A couple weeks ago, we posted a new video from Lockheed Martin featuring their badass Samarai NAV. We weren’t entirely clear on the status of the project, since the continuation phase of the DARPA contract for which the SAMARAI was originally developed was awarded to AeroVironment for their hummingbird robot.

So, we asked Lockheed Martin.

Kingsley Fregene, principal investigator for the Samarai program at Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories, answered our questions. (Read more…)

Yeah, it’s a klunky title, but that’s pretty much what the APOBS (Anti-Personnel Obstacle Breaching System) is, as far as I can tell… A cute little rocket pulls a big long strand of explosive cord out over obstacles (like a bunch of barbed wire or a minefield), a cuter little parachute at the end of the cord keeps the cord from just taking off after the rocket without risking the robot, and then KERBLAMMO, said obstacles and mines are cleared. The whole APOBS system fits on top of an iRobot Warrior 710, which we saw delivering PackBots through windows at AUVSI last year.

[ iRobot Warrior 710 ]

Every once in a while, we get to see a video of a robot doing something that makes us think “OMG WTF THAT’S WICKED CRAZY IMPOSSIBLE!!1!!” And then, we remember that crazy stuff is entirely possible, because we’re talking about robots, and we have to stop thinking about what is and is not possible in terms of human capabilities.

This is one of those videos:

I don’t have much more info for you than what’s in the video, unfortunately, but it does look like these maneuvers (while obviously autonomous) are currently restricted to an area with a whoooole bunch of sensors that can tell the robot where it is with an accuracy (and frequency) that’s probably pretty impressive.

If you remember, we’ve seen both autonomous acrobatics and autonomous landing on slopes by UAVs, but nothing like this… The precision of these maneuvers is just totally completely nuts.

[ GRASP Lab ] VIA [ DIY Drones ]

Thanks Bob!

Remember how Willow Garage decided that it would be kinda cool to give away 10 11 PR2 robots to deserving research institutions worldwide to mess around with? Last night was the official PR2 graduation, where the winning teams got to meet (and dance with) the PR2s that they’ll be taking home with them to do incredibly awesome things. We’ll be keeping you up to date on all of that, of course, but meanwhile, enjoy some pics and video straight from the party at Willow Garage, after the jump. (Read more…)

On thursday, TheCorpora.com announced the specifications of their much-awaited Qbo- the open-source AI robot with a Linux-based operating system.

Qbo is about 18″ tall, about 12″ around, weighs about 22 pounds- making for a “fun-size” robot just big enough that it’s not going to get stomped on, but small enough that you don’t need to worry about the eventual robot uprising.

One of the coolest features of the Qbo is that hit will process images in stereo- meaning that Qbo can recognize objects, both 2D and 3D. Qbo can also recognize and synthesize speech- meaning that you’ll be able to have conversations with it!

Qbo Specifications

Height 456mm

Width 314mm

Depth 292,5mm

Weight 9-11Kg Aprox.

Charge:  Autocharging Dock Station

HEAD

Ears 2 Omnidirectional & 1 Unidirectional Microphones

Eyes 2 Webcams HiDef & 2 Eyelids

Movements 4 Servos ( Up-Down, Left-Right )

Mouth 20 Leds

Nose 1 Led

Connections Wifi Pcb 802g/n & antenna & Bluetooth

QPR2 1 Pcb Hardware controller

BODY

Sensors 4 Ultrasonic, 1 Sharp & 3 Infrared

Motors 2 DC Motors with Magnetic encoder ( 170 RPM )

Wheels 2 Wheels ( rear ) & 1 Free Wheel ( front)

Sound 2 High Quality Speakers

Controllers 1 Mini-Itx main board powered by ATOM & Nvdia ION Graphic

QPR1 1 Pcb Hardware controller

Battery 1 Sealed battery (7.5Ah)

Robot Status 1 Lcd Display 20×4

SOME OF QBO’s SKILLS:

Stereoscopic vision

Speech Recognition System

Speech Synthesis System

Qbo’s API & Web control panel

Wifi & Bluetooth connections

Qbo avoid crashes and falls thanks to ultrasound sensors

AND MUCH MORE COMING SOON…

[ TheCorpora ]

If you weren’t sure just how cool the laser sensor on the Neato XV-11 is, this video should set you straight: it’s how the XV-11′s SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) system sees the room that it’s vacuuming. Coolest part? Spot person following the robot around… You can see their feet moving.

So, yeah, I definitely want one of those, especially since the sensor hardware costs only about $25.

And the vacuum is pretty damn good too.

