HackingTheUniverse

Robotic insects make first controlled flight – [youtube.com] The demonstration of the first controlled flight of an insect-sized robot is the culmination of more than a decade’s work, led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Half the size of [...]

Festo – BionicOpter – [youtube.com] With the BionicOpter, Festo has technically mastered the highly complex flight characteristics of the dragonfly. Just like its model in nature, this ultralight flying object can fly in all directions, hover in mid-air and glide without beating its wings. BionicOpter – Inspired by dragonfly flight – [festo.com] Thirteen degrees of [...]

Printing small cheap bots that can perform tasks that humans perform routinely everyday is becoming more practical. A small bot may not have enough strength to move a large object, but a swarm of small bots can move a large pile of small objects, one object at a time. Print the bots from plastic sheets [...]

Robot “Cheetah” May Soon Be Faster Than Actual Cheetah – [fastcompany.com] M.I.T. researchers have developed a robot cheetah that they say may soon be faster than its real-life counterpart. The 70-pound robot can trot for up to 90 minutes at 5 miles per hour with motors that can be programmed to adjust the robot’s legs [...]

Mathematical models can fly aircraft under perfect conditions, but when there are deviations that need corrections, it gets a lot more tricky. In this case, learning algorithms were used to compensate when reality didn’t exactly match the predicted action. The results are pretty amazing! Video: Throwing and catching an inverted pendulum – with quadrocopters – [...]

Exoskeletons continue to advance: Advanced exoskeleton promises more independence for people with paraplegia – [kurzweilai.net] A new powered exoskeleton that enables people with severe spinal cord injuries to stand, walk, sit and climb stairs has been developed by Vanderbilt University’s Center for Intelligent Mechatronics. Its light weight, compact size, and modular design promise to provide [...]

Baxter is a robot that can be trained by showing it how to do something instead of programming it. All you have to do is grab one of the robot arms and move it in the way you want it to move. It records the motion you have taught it and can replay it. Like [...]

The manufacturer of a robotic burger cook claims that it can save a fast food restaurant $135,000 a year in wages and overhead by replacing the human workers who cook the burgers, prepare them and wrap them. They also claim it will pay for itself in less than a year. And the business incubator that [...]

MIT has developed a 2 meter wingspan fixed wing light aircraft that uses new autonomous flight control algorithms to navigate obstacles in an indoor garage using its own sensors and no GPS data. Autonomous robotic plane flies indoors – [mit.edu] New algorithms allow an autonomous robotic plane to dodge obstacles in a subterranean parking garage, [...]

Humans and robots will be increasingly working together. There are many tasks more suited to robots and they will be taken over so that humans are no longer required to do them. Dangerous tasks, monotonous tasks, tasks requiring strength or speed or precision that exceeds human capacity; all of these will become robotic tasks. There [...]