robotics

  1. cageymaru

    MIT Has Developed a Four-Legged Robot That Can Do a Backflip

    MIT has announced that its new mini cheetah robot is the first four-legged robot to do a backflip. It weighs in at 20 pounds and can quickly right itself if kicked over. The robot is capable of walking upside down, or right-side up and navigates uneven terrain with absolute ease. The modular...
  2. AlphaAtlas

    The Shadow Robot Company Makes a Telerobotic Hand

    Wired reports that The Shadow Robot Company has made a breakthrough it telerobotics. According to their own experience with "Shadow Hand," the company has made an eerily accurate representation of the human hand that can be controlled with a glove from a continent away. The whole system was...
  3. AlphaAtlas

    FedEx Unveils Delivery Robots

    FedEx just unveiled a robot designed to make "last mile" deliveries without a (human) driver. SameDay Bot, as they call it, features a set of pivoting wheels that allow it to climv shallow stairs, traverse rough sidewalks, and move at speeds of up to 10 miles an hour, according to Reuters'...
  4. AlphaAtlas

    CalTech Builds a Drone With Legs

    Legged robots and propeller-powered drones each have major strengths and weaknesses, but IEEE Spectrum says that a group of researchers want to combine the best of both worlds. Caltech’s Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies is building a robot they call "Leonardo," short for LEg ON...
  5. AlphaAtlas

    ANYmal Can Deliver Packages Now

    ANYbotics' ANYmal robotic is a surprisingly flexible contraption. Researcher have already taught it to dance, put it to work inspecting power facilities, and even taught it how to teach itself to walk and run. Now Continental and other companies see ANYmal as a platform for "last yard" delivery...
  6. cageymaru

    Columbia Engineering Researchers Create a Self-Aware Robot

    Columbia Engineering researchers have used deep learning, a machine learning (ML) technique, to teach a robot to become self-aware. A four-degree-of-freedom articulated robotic arm moved randomly and collected data from one thousand trajectories, each comprising of one hundred points. The...
  7. cageymaru

    Watch Robots and Humans Work Together to Create the 2019 Ford Ranger

    Cars BOOM on YouTube has released a video documenting 2019 Ford Ranger production at its Michigan assembly plant. Watch man and machine work together to create vehicles for this iconic American brand. Ranger production is underway at Michigan Assembly Plant. The truck arrives at dealers...
  8. AlphaAtlas

    Amazon Enters the Ground Delivery Robot Market

    Joining the likes of ground delivery startups like Starship Technologies, Amazon just announced the "Scout" autonomous delivery system. The retail and web hosting giant says that Amazon customers in Snohomish County, Washington can place orders just like they normally would on Amazon, and then...
  9. AlphaAtlas

    Nvidia GPUs Might Help You Cook Soon

    While some Nvidia graphics cards were notorious for getting (nearly) hot enough to cook breakfast, Nvidia seemingly wants to help out in the kitchen in a different way. The company recently established the NVIDIA AI Robotics Research Lab in Seattle, just outside the University of Washington. One...
  10. AlphaAtlas

    ANYMal Is Learning to Walk By Itself

    The field of machine learning has been advancing rapidly these past few years, while scientists have also made significant progress in robotics. The ANYmal robot is one of the most impressive examples of the later, as it's already found work on remote power stations. But, in order to improve its...
  11. cageymaru

    Robots Command Humans to Cleanup Spills in Grocery Stores

    Lidar equipped robots called "Marty" from Ahold Delhaize are now being deployed in the USA to count inventory, detect spills and summon human employees over to clean up the mess. These autonomous robots are equipped with 8 cameras and are monitored by employees in foreign countries who will...
  12. cageymaru

    The Small Farm of the Future Will Rely on Automation and Robotics

    A multi-million dollar investment into a farm in Pennsylvania is the the test bed for future technological breakthroughs in small, family farming according to the NY Times. 150 cows at the 175 acre Rivendale Farms wear FitBit-like trackers that monitor their caloric intake, movement, and chewing...
  13. AlphaAtlas

