Firefighting Robots
Remote controlled robots formerly used in combat situations in Iraq are now being used by London firefighters to combat dangerous fires; especially when they find acetylene gas is part of the situation.
Created by defense contractor, QinetiQ, the tree robots will be able to enter into danger areas and safely deal with the gas cylinders.
This is important because even if acetylene gas cylinders have cooled off, they are still a danger to explode, and so the robots can help deal with that situation safely.
Because of that, fire crews have had to stop transport links for up to a period of 24 hours and also evacuate local communities from a danger zone.
What the robots can help with is cooling off the cylinders much more quickly, and then they can be remove safely by the firefighters in a more efficient manner.
one robot is able to find a hot acetylene cylinder, while another can cool it off with water quickly. The final robot can clear debris out of the way and also pick up the cylinder with its claw.
In experimental trials, the robots were able to do the job in under three hours, whereas in other situations it has taken firefighters over 19 hours on average to take care of.
The robots and their controllers will work with London firefighters for the next two years, and will be funded by Network Rail, the Highways Agency and Transport for London.
Firefighting Robots
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
JARMC Launches Robotic surgery
Medical Surgical Robots
With the four mobile arms that that are able to rotate, change and grasp at a great range of motion, along with enhanced vision which can see inside the human body, the da Vinci Surgical System robot is becoming a quick hit among hospitals, doctors and patients, as better results and decreased risk come about from the tremendous robotic surgeon.
When you first look at the complex robotic da Vinci Surgical System you may think of a science-fiction movie – demolishing everything in sight – but the state-of-the art technology is providing high-level health care for patients at Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center.
"It provides our surgeons an alternative to both traditional open surgery and conventional laparoscopy," said John G. Anderson, vice president of JARMC.
"This is a tremendous technology, which provides minimally invasive surgical technology for the patient."
The surgical system empowers surgeons to perform procedures through incisions that are as small as 1 to 2 centimeters with a greater range of motion and increased precision.
Although available at the Meridian hospital since July 1, the surgical system was introduced to JARMC staff Monday during an open house
High-definition brings a lot to the surgeon – he sees his surgical sight so much clearer, magnified by 10 times, but it's high-definition.
The surgical system is currently used for two primary procedures at JARMC: prostatectomy in men, and hysterectomy in women.
"Virtually 80 percent of all prostatectomies in the United States are done by robotics now," Anderson said. "And from a female perspective, laparoscopic hysterectomy is done under robotics."
Not only is robotic surgery popular among physicians, but patients are not only requesting, but in many cases - demanding robotic surgery.
It's a very consumer-driven technology. And hospitals have responded to that demand from both surgeon and patient.
Since its introduction at JARMC, response has been positive – from patients and surgeons, hospital officials said.
"Because of the smaller incision site, there is considerably less loss of blood and then patient recovery is much quicker," Anderson said. "And in many cases, patient outcome is better ... they are able to go home quicker. It's cutting their length of stay down by half.
"We've had a number of physicians that have undergone specialized training and have done a number of cases since July 1."
The robotic surgery may also be used for other surgical procedures, including colorectal, bariatric procedures, as well as some heart surgery procedures. Anderson said these procedures will be added at JARMC, as more surgeons go through the training process.
Medical Surgical Robots
With the four mobile arms that that are able to rotate, change and grasp at a great range of motion, along with enhanced vision which can see inside the human body, the da Vinci Surgical System robot is becoming a quick hit among hospitals, doctors and patients, as better results and decreased risk come about from the tremendous robotic surgeon.
When you first look at the complex robotic da Vinci Surgical System you may think of a science-fiction movie – demolishing everything in sight – but the state-of-the art technology is providing high-level health care for patients at Jeff Anderson Regional Medical Center.
"It provides our surgeons an alternative to both traditional open surgery and conventional laparoscopy," said John G. Anderson, vice president of JARMC.
"This is a tremendous technology, which provides minimally invasive surgical technology for the patient."
The surgical system empowers surgeons to perform procedures through incisions that are as small as 1 to 2 centimeters with a greater range of motion and increased precision.
Although available at the Meridian hospital since July 1, the surgical system was introduced to JARMC staff Monday during an open house
High-definition brings a lot to the surgeon – he sees his surgical sight so much clearer, magnified by 10 times, but it's high-definition.
