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COMAN, COmpliant huMANoid

By Matt Wang | Published: April 5, 2013

Most humanoid robots in the past have had a fatal flaw. With stiff joints that could potentially whack someone who they work alongside or lose balance and fall to the ground, most humanoid robots aren’t necessary fit to work with other people. But COMAN was created with the sole purpose of fixing this problem.

Meet COMAN, short for COmpliant huMANoid. Created by the Italian Institute of Technology, COMAN is the size of a four-year-old child, 94.5 cm tall and weighing 31.2 kg. It is made of a titanium alloy, stainless steel, an aluminum alloy, and is covered with an acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) Plastic exoskeleton. This robot features 25 degrees of freedom (number of independent parameters that dictate behavior), and uses a combination of compliant and stiff joints to avoid the problems that most other robots encounter.

iit coman robot

14 of these degrees of freedom rely on series elastic actuators, which operate the joints to make the robot able to withstand forces. If you want an in depth abstract about how these patented actuators work, you can check it out here.

So why do series elastic actuators make a difference? Well, they are elastic, meaning that they absorb the impact energy (ground reaction forces) of each footstep. The same process can apply to other joint areas on the robot’s body, and combined with their strategic placement similar to those in the human body, COMAN can withstand gentle impacts from most sources.

COMAN is only the precursor to a world where people work alongside robots. When the humanoid robots become more able to function like human beings, they also become safer to work with. And thus, we walk towards a world of peaceful harmony… or do we?

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Cyro, Robot Jellyfish

By Matt Wang | Published: March 31, 2013

Remember our little RoboJelly, from so long ago? Well let’s take a look at its bigger cousin, Cyro.

Cyro is a robotic jellyfish created by Virginia Tech College of Engineering, modeled after the Lion’s Mane Jellyfish. Sporting a 5’7″ diameter bell (on average) and weighing 170 pounds, Cyro is the closest to a human-sized jellyfish we’re going to get.

So why jellyfish? Jellyfish have the amazing ability to move around with very low metabolism rates. This makes it a really good model for autonomous robots like this one. Of course, being the big brother of RoboJelly, what have they improved? First of all they’ve made it larger (obviously). But more importantly, they’ve improved the robot’s skeleton, eight arms powered and controlled by its central electronics. Unlike RoboJelly, Cyro now has a better robotic system. With its larger size, it can carry a larger payload: in this case, Cyro’s electronic guts, which are carried by its squishy silicone skin.

In this video, Cyro is tested in Virginia Tech’s “diving well,” a 14-foot deep swimming pool, moving from 8 feet down to the surface using only its pulsating movements. However, Cyro can only currently move in the up-down direction.

Scientists have stated various possible uses for Cyro, most notably for deep sea exploration. But also, when comparing side by side with RoboJelly, something more interesting to biologists might be the relationship between jellyfish propulsion and surface area or size. Cyro is still in its early stages of development, however, so only time will tell what its destiny is.

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Toa Mata Robot Band

By Matt Wang | Published: March 24, 2013

Some would say that we should get back down to the basics when it comes to robot design. If you talk to many people, the basics in robotics would probably go down to something a little smaller in scale than hulking masses of metal… maybe Legos.

To be honest, there isn’t very much to say about this cool robot band. The robots themselves are as simple as can be, with little bodies made of Legos and a single mobile joint for hitting downwards on a surface. But for some reason, this robot is really cool anyway, just in the way that they can cooperate to make cool music.

These robots use Arduino, a popular open-source physical computing platform based on a simple i/o board, and drive using Clavia NOrdbeat, a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) for the iPad. Essentially, the program allows the user to program simple commands in code and send them to the robots. The robots then whack mini-electronic instruments which play musical feedback to altogether create a rad beat and cool music.

So simplicity literally is music to my ears.

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“Wrapping” Robot Snake

By Matt Wang | Published: March 23, 2013

Now I know, robot snakes aren’t by far new. Snakes, with their sleek bodies, lack of appendages, and smooth movement, have been the inspiration for useful robots all around. For example, this little robot. But now, scientists at Carnegie Mellon’s Biorobotics Lab have taken it a step further with a robot snake that can wrap around anything it is thrown at.

The robotic snake lurking in a tree: The military-funded research could be used to create 'spy snakes' - as well as being sent into dangerous buildings

This robot, like so many that we have looked at in the past months, has so much potential. Imagine if that pole were a human’s neck, say, and you effectively have something similar to a nunchuck to wrap around an opponent’s neck. How does this robot exactly wrap around the pole, though?

