In our previous article we noted that we’re describing one of the Boston Dynamics new robots, and in this article we’re going to write about a robot that served as a base for their next robot in development. Boston Dynamics, the developer of advanced dynamic robots such as BigDog and PETMAN, has been awarded a… »

Boston Dynamics, makers of various robots, have announced their newest projects. One of the projects is their development of a bipedal humanoid robot called PETMAN (Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin). As part of a $26.3M Army contract, PETMAN will be the first human-like robot that moves dynamically as humans do. While we currently look to robots… »

The AIDA project (Affective, Intelligent Driving Agent), a collaboration between Volkswagen of America and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (SENSEable City Lab and Personal Robots Group of Media Lab), is a platform comprising of a personal robot and an intelligent navigation system that aims to bring more pleasant driving experience. Its developers envision it as… »

From flies to fish to lobsters, small insects and animals have long been ideal models for robotic and computer scientists. Bees, for example, possess unmatched elegance in flight, zipping from flower to flower with ease and hovering stably with heavy payloads. A multidisciplinary team of computer scientists, engineers, and biologists at Harvard received a 10… »

We already wrote about modular and shape-shifting robots in our previous articles. Swarm robotics is inspired by the social insect behavior, and emphasizes aspects such as decentralization of control, limited communication abilities among robots, use of local information, emergence of global actions, and robustness. Most current studies in swarm robotic systems have focused on robotic… »

Robotic exoskeletons can be helpful in many ways as assisting the disabled and elderly in their daily tasks, or easing of any physically demanding task such as disaster rescue or construction. The HAL 5 exoskeleton helps the wearer to carry out a variety of everyday tasks, including standing up from a chair, walking, climbing up… »

A group of European companies and universities have collaborated to produce a series of multifunctional robots for urban hygiene tasks. With abilities ranging from door-to-door garbage pickup and transportation, to automated street cleaning, the DustBot robots recently demonstrated their skills at a station in the town of Atxuri, Portugal. During the presentation the team demonstrated… »

In one of our previous articles we started to cover the features of ASIMO – one of the most advanced humanoid robots of today. Besides footsteps planning, ASIMO can understand three humans speaking simultaneously (to some degree). Hiroshi Okuno at Kyoto University, and Kazuhiro Nakadai at the Honda Research Institute in Saitama, both in Japan,… »