Robotics

Robot adapts to injury. Lindsay France/University Photography Graduate student Viktor Zykov, former student Josh Bongard, now a professor at the University of Vermont, and Hod Lipson, Cornell assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, watch as a starfish-like robot pulls itself forward, using a gait it developed for itself. the robot's ability to figure out how it is put together, and from that to learn to walk, enables it to adapt and find a new gait when it is damaged.

Nothing can possibly go wrong ... go wrong ... go wrong ... The truth behind the old joke is that most robots are programmed with a fairly rigid "model" of what they and the world around them are like. If a robot is damaged or its environment changes unexpectedly, it can't adapt. So Cornell researchers have built a robot that works out its own model of itself and can revise the model to adapt to injury. "Most robots have a fixed model laboriously designed by human engineers," Lipson explained. Prison robot guards being tested in South Korea. [VIDEO] Last November, South Korea unveiled plans to test out robot prison guards intended to monitor inmates for suicidal and violent behavior.

Now Reuters reports that South Korea has started testing the machines. "By using the 3D depth camera, it will detect every detail of actions happening inside through a window. So, when there is an unusual behaviour, it's going to analyse it and report the problem to the control system. Therefore, correctional officers will run and arrive at the scene in time,” Lee Baik-Chul, chairman of the Asian Forum for Corrections, told Reuters. In November, officials estimated that the month-long test, involving three 5-foot robots, would cost 1 billion South Korean won, or about $900,000.

According to Reuters, designers are hoping to expand the machine’s functionality to include body searches. Previously, South Korea has tested using robots to help patrol the DMZ. Japan To Open Robot Farm In Disaster Zone. Ant behavior inspires more efficient warehouse robots. Fraunhofer's Multishuttle Moves robots, in the distribution center mock-up When it comes to groups that work together to get a job done, ants have pretty much got the process perfected.

That’s why computer scientist Marco Dorigo studied the creatures’ behavior, and created his Ant Colony Optimization model – an algorithmic technique that can be applied to human endeavors, when efficiency is the order of the day. Scientists from Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics have now applied these algorithms to a swarm of 50 autonomous shuttle robots working in a parts warehouse, in an effort to create a new and better type of materials-handling system. The warehouse is actually a 1,000 square-meter (10,764 sq-ft) research facility, equipped to simulate a distribution center. It incorporates 600 small-parts bins located on storage shelves, and eight picking stations. Source: Fraunhofer About the Author Post a CommentRelated Articles.

Eythor Bender demos human exoskeletons. Robots.net - Robot news and Robotics Info. Logy Magazine. Robots could one day navigate through constantly changing surroundings with virtually no input from humans, thanks to a system that allows them to build and continuously update a three-dimensional map of their environment using a low-cost camera such as Microsoft’s Kinect.

The technology could be useful on future robotic missions in the Solar System. With improved navigation, robotic rovers could more efficiently explore the surface of planets like Mars, allowing them to collect and return more data concerning the potential habitability of the martian environment. Currently, the time and effort it takes to plan and send navigational commands is one of the major limitations facing missions like the Mars Exploration Rovers. The system, being developed by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), could also allow blind people to make their way unaided through crowded buildings such as hospitals and shopping malls. Ecobot III Eats, Poops, Moves. Astro Teller has an unusual way of starting a new project: He tries to kill it.

Teller is the head of X, formerly called Google X, the advanced technology lab of Alphabet. At X’s headquarters not far from the Googleplex in Mountain View, Calif., Teller leads a group of engineers, inventors, and designers devoted to futuristic “moonshot” projects like self-driving cars, delivery drones, and Internet-beaming balloons. To turn their wild ideas into reality, Teller and his team have developed a unique approach.

It starts with trying to prove that whatever it is that you’re trying to do can’t be done—in other words, trying to kill your own idea. As Teller explains, “Instead of saying, ‘What’s most fun to do about this or what’s easiest to do first?’ The ideas that survive get additional rounds of scrutiny, and only a tiny fraction eventually becomes official projects; the proposals that are found to have an Achilles’ heel are discarded, and Xers quickly move on to their next idea.