The surgical system is currently used for two primary procedures at JARMC: prostatectomy in men, and hysterectomy in women.
"Virtually 80 percent of all prostatectomies in the United States are done by robotics now," Anderson said. "And from a female perspective, laparoscopic hysterectomy is done under robotics."
Not only is robotic surgery popular among physicians, but patients are not only requesting, but in many cases - demanding robotic surgery.
It's a very consumer-driven technology. And hospitals have responded to that demand from both surgeon and patient.
Since its introduction at JARMC, response has been positive – from patients and surgeons, hospital officials said.
"Because of the smaller incision site, there is considerably less loss of blood and then patient recovery is much quicker," Anderson said. "And in many cases, patient outcome is better ... they are able to go home quicker. It's cutting their length of stay down by half.
"We've had a number of physicians that have undergone specialized training and have done a number of cases since July 1."
The robotic surgery may also be used for other surgical procedures, including colorectal, bariatric procedures, as well as some heart surgery procedures. Anderson said these procedures will be added at JARMC, as more surgeons go through the training process.
Medical Surgical Robots
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Could Robots Replace Teachers?
Robot Teachers
Research has found that infants can learn foreign speech sounds when they interact with a live human being in a social setting. But infants under 1-year-old do not seem to learn language when they are read to over TV. The children stare at the TV and even point to it. They seem visually attentive to the images that flow past, but learn no language. Scientists think that social interaction with a live human being is crucial for learning to take place in children under 1 year.
Research at the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences shows that infants can learn foreign speech sounds when they interact with a live human being in a social setting. But infants under 1-year-old do not seem to learn language when they are read to over TV. The children stare at the TV and even point to it. They seem visually attentive to the images that flow past, but learn no language. Scientists think that social interaction with a live human being is crucial for learning to take place in children under 1 year. Credit: University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. In the future, more and more of us will learn from social robots, especially kids learning pre-school skills and students of all ages studying a new language.
This is just one of the scenarios sketched in a review essay that looks at a "new science of learning," which brings together recent findings from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, machine learning and education.
The essay outlines new insights into how humans learn now and could learn in the future, based on various studies including some that document the amazing amount of brain development that happens in infants and later on in childhood.
The premise for the new thinking: We humans are born immature and naturally curious, and become creatures capable of highly complex cultural achievements — such as the ability to build schools and school systems that can teach us how to create computers that mimic our brains.
With a stronger understanding of how this learning happens, scientists are coming up with new principles for human learning, new educational theories and designs for learning environments that better match how we learn best, says one of the essay's authors, psychologist Andrew Meltzoff of the University of Washington's Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center.
And social robots have a potentially increasing role in these future learning environments. The mechanisms behind these sophisticated machines apparently complement some of the mechanisms behind human learning.
One such robot, which looks like the head of Albert Einstein, was revealed this week to show facial expressions and react to real human expressions. The researchers who built the strikingly real-looking yet body-less 'bot plan to test it in schools.
Machine learning
In the first 5 years of life, our learning is "exhuberant" and "effortless," Meltzoff says. We are born learning, he says, and adults are driven to teach infants and children. During those years and up to puberty, our brains exhibit "neural plasticity" — it's easier to learn languages, including foreign languages. It's almost magical how we learn a foreign language, what becomes our native tongue, in the first two or three years we're alive, Meltzoff said.
Children under three and even infants have been found to use statistical thinking, such as frequency distributions and probabilities and covariation, to learn the phonetics of their native tongue and to infer cause-effect relationships in the physical world.
Some of these findings have helped engineers build machines that can learn and develop social skills, such as BabyBot, a baby doll trained to detect human faces.
Meanwhile, our learning is also highly social, so social, in fact, that newborns as young as 42 minutes old have been found to match gestures shown to them, such as someone sticking out her tongue or opening his mouth, Meltzoff and a colleague reported more than a decade ago.
Imitation is a key part of our learning — it's a quicker and safer way to learn than just trying to figure something out on our own.
Even as adults, we use imitation when we go to a new setting such as a dinner party or a foreign country, to try and fit in. Of course, for kids, the learning packed into every day can amount to traveling to a foreign country. In this case, they are "visiting" adult culture and learning how to act like the people in our culture, becoming more like us.