The idea is actually quite simple. This robot is a modular robot, with uniform body segments and the like. Each module has an accelerometer to detect when the body segment has stopped moving (when it hits an object), and the robot uses the information from the modules to quickly maneuver into a wrapping position, and sort of perch on an object. Notably, this seems to only work for vaguely cylindrical objects, or there wouldn’t be anything to wrap around, but this could be developed for more surfaces.

Now, when describing this robot, the researchers specified one point: wrapping is not the same as constricting. When this robot wraps around an object, it doesn’t exert much force; rather, it grips onto the object and stops itself from moving. Constricting, on the other hand, squeezes a surface. This robot can be programmed to also constrict, but at least to me it seems far more interesting that it can balance out just the right amount of force to grip and not constrict an innocent victim.

Speaking of which, this project is being funded by the U.S. Army Research Lab. So will we be seeing snakes on the battlefield, latching onto enemy soldiers with chokeholds? Only time will tell.

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Salamandra Robotica II

By Matt Wang | Published: March 20, 2013

You know, a lot of robots these days are pretty specialized for some purpose or another. But here we have a robot that can navigate both water and land. Psyche!

Actually, it’s not the fact that the Salamandra Robotica II robot is multifunctional that makes it interesting. The reason it’s so unique is because of the way it moves; if you hadn’t noticed, this robot was modeled after a salamander and is likewise amphibious. Created by the Biorobotics Laboratory at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne technical university in Switzerland, this robot makes it so that the robophobic will have nowhere to hide.

But of course, this robot could also be the precursor to amphibious service robots that could maneuver through both water and land surfaces to rescue people. This could especially be useful for natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, or mudslides, which all have potential for large quantities of water that conventional robots would be unable to function under.

The main purpose of this robot, is not for some far-reaching rescue-aid goal. This robot was created to study the locomotion of vertebrates, especially in relationship to the neural pathways from the brain to the body. First, the implications include detecting how amphibians transition in brain and neural activity from transitioning from water to land.

Besides the research capabilities of the Salamandra Robotica II, it is also an interesting robot on its own. Each body section has its own microcontroller, battery, and motors. This makes it possible for the robot to work even when completely taken apart, and also means that birds in the wild who want to have a bit of lunch won’t permanently damage the robot; losing a leg or two doesn’t worsen performance at all. Finally, this ability also allows researchers to add or remove body segments, move legs, etc. that are vital to studying the body systems of real animals.

So the robotic salamander… what’s next.

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BigDog Update, the Cinder Block Hurler

By Matt Wang | Published: March 5, 2013

It would be hard to forget BigDog, the robot created by Boston Dynamics that can travel through unstable terrain. In its last update, AlphaDog, it learned to follow a person around. And in this new one, BigDog has learned how to be a weightlifter.

In just five years since its conception, BigDog has learned how to hurl 50-pound heavy blocks of concrete. How does it do this?

If you’re familiar with the mechanics of muscles, you’ll know how throwing objects with arms is not only integrated with the arms, but the entire body, a fact shared by most modern organisms. The BigDog does essentially the same thing.

The goal of the new projects was to increase BigDog’s legs and torso strength to help the power motions of the arms. If you observe the robot in slow motion, this fact becomes obvious. The motion of the legs and knee joints during the moment when the cinder block is thrown leads to an increase in force and momentum as the swing moves in the opposite direction.

Cool, huh? This could make BigDog much more effective on the field as a recon robot; no longer shall it be obstructed by cinder blocks any more! Although I suppose now BigDog can throw a number of different heavy objects now… it’s okay.

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Human-Robot Interactions in the Kitchen with Snackbot

By Matt Wang | Published: March 4, 2013

This robot goes sort of more in the direction of psychology and human-robot interactions. Snackbot here has been around but recently it has been showing some interesting science of interaction.

Snackbot has actually existed for quite a few years; it was created by students, faculty, and office workers at Carnegie Mellon University. Basically, the Snackbot exists to deliver snacks on a routine path, rather than having someone do it. I know, revolutionary.

More importantly, though, the Snackbot was recently used as an example for human-robot interactions and what makes people seem more likable and less dominating.

This study sort of started with the simple thought of baking cupcakes. Few would realize that in the third-person point of view such a short-term activity tells people all sorts of things about what kind of person you are. Of course, Snackbot wasn’t designed to bake cupcakes, and for his turn on the stage, he dealt with the job of delivering tasty delights to people.

This study was headed by social psychologist Sara Kiesler, and her assistant Min Kyung Lee was the student that worked with Snackbot. In half the encounters, Snackbot added variety to conversations by referring to previous instances in a personal way, building up a shared social history.

Out of those people, three-fourths stated that they were pleased with the “pseudosocial” interactions (that they imitated real social interactions), and they corroborated many other studies that have shown that people often grow bored with robots that are especially repetitive.

So there. Our future robots will be more entertaining and personal! How nice.

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