Category Archives: Robot

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Robotic Insects Make Flight

May 5th, 2013 | Robot

Robotic Insects

For the first time in history, a controlled robotic insect has taken flight. A team led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard have created RoboBees which can achieve vertical takeoff, hovering, and steering. The robotic insects are half the size of a paperclip and weigh less than 1/10th of a gram.

This achievement is the culmination of over 10 years of work across many laboratories at Harvard. A major challenge has been manufacturing parts at a such a small scale. “We had to develop solutions from scratch, for everything,” explains Robert J. Wood, principal investigator of the RoboBee Project. “We would get one component working, but when we moved onto the next, five new problems would arise. It was a moving target.”

Technical Design

The flight dynamics were inspired by the movement of a fly, with submillimeter-scale anatomy and two wafer-thin wings that flap 120 times/sec.

“The tiny robot flaps its wings with piezoelectric actuators—strips of ceramic that expand and contract when an electric
field is applied. Thin hinges of plastic embedded within the carbon fiber body frame serve as joints, and a delicately balanced control system commands the rotational motions in the flapping-wing robot, with each wing controlled independently in real-time.
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“

The control system had to be extremely robust due to the small scales in which the robot operates, and it all has to be mounted on board the flying insect. The team went through approximately 20 prototypes in the last 6 months, but thanks to a revolutionary Pop-Up Manufacturing Process, they were able to build reliable prototypes and test them aggressively.

Next Steps

“Now that we’ve got this unique platform, there are dozens of tests that we’re starting to do, including more aggressive control maneuvers and landing,” says Wood.

After that, the team will work to make the robotic insects fly autonomously and wirelessly. This is involve upgrades to the flight algorithms, power source, and several communication components.
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“This project provides a common motivation for scientists and engineers across the university to build smaller batteries, to design more efficient control systems, and to create stronger, more lightweight materials,” says Wood. “You might not expect all of these people to work together: vision experts, biologists, materials scientists, electrical engineers.
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What do they have in common? Well, they all enjoy solving really hard problems.”

“I want to create something the world has never seen before,” adds co-lead author Kevin Y. Ma. “It’s about the excitement of pushing the limits of what we think we can do, the limits of human ingenuity.”

It will be exciting to see where this technology goes.

For a link to the paper published recently in Science, go here.

-RSB

Photos courtesy of Kevin Ma and Pakpong Chirarattananon

[via Harvard Gazette]

British Teenager Gets a Robotic Hand

April 26th, 2013 | Robot

A British teenager was recently outfitted with the world’s most advanced robotic hand, and he loves it. Patrick Kane was only 9-months-old when he was striken with a septic attack from Neisseria meningitidis.

Neisseria meningitidis bacterium

Infection with the bacteria leads to rapid onset fever, headache, dizziness, nausea, anorexia, stiff neck, and in some cases, amputation is necessary to stop it. Patrick lost all the fingers from his left hand, part of each finger on his right hand, and his right leg below the knee as a result.

Fortunately, Patrick’s family was able to help pay for a £25,000-£80,000 ($40,000 – $125,000) i-limb ultra revolution robotic hand that has simply changed his life. The new prosthetic can be controlled through an app with an iPhone to select from 24 unique programs. Each program will select a unique functional grip specialized to perform different tasks like holding a cup of water or typing on the keyboard.

Here are the official specifications from Touch Bionics:

“i-limb ultra revolution features:

Powered rotating thumb and individually articulating fingers offering unparalleled dexterity and reliable access to precision grip patterns.
New biosim mobile control application compatible with latest Apple^® products gives the wearer greatly expanded control capability via 24 Quick Grips each from a single screen tap.
New remote electrodes offer a higher level of sensitivity giving the wearer enhanced control.
A variety of flexible wrist options enabling more natural positioning of hand when gripping or picking up objects.
Aesthetic covering options available via the livingskin product line, including i-limb skin natural and i-limb skin match covers customized to match skin tone and appearance.
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biosim mobile control app features:

24 Quick Grips – Instant access to grip patterns with a single screen tap greatly expands prosthesis control.
Favorites – Editable collections of grips customized for daily needs. For example, wearers can select the ‘work’ favorite, which triggers the i-limb into preferred grips such as typing, holding papers, or using a mouse.
Hand Health Check – Activates prosthesis diagnostic to ensure the i-limb is functioning properly.
Training – Access training modes to help the wearer learn how to access all of the functionality available.
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Compatibility – Available for download on Apple App Store and compatible with several Apple devices.”

It would be nice if the grips could somehow be accessed in a more intuitive way, something apart from the iPhone. I can’t imagine it’s easy to open up the iPhone every time you want to switch to a new programmed grip.
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Nonetheless, it’s always nice to see victims of terrible diseases thrive with new technology.

-RSB

[via Laughing Squid]

Digital Art from Adam Martinakis

April 24th, 2013 | Robot

“The Headache”

150×150 cm – Printed on metallic pearl glossy photo paper, mounted on dibond.

“Love for Light”

120×70 cm – Printed on metallic pearl glossy photo paper, mounted on dibond.

