Technology Trends

It’s not always easy to explore small buildings in dangerous areas and even more difficult to see what might be hidden in a cave or a tunnel. In this short article, the MIT Technology Review describes the results obtained by Swiss researchers with a small robotic aircraft. It only weighs 30 grams for a 80-centimeter wingspan and can flow inside a building for about 4 minutes. With its two 1-gram cameras, a gyroscope, and a small microcontroller onboard, it can detect walls and automatically avoid collisions. The team is now working on even smaller versions of these flying robots which will be used for search-and-rescue, reconnaissance, and inspection applications. Read more…

Before going further, let’s look at the robotic platforms (Credit for images and legends: Jean-Christophe Zufferey and Dario Floreano, Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland).

[The picture above shows] two Khepera robots, the left one equipped for obstacle avoidance (steering) and the right one for lateral wall following (corresponding to altitude control in the case of a flying robot). Gyroscopes for yaw rotation detection are visible on the top turrets, just below the 1D cameras (one-dimensional array of pixels).

[Note for those of you who are not airplane engineers: according to this Aerospace Science and Technology Dictionary from NASA, "yaw" is "the rotational or oscillatory movement of an aircraft, rocket, or the like about a vertical axis" or "the amount of this movement, ie, the angle of yaw."]

[This second picture shows the] 30-gram indoor slow-flyer equipped with a yaw gyroscope and two horizontal 1D cameras pointing at 45° off the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. This plane flies around 2m/s and features a minimum turning radius of approximately 1.3m. The energy source is provided by a 310mAh Lithium-polymer battery. Overall power consumption is around 2W.

Here is how the flying robot operates according to Technology Review.

The researchers made their aircraft out of carbon-fiber rods, balsa wood, and thin plastic film for the wings and tail. They mounted one video camera on the leading edge of each wing and connected the two cameras to a low-power microcontroller near the front of the aircraft, behind the motorized propeller. The microcontroller grabbed images from the cameras about 20 times per second and calculated how fast obstacles like walls appeared to be moving toward the aircraft. As objects got closer, the cameras saw them as moving faster. The microcontroller recognized a certain threshold speed as an indication that an obstacle was getting too close and sent signals to the rudder to turn the plane about 90 degrees.

An 80-centimeter wingspan might still be too large for small environments, so the researchers are working on smaller versions.

The researchers are working on a 12-gram, 40-centimeter-wingspan aircraft with lighter and smaller electronics so that it can fly in smaller rooms. They are also integrating an automatic altitude-control system into their plane to make it fully autonomous. And they are putting more-sensitive cameras on board, so the plane can detect obstacles that don’t have high-contrast coloration.

The results obtained with this robotic aircraft were presented during the 2005 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2005), which was held on April 18-22, 2005, in Barcelona, Spain.

The technical paper was named “Toward 30-gram Autonomous Indoor Aircraft: Vision-based Obstacle Avoidance and Altitude Control” and here is a link to this paper (PDF format, 6 pages, 672 KB). The above images were extracted from this paper.

And for even more information, here is a link to the project home page at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems of EPFL, “Bio-inspired Vision-based Flying Robots,” where you’ll find more pictures and even video clips.

Sources: Corie Lok, Technology Review, September 2005; and various web sites

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• Military Applications
  
  
• Robotics
  
  
• Security
  
  
• Technology
  

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Two years ago, I told you that the Gladiator Robot will join the Marine Corps. Now, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the six-wheeled combat robot, designed and developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), made its debut last week. This new U.S. unmanned fighting vehicle can fire machine guns, nonlethal sting balls or tear gas. It could be used for reconnaissance, surveillance and direct-fire missions. CMU will deliver six prototypes of the three-ton robots by 2007 to the Marine Corps, which could deploy about 200 Gladiator vehicles in combat zones around 2009 if the prototypes work as intended. Each Gladiator should cost between $300,000 and $400,000. Read more…

Before going further, let’s take a look at the Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle (TUGV) (Credit: GlobalSecurity.org).

You’ll find more details about this unmanned vehicle on this page and here is a link to a larger version of the above image.

Now, here are some more details from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article.

In February, CMU beat out defense giant Lockheed Martin for a $26.4 million Defense Department contract to produce a line of six Gladiator TUGV prototypes.

The goal is to build big remote-controlled reconnaissance robots capable of carrying out search-and-discovery missions in potentially hostile areas, to warn soldiers of the dangers ahead, and to protect them from mine fields, craters, trenches, hidden enemies or even greater threats such as chemical, biological or nuclear traps.

And even if this robot becomes a deadly weapon against enemies, it will be operated as a big toy.

Designed to fit into a military Humvee for transport, the Gladiator will be driven remotely by a soldier using a Sony PlayStation-like joystick. The soldier will wear a special helmet fitted with an eyepiece that serves as a camera, allowing the soldier to see what the robot sees, even though it could be miles away.

And for a remote-controlled ‘toy,’ the Gladiator will have some real weapons.

The latest Gladiator prototype has containers for hand grenades that can be used for clearing obstacles and creating a footpath on difficult terrain for soldiers following behind. It also features what looks like organ pipes to produce smoke, and it has a mount on top for a medium-size machine gun or multipurpose assault weapon.