If you roll all these human learning features into the field of robotics, there is a somewhat natural overlap — robots are well-suited to imitate us, learn from us, socialize with us and eventually teach us, the researchers say.
Robot teachers
Social robots are being used on an experimental basis already to teach various skills to preschool children, including the names of colors, new vocabulary words and simple songs.
In the future, robots will only be used to teach certain skills, such as acquiring a foreign or new language, possibly in playgroups with children or to individual adults. But robot teachers can be cost-effective compared to the expense of paying a human teacher, Meltzoff told LiveScience.
"If we can capture the magic of social interaction and pedagogy, what makes social interaction so effective as a vehicle for learning, we may be able to embody some of those tricks in machines, including computer agents, automatic tutors, and robots," he said.
Still, children clearly learn best from other people and playgroups of peers, Meltzoff said, and he doesn't see children in the future being taught entirely by robots.
Terrance Sejnowski of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC) at the University of California at San Diego, a co-author of the new essay with Meltzoff, is working on using technology to merge the social with the instructional, and bringing it to bear on classrooms to create personalized, individualized teaching tailored to students and tracking their progress.
"By developing a very sophisticated computational model of a child's mind, we can help improve that child's performance," Sejnowski said.
Still, it's interesting to think of robotic teachers in the future.
Robot Teachers
Research has found that infants can learn foreign speech sounds when they interact with a live human being in a social setting. But infants under 1-year-old do not seem to learn language when they are read to over TV. The children stare at the TV and even point to it. They seem visually attentive to the images that flow past, but learn no language. Scientists think that social interaction with a live human being is crucial for learning to take place in children under 1 year.
Research at the University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences shows that infants can learn foreign speech sounds when they interact with a live human being in a social setting. But infants under 1-year-old do not seem to learn language when they are read to over TV. The children stare at the TV and even point to it. They seem visually attentive to the images that flow past, but learn no language. Scientists think that social interaction with a live human being is crucial for learning to take place in children under 1 year. Credit: University of Washington Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences. In the future, more and more of us will learn from social robots, especially kids learning pre-school skills and students of all ages studying a new language.
This is just one of the scenarios sketched in a review essay that looks at a "new science of learning," which brings together recent findings from the fields of psychology, neuroscience, machine learning and education.
The essay outlines new insights into how humans learn now and could learn in the future, based on various studies including some that document the amazing amount of brain development that happens in infants and later on in childhood.
The premise for the new thinking: We humans are born immature and naturally curious, and become creatures capable of highly complex cultural achievements — such as the ability to build schools and school systems that can teach us how to create computers that mimic our brains.
With a stronger understanding of how this learning happens, scientists are coming up with new principles for human learning, new educational theories and designs for learning environments that better match how we learn best, says one of the essay's authors, psychologist Andrew Meltzoff of the University of Washington's Learning in Informal and Formal Environments (LIFE) Center.
And social robots have a potentially increasing role in these future learning environments. The mechanisms behind these sophisticated machines apparently complement some of the mechanisms behind human learning.
One such robot, which looks like the head of Albert Einstein, was revealed this week to show facial expressions and react to real human expressions. The researchers who built the strikingly real-looking yet body-less 'bot plan to test it in schools.
Machine learning
In the first 5 years of life, our learning is "exhuberant" and "effortless," Meltzoff says. We are born learning, he says, and adults are driven to teach infants and children. During those years and up to puberty, our brains exhibit "neural plasticity" — it's easier to learn languages, including foreign languages. It's almost magical how we learn a foreign language, what becomes our native tongue, in the first two or three years we're alive, Meltzoff said.
Children under three and even infants have been found to use statistical thinking, such as frequency distributions and probabilities and covariation, to learn the phonetics of their native tongue and to infer cause-effect relationships in the physical world.
Some of these findings have helped engineers build machines that can learn and develop social skills, such as BabyBot, a baby doll trained to detect human faces.
Meanwhile, our learning is also highly social, so social, in fact, that newborns as young as 42 minutes old have been found to match gestures shown to them, such as someone sticking out her tongue or opening his mouth, Meltzoff and a colleague reported more than a decade ago.
Imitation is a key part of our learning — it's a quicker and safer way to learn than just trying to figure something out on our own.
