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Snake Monster robot can be easily reconfigured to suit user needs
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) has created a new robot that has six legs, looks creepily like a spider when it walks, and is dubbed "Snake Monster". Not exactly endearing traits, but the Snake Monster isn’t designed to win any popularity contests. It has been created as an easily reconfigurable platform using a modular system architecture that may be easily programmed to govern robots with a varied array of configurations.
Designed and created in around six months in the lab of Howie Choset, a professor in CMU's Robotics Institute, Snake Monster is claimed to be the precursor to a range of robots intended to be built using a modular system. Current work being carried out on various other modules in the lab include force-sensing feet, wheels and tank-style treads that will allow users to modify the base structure into a selection of totally different robots suited to a range of tasks.
"By creating a system that can be readily reconfigured and that also is easy to program, we believe we can build robots that are not only robust and flexible, but also inexpensive," said Choset, who led the team responsible for the robot. "Modularity has the potential to rapidly accelerate the development of traditional industrial robots, as well as all kinds of new robots."
Choset’s lab has a history of creating segment-jointed, snake-style robots designed for all types of applications, from inspecting nuclear power plants to slithering down the throats of surgical patients. The similarity in the construction and operation of the legs of the Snake Monster to those earlier CMU robot incarnations gives it its name. Unlike the earlier robots, however, the Snake Monster doesn’t roll along the ground or slither along the floor. Instead, it uses its legs to move along in a tripod gait with three legs in the air at any time – two on one side and one on the other.
Weighing in at a total of around 18 lb (8 kg), the robot has six multi-jointed legs that are capable of a reach of about 12 in (30 cm). Sporting a rectangular body, and currently supplied with power via an umbilical tether, the Snake Monster is capable of ambulation in any direction and has the ability to climb over obstacles.
In addition, a series elastic actuator consisting of an electric motor with a spring in series with its output shaft that allows the actuator to gauge and control the force it exerts, and the forces exerted upon it to help protect from high impacts. In other words, the actuator allows the linkages to respond in a way similar to that found in living organisms.
"When we push the Snake Monster forward, the joints in the leg 'feel' the force of the robot being pushed and, then, in an effort to zero-out the force it feels, the robot walks in the direction it is being pushed," said Choset. "When the robot goes over bumpy terrain, the springs in the series elastic actuators allow us to not perfectly plan the foot steps, but rather let the robot automatically conform to the environment the way animals do."
Using the hardware knowledge gleaned from their many years of snake robot construction, Choset and his team have created small, powerful, interconnected modules as the basis for their new Snake Monster and the line of reconfigurable robots promised to follow it. They have also relied on the many years of information gathered on controlling snake robots to allow them to build and develop an easily-programmable and extensible system architecture to control robots a wide variety of configurations.
"The architecture is built on Ethernet computer networking technology," said Choset. "Ethernet doesn't require that the computers connected to it be of a specific type, but that they all communicate with each other in the same way. The interfaces used in the modular architecture allow robot designers to focus on specific capabilities without having to worry about detailed systems issues or having to modify the robot later."
Sponsorship was received from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Snake Monster, along with several other of CMU’s robots, will be demonstrated in the finals of the DARPA Robotics Challenge running June 5 - 6 in Pomona, California.
The short video below shows the prototype Snake Monster in action.
Source: Carnegie Mellon University
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/snake-monster-reconfigurable-modular-robot/35568/
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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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