In another article, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review gives some additional details — and a good punch line.

Gladiator runs on diesel fuel, but can also operate silently when placed in hybrid-electric mode, said Jeff Farbacher, Gladiator project manager for Carnegie Mellon University in Oakland. Gladiator can be outfitted to fire non-lethal “sting balls” or tear gas, along with standard machine guns. Gladiator can also be used on windswept tundras or steaming jungles.

Farbacher estimated one Gladiator costs between $300,000 to $400,000. “If you have a son, it’s a bargain,” he said.

I hope he meant that the total costs for a boy to be well-educated are in the $300K range, and not that a kid needs for about $300K of weapons to go to the university…

Source: Corilyn Shropshire, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 5, 2005; and various web sites

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• Robotics
  


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A large team of oceanographers is again exploring ‘Lost City,’ an hydrothermal vent field located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, which was discovered in 2000 and named like this because of the myth of Atlantis. But this time, the oceanographers are not on a ship. Most of them are in a room at the University of Washington in Seattle. And according to this article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, they’re using high-speed Internet connections to control robotic vehicles exploring the deep Atlantic Ocean thousands of miles away. Thanks to satellites, the remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) Argus and Hercules can transmit videos back to Seattle in real time. After analysis, the scientists can move the ROVs to specific areas of interest without having their feet wet. Read more…

Before going further, let’s look at some images.

The diagram below shows “how video and data will be transmitted between the NOAA ship Ronald H. Brown, via satellite and Internet2, to the Inner Space Center at URI, the University of Washington, and other participating sites” (Credit: Todd Viola, Phil Scheuer, Immersion Presents).

Here is a link to a larger version of this diagram.

The photo below shows the Hercules submarine vehicle approaching “a ghostly, white, carbonate spire in the Lost City Hydrothermal Field, about 2500 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean” (Credit: IFE, URI-IAO, UW, Lost City science party, and NOAA).

And on this one, you can see a beautiful 3 ft high, actively venting carbonate structure resembling a snow-covered Christmas tree” (Credit: IFE, URI-IAO, UW, Lost City science party, and NOAA).

You’ll find tons of other pictures in this photo gallery available from the Lost City section of the Jason Foundation for Education web site. But be prepared to spend quite a time: they have amassed lots of interesting stuff on this site.

Now, let’s read the introduction of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer article.

Think of it as the Mars Rover but at the bottom of the ocean, remotely exploring our own planet’s most alien landscape for scientists back at mission control.

“This is how the science is going to be done,” said Deborah Kelley, a University of Washington oceanographer.

In 2000, Kelley was part of the expedition which discovered a huge collection of limestone towers in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and some of these hydrothermal vent towers were hundreds of feet high.

Five years ago, the expedition used a manned vehicle. But in 2005, the scientists are in Seattle, operating unmanned vehicles 2,500 miles away in real time.

Yesterday, Kelley and her colleagues were in Seattle and also “virtually” back at the Lost City to demonstrate how robotics and information technology can transform deep-ocean exploration. What once required dangerous and time-limited manned exploits can now be done by remote control on a ship deck or in an office thousands of miles away.

This news release from the University of Washington gives additional details.

Only four scientists are with University of Rhode Island oceanographer Bob Ballard aboard the Ronald H. Brown, a research vessel operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the expedition’s major sponsor. The other 21 are with University of Washington oceanographer Deborah Kelley in a classroom on the UW campus that has been outfitted so scientists can direct sampling efforts and can be in constant contact with pilots and navigators on the Brown.

“Having most of the members of an oceanographic science party on land has never been tried. The approach will provide an opportunity for a much larger number of researchers to explore the oceans,” Kelley says.

If you still have some time to spare to know more about this expedition, please visit The Lost City 2005, a site maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOOA).

Sources: Tom Paulson, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 29, 2005; and various web sites

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• Geosciences
  


• Internet
  
  
• Robotics
  
  
• Wireless
  

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After several years of research, engineers from the University of Hawaii are now testing the first autonomous robotic vehicle for deep-ocean work in the U.S. This robot is called SAUVIM, short for Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention Missions. It’s roughly the size of an SUV and it is designed to operate to a depth of about 4 miles. With its computers, its sensors, and a 5-foot, 150-pound autonomous manipulator, or robotic arm, it will be able to move towards a specific target, such as a wrecked pipe laying on the ocean floor — and maybe fix it. Right now, this robot has an autonomy of about eight hours, but this range should soon be extended when the researchers move from batteries to fuel cells to power the undersea vehicle.

Here is the introduction of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin article, which shows that it’s not always easy to move from a lab to real life.

A sensor failed to work, causing a glitch in the performance of the group’s Semi-Autonomous Underwater Vehicle for Intervention during a demonstration Friday at the UH Marine Center at Snug Harbor, Sand Island. But industry and Navy research officials were enthusiastic about the unique vehicle’s potential.

This project has received about $12 million from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) since 1997 and is led by Song K. Choi, who leads the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at the Center for Underwater Robotic Technology (CURT).

Song Choi also founded the Marine Autonomous Systems Engineering to commercialize this robotic undersea vehicle (web site ‘under construction’).

But now, it’s time to look at some images of the SAUVIM — by the way, how did these researchers find such an unappealing name?