    Robot Learns to Throw a Ball

    Scientists from the "Robots That Dream" project are teaching a 2 armed robot called "Baxter" to throw a tennis ball, and it looks like it's getting pretty good at it. As opposed to using static calculations, this robot supposedly "learns" from the shots it doesn't make, and uses that information...
  14. AlphaAtlas

    A Robotic Exoskeleton Will be Available Soon

    Sarcos Robotics have reportedly developed commercial robotic exoskeletons that can help workers lift heavy loads. The 50 pound Guardian XO will allow workers to lift about 77 pounds, and offers 4 hours of run-time. Meanwhile, the heavier Guardian XO Max looks like something straight out of...
  15. AlphaAtlas

    Robots Make Presents for Other Robots

    Researchers at the Forschungszentrum Informatik Living Labs have been busy this holiday season. Among other things, they put robots to work making cookies, wrapping them, and delivering them to other robotics institutions around the world. ETH Zurich's ANYmal robot even makes a brief appearance...
  16. cageymaru

    An Active Robot Is a Healthy Robot

    Robugtix has released a teaser video for its "Z6" portable and foldable robot. In this video, Z6 shows how it stays in shape to maintain peak performance at all times. Meet Z6, the portable and foldable robot for use in professional environments. With a very compact form factor, this robot can...
  17. cageymaru

    Kiwibot Self Destructs in Spectacular Fashion on the UC Berkeley Campus

    A Kiwibot food delivery robot has self-destructed on the UC Berkeley campus as onlookers expressed grief for the meal that could have been (Warning language in the video). Sasha Latsenia, head of product at Kiwi explained that the robot was accidentally outfitted with a defective battery during...
  18. AlphaAtlas

    Pliant Energy Systems Builds a Skating and Swimming Robot

    Pliant Energy Systems recently showed off a robot with a novel propulsion system. Instead of using wheels, rotors, or even legs to move, Pliant's bot uses a set of actuators attached to flexible "fins" that resemble a cuttlefish, allowing it to move over almost any surface. In the video here...
  19. cageymaru

    The Denver Broncos Will Use a Robotic Arm to Serve Beer at Mile High Stadium

    The Denver Broncos have enlisted the help of a robotic arm to pour beer. The "UR5e" robotic arm will work at the stadium and dispense Bud Light straight from the keg starting Saturday. It is manufactured by Universal Robots and is programmed by MSI TEC. According to the Washington Post, the...
  20. AlphaAtlas

    Russian State TV Mistakes Man in a Suit for a Robot

    The Guardian reports that state-owned Russian media thought a man in a costume was actually a "hi-tech robot." The TV station's praise for the "robot" was preserved on YouTube, and Russian bloggers and journalists were immediately suspicious when the footage first aired. After some digging...
  21. AlphaAtlas

    4 Legged Robot Put to Work Patrolling Power Station

    We've seen some cool footage of 4 legged robots before, but up until now, finding useful work for them to do outside of niche cases like disaster response was difficult. IEEE Spectrum says that ANYbotics brought one of their ANYmal robots to an offshore power distribution platform, and put it to...
  22. AlphaAtlas

    Virtual Incision Robot can Carve Meat for You

    Wondering why you don't have a robot to carve turkey for you in 2018? Yeah, I am too. But progress has been made on that front, as a University of Nebraska researcher used a "Virtual Incision" surgical robot to carve up a chicken last year. Unfortunately, it's isn't widely available, and it...
  23. AlphaAtlas

    Starship Technologies Robots are Delivering Packages

    Starship Technologies launched what it claims to be the world's first robotic package delivery service. The company's ground-based robots already deliver food to some locations in Calfornia, but starting today, residents in Milton Keynes, UK will be able to open up an app on their phone, and get...
  24. AlphaAtlas

    NASA Details Plan to Turn Rocks Into Rocket Fuel on Mars

    In a piece on Spectrum, NASA detailed their plans to mine dust on heavenly bodies in our solar system, and turn it into rocket fuel. That already sounds difficult, but according to NASA "Swamp Works" team leader Kurt W. Leucht, mining on Mars is even harder than you'd think. For example, it...
  25. AlphaAtlas

