Little Bird Unmanned Full-sized Chopper The Little Bird, a full-sized autonomous helicopter made its first flight last June. For the first time, a full sized autonomous robot performed an entire flight (including take-off, obstacle avoidance, and landing) by itself. The helicopter is a modified
BAE Taranis UCAV The Taranis is an Unmanned Combat Aircraft System (UCAS) developed by BAE Systems for the UK military. This stealth "swept delta" aircraft is intended to be fully autonomous and look utterly awesome. Although test flights are programmed to start in 2011, it is important to note th…
BEAR by Vecna Robotics The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (BEAR) is a new robot for the US military intended to rescue wounded soldiers in an active battlefields. It has been developed by Vecna Robotics form in Cambridge, MA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMIU-5fJd6A This robot is much
Bina48 Interview New York times reporter Amy Harmon has recently interviewed Bina48 a humanoid robotic bust that can have human-like conversation with other humans. Chat robots have been around for a while and started with the famous A.L.I.C.E. In the past, people could chat with these robots tho
We are happy to announce that the PR2 from Willow Garage has a very good friend, the Kawada HRP2-JSK. Since robots do not have emotions (yet) or know the concept of friendship (yet), by "fiends" we mean that they can use the same open source code to perform the same tasks. This might not seem…
As reported by The Economist some time ago, the US military has partnered with Robotic Technology of Washington, DC in order to produce the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (a.k.a. EATR). The robot is expected to achieve energetic autonomy by eating plants. Although this might seem as
FURO - The Korean Emotional Service Robot Future Robotics has recently unveiled their new FURO (Future Robot) . It features an LCD displaying its feminine face, purportedly capable of displaying "attractive" emotions, and a larger LCD touchscreen for human interaction. The full system is of human
As a follow up of our recent Beer-Fetching post, we are happy to report that the PR2 is making a remarkable progress in this area. The people at Willow Garage have been busy (and thirsty) programming the PR2 so it can fetch beer as dictated trough a web interface by their human masters. The projec…
Surena II (2) is a new humanoid robot developed by the Tehran University in Iran. It is the first Iranian humanoid robot, it weighs 45 kilos, and is 4.76 feet tall (1.45m) and is intended for "sensitive and difficult jobs". Surena II - Iranian Humanoid Robot The robot has been unveiled on
Georgia Tech has been developing a Lizard Robot that can bury itself under the sand (or a sand analogue) and navigate its way into hard to reach places. Very much like a sandfish, the robot is covered by a smooth skin (made out of sexy spandex) and can freely move its (aluminium) body segments
Some time ago, the RobotShop team decided to build a telepresence system. Usually, these kinds of systems are sadly limited to a web-cam and a screen on wheels, and are simply a glorified videophone. This is not the case at RobotShop since we love robots and are all for crazy projects. This is why,
iCub Robocub is a humanoid robot that looks like a "big" baby (one meter tall!). The result of a European project and fitted with more than 50 sensors, it was created with the aim of studying the cognition and learning of children. Be aware that this robot initially comes as an empty shell. I…
Robot Rodem is a new type of robotic mobile vehicle like a Segway because it can be controlled via body movements. It is mainly intended for people with disabilities and those elderly who are frail. But, it can also be used as an indoor vehicle for anyone. Rodem is steered either with a joysti…
According to an article in Usine Nouvelle, the robotics market largely picked up in 2010 as opposed to 2009. Growth is very strong especially in industrial robotics. The large crowds at the Automatica 2010 exhibition in Germany confirmed the trend. Robotization in German is also stronger than …
A few days ago we told you about two new robots that have emerged in Japan: M3-Kindy and Noby. Noby is a humanoid baby that simulates a little baby aged 9 months. The purpose of this type of robot is to be able to study its interactions with humans in behaviors that resemble a real baby. The v…
This very special robot prototype is capable of climbing stairs by jumping. The same thing for the descent in which it absorbs the shocks by immediately positioning its chassis at ground level. The operation: 4 electric jacks allow this unusual feat. It's really ingenious and spectacular but it …
