The company Festo is currently working on a prototype of a robotic elephant's trunk, via its Festo Bionic Learning Network department. The trunk, which also resembles an octopus tentacle, uses an air pressure mechanism for movements as opposed to servo motors. Provided with a grabber, it has a …
Drones come in various sizes and with various functions (transport, surveillance, combat) but often the existing planes and helicopters are still rather on the large side. Fortunately at RobotShop we've already taken a step further in surveillance with our Skybotix helicopter drone. In terms of…
Stanford University has invented a lizard robot, an improved version of its previous prototypes (Stickybot), Stickybot III. StickyBot 3 is a lizard robot (gecko) which can climb up windows thanks to its special suction cups installed on each of its feet. These suction cups are not adhesives in …
Robonaut R2, the astronaut robot that we talked about in February, will take off for space at the end of this year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY-SJyS18lA NASA has confirmed that the robot built with General Motors will be sent to the International Space Station (ISS) in the fall of 2010 on b…
Simon the Robot made its first appearance during The Atlanta Conference on Human-Computer Interactions. Simon is the result of 3 years of research on Technology institute of Georgia. The prototype understands what is being said (voice recognition) and has a OpenCV [Open Source Computer Vision] …
The US Navy's Fire Scout helicopter robot detected a drug deal (cocaine) at sea during a test flight. The Fire Scout has conducted tests since being based in the high seas aboard the American warship, the USS McInerney. It had completed testing when it saw that a suspicious boat was speeding du…
What a wonderful idea to send a Drone to scan the Tyrolean Alps. This drone is equipped with a High Definition camera; the pictures taken show the beauty of this magnificient landscape. It skims the trees and the summit of the mountains while flying. This is very daring since its prototype coul…
Roboplant is a decontaminating plant robot prototype by Gilberto Esparza, a Mexican designer. The prototype feeds on contaminated water. Then it transforms this water into energy needed by the robot to move via a microbial fuel cell. Then the surplus is used to feed the plant which then grows n…
It's historical! Like... the first step on the moon. Well ok, not quite but almost : -) Asimo by Honda and Tsutenkaku have formally met in a memorable face to face meeting. The two humanoid robots were a bit embarrassed at first and it was Tsutenkaku who made the first move. http://www.youtu…
Marathon Robotics has developed some special Segway robots for training snipers in the Department of Defence in Australia. The Segways are especially adapted for military exercises, moving and responding virtually like humans. They move autonomously, can avoid obstacles at the last minute, go i…
We've already told you about Tsutenkaku, the tower robot from Osaka in Japan. This miniature robotic replica of Osaka's broadcasting tower, which measures 103 meters in height, is 1.70 m tall. This symbol of Osaka recently made its appearance in public as the master of ceremonies at the Electri…
You could almost believe it's a genuine press release from "Stark Industries" but actually it's a promotion for the film Iron Man 2. The video, site, company, press releases, photos,... it all seems very real but by taking a closer look you can see that the people in the video look more like act…
After the Runbot created in 1999, there's now Runbot2, developed by the Tokyo Polytechnic University. Even if it still has loads of wires connected to its body, this quadruped robot moves very naturally. It can run like an animal (a dog or a cat for example) in a way that clearly shows us the r…
Here's a robot which looks like the Loch Ness sea monster but which comes to us straight from Japan. A hybrid between a kind of worm and prehistoric monster. It has to be admitted that the prototype is pretty successful and you would easily say it looks like a real sea mammal. You can see other…
Hiroshi Ishiguro has just created a second version of its Geminoid humanoid robot: the Geminoid F (for 'female'). This female robot is a copy of an attractive woman in her 20s. Unlike the first Geminoid, it only has 12 servo motors in its face (50 for the H1) and 46 degrees of freedom for her bo…
James Corrigan is 72 years old and is a patient robot especially designed for nurses. The University of Houston-Victoria in America has decided to acquire this human simulator. As Victoria Advocate says, this robotic patient is dying of lung cancer but with a quick reboot he'll be all better. In …