Even as adults, we use imitation when we go to a new setting such as a dinner party or a foreign country, to try and fit in. Of course, for kids, the learning packed into every day can amount to traveling to a foreign country. In this case, they are "visiting" adult culture and learning how to act like the people in our culture, becoming more like us.
If you roll all these human learning features into the field of robotics, there is a somewhat natural overlap — robots are well-suited to imitate us, learn from us, socialize with us and eventually teach us, the researchers say.
Robot teachers
Social robots are being used on an experimental basis already to teach various skills to preschool children, including the names of colors, new vocabulary words and simple songs.
In the future, robots will only be used to teach certain skills, such as acquiring a foreign or new language, possibly in playgroups with children or to individual adults. But robot teachers can be cost-effective compared to the expense of paying a human teacher, Meltzoff told LiveScience.
"If we can capture the magic of social interaction and pedagogy, what makes social interaction so effective as a vehicle for learning, we may be able to embody some of those tricks in machines, including computer agents, automatic tutors, and robots," he said.
Still, children clearly learn best from other people and playgroups of peers, Meltzoff said, and he doesn't see children in the future being taught entirely by robots.
Terrance Sejnowski of the Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC) at the University of California at San Diego, a co-author of the new essay with Meltzoff, is working on using technology to merge the social with the instructional, and bringing it to bear on classrooms to create personalized, individualized teaching tailored to students and tracking their progress.
"By developing a very sophisticated computational model of a child's mind, we can help improve that child's performance," Sejnowski said.
Still, it's interesting to think of robotic teachers in the future.
Robot Teachers
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Zombie Military Robot
Military Robotics
Talk about twisted minds, Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — or "EATR" will be able to fuel itself by digesting any type of organic material it can find, including dead human bodies. Maybe we should call it robo-zombie.
A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by eating up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood and even dead bodies; whether human or otherwise.
Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable."
That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.
EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.
The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.
Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship.
In other words, EATR is a foundation that just about any type of robot could be built, and for any purpose. A little creepy that a robotic entity would be allowed to roam for years while refueling itself on whatever it can find.
I wonder how they make the decision on whether humans or animals are alive?
Robotic Trends
Talk about twisted minds, Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — or "EATR" will be able to fuel itself by digesting any type of organic material it can find, including dead human bodies. Maybe we should call it robo-zombie.
A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by eating up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood and even dead bodies; whether human or otherwise.
Robotic Technology Inc.'s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that's right, "EATR" — "can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable."
That "biomass" and "other organically-based energy sources" wouldn't necessarily be limited to plant material — animal and human corpses contain plenty of energy, and they'd be plentiful in a war zone.
EATR will be powered by the Waste Heat Engine developed by Cyclone Power Technology of Pompano Beach, Fla., which uses an "external combustion chamber" burning up fuel to heat up water in a closed loop, generating electricity.
The advantages to the military are that the robot would be extremely flexible in fuel sources and could roam on its own for months, even years, without having to be refueled or serviced.
Upon the EATR platform, the Pentagon could build all sorts of things — a transport, an ambulance, a communications center, even a mobile gunship.
In other words, EATR is a foundation that just about any type of robot could be built, and for any purpose. A little creepy that a robotic entity would be allowed to roam for years while refueling itself on whatever it can find.
I wonder how they make the decision on whether humans or animals are alive?
Robotic Trends
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Japan Robotic Industry Faltering
Robots Robotics
The robots industry in Japan is suffering during this recession, and projections of one million industrial robots to be operating by 2025 doesn't really have a chance of happening now.
As of 2005, close to 370,000 robots worked at factories all over Japan.
Even with the slowdown, a large number of robots in Japan, which are the most in the world, have been shut down because of the global financial meltdown.
In the first quarter alone robot industrial shipments fell by almost 60 percent, Japan's largest industrial robot maker Yaskawa said sales have dropped by about 66 percent to around $72 million, and is projecting a loss for the year.
Of course during times like these the industrial sector in general is expected to be hit hard, so industrial robots unsurprisingly have followed suit.
Other robotic sectors aren't doing as bad though, as the Japanese mobile service robot sector is doing better, which is being looked to to provide security, safety and service for the purpose of improving distribution and manufacturing channels in Japan.
Another robotic area that should continue to do well is in the medical and health arena, where Japan has invested heavily in personal robots to help care for the elderly.
