Robotics Zeitgeist
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics blog
MABEL two-legged robot fastest in the world
Aug 22nd
It would appear that we have a new champion in the “what robot can run fastest race”. The two-legged robot MABEL under development for several years at the University of Michigan was recently revealed to reach a top running speed of 6.8 miles per hour or roughly 11 kilometers per hour. This means that MABEL is significantly faster than the previous record holder which was Toyota’s humanoid robot with a top speed of 7 kilometers per hour; Honda’s ASIMO is now in 3rd place with a top speed of 6 kilometers per hour.
Another technical achievement behind MABEL and above Toyota’s robot is that MABEL’s gate while walking and running much more closely resembles that of a human. In addition, MABEL jumps 3-4 inches above ground (both legs) when running whereas Toyota’s robot hardly does (it does enough to consider it’s fast walking gate running). One disadvantage is that MABEL is not a complete robot that includes an upper body with arms and a head compared to Toyota’s, Honda’s and other humanoid robots coming out of Korea and Japan.
The below video shows MABEL running including some explanation of the related technical achievement. Additional information on the project can be found at the project’s website here.
Robotic seagull takes flight in Europe
Mar 30th
Festo are once more impressing everybody with the unveiling of their new SmartBird (or robotic seagull) technology (see also their incredible Elephant-inspired robot arm and AirJelly). The new flying robot which is inspired by the herring gull was shown autonomously flying both indoors and outdoors.
This is what the company has to say about their creation,
SmartBird is an ultralight but powerful flight model with excellent aerodynamic qualities and extreme agility. With SmartBird, Festo has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds. This bionic technology-
bearer, which is inspired by the herring gull, can start, fly and land autonomously – with no additional drive mechanism. Its wings not only beat up and down, but also twist at specific angles. This is made possible by an active articulated torsional drive, which in conjunction with a complex control system makes for unprecedented efficiency in flight operation. Festo has thus succeeded for the first time in realizing an energy-efficient technical adaptation of the natural model.
The engineering team behind this magnificent flying machine has achieved an incredible task minimizing the weight of the robotic bird while maximizing lift from its flapping winds. The robotic seagull is one meter long, weighs less than half a kilogram and boasts a 2-meter wingspan. To compare with the real bird, the European herring gull is a bit over half a meter long, has a wingspan up to 1.5 meters and weighs around one kilogram.
Festo have designed SmartBird as a platform for developing and testing new ideas in lightweight construction and aerodynamics that might transfer to the development and optimization of hybrid drive technologies and open the gates for new advances in automation. However, considering how realistic this robotic bird looks like, I wouldn’t be surprised that in a a few years these are not used by the military or law enforcement agencies for surveillance; but to get to that point, SmartBird will probably need to improve its range of autonomous operation and carry a sensor pack for data gathering both of which seem to be lacking in the current model.
At any rate, words can’t do this robot justice so enjoy the below video.
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The Land Crawler eXtreme robot
Feb 2nd
Vagabond Works sure have some interesting home-made robots, and the Land Crawler eXtreme will line up as one of their coolest. It is a twelve-legged metallic bot that moves a lot like an insect of some sort (a centipede?) and is designed to carry a human that weighs up to 170 pounds. There is no complicated mechanism involved in this process, you simply step on top of its platform, and allow it to carry you around. Mind you, it doesn’t look like the safest of choices, as there is no real harness or any way to maintain your balance once on top the robot. Some surfing skills may be required to keep you from falling, but the guy in the video looks to be keeping his balance pretty well.
This robot was originally designed as a request from the creator’s son, which probably explains its simplicity. It is also very practical, and shows off its impressive movements in the beginning of the video (see the end of this post), especially when it doesn’t have a human to carry. Besides the before-mentioned scurrying of its legs, it doesn’t have any features designed to look like an insect, yet its biological-like gait is more than enough to give it a life-like spontaneity.
The Land Crawler eXtreme is operated by a simple battery-powered motor in its center, which is also where it receives the signals from the wireless joystick that commands it. It’s not exactly going to make headline news, but imagine the same robot ten times as big, carrying huge building blocks, or a helicopter on its back, and you’ll see the not-so distant future before your eyes. Sometimes size does matter, and may be the difference between a “toy” like the Land Crawler, and a true machine of the future.