VIA [ Singularity Hub ]

One of my first posts ever for BotJunkie was about BeBionic prosthetic hands. After months of research, development, and planning, RSLSteeper, the company responsible for the BeBionic hands has finally launched the incredible product at the World Congress and Trade Fair in Leipzig, Germany May 12-15.

The hands are prosthetic and myo-electric, meaning that they can be controlled by the mind of their user, a technology which is still developing. The BeBionic hands were out for display and testing at the fair, and the general public reaction was an astoundingly positive one- many first-time users found BeBionic’s hands to be extremely easy to use, and amazingly realistic.

The picture above is one of the aforementioned hands, which use a silicone mixture as well as micro-pigmentation for extra realism. As you can see, these hands have gotten so realistic that they may even be considered in the realm of the uncanny valley.

We’re very excited to see these things launch for real- but are they too realistic?

[ BeBionic ] VIA [ Engadget ]

The Mars Odyssey orbiter has been listening for any signal from the Phoenix lander, which has been up in the Martian arctic since May of 2008. Phoenix was not expected to endure the Martian winter, although there was a slight chance that the robot would revive itself when it thawed out. However, some pictures from orbit appear to show some damage to at least one of the solar panels on Phoenix, making it fairly certain that the robot is not going to recover:

Two images of the Phoenix Mars lander taken from Martian orbit in 2008 and 2010. The 2008 lander image shows two relatively blue spots on either side corresponding to the spacecraft’s clean circular solar panels. In the 2010 image scientists see a dark shadow that could be the lander body and eastern solar panel, but no shadow from the western solar panel.

Apparent changes in the shadows cast by the lander are consistent with predictions of how Phoenix could be damaged by harsh winter conditions. It was anticipated that the weight of a carbon-dioxide ice buildup could bend or break the lander’s solar panels. Mellon calculated hundreds of pounds of ice probably coated the lander in mid-winter.

Phoenix highlight video, after the jump. (Read more…)

In a startling bit of news, Microsoft has just announced that their Robotics Developer Studio (RDS) software will be available to anyone… for free.

In the past, Microsoft RDS has been distributed in several versions, only the most limited of which was free. Now Microsoft intends to open the doors and bring RDS to the masses- a move which could prove hugely successful, or potentially fatal.

Microsoft believes that by opening up their software to the public, they’ll help to spark a revolution in consumer robotics, and begin a new era in technology.

Microsoft RDS is a set of development tools including a visual programming interface and a 3D simulator which, especially when combined with the myriad of tutorials, make for a very easy-to-use piece of development software that is geared towards as broad a user base as possible.

This is a big bit of news from Microsoft, but it’s important to keep things in perspective- there are a growing number of robotic development tools available, many of which are already open-source. One such competing development platform is Willow Garage’s Robot Operating System (ROS). The folks at the Garage have had some impressive results with their software, and given that the market is still developing, it should be interesting to see how it all pans out.

Download RDS here.

Should Microsoft have kept the full version of RDS for purchase, rather than giving it out to the masses? Let us know in comments!

[ Microsoft Robotics ]

Thanks Rich!

Our last LittleDog update was back in September, when we watched the robot walking on posts and doing dramatic death dives. In this latest version (in terms of software, I assume) of LittleDog from MIT, the robot moves noticeably faster and smoother, and seems more reliable overall, especially over rough and unfamiliar terrain.

It’s interesting to see how LittleDog’s ‘brain’ has been improved… The way that the robot chooses foot placement, for example, uses generalized templates of safe foot positions to determine foot placement on unfamiliar rocks, which is a process that we humans can relate to. Your head contains a database of rock templates, built up from your experiences with rocks. If you’re trying to figure out where to safely stand on an unfamiliar rock, you’re probably thinking about what other rocks you’ve stood on before and comparing them to the current rock to decide whether or not you can stand on it. This may not be an entirely conscious process, but humans (and other animals) learn from experience, and use generalized experiences to help decide what to do in specific instances in the present, and the consequences of those instances help to refine the generalized experience and increase our overall robustness. So anyway, this is basically what LittleDog is now doing. Pretty cool.

As far as I know, while all of LittleDog’s behaviors are autonomous, it does depend on an overhead view of its path, provided by an external camera mounted above the course. Finding a way to integrate sensors capable of providing the information that LittleDog needs to decide where to place its feet is probably a project that’s entirely separate from what MIT’s Computational Learning and Motor Control Lab is trying to accomplish, but now that LittleDog has gotten so good at the whole walking over rough terrain thing, making the robot self sufficient seems like it could be an obvious next step, as it were.

[ USC CLMC ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]