Still, even with the slowdown, the Japanese government is projecting about $26 billion in domestic robot sales by 2010, and close to $70 billion by 2025.
Robots Robotics
The robots industry in Japan is suffering during this recession, and projections of one million industrial robots to be operating by 2025 doesn't really have a chance of happening now.
As of 2005, close to 370,000 robots worked at factories all over Japan.
Even with the slowdown, a large number of robots in Japan, which are the most in the world, have been shut down because of the global financial meltdown.
In the first quarter alone robot industrial shipments fell by almost 60 percent, Japan's largest industrial robot maker Yaskawa said sales have dropped by about 66 percent to around $72 million, and is projecting a loss for the year.
Of course during times like these the industrial sector in general is expected to be hit hard, so industrial robots unsurprisingly have followed suit.
Other robotic sectors aren't doing as bad though, as the Japanese mobile service robot sector is doing better, which is being looked to to provide security, safety and service for the purpose of improving distribution and manufacturing channels in Japan.
Another robotic area that should continue to do well is in the medical and health arena, where Japan has invested heavily in personal robots to help care for the elderly.
Still, even with the slowdown, the Japanese government is projecting about $26 billion in domestic robot sales by 2010, and close to $70 billion by 2025.
Robots Robotics
Friday, July 10, 2009
Robot Toys the Rage
Robot Toys
The toy robot Prime-8 travels on his arms, stops to sniff at whatever's in his way and even can shoot a plastic rocket at an aggravating little sister. Penbo purrs when she's petted, and plays games with the chirping baby penguin that hatches from her stomach.
Robots are hot this summer as toys from the latest "Transformers" and "Terminator" movies fill stores, and Carnegie Mellon University spinoff Bossa Nova Robotics Inc. plans to start selling its own two playthings with personalities in coming weeks on cable shopping channel QVC and online retailer Amazon.com.
The yellow, gorilla-faced Prime-8 and chubby pink penguin Penbo showed off their tricks, speed and agility Thursday at an event at the Oakland campus.
They're the first toys developed with technology from CMU's Robotics Institute to debut commercially, but others are in the design and prototype stages.
Inspired by Furby and other interactive toys, Prime-8 and Penbo use mechanics adapted from a cockroach-like robot named RHex created several years ago at CMU.
The two toys walk or run on two rotating limbs, Prime-8 on his arms and Penbo on her legs.
They don't trip on carpet as many toy robots do, their creators say. And using sensors, they respond to their owners' moves, play games and dance and fall asleep if they're ignored. Blow a kiss to Penbo, and she'll kiss back.
Prime-8, geared for boys ages 8 to 12, goes on sale for $99.99 on QVC on July 25. Penbo, for girls 4 to 6 and costing $69.99, will follow with her first TV appearance in mid-August.
Amazon.com will feature both products starting Aug. 1, and they'll be in stores for the holidays.
Feghali along with Bossa Nova cofounders David Palmer and Sarjoun Skaff tested their play robots with children at Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore. The toys will continue to be used there as part of the Robot Workshop at the science center's new Roboworld, billed as the world's biggest permanent robotics exhibition.
Feghali, Palmer and Skaff met through CMU, shared a liking for bossa nova music and talked about starting a robotics business.
They decided to make entertaining and educational toys that would be priced competitively after watching a group of toddlers giggle as RHex chased them around a campus lawn.
The partners founded their company four years ago, secured money from several sources including the Pittsburgh Technology Council's annual EnterPrize contest, and brought in former Mattel, Hasbro and MGA Entertainment executive Martin Hitch as CEO.
While toy robots undoubtedly are popular with kids, gauging sales isn't easy.
Electronics claimed $865 million of the toy industry's total $21.6 billion in sales last year, but interactive technology is showing up in lots of classic playthings ranging from dolls to board games. The Japan Robotics Association forecasts that the market for personal and lifestyle robots will grow to $15 billion by 2015.
For kids, "Robotic toys are emulating what is happening in everyday life," said Adrienne Citrin, spokeswoman for the New York-based Toy Industry Association. Hasbro's iDog works with an iPod, for example.
As to truly interactive toys, industry expert Len Simonian said advances in technology have cut production costs and made robot playthings available to more children.
"They're no longer cost-prohibitive. You could make a great toy 10 years ago," he said, but if it retailed for $500 a manufacturer wouldn't sell many.
