HackingTheUniverse

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The term UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) is usually applied to military grade drone aircraft that can be flown remotely. In the world of radio controlled model aircraft, it is becoming practical to install computer control and telemetry that allows the plane to fly itself without direct human control. Make Your Own Unmanned Aerial Vehicle – [...]

REX is an exoskeleton designed to replace wheelchairs and allow users with limited leg function to stand up and walk around. Step into the future with Rex – [rexbionics.co.nz] What is Rex? Rex, the Robotic Exoskeleton, is a pair of robotic legs that enables you to stand up, walk, move sideways, turn around, go up [...]

The guys at Willow Garage have been teaching their PR2 how to shoot pool. The PR2 Plays Pool – [willowgarage.com] With only a small team of developers and a week’s worth of development, the PR2 can now play pool! The “Poolshark” team started last Monday and began making shots on Friday. The PR2 won’t be [...]

Mind control interfaces of various types have been under development for some years. Test trials with monkeys have been steadily progressive and now some early trials on humans are beginning. 6 Dec 2000 Monkey controls robotic arm using brain signals sent over Internet – [mit.edu] Monkeys in North Carolina have remotely operated a robotic arm [...]

Qbo – Artificial Intelligence at home, Open Source Code Robot & Linux OS SOME OF QBO’s SKILLS: * Stereoscopic vision * Speech Recognition System * Speech Synthesis System * Qbo’s API & Web control panel * Wifi & Bluetooth connections * Qbo avoid crashes and falls thanks to ultrasound sensors Qbo’s concept and design – [...]

The i-LIMB Hand – [touchbionics.com] The worlds first fully articulating and commercially available bionic hand. Touch Bionics is a leading developer of advanced upper-limb prosthetics (ULP). One of the two products now commercially available from the company, the i-LIMB Hand, is a first-to-market prosthetic device with five individually powered digits. This artificial limb looks and [...]

A rapid prototyping fabrication machine is known as a “fabber”. CNC or Computer Numerically Controlled machine tools take instructions from a computer, often in the form of a computer aided design (CAD) output and produce precisely constructed objects. 3D printer add successive layers of material to create 3D objects. This is called “additive manufacturing” and [...]

NASA has been developing a robotic device that can function as an avatar for an astronaut, offering extravehicular telerobotic and telepresence capability. The astronaut will be able to operate the robot from inside the space station and perform “human-like” tasks using the robots hands and arms and sensors. The robonaut will be able to perform [...]

The Personal Robotics Group at MIT is working on prototype of a telepresence robot that adds non-verbal social gestures to it’s communication ability. It can simulate hand gestures and head movement (such as nodding for “yes” or turning the head back and forth for “no”) that enhance the sense of interpersonal connection. MeBot – [mit.edu] [...]

Willow Garage produces open source software and hardware for personal robotic applications. In the course of their development efforts they found the need for telepresence collaboration and naturally looked to their robot resources. The result is their “Texas Robot” project. Think of a multimedia station, including display, camera, speaker, microphone and a variety of communication [...]