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Passive Walking Robot

By Matt Wang | Published: May 29, 2012

Imagine if a robot could move without using any power at all. Sounds ludicrous, right? But a new robot make by the Nagoya Institute of Technology does this: the robot requires no motors, electricity, or anything of the sort to move. Just a little push.

The robot moves with only it’s own weight. Made of two pairs of swinging pendulums, a single push triggers two to go forward and two back. Once this effect is achieved, the slope of the ground is sufficient for the “legs” to move of their own volition. This robot got into the Guinness Book of Records for walking non-stop for 13 hours, taking 100,000 steps and walking 15 km.

Scientists are hoping that this passive robot could help people who have difficulty walking to require less force on the person’s part in order to walk. However, that’s a long way off, so until then, enjoy this amazing model of mechanics in action.

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Self-Charging Robot

By Matt Wang | Published: May 28, 2012

For mobile robots, one of the most crucial tasks is charging. Forgetting to charge a robot will stop it from working, which could potentially lead to complications. So this leads to the question: how could robots charge themselves instead of having to make humans remember to charge them?

Meet Melvin. He looks normal in most aspects, a compact body and a robotic arm. But perhaps the most intriguing feature is the power cord. By sensing the electrical fields that emanate from a wall outlet, Melvin can find its way to the outlet and plug itself in a single fluid motion. No need to remember to charge it, it’ll do the job itself. Made by Intel Labs, Melvin is special in that he reacts to the electrical field instead of vision systems that many other researchers attempt to employ. No need to remember to charge a robot again; he can feed himself, thank you very much.

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Robot Fish Blimp

By Matt Wang | Published: May 27, 2012

Robots, fish, and blimps don’t seem very parallel at all. Yet they come together in a remarkable cool robot: the Electroactive Polymer Robot Blimp.

Made by Empa, a Swiss Federal Laboratory that specializes in material sciences, the Robot Blimp is lighter than air, eight feet long, and has actuators that act like muscles to move the blimp. Armed with a tail that moves back and forth, the robot blimp is just like a fish. The actuators are robotic imitations of biological muscles, and the robot moves in a single fluid motion with its body and its tail. It’s also really amazing because it can be controlled with a joystick, and it has its own electrical supply and control system, but it is so light and is almost weightless.

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I-Swarm Micro Robots

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: May 26, 2012

It is a technological advance to facilitate the mass-production of micro-robots, which can then be employed as a “real” swarm consisting of more than 100 micro-robot clients. These clients will all be equipped with limited, so-called pre-rational on-board intelligence. The swarm will consist of a huge number of heterogeneous robots, differing in the type of sensors, manipulators and computational power. Such a robot swarm is expected to accomplish a variety of applications and to perform different strategies. With the realisation of three bio-inspired basic scenarios, the swarm will be able to perform dispersion, aggregation and collective perception.

Building on a large expertise in micro-robot technologies, the project addresses topics like polymer actuators, collective perception, utilise (instead of fighting) micro scaling effects, artificial and collective intelligence. The project results enable humans to furtherly understand the micro-world, to bridge the gap between micro- and nano-technologies and to be the stepping stone to a “real artificial ant”.

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Keepon Cute Robot

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: May 25, 2012

The simple bloblike shape of “Keepon” belies its subtle complexity. Inside the dancing blob are 4 motors that control its side-to-side and forward and back head bobbing, the rotation, and the up and down motion as Keepon interacts with people. Using cameras located in the eyes, Keepon is able to recognize faces and actively interact with people using dancing or other supportive gestures to display simple emotions. By looking at an object, Keepon can also direct attention to something bright or colorful.

This little robot is a large advancement in social robotics and is being used to help developmentally challenged kids learn to interact with their environment. I couldn’t help but wonder… is Keepon a boy or a girl? I struggled and eventually had to use “Keepon” to describe the lovable robot instead of  he/she/it for lack of a better word.

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Robotic Hand Juggling

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: May 24, 2012

The high speed robotic hand from Japan has some new moves. This time, its trying to impress us by juggling! The high-speed hand and arm has an even higher speed vision system that allows the robot’s controller to plan for catches and throws (up to nearly 2 meters in height) at a breathtaking 500 frames per second. The arm and hand are adapting for every single catch and throw based on data from two high-speed cameras that track the balls.

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Jamming Robotic Gripper

By Chinmay Jaju | Published: May 23, 2012

This video fascinated the world when it was first released. The robot is comprised of a balloon filled with coffee grinds. Simple… and the revolutionary concept of “jamming” the particles together by drawing a partial vacuum has allowed this hand to grasp a wide variety of objects that even humans have a hard time holding on to. The robot can even pick up a raw egg! This demonstration, though over a year old, still doesn’t fail to impress. The team has been busy with improvements, and there are many more videos showing cool things that this gripper can do.

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