Lynne Parker is Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK). At UTK, she is the founder and director of the Distributed Intelligence Laboratory, which performs research in multi-robot systems, sensor networks, machine learning, and human-robot interaction. In this episode, Per Sjöborg speaks with Lynne Parker about her work with robot teams.
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In this episode, Sabine Hauert interviews Paul Oh, Director of the Drexel Autonomous Systems Lab at Drexel University. His team, spanning 10 universities, is competing in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) with the HUBO humanoid made by KAIST in South Korea.
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In this episode, AJung Moon talks with Julie Carpenter, who recently received her doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of Washington, having written her dissertation on the interaction between military Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) personnel and the robots they use in investigating suspicious objects and rendering explosives harmless – primarily PackBots from iRobot and TALONS from QinetiQ. More generally, Julie is interested in emotional attachment issues in human-robot interaction, and how it affects user decision-making in collaborative, sometimes stressful, situations.
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David Dorhout is a graduate of Iowa State University. He has always been interested in robotics and 14 years of experience in agriculture and the biotech industry. He is the founder of Dorhout R&D LLC which is a research and development business designing and building novel robotic systems and interactive consumer electronic devices. In this episode, Ron Vanderkley speaks with David about his robots that include Prospero the robot farmer and Aquarius the greenhouse watering robot. This episode of Robots Podcast is part of Robohub's focus series on agricultural robotics.
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Howdy, robot fans, I'm back and have a ton of robot news waiting to roll out! So what better way to start than with a quick news roundup? Here we go...
Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. Don't forget to follow us on twitter and Facebook. And now you can add us to your Google+ circles too.
“In this episode Sabine Hauert speaks with Jorge Heraud, CEO of California-based startup Blue River Technology which brings together computer vision and robotics to automate agriculture. Their first robot LettuceBot targets the state’s #1 vegetable crop. Its task is to thin rows of lettuce in fields. This involves selectively removing some of the plants by spraying excess fertilizer on them, thereby avoiding overcrowding while fertilizing nearby plants. The tractor-mounted robot is already being rented out to farms across the state.” (This podcast episode is part of Robohub's focus series on agricultural robotics.)
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Kendra Kerrisk, a member of the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the The University of Sydney, developed a strong interest in the dairy industry while a student at Massey University in New Zealand, an interest which she continued to pursue during her doctoral studies at the University of Melbourne. Following that, she worked for Dexcel (formerly Dairying Research Corporation and now merged with Dairy InSight as DairyNZ), in New Zealand, on the world’s first pasture-based automatic milking system (AMS) research farm. She has contributed significantly to the body of knowledge regarding automatic milking systems in a pasture-fed diary context. As AMS Research Leader within the FutureDairy program, she has also contributed to the development of the world's first robotic rotary (Automatic Milking Rotary).
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In this episode interviewer Sabine talks with Nils Napp from the Self-organizing Systems Research Group at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. Napp tells us about his project to create robots that can reliably build structures in uncertain, unstructured terrain. Just as termites can build complex structures using shapeless materials like mud, his robots build structures out of foam, toothpicks or bags of sand. As a first example, he’s been working on ramp building in chaotic environments remnant of disaster scenarios.
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Diana Saraceni is a venture capitalist at 360 Capital Partners. In this interview she talks with Per about her first robotics investment, 3 years ago in Invendo Medical, and her views on how the market has changed since then. Hardware is now perceived as less risky, even though it is more challenging to scale than software. Recent success stories have further helped promote VC funding in robotics. Saraceni discusses the importance of the founding team, as well as their advisors, for the success of a company. Finally, she shares her view on open source vs. proprietary technology from a venture capitalist’s perspective.
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In episode #136, Sabine speaks with Matthew Schroyer, founder of the Professional Society of Drone Journalists (PSDJ) and co-founder of Drones for Good. Matthew has a Master’s in journalism from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where he works on the National Science Foundation grant called EnLiST, which offers entrepreneurial leadership training and professional development for K-12 STEM teachers. For EnLiST he has initiated the “Drones for Schools” program, which teaches core science and engineering concepts behind unmanned aerial systems.
