The future of robotics is here. It’s **drum roll** cockroaches? Texas A&M University’s Nuclear Security Science and Policy Institute (say that 10 times fast!) is developing technology that allows cockroaches to be controlled via a tiny chip on a cockroach’s back that sends electrical signals to make the roach move. “It’s like a cattle prod for cockroaches,” says William Charlton, an associate professor at Texas A&M.

But why cockroaches? Well, the same chip that communicates remotely with a computer to prod the roach has several types of radiation sensor, meaning that it can detect whether conditions in a given area are safe for humans.

“Cockroaches really are the perfect medium for this,” says William Charlton, an associate professor of nuclear engineering at the university and a principal investigator on the project. “They can go for extraordinarily long periods of time without food. They exist on every continent except Antarctica. They’re very radiation resistant, and they can carry extremely large amounts of weight compared to their body mass.”

If Charlton gets his way, we’ll have mini-armies of 20 or so roaches surveying areas as large as one square kilometer, all controlled by remote operators, all reporting data about chemical conditions in the area.

I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords

It may look almost cartoonish in proportion, but the picture above is the real deal. How long till we see “Control Your Own Cockroach” kits for the kids?

[ NDIA ] VIA [ Wired ]

From the folks at RSLSteeper in the UK comes BeBionic, “The next generation of fully articulated myo-electric hands.” Being myoelectric means that these hands can be controlled by electrical signals from the human brain. Not only can these bionic digits produce still art straight out of a zombie flick, they’re actually quite… dare I say… handy? “Complete with a range of naturally compliant grip patterns that provide repeatable accuracy, our powerful new hands combine innovative technology with life-like appearance.” In other words these things are AALLIIIVVVEEEEE… or at least pretty darn close to it. RSLSteeper has also released a nifty teaser video showing off just how accurate these things are:

Tell me those things don’t look awesome!

Now, maybe I shouldn’t be talking, seeing as I’ve made some pretty destructive robots, but as cool as these bionic hands look, I always find robots that are capable of actually hurting someone (read: Kung-Fu grip) the slightest bit creepy, and this is no exception. I mean, if we’ve learned anything from The Addams Family, it’s that hands with a mind of their own can only mean bad news.

At the same time, I do have to applaud RSLSteeper- if the BeBionic hands are as nimble as the video demonstrates, then they could have some very important applications, both in helping amputees, and in making more life-like androids.

What’s your take? Handy, or creepy?

[ BeBionic ] VIA [ Engadget ]

Even if you’ve got a micro air vehicle that provides its own power for thrust, like a Rhinoceros beetle with an implanted optical lobe stimulation controller, you still need power for the communication system itself. One ideal solution is to try and harvest electricity from the insect, but a more realistic approach (at the moment) might be a dependable long-life battery, and nothing is more dependable and long-life and potentially dangerous than a nuclear battery.

Don’t worry, it’s not at all dangerous. The nuclear battery in question is powered by nickel-63, a “mildly radioactive” isotope with a half-life of about 12 years, meaning that the battery could easily provide power for a decade or two or even as long as a century. Funded by DARPA and developed at Cornell, the battery generates enough power to emit a high-power RF communication pulse once every 3 minutes or so. Here’s how it works:

The RFID transmitter converts the energy of radioactive decay into mechanical movement in a MEMS device. A tiny silicon and piezoelectric cantilever, 40 micrometers thick and 4 to 8 millimeters long, is suspended on a chip over the radioactive thin film like a diving board over a pool. Electrons ejected from the radioisotope accumulate on the cantilever, giving it a negative charge. Now the cantilever is attracted to the (relatively) positive Ni-63 thin film and begins to bend toward it. As soon as it bends enough to touch the Ni-63, the charges jump back onto the thin film, and the cantilever, freed of the accreted electrons, springs back to its starting position. The power is generated when the cantilever snaps back to its original position. It continues this way until the isotope’s radioactivity is depleted.

The entire system, which is just a prototype and has not been optimized for either size or power output, is just 1 square centimeter in size. Besides nuclear powered remote control cyborg insects, researchers suggest that the batteries could be used in a variety of long-term sensing and monitoring applications.

VIA [ IEEE ]

Author (and screenwriter) and robot professional Daniel Wilson got a chance to test out the HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) exoskeleton while filming a show for the History Channel. He wrote an article about the experience for Gizmodo, a few bits of which I’ve excerpted here for you:

My first impression: The straps are too big. The HULC was built with military money and it is designed to fit army guys. And soldiers have big thighs, apparently. I yank the Velcro straps as tight as possible, then strap my shoes into its open-toed boots. I shrug on the backpack and clasp the chest strap. I am now wearing an exoskeleton. Turned off, the device is heavy; it’s like wearing a scuba tank on dry land. But once the researchers switch it on, HULC stands up on its own, with me inside.

