Never underestimate the brain power of a hungry monkey. Neurological engineers at the University of Pittsburgh have been able to train two macaque monkeys to feed themselves with a robotic arm wired directly into their brain, marking the first time a a brain-controlled limb has done anything more than demonstrate a proof of concept. Researchers first trained the monkeys to operate the arm with a joysick, and watched what was going on in their brains while they did it. The monkeys then had their arms restrained, and electrodes attached to a group of about 100 cells in the motor cortex part of the brain interpreted the signals the monkeys were sending to their biological arm, and used them to control the robotic arm.

The process took some practice, but the monkeys figured it out in only a few weeks, achieving success rates of over 60%. The robotic arm isn’t simple, either, with both shoulder and elbow joints and a grasping hand. One monkey was even able to scarf down treats and control the arm and the same time, even directing the arm around objects or compensating when the researchers moved the food. Currently, this particular system requires all kinds of infrastructure (computers, technicians, etc) to get it to work, but in principle this concept should be transferable to humans.

VIA [ New Scientist ]

A few months back on OhGizmo, we wrote about the Casio EX-F1, a prosumer digital camera/camcorder that can record video at 1200 frames per second. It’s not good video, but it’s video all the same, and it turns everyday occurrences like robot combat into beautiful slow motion ballets. Especially if you add The Blue Danube as a soundtrack. Have a look:

Most of these videos were shot at only 300 FPS, a quarter of the maximum speed of the camera. The Achilles heel (as it were) of the EX-F1 (and all high speed cameras) is that they need oodles of light for decent results. The main arena was lit by 10 500-watt halogen worklights, and it still looks a bit murky at 300 FPS. For only about $1k, though, the Casio is a pretty impressive little toy.

[ Mad Overlord ] VIA [ Boing Boing ]

This robot, designed by University of Illinois engineering student Lei Tian, doesn’t seem to have a name. So I’m going to give it one: weedbot. Weedbot is the ultimate in solar powered weed destruction machines. GPS guided and totally autonomous, weedbot uses stereo cameras to locate and identify weeds for extermination based on image characteristics stored in an 80gb onboard database. If a weed is found, weedbot not only chops it down, he also applies herbicide to the spot ensuring that the weed will not rise again. You know, like cutting the head off a zombie. Or something. Weedbot is 2 feet tall, 5 feet long, and can travel about 3 miles an hour on wheels or little tank treads. Since he applies herbicide so precisely, weedbot is much cheaper and more environmentally friendly than typical agricultural weed management techniques that involve spraying an entire field.

Weedbot is currently confined to experimental fields at the University of Illinois, but I’m hoping he breaks out and finds his way over to my back yard.

[ U. Illinois ] VIA [ Robot Living ]

Why are robots better at repetitive tasks than humans? This video should give you a clue. Instead of building better / faster / stronger robotic hardware, ABB has decided to focus some of their attention on the software that controls the movements of the robot. By making the robot smarter, ABB is able to increase payload by 20%, repeatable accuracy by 35%, and speed by 10%. These are pretty huge numbers when you consider that this isn’t a hardware change; the robot just has better instructions.

I’m not sure whether this demo is more impressive than these incredible ABB FlexPicker robots… True, this example is very fast and precise, but it’s following a preset path and not having to make any decisions. The amount of progress in automation that has been made in the relatively recent past is vaguely shocking, and at this point, the capabilities of robotic systems in situations like this are SO far beyond humans that I’m feeling just a little intimidated.

[ ABB ]

This spunky little robodude is a Panasonic Evolta promotional mascot. He’s 17 centimeters tall and weighs 130 grams, and his reason for existing is summed up nicely in this picture… The two batteries on his back (Panasonic Evolta batteries, of course) were enough to power him up 1700 feet of vertical rope dangling over a cliff into the Grand Canyon. It only took him about 7 hours, which I guess is pretty quick for such a little guy. The Evolta batteries have been recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest lasting AAs anywhere ever, which is good to know, but you can’t actually GET them outside of Japan yet.