Most of the 500 researchers at CMU's Robotics Institute work on building robots for a variety of tasks including farming, aiding in surgery and exploring underground mines.
But the center has spawned a few other startup companies that could follow Bossa Nova's path.
Modular Robotics LLC is working on a robotics construction kit that's something like Lego Mindstorms, but unique because every piece has a computer inside, research director Mark Gross said.
The company is testing software that includes social networking — kids will be able to share their creations over the Internet, he said. The product could be introduced late next year.
And Interbots LLC, creator of the animatronic Quasi robot used at fairs, is working on software for its first interactive toy and has completed a second prototype and talked with manufacturers, CEO Seema Patel said.
Robot Toys
The toy robot Prime-8 travels on his arms, stops to sniff at whatever's in his way and even can shoot a plastic rocket at an aggravating little sister. Penbo purrs when she's petted, and plays games with the chirping baby penguin that hatches from her stomach.
Robots are hot this summer as toys from the latest "Transformers" and "Terminator" movies fill stores, and Carnegie Mellon University spinoff Bossa Nova Robotics Inc. plans to start selling its own two playthings with personalities in coming weeks on cable shopping channel QVC and online retailer Amazon.com.
The yellow, gorilla-faced Prime-8 and chubby pink penguin Penbo showed off their tricks, speed and agility Thursday at an event at the Oakland campus.
They're the first toys developed with technology from CMU's Robotics Institute to debut commercially, but others are in the design and prototype stages.
Inspired by Furby and other interactive toys, Prime-8 and Penbo use mechanics adapted from a cockroach-like robot named RHex created several years ago at CMU.
The two toys walk or run on two rotating limbs, Prime-8 on his arms and Penbo on her legs.
They don't trip on carpet as many toy robots do, their creators say. And using sensors, they respond to their owners' moves, play games and dance and fall asleep if they're ignored. Blow a kiss to Penbo, and she'll kiss back.
Prime-8, geared for boys ages 8 to 12, goes on sale for $99.99 on QVC on July 25. Penbo, for girls 4 to 6 and costing $69.99, will follow with her first TV appearance in mid-August.
Amazon.com will feature both products starting Aug. 1, and they'll be in stores for the holidays.
Feghali along with Bossa Nova cofounders David Palmer and Sarjoun Skaff tested their play robots with children at Carnegie Science Center on the North Shore. The toys will continue to be used there as part of the Robot Workshop at the science center's new Roboworld, billed as the world's biggest permanent robotics exhibition.
Feghali, Palmer and Skaff met through CMU, shared a liking for bossa nova music and talked about starting a robotics business.
They decided to make entertaining and educational toys that would be priced competitively after watching a group of toddlers giggle as RHex chased them around a campus lawn.
The partners founded their company four years ago, secured money from several sources including the Pittsburgh Technology Council's annual EnterPrize contest, and brought in former Mattel, Hasbro and MGA Entertainment executive Martin Hitch as CEO.
While toy robots undoubtedly are popular with kids, gauging sales isn't easy.
Electronics claimed $865 million of the toy industry's total $21.6 billion in sales last year, but interactive technology is showing up in lots of classic playthings ranging from dolls to board games. The Japan Robotics Association forecasts that the market for personal and lifestyle robots will grow to $15 billion by 2015.
For kids, "Robotic toys are emulating what is happening in everyday life," said Adrienne Citrin, spokeswoman for the New York-based Toy Industry Association. Hasbro's iDog works with an iPod, for example.
As to truly interactive toys, industry expert Len Simonian said advances in technology have cut production costs and made robot playthings available to more children.
"They're no longer cost-prohibitive. You could make a great toy 10 years ago," he said, but if it retailed for $500 a manufacturer wouldn't sell many.
Most of the 500 researchers at CMU's Robotics Institute work on building robots for a variety of tasks including farming, aiding in surgery and exploring underground mines.
But the center has spawned a few other startup companies that could follow Bossa Nova's path.
Modular Robotics LLC is working on a robotics construction kit that's something like Lego Mindstorms, but unique because every piece has a computer inside, research director Mark Gross said.
The company is testing software that includes social networking — kids will be able to share their creations over the Internet, he said. The product could be introduced late next year.
And Interbots LLC, creator of the animatronic Quasi robot used at fairs, is working on software for its first interactive toy and has completed a second prototype and talked with manufacturers, CEO Seema Patel said.
