We'll be discussing the history and near-future of robotics with luminaries from Willow Garage, Boston Dynamics (yes, the people behind Big Dog) and 3D Robotics. Our editor-in-chief, Tim Stevens, is orchestrating proceedings and we'll be liveblogging the whole event right here... in just a few minutes.
Filed under: Robots
While we're well aware that robots will prove our undoing, we didn't expect DARPA to make it so... easy. It just demonstrated and helped fund the MLB Company's V-Bat, a testbed UAV that can fly or hover while brandishing a 6-foot claw. Yes, we know what you're thinking. Officially, there's an innocuous reason for the giant arm: a stereo vision system, in tandem with GPS, lets the robot precisely deliver one-pound payloads with the kind of reach that us fleshy anthropods wouldn't have. We're not quite so comforted after realizing that the robot can find its target without human input, however. DARPA sees the V-Bat as a stepping stone towards more autonomous vehicles, and it likely has noble intentions at heart. If V-Bat's descendants ultimately decide that humans are the payload, though, we'll know exactly who to blame.
Continue reading So this is how it ends: DARPA demos a flying drone with a 6-foot claw (video)
Filed under: Robots
Via: TechEye.net
Source: DARPA
Greetings from the distant future of 2013. We stand in a basement of a wasteland once known as "New York City," to deliver you tales of the impending Robopocalypse. We'll take you to "San Diego" where former Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson and his 3D Robotics business partner Jordi Muñoz are offering up the technology to help turn robotic helicopters into autonomous drones. Next up, author Daniel H. Wilson discusses his own prophecies in the bestselling Robopocalypse (soon to be a Spielberg-directed motion picture). Wafaa Bilal, the NYU professor who had a camera implanted in the back of his head, tells us about his life as an cyborg -- and what it's like having strangers on the internet shoot you with paintballs.
We've got a trip to the Robot Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh where we speak to BigDog creator Marc Raibert, iRobot in Massachusetts, Bot & Dolly and Keepon-maker BeatBots in San Francisco and Willow Garage, home of the PR2. We'll also travel to MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech and Northeastern University to find how some of our nation's top schools are contributing to the forthcoming robotic apocalypse. And, seeing as how it wouldn't be an Engadget Show without the Gadget Table, we crack open a time capsule from 2012, to check out some of the top consumer electronics of the day including the Microsoft Surface, iPad Mini and Nexus 4 and 10.
Be sure to watch this very special episode of the Engadget Show. Your life -- and everything you hold dear -- just might depend on it.
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Filed under: Robots
Few robots can travel gracefully through more than one medium; more often than not, they're either strictly airborne or tied to the ground. The Illinois Institute of Technology's HyTAQ quadrotor doesn't abide by these arbitrary limits. The hybrid machine, designed by Arash Kalantari and Matthew Spenko, uses the same actuators to drive both its flight as well as a surrounding cage for rolling along on the ground, quickly switching between the two methods. It's clearly adaptable, but using the one system also provides large power advantages over a traditional quadrotor, Spenko tells us. While HyTAQ's battery lasts only for 5 minutes and 1,969 feet of pure flight, that jumps to 27 minutes and 7,874 feet when the robot can use a smooth floor instead -- and of course, it can hop over ground obstacles altogether instead of making a detour. The range of the robot and its pilot are the main limiting factors, but the patent process is already underway with hopes of winning commercial deals. We're both excited and worried as a result; as wonderfully flexible as HyTAQ is, widescale adoption could lead to especially relentless robots during the inevitable takeover.
Filed under: Robots
Source: IIT
It's entirely possible for robots to juggle or play catch. They've usually been relegated to playing with their own kind, however, which is as good an excuse as any for Disney Research to experiment with a ball-tossing robot tailored to games with humans. The animatronic creation uses a depth-aware motion camera -- there's conflicting mentions of using both the Microsoft Kinect and ASUS' Xtion Pro Live that we're hoping to sort out -- to track any mid-air balls as well as throw them back to a human participant. Disney's robot does more than just move the robot's arm to account for imperfect tosses, too, as it knows to feign a dejected look after a botched reception. The company suggests that its invention would ideally bring two-way interaction to theme parks, so it's more likely to show up at Disneyland before it stands in for a parent in the backyard. It's just as well; when the Robopocalypse comes, the last thing we'll want at home is a machine that can toss grenades.
