A radiograph of a person is fairly normal in the medical field. But doing an X-ray on a robot, that's fairly unusual! Below are some X-rays of the dog, AIBO robot by Sony. via plastic pals
You have followed the progress here of Hinamitetu, the gymnast robot now capable of doing a somersault over a fixed bar then catching itself without falling. It should be clear here: this remarkable performance has not been achieved without pains. You have to suffer and persevere to reach perfect…
The Robust Robotics Group at MIT has created a QuadCopter which can travel about according to vocal instructions. The technician in the video below gives the following order to a helicopter robot: "Go across room 124, then face the windows and go up." This drone carries out the order without di…
Here is an Optimus Prime (self-robotized character from the film Transformers) which is 2.50 metres tall. It is made of 5000 recyclable parts taken from cars, boats, a dishwasher, motorbike, television and other pieces of metal. It still weighs 550 kg though. Along the same lines as with Robos…
The Manoï robot is known for its various dance skills. We have already shown you it dancing to Japonese rap and spinning upside down on its head. Now it's back with a new, rather original exercise. It moves in synchronicity with a dancer and a second humanoid robot which is life-sized. Man…
Hospi is an autonomous robot created by Panasonic and intended for South Korean hospitals. Hospi can move around patients' rooms and serve meals, clean laundry, medication, X-rays, documents to sign, etc. This type of robot has been used in hospitals in Japan since 2006. Equipped with a video …
The Airport in Rio in Brazil has "recruited" a falcon robot in order to ward off birds of ill omen :-) More seriously, this robotic falcon is used to scare the birds which fly above the airport so that they don't collide with planes taking off. Usually, airports use real falcons, not robots. I…
According to Vincent Schramm, the Director of the French association for manufacturing technologies (SYMOP) in an article in Figaro, France has fallen behind its neighbours in terms of industrial robotics. In France, the biggest companies are lowering the low purchase prices which is encouraging…
Gordon Bennett is a New Yorker who fully devotes all his time to his passion which is also his source of income: he creates sculptures of robots. It's a current trend as it's not the first of which we've shown you on the RobotShop blog. Gordon's robots are truly fantastic. His sculptures take …
Cody is a new humanoid robot, a work in progress at Healthcare Robotics Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta). This robot can open closet doors and drawers and can follow a person holding it by the hand. Cody is manipulated with a remote control just like those for video games, o…
The long awaited film Toy Story 3 will premier June 18, 2010 in the U.S. and July 14, in France (National Independence day). And the film's team just released a new character on the poster: Sparks the robot! Sparks is a light flashing toy with several LEDs for the eyes and it really sparks. It…
The Boeing A160T Robocopter is a pilotless helicopter that can lift loads up to 1135 kg. The video of the A160 (2007): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gndveJE24bg This robocopter model can also reach an unbelievable height of 12 000 feet (3657 meters above sea level) with 567 kg, this is ideal …
GigaPan robots are automated systems for cameras. These include devices that have taken the world's most important photographs such as the panoramic Obama investiture photo with 1.5 billion pixels. The new range of GigaPan includes the EPIC, the EPIC 100 and the Epic Pro. Prices vary between 35…
At the Expo FC 2010 in Japan, Osaka University presented a pretty mind-blowing prototype of a robotic fish. Its movements in particular are so realistic you could easily mistake it for a real fish. It measures 10 cm in length, is powered by a solid polymer fuel cell (Power Tube) and a polymer l…
The PR2 by Willow Garage is able to autocalibrate on its own with a new ROS (Robot Operating System) software application. This saves a considerable amount of time since the robot is left alone to work in order to calibrate its sensors. And here it is in the video demonstration below. For a remi…
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) hopes to develop an Underground Robotic Munition (RUM) to be used for single use. This robot would be able to go underground and dig a hole towards a potential underground target; once it reaches its destination it would explode, thus destroying its ene…