For more information, here are two links to the SAUVIM project page and to a short simulation movie from 2003 (41 seconds, 7.65 MB)

Now, what kind of help can we expect from this autonomous robot?

Choi said there is no underwater vehicle with the capabilities of the semiautonomous underwater vehicle. “We’d be the first ones to do it.”

Choi said 99 percent of the vehicle’s system is autonomous, with 1 percent semiautonomous for a communications link for safety. A signal could be sent to the vehicle to stop and return if necessary, he said.

It will be able to go to a target automatically, and the arm will deploy to do a task with no humans involved, Choi said. “The ultimate goal is to leave it in the water, and it will come back when the batteries are down. Safety-wise, it can’t get better.”

Future versions of this autonomous undersea robots should be able to work continuously for several days when batteries are replaced by fuel cells.

Sources: Helen Altonn, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Hawaii, July 19, 2005; and various web sites

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• Engineering
  
  
• Military Applications
  
  
• Robotics
  
  
• Sensors
  

You probably remember the story which surfaced in May 2005 about monkeys using robotic arms as their own (check here or there to refresh your memory). Now, according to the ANBA press agency, Miguel Nicolelis, the professor of neurology at Duke University who was behind the experiments with the monkeys, wants to go further. He plans to install chips in humans’ brains in order to control prosthetic arms. Of course, there is still some work to do with animals before this kind of surgery can be practiced on humans. But the first surgery in the world to implant a neuro-prosthesis inside a human being is expected to be performed in a Brazilian hospital by 2008.

Here is the introduction of the ANBA report.

The Syrian-Lebanese Hospital, in the southeastern Brazilian city of São Paulo, is going to perform the first surgery in the world for implantation of robotic arms into a human being, to be moved by brain signals. The agreement for realization of the surgery was singed last month with the Santos Dumont Association for Support to Research. The surgery is scheduled to take place in three years.

According to the hospital’s corporate superintendent, Mauricio Ceschin, the technique consists on implanting a microchip into the human brain to translate the nerve pulses into electric pulses, making it possible for the patient to move robotic prosthetics.

Below is a diagram describing how a patient’s brain can control the prosthetics (Credit: Miguel Nicolelis’s Laboratory at Duke’s Center for Neuroengineering).

Of course, this will take time before this technique can be applied to a human.

According to Ceschin, up to the execution of the first surgery for implantation of robotic arms moved by brain signals, the Education and Teaching Institute of the Syrian-Lebanese hospital will have a laboratory turned to research in neuroscience, where new tests will take place before the first surgery.

The superintendent also stated that a team of hospital neurosurgeons is getting ready to apply the new technique. “It will still take between two and three years for tests to be concluded on animals. The doctors must feel secure,” he said.

For slightly more information, you also can read a former news release from the Syrian-Lebanese Hospital.

As you can guess, there is no scientific paper available on this subject. But if you want to read the latest research paper about this brain-machine interface, at least for monkeys, The Journal of Neuroscience has published “Cortical Ensemble Adaptation to Represent Velocity of an Artificial Actuator Controlled by a Brain-Machine Interface” (May 11, 2005, Vol. 25, Num. 19, Pages 4681-4693). Here is a link to the abstract.

Monkeys can learn to directly control the movements of an artificial actuator by using a brain-machine interface (BMI) driven by the activity of a sample of cortical neurons. Eventually, they can do so without moving their limbs. Neuronal adaptations underlying the transition from control of the limb to control of the actuator are poorly understood. Here, we show that rapid modifications in neuronal representation of velocity of the hand and actuator occur in multiple cortical areas during the operation of a BMI. Initially, monkeys controlled the actuator by moving a hand-held pole.

As the monkeys started using their cortical activity to control the actuator, the activity of individual neurons and neuronal populations became less representative of the animal’s hand movements while representing the movements of the actuator. As a result of this adaptation, the animals could eventually stop moving their hands yet continue to control the actuator. These results show that, during BMI control, cortical ensembles represent behaviorally significant motor parameters, even if these are not associated with movements of the animal’s own limb.

Sources: Marina Sarruf, ANBA (Brazil Arab News Agency), translated by Mark Ament, July 8, 2005; and various web sites

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• Biotechnology
  
  
• Chips
  
  
• Human Computer Interface
  
  
• Medicine
  
  
• Robotics
  

The Japanese Humanoid Robotics Project has produced the HRP-2 robot, which is known for dancing and preserving Japanese culture. But now, the HRP-2, which is about 1.6 meter high and weighs about 60 kilograms, can hear humans and understand them with its sophisticated software and hearing equipment. It uses an array of microphones consisting of eight omnidirectional microphones mounted around the robot’s head. Stable speech recognition is obtained by combining information from the microphone array and a camera also mounted on its head, and by isolating and eliminating noises, even from your TV. These hearing capabilities are essential “for helping humans to communicate with robots in real environments by 2025.” Read more…

Before going further, here is how looks the HRP-2, also known as ‘Prométhée’ (Credit: Kawada Industries, Inc.)

Now here are the technical details provided by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) about the microphone array.

