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The x-Ar arm reimagines a Steadicam’s spring system to make arms and tools feel weightless, diminishing the risk of repetitive-stress injuries without motors, batteries or external power.
Today in things that may leave you scratching your head: the SWITL, the robotic hand that can pick up, move, and put down sol-gel materials without altering their shape or arrangement in the least.
Prosthetic hands typically come in three varieties: purely cosmetic models; hooks and other low-cost that provide a limited range of motion; and electronic versions that better mimic natural hand movements yet can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Everyone’s favorite surgical robot daVinci, known for his football-lacing and paper-airplane-making skills (and, like, landmark surgeries or something) is also a bit of a party animal, it seems.
After walking across the stage at his graduation with the help of exoskeletal legs, Austin Whitney strolled straight into a new career: bionic leg tester.
Are robots our friends or deadly enemies? Robotic expert Hans Moravec from the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute, says intelligent robots today are no smarter than the average insect. But, don't feel too safe about that, after all army a
In a leap bridging today's construction with that of the world of tomorrow, Daniel Mellinger, a University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. candidate, has created a stunning network of jaw-dropping aerial robots he calls "quadrotors" that can assemble struc
Someday soon a robot may be one of your best friends. The European Commission's "Beyond Robotics" project workbook states its mission as "Developing cognitive robots whose 'purpose in life' would be to serve humans as assistants or 'companions
Move over buddy, Mr. Robby Bot is here to replace you. Nightmare at the Acme factory? Well, not quite yet. But sooner than some would suspect, they may be joining the unemployment lines—kicked to the curb by that nice, quiet bucket-of-bolts down the
Getting kids to stop lying is hard enough, now engineers are building robots specifically programmed to lie. No doubt those in the field of ethics are ready to tear their hair out. Robots are being built that happily lie to each other…and that's pre
Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has awarded a 17-month, $988,000 contract to Carnegie Mellon's Robotics Institute to develop an autonomous flight system for the Transformer Program. The university is also exploring the feasibilit
During the last several years, sophisticated robots have moved from novelties at trade shows to classrooms, companions at nursing homes, actors in live stage productions, and even the focus of a new sexuality. The robot revolution has arrived. Robots
This robot bowler, cheekily named EARL, is capable of laying down the exact same, utterly perfect shot every time. Yet it still lost to professional human bowler Chris Barnes. How did this happen?
The XOS Exoskeleton, which was first shown off about two and a half years ago, was the first full-body suit that really evoked the sci-fi and comic fan's dream of donning a suit that grants superhuman strength.
Scientists have developed robots that are able to deceive humans and even hide from their enemies. An experiment by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology is believed to be the first detailed examination of robot deception.
And after 50 or so tries (and some kinesthetic training), he does
While it looks more like a toaster with legs than Usain Bolt, Cornell University’s Ranger robot has set some track records all the same. On July 6, Ranger set a world record for untethered robotic walking, traveling 14.3 miles in only 11 hours.
Walking, self-contained, adult-size robots are commonplace in robotics labs in Japan and South Korea, but there’s only one made here. Why are we falling behind?
Spain on Wednesday handed back to the United States a robot which last week completed the first underwater crossing of the Atlantic Ocean to help monitor climate change by tracking temperatures.
Unlike the mechanical sensors currently used to regulate robotic touching, the Belgian researchers used optical sensors to measure the feedback. Under the robot skin, they created a web of optical beams. Even the faintest break in those beams registe
The dystopia planned for our future.
Aerospace engineers have designed a hovering craft that mimics the spiraling pattern made by maple tree seeds. Called RoboSeed NAV (nano air vehicle), the craft has a maximum dimension of less than 4 inches, making it the world's smallest controllabl
Ray Kurzweil's concept of the Singularity rests on two axioms: that computers will become more intelligent than humans, and that humans and computers will merge, allowing us access to that increased thinking power. So it only makes sense to begin the
In an experiment, 10 robots with
downward-facing sensors competed for "food" - a light-colored ring on
the floor. At the other end of the space, a darker ring - "poison" -
was placed. The robots earned points for how much time they spent near
food as opposed to poison.
Cool video! Ishikawa Komuro Lab's high-speed robot hand performing impressive acts of dexterity and skillful manipulation. [For more information, see Hizook.com.]
Leading researchers warned that mankind might lose control over computer-based systems that carry out a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting on the phone, and have already reached a level of indestructibility comparable with a cockroach.
Advances in artificial intelligence promise many benefits, but scientists are privately so worried they may be creating machines which end up outsmarting — and perhaps even endangering — humans that they held a secret meeting to discuss...
For years, science fiction author Issac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics were regarded as sufficient for robotics enthusiasts. The laws, as first laid out in the short story “Runaround,” were simple: A robot may not injure a human being or allow one to come to harm; a robot must obey orders given by human beings; and a robot must protect its own existence. Each of the laws takes precedence over the ones following it, so that under Asimov’s rules, a robot cannot be ordered to kill a human, and it must obey orders even if that would result in its own destruction.
But as robots have become more sophisticated and more integrated into human lives, Asimov’s laws are just too simplistic, says Chien Hsun Chen, coauthor of a paper published in the International Journal of Social Robotics last month. The paper has sparked off a discussion among robot experts who say it is time for humans to get to work on these ethical dilemmas.
Hubo FX-1 by Humanoid Robot Research Center of South Korea. HUBO-FX1 is the human-riding robot having 12 DOF. The development concept is that the robot can walk naturally with carrying a person or a load of 100kg
Opening a car trunk or controlling a home air conditioner could become just a wish away with Honda's new technology that connects thoughts inside a brain with robotics. Honda Motor Co. has developed a way to read patterns of electric currents on