Robot Toys
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Panasonic Drug Dispensing Robot
Medical Robot Panasonic Dispenses Drugs
The Japanese have been working feverishly on developing robots which can aid in the medical care of their growing elderly population.
Their latest focus on medical robots is in the dispensing of drugs field, where Panasonic is near to releasing their version.
Projections are it could begin operations in Japanese hospitals as early as March 2010, and then proceed to the European and North American markets after that.
Panasonic estimates they could generate about $315 million in revenue by 2016 with the drug dispensing robot.
How it works it the robot will be linked to medical records and will run around the hospitals obtaining the needed prescriptions.
Research reports estimate the robot will be able to do the job in half the four hours it now takes trained pharmacists to do it.
Panasonic isn't the first company to turn to robots as a means for dispensing drugs, but it looks like it's set to become one of the bigger players in the still fledgling field, with it announcing today that it's developing a robot that it hopes will rake it about 30 billion yen (or $315 million) by 2016.
Panasonic isn't quite ready to actually show off the robot just yet, but it says it could be making the rounds at some Japanese hospitals as early as March, and head into the United States and Europe sometime after that. It's also not ready to do much communicating about specifics, with it only going so far as to say that it "does not look humanoid" but rather looks like "a cabinet with lots of small drawers" (no doubt somewhat like the Pyxis bot pictured above), and that it'll be able to store medical data for each patient and sort out prescriptions for up to 400 patients in about two hours. That cabinet won't come cheap though, with Panasonic estimating that it'll cost "several tens of millions of yen," or hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Japanese giant Panasonic has created a robot that will dole out drugs to patients and that's set to happen very soon.
According to an exclusive story on nikkei.net, the robot will help pharmacists complete prescriptions. The robot will be available in just a few months time.
The robots will be sold in Europe and the USA too, and Panasonic apparently has plans to develop other medical robots that will help the elderly and ailing move around.
Medical Robot Panasonic Dispenses Drugs
Sega Toy's Robot Cat 'Dream Cat Venus'
Robot Cat - Dream Cat Venus
Sega Toys has added to its robot pet animal line with the new 'Dream Cat Venus, which responds to human interaction in a similar manner as a real cat.
This follows the 'Dream Dog DX' from Sega Toys, and it makes you wonder what animal they'll come up with next. Robot hamster anyone?
The robot cat will evidently respond to human stimuli by purring when it's petted, or make noises if you're neglecting it.
I don't know, this is kind of strange to me. Seeing that the source of the inner workings of the robotic cat comes from researchers at Tohoku University's Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer in Japan, they probably were working on it for patients, something the Japanese have been focusing on for encouragement and therapy for their patients; especially lonely elderly or the terminally ill.
In a way that makes sense, but as a toy in general, why not just get a real cat instead. It's not like cats are heavy maintence. They clean themselves and other than occasionally changing the litter box and feeding them, there's not a lot more to be concerned with, other than protecting your indoor plants from being eaten by them.
On second thought, let me have one of those metal felines. You can for about $110.
You can watch the 'Dream Cat Venus' in the video below.
Sega Toys has added to its robot pet animal line with the new 'Dream Cat Venus, which responds to human interaction in a similar manner as a real cat.
This follows the 'Dream Dog DX' from Sega Toys, and it makes you wonder what animal they'll come up with next. Robot hamster anyone?
The robot cat will evidently respond to human stimuli by purring when it's petted, or make noises if you're neglecting it.
I don't know, this is kind of strange to me. Seeing that the source of the inner workings of the robotic cat comes from researchers at Tohoku University's Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer in Japan, they probably were working on it for patients, something the Japanese have been focusing on for encouragement and therapy for their patients; especially lonely elderly or the terminally ill.
In a way that makes sense, but as a toy in general, why not just get a real cat instead. It's not like cats are heavy maintence. They clean themselves and other than occasionally changing the litter box and feeding them, there's not a lot more to be concerned with, other than protecting your indoor plants from being eaten by them.
On second thought, let me have one of those metal felines. You can for about $110.
You can watch the 'Dream Cat Venus' in the video below.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Robots That Act Like Roaches
Robot Roaches
Miniature robots programmed to simulate cockroaches were able to blend into roach society, according to researchers studying the collective behavior of insects.