The microphone array consists of eight omnidirectional microphones mounted around the robot’s head. The sound source is located on the basis of difference in times for arrival to individual microphones, and at the same time, a camera mounted at the robot’s head detects, tracks and locates a person giving the vocal instruction.

Here is the robot’s head with its array of microphones. The red arrows show the positions of the eight microphones (Credit: AIST).

Stable speech recognition is obtained by combining information derived from the microphone array and the camera and by isolating and eliminating noises. Hardware to eliminate noises in real time has been developed and built into a robot, making it possible for a human operator to give robot vocal instructions, and to control IT appliances through a robot, even in a field where multiple noise sources such as TV exist.

It is expected, therefore, that natural communications may be realized in the living environment between a human operator and a humanoid robot through the auditory function of robot.

Please read the AIST document for more details about the voice interface and its hardware and software components. I just want to emphasize that the goal of this project is to allow natural communications between human beings and humanoid robots through the auditory function of the robots, and even in noisy environments.

Sources: Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) news release, June 20, 2005; and various web sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Future
  


• Human Computer Interface
  


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• Software
  

In NASA’s language, a nanosatellite-class system is a small spacecraft, but it is not a nanotechnology-based device. In fact, its new ‘Mini AERCam’ robotic cameras are small, free flying vehicles capable of performing inspection and viewing missions in space. But these spherical-shaped cameras have a diameter of 7.5 inches and weigh about 10 pounds. These cameras are designed to help astronauts and ground crews see outside the spacecraft during a mission. During human space flights, like the ones of the International Space Station (ISS), their use will suppress the need for astronauts to walk in space. And these cameras, tested on the ground today, should be soon deployed in space to watch human-based missions in space. Read more…

Here is the introduction of the NASA’s news release about these small robotic cameras.

Big things can come in small packages, and engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center are making progress on a tiny spacecraft that holds major promise for future exploration.

Work on the volleyball-sized Miniature Autonomous Extravehicular Robotic Camera (Mini AERCam) moved forward with successful initial tests on its docking system. The Mini AERCam is designed to help astronauts and ground crews see outside the spacecraft during a mission. During ground-based testing, the device was able to work with the docking system that serves as an exterior home base for housing and refueling the nanosatellite.

So this Mini AERCam is ‘volleyball-sized,’ quite bigger than nanotechnology-based devices according to the ‘official’ definition of nanotechnology — less than 100 nanometers.

Below is a diagram showing the Mini AERCam external features (Credit: NASA).

Two cameras are aligned with the +X direction of the vehicle. One camera provides NTSC-quality color video, and the other camera can be used for high-resolution still images, when selected. A third color video camera is positioned in the +Y direction for an orthogonal view.

And here is an exploded view of the Mini AERCam (Credit: NASA).

The vehicle is designed with a central ring that houses the power and propulsion system. The batteries are lithium-ion and provide six hours of operational time. The propulsion system is designed for cold-gas xenon, which packs more densely than nitrogen, but is compatible with low-cost nitrogen in the current ground test configuration. Attitude and position control are achieved with the use of twelve thrusters, distributed across four thruster pods around the central ring. The batteries are rechargeable and a port is provided for refueling.

Now, let’s go back to the NASA’s news release to discover how these cameras can be deployed in space and docked outside of a bigger spacecraft.

Mini AERCam could be deployed and retrieved many times during a single space mission, with the use of a hangar-based docking system located on the exterior of the vehicle. The free-flyer portion of the docking system includes a vision-based system for autonomous navigation and an electromagnetic capture capability.

For human spaceflights, automatic deployment and docking eliminates the need for astronauts to perform a spacewalk to release and retrieve the free flyer. For robotic missions, external basing is essential. The docking system provides a protective base during periods it is not needed for mission operations.

For even more information, here are two pointers to the Mini AERCam home site and to a technical overview (PDF format, 4 pages, 589 KB). The pictures above were extracted fom this document.

Sources: NASA news release, June 15, 2005; and other NASA sites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• NASA
  


• Optics
  


• Robotics
  


• Space
  

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that a robot combined with a swallowable camera could give doctors a better look inside the small intestine. This medical robot, dubbed ‘bugbot,’ is being developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in its NanoRobotics Laboratory. It will measure less than 800 nanometers in diameter and will transmit thousands of images during its trip inside yourself with its embedded camera. With the six legs attached to the microrobot, CMU researchers want to give more control to camera operators, such as coming back to a suspected lesion. This robot should be ready for human inspection within 2 to 3 years and opens the way for future nanorobots. Read more…

Here are the opening paragraphs of the Post-Gazette article.

The words “intestinal bug” could gain a whole new meaning if a Carnegie Mellon University engineer is successful in his efforts to develop a medical robot for examining the intestinal tract.

Metin Sitti, director of the NanoRobotics Lab, is developing a set of legs that could be incorporated into the swallowable camera-in-a-pill that has become available in the past four years for diagnosing gastrointestinal disorders in the small intestine.

The capsule camera snaps thousands of pictures as it makes its way slowly through the narrow tract, carried by the wave-like peristaltic motion that moves all contents through the intestines.

This picture, from Steve Mellon, of the Post-Gazette, shows Sitti with a prototype of his six-legged intestinal robot. And the newspaper has additional explanations about this robot in this graphical representation of intestinal locomotion.