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“As Director of the Autonomous Systems Laboratory in CSIRO's ICT Centre [Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Information and Communication Technologies], Dr. Roberts leads more than 45 scientists and engineers. Research in this laboratory spans robotics, computer vision and pervasive computing technologies such as sensor networks. Dr. Roberts' particular research interest is in robot guidance systems so robots – including flying robots – can operate autonomously in unstructured and dynamic outdoor environments.” (From Dr. Roberts' page on the ICT website) Dr. Roberts was interviewed by Ron Vanderkley.
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Scientists have long pondered the question of how and where the brain stores episodic memories, complex associations of objects, space and time. MIT research led by Susumu Tonegawa reveals new details of the location of both actual memories and artificially induced false memories within the hippocampus of a mouse brain. The image above shows the mouse's memory traces in red. Not surprisingly, the brain demonstrated exactly the same neural mechanisms for storage of real and false memories. So how are the memory associations made?
These associations are encoded by chemical and physical changes in neurons, as well as by modifications to the connections between the neurons. Compared to most studies that treat the brain as a black box while trying to access it from the outside in, this is like we are trying to study the brain from the inside out. The technology we developed for this study allows us to fine-dissect and even potentially tinker with the memory process by directly controlling the brain cells.
It has been suspected that memories were located in the temporal lobe since the 1940s when researchers discovered that electrical stimulation of the region caused patients to spontaneously recall past events. But proof of this theory had to wait until it was possible to demonstrate that the activation of specific hippocampal cells was sufficient to produce memories. The MIT researchers are using a new technique called Optogenetics to do just that. Understanding how biological memory works may lead to new breakthroughs in machine learning. Unfortunately the MIT paper is pay-walled but the abstract is available.
This week's roundup includes a lot of fun and interesting stuff! We've got insects, consciousness, language, sensory awareness, backflipping robots, and more.
Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. Don't forget to follow us on twitter and Facebook. And now you can add us to your Google+ circles too.
A CMU press release (PDF format) describes a recent field test of CMU's modular snake robot in which it navigates inside an Austrian nuclear power plant. The robot moved through pipes, open valves, and inside various types of vessels. The Zwentendorf nuclear power plant was built in the 1970s but never made operational and lacks any radioactive material, making it ideal for testing and training purposes. As this was the first field deployment test, the robots was limited to a maximum range of 60 feet but will make longer excursions on future tests. From the press release:
"Our robot can go places people can’t, particularly in areas of power plants that are radioactively contaminated,” Choset said. “It can go up and around multiple bends, something you can’t do with a conventional borescope, a flexible tube that can only be pushed through a pipe like a wet noodle"
The robot is 37 inches long, made up of 16 modules that have two half-joints each, giving the robot a total of 16 degrees of freedom. It can emulate the gaits of a natural snakes but can also configure itself in unique ways not possible for a biological snake. The snake bot relies on SLAM to assist it with navigation and carries a video camera and other sensors that allow it provide gravity-compensated video that's always right-side-up. You can see more photos on the press release media page. A more detailed report (PDF format) of the field test is also available. Read on for video of the snake bot in action.
Amoebas (or Amebas as the kids today call them) are interesting little animals that have inspired lots of thought among roboticists on how life interacts with an environment. Now they've inspired a team of researchers to develop a new self-organizing particle system. Researchers Shlomi Dolev from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Robert Gmyr and Christian Scheideler from the University of Paderborn, Germany; and Andréa W. Richa from Arizona State University describe their idea in a new paper, "Ameba-inspired Self-organizing Particle Systems" (PDF format). From the abstract:
Self-organizing particle systems have many interesting applications like coating objects for monitoring and repair purposes and the formation of nano-scale devices for surgery and molecular-scale electronic structures. While there has been quite a lot of systems work in this area, especially in the context of modular self-reconfigurable robotic systems, only very little theoretical work has been done in this area so far. We attempt to bridge this gap by proposing a model inspired by the behavior of ameba that allows rigorous algorithmic research on self-organizing particle systems.