Update: Team member Jens Kober has filled us in on just why both cameras are mentioned. The team started off using the Kinect and switched to the Xtion Pro Live, once it was available, to get hardware-synced timing between a regular camera and the depth camera. The project didn't require the panning motor or microphone array of Microsoft's system.
Filed under: Robots, Microsoft, ASUS
Via: Gizmodo
Source: Popular Science
Robots are already adept at all manner of things, from hunting to feeling, but over at Honda's Research Institute, one team is focused on an ability bots aren't so hot at yet -- hearing. Puny humans can quickly deduce the direction of a sound and assess its significance, while also ignoring unimportant background noise. Honda is trying to replicate these traits with HEARBO, a robot with eight microphones hidden in its head. Using its HARK software system, HEARBO can distinguish between and locate the position of up to four unique sound sources simultaneously to within one degree of accuracy. It can also filter out din generated by its own 17 motors with a method called "ego-noise suppression." HEARBO's sound localization skills are shown in the first video below, while the second proves it can beat match, dance poorly, and isolate voice commands when music is playing and motors are whirring. The overall goal of Honda's efforts is to generally advance intelligent speech and sound recognition technology. We can't help but wonder, however, if bots will just end up using it to pinpoint our screams when the inevitable occurs.
Continue reading Honda's HEARBO robot can separate and locate four sound sources at once (video)
Filed under: Robots
Via: Gizmag
Source: IEEE Spectrum, Honda Research Institute
We like to tell ourselves that learning by doing is the best strategy for improving our skills, but we seldom apply that philosophy to our robots; with certain exceptions, they're just supposed to know what to do from the start. Researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt disagree and have developed algorithms proving that robot arms just need practice, practice, practice to learn complex activities. After some literal hand-holding with a human to understand the basics of a ping-pong swing, a TUD robot can gradually abstract those motions and return the ball in situations beyond the initial example. The technique is effective enough that the test arm took a mere hour of practice to successfully bounce back 88 percent of shots and compete with a human. That's certainly better than most of us fared after our first game. If all goes well, the science could lead to robots of all kinds that need only a small foundation of code to accomplish a lot. Just hope that the inevitable struggle between humans and robots isn't settled with a ping-pong match... it might end badly.
German robot arm learns ping-pong as it plays humans, might rival its masters originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Oct 2012 07:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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First they invaded our factories, and now it's our hotel rooms. Is nowhere safe from the robots? In truth, Ibis' upcoming Sleep Art project is very slick, even if it smacks of robot voyeurism. Ibis hotels in Berlin, London and Paris will let 40 successful applicants sleep on beds that each have 80 sensors translating movements, sound and temperature into truly unique acrylic paintings by robotic arms connected through WiFi. You don't have to worry that the machines are literally watching you sleep -- there's no cameras or other visual records of the night's tossing and turning, apart from the abstract lines on the canvas. All the same, if you succeed in landing a stay in one of the Sleep Art hotel rooms between October 13th and November 23rd, you're a brave person. We all know how this ends.
Ibis hotels to have robots paint art while they track your sleep: no, that's not creepy at all (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 04:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PermalinkPSFK | Ibis (Facebook) | Email this | Comments 
Toyota has built the Human Support Robot, a 70 pound 'droid designed to help the elderly and less-able around the home. The tablet-and-voice-controlled unit can open your curtains, fetch items and even pick up after you, thanks to its single telescopic arm that stretches up to 2.5 feet. A tablet slot on top of its head lets you use the hardware as a telepresence device, although we're more interested in teaching it some attitude so we can live out our "sassy housekeeper" sitcom fantasies in peace.
Filed under: Robots
Toyota builds assistive robot to help the disabled around the home originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PermalinkThe Verge, Gizmag | Toyota (Translated), Zaikei | Email this | Comments
Toyota has built the Human Support Robot, a 70 pound 'droid designed to help the elderly and less-able around the home. The tablet-and-voice-controlled unit can open your curtains, fetch items and even pick up after you, thanks to its single telescopic arm that stretches up to 2.5 feet. A tablet slot on top of its head lets you use the hardware as a telepresence device, although we're more interested in teaching it some attitude so we can live out our "sassy housekeeper" sitcom fantasies in peace.
Filed under: Robots
Toyota builds assistive robot to help the disabled around the home originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PermalinkThe Verge, Gizmag | Toyota (Translated), Zaikei | Email this | Comments