So far, this robot is not really ready to explore your body.

[Sitti] has devised a simple, three-footed apparatus less than two-thirds of an inch in diameter to test its stopping power in flexible plastic tubes and, in preliminary testing in South Korea, in pig intestines. A six-footed apparatus for testing the inchworm-like locomotion has been assembled and will soon be ready for testing.

The legged devices thus far do not incorporate a camera and are not designed to be swallowed.

For more information about previous research on this subject, you can read more about Micro Swimming Robots at CMU’s NanoRobotics Laboratory.

Here are the goals of the project.

Developing a microrobot which can travel to currently inaccessible parts of the body and perform user directed tasks such as highly localized drug delivery and screening for diseases that are in their very early stages.

And here are the benefits expected by the researchers.

We envision this robot having the capability to swim to inaccessible areas in human body and perform complicated user directed tasks such as diagnosis of diseases at early stages and targeted drug delivery.

Now, let’s return to the Post-Gazette which tells us about the future of the ‘bugbot.’

If the gutbot proves feasible for the small intestine, other applications may await it in the colon. Though the colon can be visualized with a long, flexible colonoscope, the procedure is not a popular one. Sitti [and his fellow researchers] suggested it may someday be possible to use a legged camera introduced through the anus as a substitute for traditional colonoscopy. They emphasized, however, that such an application is still years away.

For that matter, Sitti said, it may be possible to someday equip an intestinal robot to perform surgeries beyond just biopsies. But for now, developing a robot that could improve diagnosis of digestive tract disease is the immediate concern.

Sources: Byron Spice, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 30, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Medicine
  


• Nanotechnology
  


• Robotics
  


• Vision and Visualization Apps
  

If you are in Glasgow next week, be sure to visit the Garage, one of its largest clubs, and order a beer from the new assistant bartender. The Barhand vending machine will give you a bottle of beer with its electronic robotic hand. In “Young Scot set for share in millions from robot barman,” the Sunday Herald reports that Michael Bowes, a 23-year old entrepreneur, is installing the first robotic bartender, built by Japanese company Fuji. Bowes has exclusive rights to sell the robot and expects to generate sales of about $200 million within five years. Of course, some people are concerned that the Barhand could deliver beers to people already drunk, but Bowes insists that by reducing queues, people will only buy one drink at a time instead of picking several ones from a real bartender. Read more…

Here are the essential facts about the launch of the Barhand.

Orders have already been taken from bars and clubs across England and elsewhere in Europe. But the first unit will be installed in one of Glasgow’s largest clubs, The Garage.

It is being shipped over from Asia for a launch party on Wednesday. The product will then be launched in London at industry trade show bar.05 at Earls Court the following week.

The Barhand, a concept three and a half years in the making, is expected to generate sales of £100 million to £200m within the next five years. Michael Bowes, managing director of Bowes Enterprises, said he has also been approached by a large non-alcoholic drinks company about vending products that don’t fit into traditional units.

Here is a link to the current schedule for the Garage. And I’m sorry to tell you that the Zak Wylde’s Black Label Society gig has been cancelled on June 1, 2005.

Anyway, the Barhand has really been designed with U.K. pub rules.

The Barhand has been specially designed for licensed premises, with a timeclock that shuts the machine off after the “last orders” bell. The electronic arm inside the vending machine is meant to prevent bottles from crashing to the bottom of the dispensing slot and being damaged.

Of course, some people are worried by the fact that the Barhand could sell a beer to someone already drunk.

Patrick Browne, spokesman for the Scottish Beer and Pub Association, said Bowes Enterprises would have to address a number of crucial issues. He said: “One of the offences in licensing laws is allowing people to sell alcohol to someone who is drunk. How do you stop someone who is drunk from going and using the vending machine again?”

For more information, you should read the April 2005 issue of enterprisinglasgow (PDF format, 16 pages, 2.35 MB). The image above comes from “A Helping Barhand” on page 2 (Credit: enterprisinglasgow).

In this column, Bowes replies to the critics mentioned above and says that the Barhand will help people to reduce their drink consumption.

“What the vending machine enables people to do is purchase drinks in an easy and controlled manner but it also has other advantages in that it can help to prevent binge drinking by decreasing a person’s rate of consumption.”

“In developing my product I conducted research amongst drinkers and one of the questions I asked was — would you purchase multiple drinks if the bar was busy? A staggering 75% of the 500 people canvassed said yes. In essence people are buying multiple rounds of drinks, not because they want them, but because they want to avoid queuing.

As I haven’t found a single picture of the Barhand on the Web, I have no idea if it looks like a traditional vending machine or if it has a futuristic robotic design. So, if you go to the Garage on June 1st, please take some pictures and send them to me.

And of course, don’t drink too much…

Sources: Julia Fields, Sunday Herald, UK, May 29, 2005; and various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Food
  
  
• Innovation
  
  
• Robotics
  

What a week in the robotic world! All the media wrote about the robots used as camel riders in Qatar, but other exotic machines were also announced, such as robo-matadors in Spain or the future Picasso, the ART Painter in Hartford, Connecticut. In the medical area, robo-masseurs are helping U.S. golfers, tiny needle-driving robots are developed in Israel while future mobile ‘trauma pods’ studied in California are still 10 years away. Elsewhere, a robot that could think for itself and solve real-world problems was unveiled in Wales. But my preferred robot this week is TerraMax, a self-navigating robotic truck built in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and which might participate in the second DARPA Grand Challenge in October 2005. Read more…

Below is a photograph of the TerraMax robotic truck in action (Credit: Oshkosh Truck Corporation). You’ll find other high-definition pictures of the TerraMax in this photo gallery.

