HERB robot can microwave your meal

In this modern world, the development of robots is mostly focused on technical areas like industries, military, etc. than the real-world applications. As a result, we are lacking the help of robots in our day to day life. It could be a big disappointment to many of the robot lovers. To make you happy, Siddhartha [...]

herb-robot herb-robot

Micro helicopters get new way of navigation

In recent years, flying robots have managed to obtain bulky, heavy, and GPS or remote control navigation system. This achievement may be a great one, but it still had some of the drawbacks. Therefore, researchers at ETH Zurich started EU project sFly in 2009 to develop flying robots that can surpass these disadvantages. Recently, the [...]

sfly micro helicopters sfly micro helicopters

A MSU researcher develops jumping mini-robot

Nowadays, most of the mini-robots get wheels for their quick locomotion. However, this type of locomotion will be a handy device in the flat land only. When it comes to rugged terrain locomotion, mini-robots with jumping capability will be an ideal one. To make it possible, Jianguo Zhao, a graduate student at Michigan State University [...]

jumping mini-robot jumping mini-robot

Mobot makes robot construction easy and inexpensive

If you are the person who likes to build robots of your own, then you need to keep an eye on this article. A company called Barobo, Inc has developed a robotic kit known as Mobot, which can certainly make your robot construction easy and inexpensive. Mobot is an educational robot that develops student education [...]

barobo mobot barobo mobot

Printable robots could make way to develop your own robot

The printable robots are developed by the group effort of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University. This five-year project is titled as ‘An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines.’ It is funded by a US $10 million grant from the NSF (National Science Foundation). This MIT-led [...]

printable robots printable robots

Robot Builder’s Bonanza

May 13th, 2012 yog No Comments »

Robot Builder’s Bonanza is a newly updated fourth edition book written by Gordon McComb. This book brings you lots of fun and step by step information on building the fully autonomous robots. These robots can be programmed with the help of your computer. In addition, it makes you to develop your own robot to see, talk, hear, walk, and feel.

The main feature of this book is that it includes the detailed information of:

  • More than hundred low-cost robot projects
  • 10 latest robot designs

The publisher of Robot Builder’s Bonanza is McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics. It was recently upgraded on 23rd May, 2011 (fourth edition). The price of this book is only $16.78 on Amazon.

Overall, I believe that this book could be the best guide to build your own highly intelligent robots.

Watch the review of this book in the below video:

herb-robot

HERB robot can microwave your meal

May 4th, 2012 shan 2 Comments »

In this modern world, the development of robots is mostly focused on technical areas like industries, military, etc. than the real-world applications. As a result, we are lacking the help of robots in our day to day life. It could be a big disappointment to many of the robot lovers. To make you happy, Siddhartha Srinivasa of Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute developed HERB (Home Exploring Robot Butler) for household purposes.

HERB is equipped with a Segway base for moving from one place to another. It has got plenty of sensors and a three-fingered hand for picking and placing the objects. An astonishing inclusion is the spinning laser, which delivers forty thousand points per second data stream. So that it does not collide with other things even in a new environment.

HERB is made to pick up the frozen meal, open the door of a microwave oven, place the meal inside, close it, and switch ON the oven. After the meal is heated, it can pick up and give it to its master. In addition, it can identify and grasp one object from a collection of similar things.

Overall, the main goal of this Robotics Institute is to develop robots that are helpful for performing our daily life works like cooking, washing clothes, cleaning dishes, and more.

You can also catch the working performance of HERB in the below video:

MIT’s robot arm will weave webs like silkworm

April 30th, 2012 yog No Comments »

The above video brings you the performance of MIT’s newly developed robotic arm. This robot arm is capable of weaving its own webs as the silkworm does for creating the cocoons. The project members of MIT Media Lab are trying to train a robot to accomplish the realistic capabilities of this feature. So far, the robot is working with the help of programming, and the researchers are fond of seeing their robot spinning the web automatically.

Until now, there is no exact information on where this robotic arm can play a major role. However, the main goal of such a robotic arm is to perform the ‘Additive Manufacturing Process.’

Build a Remote-Controlled Robot

April 26th, 2012 yog 5 Comments »

If you are very much interested in developing your first remote-controlled robot, then ‘Build a Remote-Controlled Robot’ book written by David R. Shircliff will be the perfect selection. The first edition of this book was published on 25th March, 2002 by McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics.

This beginner’s book is completely based on developing a remote-controlled and inexpensive robot called the Questor. It describes every single step for performing the assembly operations with hundred comprehensive images. It also includes simple circuit diagrams and entire lists of components. In addition, it adds several tips to get these components easily and cheaply.