The authors describe some speculative ideas of cellular-sized robots that could be mixed with paint and used to cover man-made structures like buildings, acting as sensors to measure traffic, wind load, or structural integrity. Even more advanced uses might include biological robots that act as sensor and actuator, reconfiguring themselves as needed to form biological delivery devices or chemical factories. Also, I just really like the hexagonal grid they used as an improvement over more traditional square grid spaces.
In Robots Podcast #134, interviewer Priscila Soares speaks with Martin Adams, principal investigator at the industry funded Advanced Mining Technology Centre (AMTC) and Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Chile, about the development of robotic technologies for use in mining, and what motivates the mining industry to fund this research. He lists his research interests as robot navigation, SLAM, sensing, field robotics, and millimeter wave radar.
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This edition of best robot photos of the week includes some shots of the Robot Dance Party bot at the San Francisco Pride Parade. There are also pics of a variety of student-built robots ranging from RoboCup bots to ROVs. There's robot graffiti from Reykjavik and the usual assortment of art bots. Every week we post a collection of the best robot photos submitted by our readers to our robots.net flickr group. Why? Because everyone likes to see cool new robots! Want to see your robot here? Post it to flickr and add it to the robots.net flickr group. It's easy! If you're not already a flickr member, it's free and easy to sign up. Read on to see the best robot photos of the week!
Get ready for endless "Atlas Shrugged" jokes in the media. DARPA has made the first official news release showing video of their new ATLAS humanoid robot. ATLAS was built by Boston Dynamics and evolved from their PETMAN humanoid prototypes which you've probably already seen. ATLAS will be used by seven of the teams in the latest DARPA Challenge. The robot has some impressive specs:
It runs GNU/Linux and ROS of course. Read on for a DARPA video that includes an animated overview of the robots features, a series of video clips of the robot's evolution from PETMAN to ATLAS, and finally Atlas showing off his skills. You can also find more details on the DARPA ATLAS overview webpage.
Lots of interesting news in this week's roundup!
Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. Don't forget to follow us on twitter and Facebook. And now you can add us to your Google+ circles too.
According to a CMU news release, CMU's robot soccer team, the CMDragons, placed second in the RoboCup 2013 finales mid-sized league. They were beaten by the ZJUNlict team from China's Zhejiang University. In the news release, Manuela Veloso of CMU had this to say about the team's performance:
"We came in second place, in the closest possible way to first. The team from China even asked us to go up on the stage together with them for the award ceremony. Our CMDragons team was remarkably new, with new low-level skills and tactics, dynamic planning, a great goalie and defense, new robots and the best attacker robot ever."
For more, you can check out all the final scores for the RoboCup mis-sized league. We don't have video of the CMDargon's matches yet but you can check out other matches from RoboCup 2013 on Youtube include humanoid robot matches. You can also see video of prior competitions of the CMDragon team on their website. Congratulations to ZJUNlict for their win and to the CMDragons for their close performance. We're looking forward to next year's match.
Remember that big DARPA Robotics Challenge for humanoid robots that we posted about in October 2012? The first phase, known as the Virtual Robotics Challenge, is now complete. Tim Smith over at the Open Source Robotics Foundation has got a new post up about the results. The quick version is that 26 teams from 8 countries qualified for the VRC and based on the result, DARPA has selected a total of 9 teams to move on to the the next phase which will involve physical robots. From the DARPA press release:
the Open Source Robotics Foundation received funding from DARPA to develop a cloud based simulator for the Virtual Robotics Challenge, based on the free software 3D robot simulator Gazebo. For more see the OSRF post, or take a look at DARPA's news release and the official DARPA Robotics Challenge website. And, of course, we've got video too. Read on to see an overview and video of these virtual robots in action
In Robots Podcast #133, Per speaks with Tom Green, editor in chief of the Robotics Business Review, a global robotics news and information resource headquartered near Boston, MA (USA). Green shares his view on how the focus within the robotics community differs around the world, and the roles public and venture funding play in this. According to him, it is not primarily technology but attitudes holding back the development of robotics at the moment, particularly in the United States. He also shares some success stories, providing examples of robotics making a difference in people’s lives.