Here are some facts taken from the press release mentioned above.

Oshkosh Truck Corporation announced [on April 12, 2005] that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen the company’s TerraMaxTM robotic vehicle for evaluation for the DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 — a 175-mile, off-road race in the Mojave Desert for completely autonomous vehicles. Of 195 teams originally submitting race entries, DARPA, a part of the Department of Defense, chose 118 for further review based on vehicle designs and capabilities.

DARPA Grand Challenge 2005 is a field test of autonomous (driverless) ground vehicles to promote the advance of autonomous vehicle technology. Teams vying to compete in the Grand Challenge develop their vehicles without government funding. By 2015, the Pentagon hopes that using autonomous military vehicles such as TerraMax will help save the lives of military personnel.

For more information about this robotic race, please visit the official DARPA Grand Challenge website. Below are quick facts about the race.

The 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge will be held on October 8, 2005 in the desert Southwest. The team that develops an autonomous ground vehicle that finishes the designated route most quickly within 10 hours will receive $2 million. The route will be no more than 175 miles over desert terrain featuring natural and man-made obstacles. The exact route will not be revealed until two hours before the event begins.

And don’t forget to check the TerraMax home page, which gives some details about the origins of the truck.

The TerraMax vehicle is based on Oshkosh’s Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR) defense truck platform. The MTVR was designed for the US Marine Corps with a 70% off-road mission profile.

All-wheel drive, TAK-4™ independent suspension, and central tire inflation make rocks, dips, holes and crevasses easier to handle. And the truck can handle 60% grades and 30% side slopes. A 425-hp Cat C-12 engine powers the truck.

But the site doesn’t give any details about the computer systems which will control its path. I guess these details will be available after the race, around the end of the year. Anyway, good luck, TerraMax!

Sources: Various websites

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• AI
  
  
• Innovation
  
  
• Medicine
  
  
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The Takanishi Laboratory, at Waseda University, Japan, is home for many robotic projects, including a flutist I wrote about a while ago. Today, let’s look at a talking robot, the Waseda Talker No. 4, or WT-4. This anthropomorphic talking robot was built to better understand how the human vocal mechanism creates speech. The WT-4 has 19 degrees of freedom (DOF) for lungs, vocal cords, tongue, lips, teeth, nasal cavity and soft palate. With its vocal cords, it can produce Japanese vowels that are similar to human ones. The next version, the WT-5, will have even more sophisticated vocal cords. Read more…

Here are more details about the WT-4.

We developed a new anthropomorphic talking robot WT-4 (Waseda Talker No.4) that improved on WT-3. WT-4 had a human-like body to make the communication with a human more easily, and consisted of 1-DOF lungs, 4-DOF vocal cords and articulators (the 7-DOF tongue, 5-DOF lips, 1-DOF teeth, nasal cavity and 1-DOF soft palate), and could reproduce human-like articulatory motion; the total DOF was 19. We improved the connection mechanism between the vocal cords and the vocal tract and developed the new vocal cords. As a result, WT-4 could produce Japanese vowels that were more similar to human vowels than the previous robots and could produce stops, fricatives and nasal sounds of 50 Japanese sounds for human-like speech production.

For more information, two papers about the Wased Talker will be presented at the 149th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, which will be held on May 16-20, 2005, in Vancouver, Canada.

The first one, “Development of an anthropomorphic talking robot and the mimicking speech control,” will be about the WT-4 and show “that this mimicking speech control is effective in producing fluent continuous speech by the talking robot.” Here is a link to the abstract.

The second one, “Mechanical vocal cord model mimicking human biological structure,” is about the next version of the Talker, the WT-5. And here are a link to the abstract and a selected quote.

Unlike a musical reed which has been used in conventional mechanical speech synthesizer, the vocal cord model is formed to mimic the human’s vocal cord in the shape and the biological structure. It is made of a thermoplastic rubber, Septonh (Kuraray Co. Ltd.) of which the elasticity like a human’s, and has 3-DOF mechanisms which is similar to the human structure. 1-DOF link mechanism could change the pitch by stretching the length of the vocal cords. The 2-DOF arm mechanism is used to mimic the abduction and adduction of a human arytenoid cartilage.

If you happen to be around Vancouver in May, these two presentations will be given on May 19 in the morning.

Sources: Takanishi Laboratory, Waseda University, Japan; and various websites

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Ocean-diving gliders have a large autonomy, mainly because they don’t have propellers. And they are used to gather oceanographic data such as temperature or salinity at a fraction of the cost of research vessels. Several Seagliders built at the University of Washington (UW) just broke endurance records. Two of these Seagliders, which are 1.8 m long and weigh 52 kg, were launched last September between California and Hawaii and reached the island of Kauai after 191 days in a trip of 1,860 miles. Both Seagliders did more than 500 dives down to 1,000 m during their trips. When a Seaglider reaches the surface, where it stays for only five minutes, it determines its position via GPS, uploads its data and downloads its new instructions via satellite. Meanwhile, two other Seagliders are still somewhere in the Labrador Sea for more than 193 days now and have yet to be retrieved. Read more…

Here are the facts about these Seagliders.