Geminoid F takes up acting
Nov 15th
The highly realistic android called Geminoid F has been placed in a Japanese play called “Good-bye” and presented at a Tokyo Art Festival. The robot, which costs around $1.2 million, can mostly just sit, but she can also move her head and change her facial expressions. Another actress stands behind the stage feeding her her lines, which she conveys through her implanted microphone.
The Osaka University creation acted alongside a human actress in the play, which is about a woman with a fatal illness (not the android). Geminoid F is supposed to test out how robots can interact with humans in the arts, in this case simulating a theatrical performance. She may not be able to do many actions, but the brown-haired and brown-eyed robot does her job fairly well in monologues or simple dialogues.
As the human actress admits at the end of the video, however, there is something missing from the bot’s performance, something that perhaps will always be missing—the human element. Call me a bit pessimistic, but acting is one field where I don’t see robots having a great future. Maybe in comedy, but more serious dramatic stories would be a problem. Many human actors struggle to shed their “robotic” or monotonous performance, it takes a great deal of adaptiveness and intelligence to be able to give a realistic performance—simply having a human exoskeleton won’t cut it.
Still, such a novelty is bound to excite some theater-goers, and apparently ticket sales at the Tokyo fair were indeed boosted by Geminoid F. The play only had a two-day run, but due to its success, they’ll probably find other ones to put the robot in.
The BBC video below shows the Geminoid F in action.
Japan’s Yume Robo climbing robot
Nov 10th
The Shanghai Expo in Japan presented three new humanoid robots that have been designed for one function only – to climb walls like nobody’s business. Called “Yume Robo”, the 140cm, 30kg bots have been climbing up and down a 15-meter wall every 20 minutes for the past half a year. It is not precisely clear why (it looks like a technology demonstration rather than a robot designed for anything practical–Awesome-o), but they have shown that if you focus a robot on one thing, it’s going to start doing it really good.
Another thing not clear is why they are dressed in silver astronaut-like clothes, and why they all have two antennas on their heads that make them look like little green men from Mars, but that is most probably an aesthetic choice. Interestingly enough, the robots are said to have been created by no less than 15 midsize companies in Osaka, so it was a collaborative effort by many engineers. Maybe the design was just the most neutral idea they could come up with?
Their wacky appearance aside, the Yume Robots climb the walls much in the same way a human can. They move up limb by limb, first making sure that their hands and feet are secure on the bar before trying to go further. They are a little bit on the slow side, but that is compensated in the stability they seem to possess. To simulate a human climber further, the creators also programmed them to move their heads towards each progressing limb, as if they are consciously checking to see that everything is alright.
All the above you can see in the video, which unfortunately only features one of the Yume Robos in action. It would have been curious to see all three of them scaling the wall, though I don’t suspect they will have been programmed with any real team-work abilities.
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Honda ASIMO’s 10th birthday
Nov 8th
Many of the modern day robots owe their inspiration and basic design to Honda’s ASIMO, the humanoid bot which marked his 10 year anniversary on October 31st, Halloween night. Unlike Frankenstein, this inanimate creation that was powered to life a decade ago has gone on to be a guiding light for success in its entire field. Work was first started on ASIMO 25 years ago, and the finished prototype took almost 15 years of extensive research to complete.
At the celebration, Honda treated guests with short films and new smart phone applications that retold the journey of their special robot, which was more of a history lesson than anything too tech-heavy. It highlighted some of ASIMO’s proudest moments, which included meeting world leaders and visiting places like the European Parliament, as well as touring countless of science museums around the world ,and educating children about science and engineering. When it comes to robot celebrities, they don’t get more famous than ASIMO.
Watch ASIMO conduct he Detroit Symphony Orchestra.
There was still talk of future projects, however, as Honda said that their new goal in further robotic research will be developing artificial intelligence and strengthening the bond between humans and robots. There are many innovations and new concepts popping up all the time that help improve the physical qualities of robotic humanoids like ASIMO, but A.I research is still waiting for its “one giant leap for robots” moment. As Honda stressed, the goal for this new movement will be to make robots better helpers for humans, as increasing their intelligence will increase the ways in which they can help us too. How successful they will be in their new endeavors remains to be seen, but as ASIMO is has yet to be truly surpassed for over ten years now, the ball is in their court.
