may push back a frontier in artificial intelligence. For decades scientists have strived to make a robot that can do more than make repetitive, programmed gestures. Such robots aren’t very helpful in the real world. But one of the biggest obstacles is learning ability. Without the smarts to figure out dangers and opportunities, a robot is helpless.

Well, this guy looks like a rat and is designed to operate like one, using all of the same sensory organs that a biological rat has. The software also acts like a real rat and is building a mental map of complex environments. Which is how rats navigate mazes so effectively.

This artificial rodent has two cameras for eyes, two microphones for ears and tiny wheels, driven by a battery-powered motor, to provide movement. A couple of dozen whiskers measure around a dozen centimetres (four inches) stretch out on either side of its long, pointed snout.

[Physorg]

Researchers in the UK are thinking about the problems of having a whole staff of robot servants with different tasks, bodies and features. Controlling a varied team of them could be time-consuming and demanding. The answer may be to give all the robots on a household staff a single artificial “personality” that jumps from one body to another, giving the mistress or master of the house a single interface to interact with.

To test the idea, the team has created an ideal robotic home in a typical British suburban semi-detached house with around ten rooms across two floors. The house has about five robots of varying shapes and sizes as well as computer screens displaying a graphical companion called Greta, which gives the human residents a different way to interact with the robots.

To keep things simple they created a single interface that acts like a head butler, accepting commands from the homeowner on behalf of all the subordinate robots and answering questions. The “head butler” function can jump from machine to machine, so that at any point during a chore the homeowner can accost and question the machine that’s in action. It’s an amazing way to interact with all of it, for sure. Click through for the full story.

[New Scientist]

The end is coming soon. Robots are learning to swim and replicate animals! Professor Long and his students of Vassar College have been doing some experiments; Experiments to learn about evolution. This small group of humans (so they say) have been putting a predator robot in the same pool as a pray robot named Preyro (bottom robot in image.) Preyro is the one that shows the evolution. It swims around the pool looking for “food” like a real animal and eventually it will come across the predator robots, Predator-X and Tadiator. The whole point in this interaction is to see how the prey will get away. It may fail to escape, so if it does they improve the robot by adding fins, tails, ect.

They experiment with different elements of the anatomy. The tail is a good example. They add vertebrae to the tail to make it stiffer; to see if it is able to get away easier. They also tried making the tail larger, but the results showed no affect because the extra weight made up for the bonus push. In reality the larger tailed fish would disprove to be the best as needed in Darwinism. The fish with the seven vertebrae would be the most survived type of the species, leaving the others to die and this one to reproduce and make more surviving species, at least until the predator robot would evolve too. This whole cycle is the point that Professor John Long and his men are trying to prove through these experiments. Now, could they become disasters of humanity, robots evolving extremely fast and taking over the world? Well we’ll just have to wait and see cause no one, not even these robotic-maniacs can predict when and if the world will end.

[Engadget]

Researchers at Seoul National University in Korea are working on a robot that can be sneaky.

The blue dot in the image above is the good guy, like a security guard and the red dot is the bad guy, like an intruder. The researchers have created an algorithm that allows the blue dot to intercept the red dot by using a path that is sneaky and not direct.

The algorithm factors in robot size, the size of objects it can hide behind and the speed of the intruder. It’s pretty creepy when you start to think about it.

[Robot Living]