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Robohub has opened another focus topic, the risks and rewards of robotics on the frontier, the leading edge of technology and/or application. A tentative lineup of articles is available now, with links to be added as the articles are posted over the next couple of weeks.
The editor's in box is overflowing, so it's time for another dump of random robot news!
Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. Don't forget to follow us on twitter and Facebook. And now you can add us to your Google+ circles too.
This edition of best robot photos of the week includes a medieval robot, a very large robot inside a library for no apparent reason, an R2D2 costume designed by kiddos, a lunar robot from the USSR and other robot treats. Every week we post a collection of the best robot photos submitted by our readers to our robots.net flickr group. Why? Because everyone likes to see cool new robots! Want to see your robot here? Post it to flickr and add it to the robots.net flickr group. It's easy! If you're not already a flickr member, it's free and easy to sign up. Read on to see the best robot photos of the week!
In Robots Podcast #132, reporter Ron Vanderkley speaks with Eric Stackpole and David Lang from the OpenROV project. OpenROV (OPEN-source Remotely Operated Vehicle) is a telerobotic submarine built to make underwater exploration and education affordable. Initially funded out-of-pocket, OpenROV has become a wildly successful Kickstarter project. Eric currently works part-time for NASA at the Ames Research Center. David also writes the Zero to Maker column for the MAKE Blog, where he chronicles his crash-course into the maker world.
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While other companies are working to develop fully autonomous vehicles, Ford has been working on a slightly different problem. According to a news release, they want robots to drive their traditional human-piloted vehicles on the test track. Robot test drivers could stay on the road 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ford is launching a pilot program with a robot test driver for their 2014 full-size commercial Transit van. A single human can monitor up to eight simultaneous robot test drives. From the Ford news release:
“Some of the tests we do on our commercial trucks for North America are so strenuous that we limit the exposure time for human drivers,” says Dave Payne, manager, vehicle development operations. “The challenge is completing testing to meet vehicle development time lines while keeping our drivers comfortable. Robotic testing allows us to do both. We accelerate durability testing while simultaneously increasing the productivity of our other programs by redeploying drivers to those areas, such as noise level and vehicle dynamics testing.”
The robotic technology used to drive the Ford vehicles comes from Autonomous Solutions, Inc.. The Ford test track is designed to compress 10 years of driving abuse into a small course. The robots must repeatedly drive trucks over broken concrete, cobblestones, metal grates, gravel, mud pits, curbs, and speed bumps. the course is so rough that human drivers were limited to one drive per day. Read on to see video and more photos of the robot test drives.
A recent UC Davis news release describes a remotely piloted helicopter (aka "drone") that is being field tested in a Napa Valley vineyard. The researchers are using the Yamaha RMAX unmanned helicopter on the Oakville Experimental Vineyard. UC Davis worked with the FAA for five months in order to obtain a permit for the application of herbicide and pesticide sprays from a remotely piloted vehicle. The FAA requires 48 hour advance notice of each flight and the vehicle is limited to an altitude of 20 feet. From the news release:
“We have more than two decades of data on the performance of the RMAX in Japan, but we don’t yet have that kind of information on its use in the United States,” said Steve Markofski, a Yamaha business planner and trained RMAX operator. He noted that in Japan more than 2,500 RMAX helicopters are being used to spray 40 percent of the fields planted to rice — that country’s number one crop. “What Ken and Ryan bring to the table is their spray application expertise and knowledge of the current application methods that are in use in the United States,” Markofski said. “As we collaborate with them on tests of spray deposition and efficiency, we’re gaining insight into to how the RMAX performance compares to spray application methods that are being commercially used for this crop and this terrain.”
The Napa Valley's hilly terrain offers challenges similar to those of Japan's rice fields for conventional manned aircraft. Robotic spraying is hoped to be less expensive and safer than conventional aircraft or tractor-drawn spraying rigs. More photos and video can be found on the UC Davis press kit website. Read on to see some video of the robot in action.