Two ocean-diving gliders built at the University of Washington were retrieved late last month near the Hawaiian island of Kauai after setting a world record by traveling a quarter of the way across the Pacific Ocean. Two other UW gliders, awaiting retrieval from the Labrador Sea, have set another world endurance record with a deployment of 193 days as of early April.

The Seagliders used in the Pacific Ocean were deployed in the water mid-way between California and Hawaii last September. They traveled the Pacific for 191 days, covering 1,860 miles. During that time one made 599 dives and the other 559.

And here are more details about how the Seagliders work.

A Seaglider can dive from the surface down 3,300 feet and back up every 3 to 9 hours. It remains at the surface 5 minutes to transmit ocean data that it has collected, relay its position and receive instructions via the Iridium satellite phone network, before diving again. It travels at half a knot, driven not by a spinning propeller but by buoyancy control: a hydraulic system moves oil in and out of an external rubber bladder to force the glider up or down through the ocean. Moving its battery pack causes it to pitch its nose up or down or roll its wings to change compass heading.

And what are they used for?

The temperature, salinity and oxygen data gathered by the Seagliders will help the North Pacific Acoustics Laboratory scientists better understand acoustic propagation — how sound is affected as it moves through the ocean. Acoustics can be used to probe such things as long-term ocean temperature changes and climate variability, and the role of internal waves in ocean mixing, says Bruce Howe, oceanographer with the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

Gliders also could be used to monitor changes in the world’s oceans because of storms, such as hurricanes, and other natural events, such as El Niño. Sonar and other sensing devices mounted on gliders may one day routinely scan harbors and seaports for explosive mines or detect divers in areas where they don’t belong.

For more information, you should visit the Seaglider home page. You’ll find its specifications, an image gallery and animations (in QuickTime format).

Sources: University of Washington news release, April 5, 2005; and various websites

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No, it’s not an April Fools Day joke. According to this very brief note from New Scientist, US soldiers will soon be equipped with individual robotic aircrafts. The Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) is a project from DARPA and is developed by Honeywell which is testing it since January 2005. The small plane, which will be carried in a backpack, is 13-inch high and weighs about 12 pounds. It is designed as a ducted fan air vehicle, and flies like a helicopter. Today, its propeller uses gasoline, but a heavy fuel version should be available in 2006. The MAV will be used for surveillance and recognition missions and will be available day and night because of its normal and thermal cameras transmitting images to a ground station. Read more…

Here is how DARPA describes the Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) program.

The objective of the MAV ACTD is to demonstrate a backpackable, affordable, easy-to-operate, and responsive reconnaissance and surveillance system. The system will provide the small unit with militarily useful real-time combat information of difficult to observe and/or distant areas or objects.

The system will also be employable in a variety of warfighting environments (for example: in complex topologies such as mountainous terrain; heavily forested areas; confined spaces; and high concentrations of civilians).

This DARPA presentation (PDF format, 2 pages, 55 KB, unknown date) adds that the nickname for the MAV project was “Private Jones” and emphasizes how the MAV should be easy to use. At least, it’s fun to read.

It’s time to move to the manufacturer of the MAV system. In this press release, Honeywell said it began flight tests of the MAV in January 2005. Here are some details.

Flight tests will continue through March at Honeywell’s facility in Albuquerque. In April, Honeywell will begin delivery of prototype systems to the Army for initial experimentation.

Called a ducted fan air vehicle, the MAV flies like a helicopter, using a propeller that draws in air through a duct to provide lift. The MAV’s propeller is enclosed in the duct and is driven by a gasoline engine. A heavy fuel engine variant of the MAV will be available in 2006.

The MAV is controlled using Honeywell’s micro-electrical mechanical systems (MEMS) electronic sensor technology.

Now, let’s look at this MAV page at the Honeywell Defense and Space Electronic Systems, from where the second illustration was extracted.

The MAV system, consisting of two air vehicles and a ground station, provides enhanced mission effectiveness and force protection. The modular, scaleable family of systems supports soldiers in both urban and open terrain.

Situational awareness is provided by both day and thermal forward and downward looking electro-optical and infrared imaging sensors. The video feed to the ground station provides real-time viewing as well as recall of stored images.

You also should read this fact sheet (PDF format, 2 pages, 155 KB). Don’t miss the first page: it looks like soldiers are playing, and that war is fun — which I find hard to believe.

The second page describes the MAV system features, and has a section on “target detection” which puzzles me.

It says the system can “detect and recognize man-sized target at 250m (day) and 125m (night),” but that there is a possible “target location error of 80 meters.”

Either I don’t understand what this means (it might be military jargon), or this MAV is not precise enough to help soldiers, especially in urban areas. What do you think of this target detection “precision”?