Cockroaches usually self-organize into leaderless groups, seeming to reach consensus on where to rest together.
With the option of two similar shelters, most of the group tended to gather under the same one.
Hoping to discover more about this behavior, researchers led by Jose Halloy at the Free University of Brussels designed small robots programmed to act like a cockroach.
The robots did not look like the insects, and at first the roaches ran away from them. After the scientists coated the robots with pheromones that made them smell like roaches, however, the machines were accepted into the group, nesting together with the insects.
Given a choice, roaches generally prefer a darker place, so the robots were programmed to do the same.
When given a choice of a darker or lighter shelter, 75 per cent of the cockroaches and 85 per cent of the robots gathered under the darker one.
Then, to see if the robots had really become part of society and could influence group decisions, Mr. Halloy and colleagues programmed them to prefer shelters with more light.
The result, the lighter shelter was preferred by the mixed group 61 per cent of the time, while the cockroaches alone picked it just 27 per cent of the time.
On the other hand, in 39 per cent of cases the robots, despite being programmed to prefer a lighter shelter, joined the cockroaches under the darker one.
I'm not sure if there's any value in this, but it's interesting to see how the tiny robots function and whether they're programming was adequate to the task.
Robot Roaches
Miniature robots programmed to simulate cockroaches were able to blend into roach society, according to researchers studying the collective behavior of insects.
Cockroaches usually self-organize into leaderless groups, seeming to reach consensus on where to rest together.
With the option of two similar shelters, most of the group tended to gather under the same one.
Hoping to discover more about this behavior, researchers led by Jose Halloy at the Free University of Brussels designed small robots programmed to act like a cockroach.
The robots did not look like the insects, and at first the roaches ran away from them. After the scientists coated the robots with pheromones that made them smell like roaches, however, the machines were accepted into the group, nesting together with the insects.
Given a choice, roaches generally prefer a darker place, so the robots were programmed to do the same.
When given a choice of a darker or lighter shelter, 75 per cent of the cockroaches and 85 per cent of the robots gathered under the darker one.
Then, to see if the robots had really become part of society and could influence group decisions, Mr. Halloy and colleagues programmed them to prefer shelters with more light.
The result, the lighter shelter was preferred by the mixed group 61 per cent of the time, while the cockroaches alone picked it just 27 per cent of the time.
On the other hand, in 39 per cent of cases the robots, despite being programmed to prefer a lighter shelter, joined the cockroaches under the darker one.
I'm not sure if there's any value in this, but it's interesting to see how the tiny robots function and whether they're programming was adequate to the task.
Robot Roaches
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Underwater Robots to Identify Threats
Underwater Robots
Underwater laser networking and imaging technologies are being created to quickly identify and monitor potential threats in dark coastal waters.
Once finished, the laser imaging networks will be placed onboard a team of small underwater robots to be used for US military operations to find mines and enhance the security of coastal waters and ports. Images of suspicious objects can be transmitted immediately to a command centre for analysis.
“Underwater mines pose a major threat to U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and merchant fleets … using intelligent, adaptive laser imaging and communication techniques with swarms of co-operating underwater robots could provide identification-quality underwater imagery in real-time across much greater regions of seabed than current technology allows,” said Dr Fraser Dalgleish, principal investigator and assistant research professor at the Ocean Visibility and Optics Laboratory, Florida Atlantic University, USA.
Other uses include ecosystem monitoring and environmental assessment.
Underwater Robots
Underwater laser networking and imaging technologies are being created to quickly identify and monitor potential threats in dark coastal waters.
Once finished, the laser imaging networks will be placed onboard a team of small underwater robots to be used for US military operations to find mines and enhance the security of coastal waters and ports. Images of suspicious objects can be transmitted immediately to a command centre for analysis.
“Underwater mines pose a major threat to U.S. Navy, Coast Guard and merchant fleets … using intelligent, adaptive laser imaging and communication techniques with swarms of co-operating underwater robots could provide identification-quality underwater imagery in real-time across much greater regions of seabed than current technology allows,” said Dr Fraser Dalgleish, principal investigator and assistant research professor at the Ocean Visibility and Optics Laboratory, Florida Atlantic University, USA.
Other uses include ecosystem monitoring and environmental assessment.
Underwater Robots
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