Take your robot for a walk. The 2013 conference on Dynamic Walking is coming up at CMU next week, 10 June - 13 June. According to a CMU news release, this year's conference includes a lecture by Scott L. Delp, professor of bioenginerring, mechanical engineering, and orthopaedic surgery at Stanford titled, "Insights from simulating gait dynamics and disorders". There will also be talks on biped walking using the Hubo II robot, and even esoteric subjects like that covered by the talk titled "Seven reasons to brake the swing leg just before heel strike". The conference covers both simulation and realization of various dynamic walking technologies. There will also be live demonstrations of dynamically walking robots. Oh and don't miss the "undergrad style" Pizza and beer event Monday evening. Most importantly, takes photos, shoot video so we can share some of the fun.
CC BY NA SA 2.0 licensed photo of Jonathan Borofsky's Walking to the Sky sculpture at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, TX by flickr user phigits
In episode #131, Sabine speaks with Ramon Pericet and Michal Dobrzynski from EPFL about their Curved Artificial Compound Eye (CurvACE) published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Inspired by the fly’s vision system, their sensor can enable a large range of applications that require motion detection using a small plug-and-play device. As shown in a YouTube video (link), these sensors could be used to assist small robots with navigating through their environments, even in very dim light. Other applications might include home automation, surveillance, medical instruments, prosthetic devices, and smart clothing.
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This edition of best robot photos of the week includes a Willow Garage PR2 robot engaged in a light saber duel; there's also a robot wedding cake, assorted robot art, robot underpants, and a vintage Robie Sr robot. Every week we post a collection of the best robot photos submitted by our readers to our robots.net flickr group. Why? Because everyone likes to see cool new robots! Want to see your robot here? Post it to flickr and add it to the robots.net flickr group. It's easy! If you're not already a flickr member, it's free and easy to sign up. Read on to see the best robot photos of the week!
It's time for a post holiday news roundup and here it is!
Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts
we should report? Send 'em our way please. Don't forget to follow us on twitter and Facebook. And now you can add us to your Google+ circles too.
While it may not be quite up to Tony Stark's standards, DARPA's Warrior Web suit has the advantage of being real. DARPA has revealed photos and video of an early prototype of its Warrior Web project. Warrior Web is a flexible exoskeleton suit that uses only 100 Watts of power. The goal is to reduce the injuries and fatigue that result from a soldier carrying a typical 100 pound load for extended periods of time. DARPA hopes the exoskeleton will boost the soldier's endurance and carrying capacity. The DARPA Warrior Web program page provides this description:
The Warrior Web program seeks to develop the technologies required to prevent and reduce musculoskeletal injuries caused by dynamic events typically found in the warfighter’s environment. The ultimate program goal is a lightweight, conformal under-suit that is transparent to the user (like a diver’s wetsuit). The suit seeks to employ a system (or web) of closed-loop controlled actuation, transmission, and functional structures that protect injury prone areas, focusing on the soft tissues that connect and interface with the skeletal system.
The current prototypes are part of what's know as "Task A" and embody only certain key elements of the final design. Warrior Web Task B, which begins this fall, will attempt to integrate all the Task A technologies into a single suit. For more, visit the Warrior Web Program website or read on to see a video of the Task A prototype suit in action.
A news release from Sandia National Labs discusses the fall and rise of the human brain as a model for computers. They suggest a waning interest in the brain after IBM's supercomputer defeated Gary Kasparov in chess. But the brain is getting more respect these days, in part because of the rapid increase in knowledge about how it works. Some researchers now believe that brain-inspired computers could lead to a new industrial revolution. It's not that the brain is fast, but it is powerful and flexible. From the news release:
Slow signal speed didn’t faze Christof Koch, chief scientific officer of Allen Institute for Brain Science. “I have a modest proposal,” he told the group. “Imagine a 1-kilogram, three-dimensional block of silicon, or stacks of chips, all with 10 kilohertz clocks and each consuming microwatts of power. There’s much more silicon, and therefore it’s very expensive and heavy, like the brain! But, much less cost for heat sinks, much less air conditioning.”