Sources: Various websites

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NASA is testing a shape-shifting robot called “TETwalker” for tetrahedral walker, because it looks like a flexible pyramid. It has been tested in the lab and at the McMurdo station in Antarctica to test it under conditions more like those on Mars. Now, it is on the way to be — really — miniaturized by using micro- and nano-electro-mechanical systems. These robots will eventually join together to form “autonomous nanotechnology swarms” (ANTS). When it’s done, in about thirty years, these nanotech swarms will “alter their shape to flow over rocky terrain or to create useful structures like communications antennae and solar sails.” So in 2034, nanotechnology will land on Mars. Read more…

But in 2005, this is only the beginning of tests for this shape-shifting robot pyramid at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

Like new and protective parents, engineers watched as the TETWalker robot successfully traveled across the floor at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Robots of this type will eventually be miniaturized and joined together to form “autonomous nanotechnology swarms” (ANTS) that alter their shape to flow over rocky terrain or to create useful structures like communications antennae and solar sails.

Here are more details about the TETwalker.

The robot is called “TETwalker” for tetrahedral walker, because it resembles a tetrahedron (a pyramid with 3 sides and a base). In the prototype, electric motors are located at the corners of the pyramid called nodes.

The nodes are connected to struts which form the sides of the pyramid. The struts telescope like the legs of a camera tripod, and the motors expand and retract the struts. This allows the pyramid to move: changing the length of its sides alters the pyramid’s center of gravity, causing it to topple over. The nodes also pivot, giving the robot great flexibility.

But where is nanotechnology involved in this project?

The team anticipates TETwalkers can be made much smaller by replacing their motors with Micro- and Nano-Electro-Mechanical Systems. Replacement of the struts with metal tape or carbon nanotubes will not only reduce the size of the robots, it will also greatly increase the number that can be packed into a rocket because tape and nanotube struts are fully retractable, allowing the pyramid to shrink to the point where all its nodes touch.

These miniature TETwalkers, when joined together in “swarms,” will have great advantages over current systems. The swarm has abundant flexibility so it can change its shape to accomplish highly diverse goals. For example, while traveling through a planet’s atmosphere, the swarm might flatten itself to form an aerodynamic shield.

Upon landing, it can shift its shape to form a snake-like swarm and slither away over difficult terrain. If it finds something interesting, it can grow an antenna and transmit data to Earth. Highly-collapsible material can also be strung between nodes for temperature control or to create a deployable solar sail.

Of course, there are many technological challenges to solve for this project to be successful. For more information about the project, please visit the Autonomous NanoTechnology Swarm website. Practically all pages have a graphical version (which look as poorly scanned images) and a cleaner text one.

In particular, take a look at the technologies needed. Those of you interested by robotics will jump to the Tetrahedral Walker page while other will be more interested by Carbon Nanotube Technology.

Finally, you can look at the Timeline for Technological Development… and dream about 2034.

Sources: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center news release, March 29, 2005; and various websites

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Engineers from the University of Michigan have developed a snake-like robot that conquers obstacles. It is composed of 5 segments of 8-inch diameter each and weighs 26 pounds. It is currently piloted by a human operator. And it can maneuver in extremely rugged terrain, climbing stairs and pipes. “It moves by rolling, log-style, or by lifting its head or tail, inchworm-like, and muscling itself forward.” This robot will be used for industrial inspection and surveillance in hazardous environments, and also for military and urban search and rescue operations.

Here are the opening paragraphs of the U-M news release.

A virtually unstoppable “snakebot” developed by a University of Michigan team that resembles a high-tech slinky as it climbs pipes and stairs, rolls over rough terrain and spans wide gaps to reach the other side.

The 26-pound robot developed at the U-M College of Engineering is called OmniTread. It moves by rolling, log-style, or by lifting its head or tail, inchworm-like, and muscling itself forward. The robot’s unique tread design prevents it from stalling on rough ground, said Research Professor Johann Borenstein, the head of the mobile robotics lab at U-M.

Here is the home page of the OmniTread robot.

Here are more details on how the system works.

A human operator controls the snakebot via a joystick and umbilical cord, which also provides electric power, which sends commands to specially designed software. A smaller, but more self-contained version that is now under development will carry on-board power for one hour of tetherless operation.

The OmniTread is divided into five box-shaped segments connected through the middle by a long drive shaft spine that drives the tracks of all segments. Bellows in the joints connecting the sections inflate or deflate to make the robot turn or lift the segments. The bellows provide enough torque for the OmniTread to lift the two front or rear segments to climb objects.

And what can really do this robot?

In one test, the OmniTread climbed an 18-inch curb, which is over more than twice its height. It also crossed a 66-centimeter trench, which is half its length. In another test, it inched up a pipe by pushing against opposite walls.

For more information about the OmniTread serpentine robot, you can read this presentation (PDF format, 4 pages, 3.48 MB). The diagram of the future OT-4 comes from this presentation.

And if you have good bandwidth, you can watch this movie (Windows Media format, 6 minutes and 52 seconds, 37.4 MB).

Finally, this work appears in the March 18 edition of the International Journal on Industrial Robots, in a special issue on mobile robots, under the name “The OmniTread Serpentine Robot for Industrial Inspection and Surveillance.” Here is a link to the full paper (PDF format, 11 pages, 567 KB).

Sources: University of Michigan news release, March 22, 2005; and various pages at U of M

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