VIA [ Pink Tentacle ]

This is it. The pinnacle of modern robotics research. A company called AI Robotics has successfully created an ::ahem:: fully functional robotic woman that will be available for purchase as of June 11. When I say fully functional, I don’t just mean in the bedroom… According to AI Robotics, the robot (named “LISA”) can also cook meals, go shopping, do chores, give massages, and dress and recharge herself automatically. She’s got an IQ of 130 and can make conversation about news, traveling, culture and music. Have a look:

LISA uses proprietary RKS (”Recognition Krax System”) technology, which helps her recognize and respond to vocal, tactile, and visual stimuli. Her skin contains thousands of sensors, she has cameras in her eyes that can rapidly analyze forms, colors, and gestures and relate them all to an internal database, and she has the ability to learn augmented with a dedicated internal wireless internet connection. So, in some respects, she’s actually better than a human, and it won’t surprise you that I’ve already signed up to order one. I wonder if my real life girlfriend will be upset… She’ll just have to wait for the male version, I guess, which should be available soon.

[ AI Robotics ] VIA [ Communist Robot ]

After seven minutes of nail biting trans-atmospheric intensity, the Phoenix Mars Lander touched down in once piece Monday evening and there was much rejoicing. Unlike the Mars rovers, Phoenix is a stationary robotic laboratory, and relies on an extendable arm to take samples of the surface for analysis. Phoenix landed way up in the arctic regions of Mars, and is going to be digging around under the soil looking for water ice and (if we’re lucky) little Martian buggies. The successful landing of Phoenix comes (to be honest) as somewhat of a surprise, since Mars has a nasty habit of eating about 2/3 of the spacecraft that have tried to make it there over the years. See one of the first ever images Martian arctic (in color!), after the jump. (Read more…)

You may have noticed (I hope you’ve noticed) that we here at BotJunkie spend a rather significant amount of time writing about robots. It’s sorta funny, then, that we’d be entirely unable to tell you just what exactly a robot is. To be fair, our definition of what constitutes a robot may be on the broad side (infringing on “robot-y”), but I wouldn’t even be able to hazard much of a guess as to the broad side of what. In next month’s issue of Servo Magazine, David Calkins (the guy nominally in charge of RoboGames, among other qualifications) authors a great column entitled, “What the Heck is a Robot, Anyway?” Here are some excerpts:

In 1921, Karl Capek wrote the play Rossum’s Universal Robots, thus coining the term “Robot.” (Okay, technically it was his brother Josef who amended Karl’s original term from either the Latin labori, or the Czech trudnik, but we won’t quibble. It was still Karl’s play.) In the play, they were not electro-mechanical humans. They were very much flesh and blood, manufactured in fleshy parts and later assembled. This very much follows the golum and Frankenstein mythos. And it is clearly the basis for follow-ups like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep / Blade Runner, BattleStar Galactica, and to an extent, zombie mythos. Ah, but language is ever so fluid, and the original intended Corpus Novum in the above tales has since been replaced by “clone” in modern usage. Yet we grandfather “robot” in on the above stories. Yet under Capek’s original definition, none of us can call our creation a robot. And now, we have so very many different opinions on what a robot is. Ask 10 roboticists for a definition, and you’ll get 15 answers.

More, after the jump. (Read more…)

Getting robots to walk on two legs at all is certainly not easy, but getting them to walk like humans is harder. When humans walk, we shift our balance in such a way so that we’re constantly falling forward a little bit. It’s an unstable motion that’s very energy efficient, but hard for robots to duplicate since it requires dynamic regulation of movement. Flame, a 1.3m tall humanoid robot developed by TU Delft Ph.D student Daan Hobbelen, has a balance organ, seven motors, and a bunch of springs that all work together to make it the most advanced human-like walking robot in the world (according to its creator, anyhow). I’m not sure how to judge that claim, but even with all his metal bits exposed, Flame’s gait is noticeably humany. Video of Flame walking, after the jump. (Read more…)

“Study for Lit from Within,” an art installation by Ryan Wolfe, consists of a bunch of living plants (common horsetail) situated in a dark room. LED lights have been surgically embedded inside the plants, and when they’re turned on, the plants are able to photosynthesize the LED light, keeping themselves alive. Each plant has been programmed to brighten and dim to its own internal sun cycle. All together, the field of plants is supposed to “remind us how modern advances increasingly reconfigure lives while offering an imaginative glimpse of the future of this intertwining.” Er, yeah… They’re cyborg plants, man. No need to try and hype it up any more than that.

You can catch these cybernetic organisms at the Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery in Brooklyn up until June 29th.

[ Ryan Wolfe ] VIA [ Cool Hunting ]