/ News
Dances With Robot Arms, ROS Turns Five, LittleDog Says Hello
It's December. December means holidays, December means vacation, December means that you should call in sick today, sink into your couch, make yourself a mug of hot cocoa, and watch robot videos until everything you see looks like it's made out of a slightly less than infinite number of tiny little ones and zeros. Unfortunately, the only part of that that we can help you with is providing those robot videos, although we did manage to find this cocoa recipe from a blog that's supposedly by authored by some sort of robotic chef. So, there you go.
Somehow, and I have no idea how, this little reconfigurable robot from MIT snuck past us at IROS a few months back:
Those motors are actually electropermanent magnets, and by cleverly switching them on and off such that their fields add to or cancel each other, the robot can efficiently fold itself into all sorts of shapes. The overall concept is that the robot is effectively one-dimensional, and with a long enough one-dimensional robot, math says that you can fold it (or have it fold itself) into absolutely any 3D shape that you want.
I'll be honest with you: I'm not much for ballet. But throw some ABB industrial arms into the mix, and all of a sudden it gets a heck of a lot better:
ABB's SafeMove software does an excellent job of making sure that no accidental decapitations occur.
Oh well.
[ Human Interface ]
KUBI is a telepresence platform that's been distilled down to the absolute bare essentials: it's a robotic neck with a tablet on it. As the KUBI designers explain, "it turned out that 90% of the cost was in the ability to move around, and 90% of the value was in the ability to look around a room." So that's what they built KUBI to do, plain and simple and rather lovely in a minimalist sort of way.
You can find KUBI on Indiegogo for $199, and if it's successfully funded, look for production and shipping to start happening by April of next year.
[ KUBI ]
The Robot Operating System (ROS) turned five years old last month. ROS been growing a huge amount over the last several years, and there are now more than 90 different sorts of robots who use it to do what they do. There are now robots running ROS in Antarctica. Nowhere is safe. And here's an extra special anniversary video to celebrate:
[ Willow Garage ]
You know what robot runs ROS? LittleDog. This video of LittleDog being teleoperated to use a keyboard via Kinect was uploaded from the UCSB Robotics Lab over a year ago, but we just stumbled across it, and (like any video featuring LittleDog) it's been judged sufficiently adorable to post.
[ UCSB Robotics ]
Slightly less well-behaved than LittleDog is Nao, especially when you put him behind the wheel of a Nao-sized car. It's not that he's a bad driver, 'cause he's obviously not, it's just that he's teaching little kids to take candy from strange driving robots, and that's a very bad idea to put into their heads.
[ NAOCar ]
Shifting gears to military robotics, Europe's nEUROn stealth drone prototype completed its first test flight last Saturday.
Not a bad landing, I'd say. Although, I still find it equal parts awesome and freaky that things like this exist and are flying around all by themselves.
[ nEUROn ]
The Army has been messing around with a Blackhawk helicopter that they've taught to fly itself around at low altitude without crashing into anything, using what appears to be some sort of absolutely beastly LIDAR system:
I love how these guys (who I think are the pilots, sitting in the helicopter hands-off for safety and communicating with the engineers) have pretty much no idea what their aircraft is going to do next. But the robocopter doesn't care, and it just goes about its business, nimbly avoiding hills and trees and coming to a stable hover over a clearing.
Via [ PopSci ]
We'll wrap up today with this overview video from Fabtech 2012, an industrial robotics trade show. We weren't there, but Robotiq was, and they've got footage of all kinds of robotic workers, including Baxter good-naturedly notcrushing a human who gets in its way:
[ Robotiq ]
Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/video-friday-dances-with-robots-ros-turns-five-littledog
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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