Overall, this book makes the beginners easy to build their first complete robot without any need of advanced abilities in electronic and programming.

sfly micro helicopters

Micro helicopters get new way of navigation

April 24th, 2012 shan No Comments »

In recent years, flying robots have managed to obtain bulky, heavy, and GPS or remote control navigation system. This achievement may be a great one, but it still had some of the drawbacks. Therefore, researchers at ETH Zurich started EU project sFly in 2009 to develop flying robots that can surpass these disadvantages. Recently, the researchers have finished the development work, and their flying robots have left the nest successfully.

One of the main goals of EU project sFly is to reduce the weight and processing power of flying robots. As a result, the researchers of ETH Zurich collaborated with Ascending Technologies to develop flying robots with six rotors at a weight of just 1500 grams. This weight also includes the mounting of a miniature computer and three inbuilt cameras. Because of its light-weight feature, it is named as micro helicopters. Moreover, the diameter of the micro helicopters is around 50 centimeters.

The sFly micro helicopters get a new way of navigation with its three inbuilt cameras and a miniature computer. One camera is equipped for providing the information to the flight control unit, and the other two are mounted for three-dimensional modeling. The work of cameras is to deliver the real time images for calculating the flight movements of helicopters. It also includes a flight control unit for comparing the movements with the required values. In addition, it does several modifications if there is any deviation. A Wi-Fi connection in the onboard computer helps to transfer the captured images to the ground computer. Then, these images are created in 3D map, and it displays the obstacles in the flying areas.

The major advantage of the camera-based technology over a GPS is that it can work in both opened and closed environments. This new type of navigation also provides more perfect positioning of helicopters than GPS.

Overall, the newly developed micro helicopter could be used for search and rescue operations, especially in a GPS-denied atmosphere.

The below video brings you the demo of sFly micro helicopters:

MATLAB in Robotics

April 23rd, 2012 yog 4 Comments »

In recent years, many robots are possessed with the image analysis feature for recognizing objects. Most of them may think how these quality works are done by robots. Therefore, it is your time to get known to these facts. MATLAB is a software tool that is commonly used for performing image processing in the robots. I think that it may not be a fair job to carry on before showing off some of the general notes on MATLAB.

Introduction of MATLAB:

MATLAB (elaborately known as Matrix Laboratory) is the interactive programming software that is designed with “Fourth Generation Programming Language.” It was developed by Cleve Moler in 1970. During 1984, Cleve Moler combined with Jack Little to redevelop the MATLAB in C programming language. Later, both opened MathWorks for further development. In many educational institutes, MATLAB was used to teach Linear Algebra and Numerical Analysis.

MATLAB is mostly used for doing computational tasks on High Level Mathematics. However, it has also been used in various fields like science, engineering, etc. It is currently updated with many different latest features, and it is delivering its better performance in almost all fields.

Image processing using MATLAB:

Image processing is a form of signal processing, which uses image as input and output. Generally, an image can be of two or three dimensional array. In MATLAB, this array or matrix is manipulated. The picture shown below defines you the several stages of image processing in MATLAB.

An image acquisition device can be a video camera, which is used for capturing images. The image captured either with the help of digital or analogue cameras can be used as the input. Most importantly, these cameras should be capable of delivering images at different resolutions.

Digital cameras like CCD or CMOS sensor are those which have the direct connection with the PC using USB port. Meanwhile, analogue cameras require a grabbing card for connecting with PC. In MATLAB, Augmented Reality is currently used for capturing the live video streams of the real world. It is directly interfaced with the PC (Image Processor), and MATLAB uses inbuilt software called adaptors for accessing or communicating with this device.

Image analysis can be done by extracting some of the functional details from the captured images. Therefore, if there is a requirement for identifying an object, then several robust characteristics of an object like color, pattern, edges, intensity, and structure must be noted.

The final stage of image processing is the machine control in which a robot is controlled according to the details obtained from image analysis. For example, if a robot needs to identify a ball, it captures images in front of it, sends it to PC, and analyses it with the MATLAB program. If the image input and program output are satisfied, then it detects it as a ball. Otherwise, it goes on searching for a ball by this method.

Overall, MATLAB is used in robots for detecting or tracking an image by determining some of the parameters like location, size, shape, contour, etc., and planning decisions based on it.

jumping mini-robot

A MSU researcher develops jumping mini-robot

April 21st, 2012 yog 2 Comments »

Nowadays, most of the mini-robots get wheels for their quick locomotion. However, this type of locomotion will be a handy device in the flat land only. When it comes to rugged terrain locomotion, mini-robots with jumping capability will be an ideal one.