“The Point of No Return”

“Accept and Deny”

“Fragmented Identity”

150×150 cm -Printed on metallic pearl glossy photo paper, mounted on dibond.

“The Inevitability of Time / Despair”

“The City Men”

65×100 cm – Printed on metallic pearl glossy photo paper, mounted on dibond.

“The Power Game”

Adam Martinakis is the Polish/Greek artist who created these slightly frightening digital illustrations. Almost all of his work has a sort of futuristic tension, or uneasiness, that I can’t seem to shake.
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A real chill permeates through all of the pieces.
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I particularly like ‘The Headache.” I’m sure if you have ever had a migraine, you might be able to relate… I think it would be great if one of these could be made into a real sculpture because a show of his work in a museum would be quite the experience.

Adam currently lives and teaches art in Connock, UK.
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For more of his work, check out his site.

-RSB

“Get Lucky” by Daft Punk (feat. Pharrell Williams)

April 21st, 2013 | Robot, Space

The long-awaited release of Daft Punk’s new single, “Get Lucky,” has finally arrived! The song comes from the band’s 4th album, “Random Access Memories,” which has been in the works for a few years.
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When describing the collaboration with Pharrell, Daft Punk proclaimed that he “is a born performer” with a lot of “elegance.
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” “[They] wanted to give the impression of being in a capsule in the studio, isolated from the world.”

Creating this new album was apparently a challenge for Daft Punk. “There was a sense of searching for a record we hadn’t done,” Bangalter said. The breakthrough came when they started experimenting with live musicians and “[recreating] what we used to do with machines and samplers, but with people”. While Daft Punk still use vintage vocoders and a custom modular synth, the record has hardly any samples. “[We tried] to make robotic voices sound the most human they’ve ever sounded, in terms of expressivity and emotion.”

The new tour will officially kick off in a Wee Waa, Australia, a small agricultural town of less than 2000 people. “The promoters came up with a wonderful idea to show a contrast between a global band and a small community rural township. It’s something that’s quite unexpected,” Narrabri Shire Council Mayor Conrad Bolton told Reuters. I would love to be at that show!

I think “Get Lucky” is pretty good.
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It certainly features Pharrell more than Daft Punk, which will irk many of the die-hard fans, but I’m personally ok with it. At the end of the song, I’m left wanting more DP, which is a good thing.

And yes, I put on my helmet to listen for the first time.

-RSB

The Festo Robotic Dragonfly

April 19th, 2013 | Robot

Robotic Dragonfly:

One of the very first posts I ever made on RobotSpaceBrain was about Festo’s robotic flying animals (jelly fish, penguins, birds). Their new toy, called the BioniCopter, is modeled after the complex flight pattern of a Dragonfly.
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The robot only weighs about 175 g and maneuvers with incredible grace.
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It’s supposedly very easy to control as well, using a complex flapping motion handled by the software and electronics, allowing the pilot to use a simple smartphone app to steer the Robotic Dragonfly around in space.

How It Works:

The machine is run by an ARM microcontroller, which calculates all of the parameters relating to mechanical adjustments based on input from its sensors (accelerometers and such). The microcontroller then translates all that useful input information into control commands for the Servo motors so it can flap its wings appropriately.

Here are a few specifications from the Festo site:

General Thoughts:

Truly amazing products keep coming out of the German Festo Laboratories. I am not sure who is buying them, but of course, there are many potential applications for the high-tech flying robots. I am sure the military is keeping close tabs…
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It would be interesting to see if you could scale this up and make a Giant Robotic Dragonfly…

You can read more at the Festo website.

-RSB

Skeleton Car from Li Hui

April 15th, 2013 | Brain, Robot

Li Hui is a Chinese Installation artist who works with stainless steel, acrylics and lasers. The skeleton car above was created in 2006 for a show titled “Who’s afraid of red, amber, and green?” – a direct reference to the painting series “Who’s afraid of red, yellow and blue” by American abstract expressionist Barnett Newman.

The installation (named ‘Amber’) features a full size horse skeleton, which has been etched into the acrylic race car to create a truly ethereal scene.

Jérôme Sans (director of the UCCA) writes that “Li Hui’s works explore questions of life and death, existence and transcendence, materiality and spirituality, technology and humanity. But it is his penchant for melding the organic and the inorganic that foreshadows a world in which mortal and machine have become one, making people indistinguishable from their tools.”

Here are the other two pieces from the show, “Reincarnation” and “Cage”:

Light is not a usual medium in artwork, but artists such as James Turrell have shown that it can be mastered.

In Li Hui’s own words… “Light doesn’t seem like a material that can be used in art – if you do not handle it well, the outcome will be awful. Everyone can use light in their work, but light may not always be a good material to help them express what they want to express.”

I’ll look forward to more futuristic works from Li Hui.

-RSB

[via My Amp Goes to 11]

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RobotSpaceBrain

A Discovery of Science & Art

Robotic Insects

Technical Design

Next Steps

Robotic Dragonfly:

How It Works:

General Thoughts: