Oct 09 2005
The results of Grand Challenge 2005 are in, and Stanley the Volkswagon is the winner! Developed by a team from Stanford University, Stanley was able to complete the 132 mile course through the Mojave Desert in 6 hours and 53 minutes beating 3 other vehicles that were able to make it to the finish line …
Oct 08 2005
IBM has just published a new article in it’s developerWorks section entitled “Wireless robotics: Fast robot prototyping.” Written by Erik Zoltan, the article approaches robotics development with a “bottom-up” approach, a process during which the subsystems are built and ultimately assembled with no specific goal of what the final robot will look like. Prototyping using …
Oct 07 2005
Europe, home to many cutting-edge robotics projects, could fall behind the rest of the world if funding for such programs fails to keep pace over the next several years suggests Viviane Reding, an EU Commissioner of information society and media issues. She is asking both government bodies and private industry to act quickly in order …
Oct 06 2005
The AFP reports today that the London Aquarium is set to unveil the first autonomous robotic fish. Developed at the University of Essex over a period of three years, the fish are designed to not only physically resemble their biological counterparts but also replicate their behavior and movement. While they were primarily created to drive …
Oct 06 2005
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, aka DARPA, announced the 23 finalists who have been chosen to compete in this year’s Grand Challenge, a race between autonomous robotic vehicles over a grueling course of up to 175 miles in the Mojave Desert. A red Hummer named H1ghlander developed by a team from Carnegie Mellon University …
Oct 05 2005
The Boston Globe is reporting today that iRobot Corp., maker of the popular Roomba vacuum-bot, has been working in conjunction with Boston University to develop a robot that can spot and point out enemy snipers on an active field of battle. The system, called REDOWL (Robot Enhanced Detection Outpost with Lasers), was put through it’s …
Oct 03 2005
LiveScience.com has published an article regarding the research work done by Joseph Jacobson of the Molecular Machines group at MIT in developing minature robots that mimic the way living cells replicate DNA. In order for a cell to replicate it’s DNA, enzymes known as polymerases in the nucleus read the structure of the DNA and …
Oct 02 2005
Sony released a new version of it’s popular robo-dog, the AIBO, last week. The ERS-7M3, which seems to only currently be available for order in Japan, retails at about $2300 USD. The important distinction between this model and the previous ERS-7M2 model is in the “M3” portion of it’s designation, referring to the fact it …
Sep 30 2005
Gadget Madness is reporting today the first official sighting in the wild of the newest member of the Robosapien family, the Robosapien Junior by Playskool. Like it’s older siblings, the original Robosapien and the Mini Robosapien, Junior is one tough-looking robot. With “Bump-n-Giggle” technology (Hasbro’s term, not mine), it’s usefulness as a hacking platform is …