To make it possible, Jianguo Zhao, a graduate student at Michigan State University developed a steerable, faster, and jumping mini-robot under the supervision of Professor Ning Xi. It was built with the fund provided by the National Science Foundation, and later made under commercial contract.

Zhao’s mini-robot measures a dimension of 6.0 x 8.0 x 2.0 centimeter, and weighs just 20 grams. The mass and size of this tiny device are 23.50 grams and 6.50 centimeters respectively. It is capable of turning faster at 36 deg/sec, and up from 2 deg/sec.

This mini-robot was demonstrated on April 11 at MSU’s Innovation Celebration. It is equipped with a pager motor, which helps it jump up to a height of 90 centimeters. After it lands in the terrain, it quickly comes to the perfect position and gets ready for next jump. As the self – righting system is very strong, it does not break into pieces. It is powered by a small photo cell, and it can hop hundreds of times without any recharge.

This tiny device can be mounted with micro-sensors or wireless camera, and can be used in several operations like military surveillance, environmental monitoring, and search and rescue. The researcher also planned to provide it a water-jumping capability in their next development stage.

You can watch various jumps performed by this mini-robot in the below video:

barobo mobot

Mobot makes robot construction easy and inexpensive

April 19th, 2012 shan 1 Comment »

If you are the person who likes to build robots of your own, then you need to keep an eye on this article. A company called Barobo, Inc has developed a robotic kit known as Mobot, which can certainly make your robot construction easy and inexpensive.

Mobot is an educational robot that develops student education in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). This technique will also make every student to learn how to program robots and work collectively.

Mobot has rugged design with four degrees of freedom, including two rotating faceplates and body joints. It weighs only 18 oz. Every single Mobot has six mounting surfaces for connecting it with other modules using fast release snap connector. Each joint is capable of traveling at 120 deg/sec speed and 100 oz-in torque.

Mobot is incorporated with software that helps the robot to protect it from any sort of risky movements. As a result, there will be no problem to handle the robots while it is on the move. Moreover, it equally protects the users too.

Barobo’s Mobot can support several computer operating systems like Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Mac OS X. A Graphical User Interface RobotController can be useful for programming the robot. In addition, C / C++ interpreter Ch will help the user to perform their own programming for controlling the robot process and motion.

The two major advantages of Mobot are that it is fully programmable and 100 percentage wireless. By attaching several modules together, the user can develop some astonishing robotic forms like snake, humanoid, dog, 4 x 4 trucks, and so on. It just requires a computer with Bluetooth connection for controlling the robot. Moreover, it is powered by two rechargeable batteries (9 volts), which can provide up to two hours of battery life.

Generally, robots with these facilities will definitely cost over 1000 dollars. However, Mobot is currently available for a pre-order with a basic price of $270 only.

The video given below shows you different shapes and motion of Mobot.

Updates of NAO humanoid robot

April 14th, 2012 shan No Comments »

http://www.aldebaran-robotics.com/

The site linked above is the official website of the NAO humanoid robot. It keeps you updated with all the latest news, pictures, videos, and more about this little impressive robot.

printable robots

Printable robots could make way to develop your own robot

April 4th, 2012 yog 3 Comments »

The printable robots are developed by the group effort of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard University. This five-year project is titled as ‘An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines.’ It is funded by a US $10 million grant from the NSF (National Science Foundation).

This MIT-led project could definitely help each and everyone who likes to build a robot in their living room. It is all about designing and fabricating a printed moving robot using a special printer. Moreover, it is very simple when you have some amount of knowledge in computer programming.

The researchers believe that if you want to assist anyone of your household problems, then head towards a local printing store, and choose a suitable design for your robot from a list of robotic designs. Subsequently, you can customize the selected design to solve your exact needs. Within a day, you can print, program, assemble, and check your robot’s performance.

The researchers have currently developed several prototypes by this method such as an insect-like robot, small gripper tool, and a soft robotic fish (images of these printed robots are shown in the above picture respectively). These printed robots are made of PEEK thermoplastics. You can catch the action of all those printed robotic devices in the below video.

Additionally, the project researchers have planned to focus on some categories like application programming interface, writing algorithms for controlling the fabrication of the robot, developing understandable programming language, and programmable objects that can provide automatic manufacturing of robot parts.

Overall, the aim of the printable robots is to allow an ordinary man to develop his own programmable robots in a matter of hours.

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