The article goes on to question whether this is really the right approach and whether brain-like pattern-matching is actually well-suited to handle the sorts of problems we want to solve. Cultural and ethic questions are also brought up. Whatever the answers to these questions, it seems inevitable that the massive amounts of new knowledge about the human brain will influence the design of future computers in some way.
In episode #130, interviewer AJung talks with Peter Asaro (an Assistant Professor at The New School and affiliated with The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School) about the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, a consortium of NGOs working to secure an international ban on autonomous weapons systems. This interview follows closely on an article about the Campaign, coauthored by AJung, which itself followed Robohub's focus on Robots and warfare.
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Via FreeIO.org comes news of a new open hardware robot: the official Arduino Robot. The Arduino Robot will be on sale at the Maker Faire in San Mateo immediately but will be generally available for online orders starting in July. The robot has two ATmega32u4 microprocessors. It has a standard differential drive arrangement with two DC motors but apparently no encoders. Sensors include a compass and five bottom-facing IR sensors for line following. There are several push buttons and potentiometers for input and, for output, a speaker and LCD screen. Multiple prototyping areas are available for adding your own sensors and actuators. The MAKE blog ran an interesting account of how the designers of this robot went from knowing nothing about robotics to designing this beginner robot for kids in just a few years. The most important aspect of the Arduino Robot is that, like other Arduino hardware, it's under a free license:
As always with Arduino, every element of the platform – hardware, software and documentation – is freely available and open-source. This means you can learn exactly how it's made and use its design as the starting point for your own robots.
There's already a lot of technical info available including the EAGLE CAD files for both boards, and documentation on the new Robot library that's included with the Arduino IDE 1.0.5 and later. We look forward to hearing more about this robot or doing a review if a one should end finding it's way to the Robots.net testing lab. For more about other open source robot platforms, see the recent FreeIO article, The State of Free Hardware for Robotics.
This edition of best robot photos of the week includes a US Army recon robot, some shabby chic robot art, a well-endowed female junkbot, a robot arm at NYC Resistor, another robotics amusements. Every week we post a collection of the best robot photos submitted by our readers to our robots.net flickr group. Why? Because everyone likes to see cool new robots! Want to see your robot here? Post it to flickr and add it to the robots.net flickr group. It's easy! If you're not already a flickr member, it's free and easy to sign up. Read on to see the best robot photos of the week!
Professor Üner Tan has released an interesting paper online that will be of interest to roboticists titled, "Development of Bipedal and Quadrupedal Locomotion in Humans from a Dynamical Systems Perspective" (PDF format). It starts with a quick overview of the history of gait analysis, starting with Aristotle's work and the first application of scientific experiments to test gait hypotheses by Gailileo Galilei. The paper focuses on the development of bipedal and quadrupedal walking gaits in humans. I found it particularly interesting that we have apparently inherited the neural systems used for diagonal-sequence quadrupedal locomotion from tetrapods that existed over 400 million years ago (pictured above). The paper goes over what we know about neural central pattern generators (CPGs) and self-organization of complex biological systems. From the paper:
"In contrast to the theory of stage-like motor and cognitive development, the perspective of behavioral-motor development as a self-organized process seems to be more plausible to explain why and how infants walk within a particular environment. That is, a previously coded neural network, i.e., neural coding, seems to be unlikely, because of the lack of precise point-to-point wiring in the central nervous system with immense overlaps of dendritic and axonal arbors. The integrative neuroscience emphasizes the 'inside-out' and 'outside-in' approaches for the understanding of locomotor control."
The paper covers a number of current theories on how gaits emerge in normal and abnormal human development. Each theory is examined from the perspective of what we know about dynamic systems (or dynamical systems as the kids like to call them these days). Lots of interesting information here for anyone working with bipedal and quadrupedal gaits in robotics.
Know any other robot news, gossip, or amazing facts we should report? Send 'em our way please. Don't forget to follow us on twitter and Facebook. And now you can add us to your Google+ circles too.
