IRobot Corp. has been given $2 million worth of Congressional support to improve development and production of its Warrior 700 robot for combat areas. The iRobot Warrior carries up to 150-pound payloads and covers inaccessible and dangerous areas with sensor readings and real-time video and audio. The robot also features a different center of gravity than previous robots, adding to its mobility, according to iRobot.
Massachusetts senators Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, as well as congressman John Tierney, pushed the defense spending as part of the Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009, iRobot officials said.
In October, the Bedford robotics firm landed a $3.8 million research and development contract from the Army’s Tank-Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center for the delivery of two iRobot Warrior 700 platforms.
To date, the company has delivered more than 2,000 PackBot robots to military groups. The PackBot 510 with FastTac Kit is designed to protect soldiers by detecting, identifying and disabling roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices.
IRobot maintains an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity xBot contract with the Army for robot delivery that could reach $286 million. So far, these orders have hit about $67 million.
Oh, robots. I think people liked you more when you looked like Rosie than your current ‘human-light’ appearances.
Take this one, named Jules by scientists at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory in the UK. It’s supposedly the first ‘humanoid’ robot that ‘can mimic the facial expressions and lip movements of a human being.’ It has its own software that lets it smile, frown and furrow its brow. A veritable Jim Carey circa 1994, this one.
Like most of these realistic-looking robots, it was designed with the idea that, one day, robots will be able to help people out in their daily lives. Certainly a noble goal, but golly gee there’s something a bit ‘off’ about it, right?
Oh, and there’s a video of it in action!
It looks like a video game or stop-motion animation.”
Gifu University’s Graduate School of Medicine [JP] (located in central Japan) has developed a new ‘sick’ robot, which is specifically geared towards medical students.
Named Keiko (’practice’ in Japanese), the robot is able to answer questions such as ‘How are you doing?’, i.e. by saying ‘I get tired easily lately’. The interactive humanoid robot, which has been jointly developed with Mizuno Technical Institute, is meant to help medical students practice conversations with patients.
They can also use Keiko for examinations by touch, before doing the same with human beings. Keiko is specifically designed for training neurological disorders so that medical students are able to learn the various ways brain and nervous system illnesses can be identified.”
Another video from Stockholm University’s Mobile Life Centre in Kista, Sweden. Here we see a family of GlowBots, tiny round robots that run around and connect with each other. When you ‘select’ one robot with a pattern you like by shaking it, the robot goes on to infect other robots with the general pattern, mutating it as the pattern enters the environment. These little guys are about a year old so they’re not quite feeling well but some of them worked correctly and passed their DNA on to other robots. The project is actually based on lizard breeding.”
Sony and Honda may have the most advanced robots in terms of features, but when it comes to working, human-sized robots that truly match the wild images of Japanese anime it’s hard to beat the independently created ALCNON robot. Around the height of a small child, and equipped with one creepy cyclops eye and two giant pincers for hands, the ALCNON robot made a big splash at the recent ROBO-ONE robot battle in Japan.
Displaying the ability to dance and stand up from a sleeping position, the robot is less the cuddly robot most companies want to show you and more the menacing battle droid military experts around the world are hoping to get their hands on. Check out the chilling video of ALCNON destroying his puny enemies here.