    Nvidia Trains Robot Arms with a Virtual World

    Building on previous research, Nvidia taught a robot to pick up objects using a virtual environment. While similar commercial neural nets are usually trained on real world data, Nvidia developed an Unreal Engine plugin to train the deep learning algorithm in a game-like virtual space. Using a...
  26. AlphaAtlas

    Drones Work Together to Open a Door

    Researchers at Stanford university built tiny drones that can work together to manipulate objects that are 40 times their own mass. The researchers say they mimicked the behavior of wasps, which drag large prey back to their nests along the ground instead of carrying it through the air. Check...
  27. AlphaAtlas

    Mochibot Has 32 Legs

    Giant hexapods may be impressive, but Japanese researchers are looking to one up that. "Mochibot" has they call it, uses 32 extendable legs to roll around on surfaces. Advanced software is used to plot the path of the contraption. Check out a video of the robot here. Mochibot's big advantage...
  28. AlphaAtlas

    French Researcher Gives Smartphones a Finger

    French developer Marc Teyssier developed a robotic finger that plugs into the USB port of your phone. "MobiLimb" can crawl across a desk, wave when notifications arrive, receive finger gesture messages, or "stroke the user's hand." Marc built a Unity application to rapidly prototype gestures on...
  29. AlphaAtlas

    Berkeley's Jumping Robot is Back

    Berkeley researchers unveiled a hopping robot back in 2016. Now that same robot is back, with an improved cyber brain. The new microcontroller makes the robot's jumps 3 times as precise as its predecessor. Check out a video of the robot here. As you might expect, the more aggressive Salto-1P's...
  30. AlphaAtlas

    Robots are Getting Better at Opening Doors

    Boston Dynamics showed off some footage of robots escaping rooms by opening doors, but it seems that they have some competition now. Robot Systems Lab uploaded a video with footage of their 4 legged "ANYmal" robot opening doors, throwing away some trash, and carrying a box with a human. They've...
  31. AlphaAtlas

    Birdie Shaped Robot Can Find Leaks in Pipes

    A robot that can crawl through pipes and check for leaks just won the 2018 Dyson Award. MIT doctoral student You Wu says development of the birdie shaped contraption started with a "request from Saudi Arabia", which loses over 30% of their water supply to pipe leaks, and is the product of 6...
  32. cageymaru

    Researchers Are Studying VR Controlled Robotic Arms Assisting Humans

    Researchers at the Keio University Graduate School of Media Design in Tokyo have designed a set of robotic arms, worn as a backpack, that allow a second person to control them remotely through VR. The person wearing the backpack can be provided assistance with tasks by the robotic arms...
  33. cageymaru

    Research Robots Can Be Hijacked Over the Internet

    Researchers at Brown University found more than 100 robots in research labs that were vulnerable to outside manipulation and sabotage by doing an online scan of the internet. By looking explicitly for devices running the Robot Operating System or (ROS), the team of researchers were able to take...
  34. DooKey

    Analysts Believe Tesla is Overusing Automation in Model 3 Final Assembly

    According to Bernstein analysts Tesla is overusing automation in the final assembly of the Model 3. They say this is causing their scaling woes and they are spending far more than their competitors per unit on capacity. The good news for the rest of us is robots aren't the end all be all and...
  35. R

    Humans Powerless To Stop Robots Escaping And Killing Us ALL

    Cyberdine Systems Boston Dynamics has released another video to remind us of our impending doom at the cold metal claws of our robotic overlords. Earlier this month their SpotMini robot sprouted an arm and used it to escape captivity. Now we have a video of the same robot toying with a puny...
  36. R

    Robots Escaping Captivity Will Kill Us All

    Boston Dynamics have posted a new video, and it is terrifying. The video features their SpotMini robot, that has somehow sprouted an arm, and is using it's arm to escape Boston Dynamics, and most assuredly, kill us all. While we saw the SpotMini use an arm and a clamp in it's debut in 2016, This...
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