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Robot cooks make pancakes
Oct 29th
Cooking is an art sometimes forgotten in the robotics world, but James, the PR2 robot, and Rosie, another robot from CoTeSys (Cognition for Technical Systems) in Munich have joined forces to show that robots can be of great use in the kitchen as well. They made some pretty successful-looking pancakes and used various tools around the Assisted Kitchen to show off their skills.
The main chef in the experiment was Rosie, who used her broad arms and high levels of dexterity to flip and cook the pancakes. As you can see in the video, she is a bit on the slow side, but she’s also extra careful and gets it done right. She is capable of adjusting the way she pours the batter based on the weight of the bowl, demonstrating some impressive planning and a good use of her sensors, which allow the bot to recognize how much batter she has already poured.
James did his part too by looking up the pancake recipe on the internet, which allowed the robots to learn something new, much in the same way humans can. He generated his own program which used image recognition to find the right ingredients, like differentiating between bottles and finding them in the fridge. James also assisted Rosie by opening and closing drawers, moving things around, and helping her with the dish. He showed off his impressive gripping skills, and both robots were able to correct their errors very quickly as they went along. Let us also not forget that in the past the PR2 has been shown capable of folding towels.
The below video shows the entire process of making the pancakes in much detail including looking up the recipe online, using common sense knowledge to locate the ingredients in the kitchen, use visual object recognition to find the objects and generate and execute a complete plan for the task. It is very impressive!
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The first-ever all-robotic surgery
Oct 25th
It’s been coming for quite some time now, and it’s finally here. The world’s first all-robotic surgery was performed on a Canadian man at Montreal General Hospital, who had his prostate successfully removed. The operation was performed by two main robots – McSleepy, which, as the name suggests, provides anesthesia to the patient, while the DaVinci system uses tools and performs movements way too delicate for any human to match.
The 360 degree arms of the DaVinci robot were guided by a team of surgeons viewing the details of the operation thanks to a 3D high-def camera. A constant stream of information on the patient’s vitals was also provided. So the human brains are still guiding things behind the scenes, but all the physical aspects are under the control of the robotic system.
McSleepy has a simpler task of pumping sleep-inducing drugs into a patient’s veins, but that is a vitally important aspect of any operation. The anesthesia bot has actually been in use for over two years, and DaVinci has helped out in many operations in this past, but this was the first time the two were combined, which eliminated the need for a human presence during the operation.
Dr. Aprikian, from the McGill University Health Center, stated his confidence that this will become a standard procedure in the future, and an all-robotic team will be able to improve results and save more lives on the operating table. While that sounds very promising, at least from all these news stories of successful robotic machines being employed in such operations, the trick will be getting the average Joe to feel comfortable enough knowing a robot is slicing his body. Even with a lot of reassurance, you know some people will feel skeptical about the process.
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Robotic Jetpack takes to the skies
Oct 22nd
Robots have taken our jetpacks that we never got to wear, or at least we have turned these jetpacks into autonomous devices. The Martin Aircraft Company shared a video of its newest jetpack prototype, the Martin Skyhook UAV, which can fly as high as 10,000 feet, and lift 220 pounds. Basically, it’s like a mini helicopter.
It achieves flight with its double turbofan 200-horsepower driven engine, which can reach speeds of up to 63 miles per hour. Unlike the futuristic visions of the device, it uses regular gas, not rocket-power fuel. It does not need a runaway or any special launching place, as it has a vertical takeoff and can launch straight into the sky.
The Skyhook can have many uses, and the military especially will be interested in getting it to help them monitor battlefields or deliver supplies to troops. For those missions you don’t really need a human attached to the jetpack, so the Martin Aircraft team scratched the human element off the list. Which is probably a disappointment to some, but then the risks of operating such an aircraft are too great right now anyway.
One of its weaknesses is that it can only spend a couple of hours in the air, before it would need to refuel its system. This means that it will still need a base close-by, and won’t be able to travel great distances. It is something the Martin team, along with the military, are looking to improve, and future funding promises to enhance its already impressive capabilities even more.
The video is short, but pretty cool, and shows the unmanned jetpack taking off for a solo flight. It sounds as loud as a helicopter too, judging from this sample.
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