Paul Day and Alan Asbeck worked on adhesives for the feet of the gecko-like Stickybot. (Credit: L.A. Cicero) ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2010) — A Stanford mechanical engineer is using the biology of a gecko's sticky foot to create a robot that climbs. In the same way the small reptile can scale a wall of slick [...]
The robot Ranger, which set an untethered walking record in Barton Hall. (Credit: Image courtesy of Cornell University) ScienceDaily (July 23, 2010) — The loneliness of the long-distance robot: A Cornell University robot named Ranger walked 14.3 miles in about 11 hours, setting an unofficial world record at Cornell's Barton Hall early on July 6. [...]
Where PCs are concerned, faster is invariably better. But things aren't so clear-cut in human society. The next generation of social robots will be better loved if they adopt more human-like behaviour – even if that means losing some of their raw efficiency. Be nice to the robot (Image: Capital Press Agency/Rex Features) Norihiro Hagita [...]
Robotic missions "re-ignite dreams and enthusiasm about space among the Japanese people", says Hideo Sugimoto, head of a group of companies that aims to land a walking robot on the moon around 2015 (Illustration: Astro-Technology SOHLA) A humanoid robot could be walking on the moon – and drawing the Japanese flag on its surface – [...]
SPORTS fans need never miss a match again, thanks to software that could automatically film games and so allow broadcasters to cover them more cheaply by losing camera crew. Good shot (Image: Scott Cunningham/NBA/Getty) Dubbed the Autonomous Production of Images based on Distributed and Intelligent Sensing (APIDIS), the system combines the video stream from several [...]
ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2010) — Robonaut is evolving. Robonaut2 — or R2 for short — is the next generation dexterous robot, developed through a Space Act Agreement by NASA and General Motors. It is faster, more dexterous and more technologically advanced than its predecessors and able to use its hands to do work beyond the [...]
Following the principle of chaos control, the robot produces regular leg movements when walking normally. In addition, it can use the uncontrolled chaotic movement pattern to free itself when its leg is trapped in a hole. (Credit: Network Dynamics Group, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization) ScienceDaily (Jan. 18, 2010) — Even simple insects [...]
Walls alone won't seal US borders (Image: KPA/Zuma/Rex Features) A MIGRANT makes a furtive dash across an unwalled rural section of a national border, only to be confronted by a tracked robot that looks like a tiny combat tank – with a gimballed camera for an eye. As he passes the bug-eyed droid, it follows [...]
A LOCUST flight simulator could be the key to perfecting the ultimate surveillance machine: an artificial flying insect. The simulator can model the way wings of varying shapes and surface features beat, as well as how they change their shape during flight. Smoke signals helps robots fly better (Image: Simon Walker, Animal Flight Group, Oxford [...]
Watch LittleDog as he "learns" to navigate his way up stairs and over a barrier of pegs. Source, click image
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