Like a video game that breaks the human face down into just a few polygons, my new exo-walk consists of just a few gross movements. Knee lift, foot out, foot down. Repeat. It lacks the fluidity of my normal walk, but I don’t fall. And oh yeah, every movement is accompanied by the loud whine of electric motors. Each step sounds like reeee (that’s the motor) followed by ker-thump, as my foot touches down.

After the practice run, it’s time to hit the hallway. I immediately notice that my gait is becoming more fluid. I can even balance on one leg. This is because the machine is learning to anticipate my every move. The HULC is no dumb brute. It is constantly sensing the force of my movements and forming a model of how I walk. It’s getting to know me, exoskeleton-style.

Read the whole thing over at Gizmodo.

[ Gizmodo ]
[ HULC ]

DEKA’s prosthetic robot arm is commonly referred to as the “Luke” arm, but this new robotic hand may be more appropriate for that title, at least as far as the movie goes. Not only is this artificial hand, called the SmartHand, controlled directly by the brain (as opposed to actuated by muscle movements), but it provides some degree of feedback to the nerves of the user, including pressure and even texture (!). So this guy can actually feel things through the robot hand. It’s a neural interface. Like in Star Trek. Welcome to the future, people.

[ Press Release (Translated) ]
[ BBC ] VIA [ Communist Robot ]

Why is it that so many animals get to have tails, but not humans? It’s just not fair, because so so often I find myself in a tail wagging mood. Wei-Chieh Tseng has constructed a strap-on robotic tail which looks, and acts, enough like the real thing to satisfy any expressive needs you may have. Built with an Arduino board and a servo or two, the tail is directly controllable with a Wiimote, or using RFID tags that represent different emotions:

Hmm, I wonder if there’s a yiff mode on this thing…

VIA [ Engadget ]

We’ve seen plenty of powered exoskeletons over the last few years, including working prototypes from Tokyo University, Berkeley Bionics, Sarcos, Kanagawa Institute of Technology, and of course Cyberdyne. Where Panasonic’s Power Loader differs, though, is that it endows you with some extra goodies like extended utility arms with giant gripper claws so that you can kick alien ass lift stuff that much more effectively:

The suit itself weighs an appropriately colossal 230 kg (500 lbs), and enables you to easily lift about 100 kg (220 lbs) thanks to eighteen electromagnetic motors. Force feedback helps control the lifting power intuitively, but there’s no power source specified… And as is often the case, sheer awesomeness is often tempered by power requirements. Fuel cells, anyone?

The suit should be ready for consumers in about 5 years for an as yet unspecified, but no doubt rather high, price.

[ Mainichi (Translated) ] VIA [ Pink Tentacle ]

CBS has an interesting (and comprehensive) video and accompanying article on DEKA’s robotic prosthetic arm, commonly known as the “Luke” arm. We’ve written about it several times, and while this video doesn’t get into the coolest stuff (the brain control), it’s still worth a watch… If for no other reason than it’s great to see that innovative and effective cybernetics are finally getting to the people who need them the most.

[ CBS News ]

Thanks Andrew!

Those DARPA funded cyborg insects we wrote about last year have made significant progress, and are now flying completely untethered and under contro. By using direct optical lobe stimulation, the bugs can be steered left and right and up and down, and they also respond to stop and start commands. Basically, everything you could want in a remote control bug.

The awesome part is that this implant only steers the insect, and only when necessary. Once the bug is pointing in the right direction, the steering signal cuts out, and the bug self-stabilizes and gets back to the tricky business of flying, which it was just fine at before some roboticist stuck a bunch of wires into its optic lobe, thank you very much. As you can see from the video, the insect has no trouble landing itself on a vertical surface, a maneuver which would be, uh, a little bit difficult to code.

The next step, obviously, is getting the insect to do something useful, like carrying a camera. The bug can carry up to 30% of its own weight as payload (that works out to about 2.5 grams), but the controller and an antenna capable of operating at any significant distance is going to eat up a lot of that. It’s only a matter of time, though, and based on the rate of progression on this project so far, that time is probably a lot sooner than you think.

[ Science Blogs ] VIA [ Danger Room ]

You might be wondering just why, exactly, one would want to wear an arm-mounted robotic eyeball named Miruko. That looks to be wearing a sweater. Well, it’s obvious: to spot all the invisible monsters that are around you right now. You can’t see the monsters, by the robot eyeball can, and by following its gaze, you can figure out which of your friends are, in fact, monsters. And then you take a picture of them with a special iPhone app that’s connected to the robot. After that, the video doesn’t specify how the game works, but I assume since they’re monsters, you need to do something violent to them in order to score any points.

The game is mostly a proof of concept (but don’t let that fool you, most of your friends really are monsters), showing how robots can help humans interact with a virtual environment or augmented reality. Physically, Miruko is loosely based on another eyeball robot that’s, if possible, even more creepy… Called the Opto-Isolator, we wrote about it on OhGizmo last year.

VIA [ Pink Tentacle ]