RoboticArm
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NASA successfully tests OSIRIS-REx robotic arm ahead of arrival
NASA's spacecraft OSIRIS-REx is just 75 miles from its destination and, just like you would near the end of a light, it's starting to stretch out. The craft successfully tested its Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), a robotic arm that will allow it to grab samples from the surface of the asteroid Bennu.
Volkswagen’s I.D. Vizzion EV is all about a customized ride
Volkswagen's I.D. platform just got its flagship product, the Vizzion. The electric vehicle will have a range of about 370 miles (600 kilometers) via a 111kWh battery pack, two motors for all-wheel-drive capabilities and will be ready for autonomous driving.
Harvard's tiny robotic arm can make endoscopic surgery safer
Minimally invasive surgery is already amazing as it is, but a team of Harvard scientists have created a device that expands its possible applications even further. They designed a tiny robotic arm that lays flat while the endoscope is moving through narrow passages and pops up to reveal tools surgeons can use for the procedure. Unlike the typical surgical tools doctors use today, which are completely rigid, the team's creation has a hybrid design featuring a rigid skeleton surrounded by soft materials. Even better, it has sensing capabilities that can give the surgeon a sense of where the arm is, what it's touching and how it's moving.
ICYMI: Drawing bot, 3M's future plan and an orb with a soul
#fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-232743{display:none;} .cke_show_borders #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-232743, #postcontentcontainer #fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-232743{width:570px;display:block;} try{document.getElementById("fivemin-widget-blogsmith-image-232743").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Artist Sougwen Chung creates art with help from a robotic arm, take a tour of 3M's exhibit, which visualizes the challenges the earth will face by 2050 and finally, bask in the glow of a large orb with AI that changes its display depending on what the humans around it are doing. There will be one more SXSW-dedicated ICYMI episodes this week, but we'll be back on Thursday from the studio. As always, please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.
German robot practices hitting humans to ensure future safety
Roland Behrens, a German scientist, wants to teach robots how not to kill humans. But first, he needs to know how hard they can hit before causing any serious damage. According to a Bloomberg report, a team of researchers at the Fraunhofer IFF Institute in Germany is focused on finding a way for machines to coexist with humans, without hurting them. They've devised a machine that hits a group of volunteers on the arm or the shoulder so that they can study the impact at the highest mass and the lowest velocity. After the pendulum-like robot arm strikes, the volunteer rates the pain on a scale of one to ten. The team stops testing when the pain reaches five and the subjects are then put through an ultrasound to check for bruises from the impact.
Smart robot arm can follow your lead without coding
You might not be able to control the 7Bot robotic arm with your mind or your eyes, but at least it'll only cost you around $350 -- cheaper than an iPhone, its creators point out -- to get one. Even better, you don't need to know how to code to program it: just physically guide the arm or use a gesture control device like a Kinect or a Leap motion sensor to make it mimic your movements. In the video below the fold and on its Kickstarter page, you can see it doing calligraphy after a team member's grandfather physically taught it how. The team also managed make it paint cherry blossoms and do basic mathematics, and we'll bet you can teach it other productive things, like how to terrorize your cat.
Brain implants control robot arm well enough to grab a beer
A paralyzed man named Erik Sorto has finally been able to drink beer on his own after 13 years, and it's all thanks to a robotic arm controlled solely by his mind. If you've been following our robotics coverage, you'll know it isn't the first mind-controlled robo limb -- a DARPA-funded project once allowed a woman to feed herself chocolate, while the one developed by the Braingate2 consortium helped another woman drink coffee on her own. This particular technology, however, works quite differently from the others. Its creators, a team of researchers from various institutes led by Caltech, implanted the neural chips needed to control the arm into a part of the brain called "posterior parietal cortex" or PPC.
Double amputee controls two robotic arms with his mind
Here's one other DARPA-funded robotic limb controlled by thoughts alone -- actually make that two, because Colorado man Les Baugh had two bionic arms attached from shoulder level. Baugh got them this summer, 40 years after losing both arms, as part of a Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program test run at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The project's researchers have been developing these Modular Prosthetic Limbs (MPL) over the past decade, but they say Baugh is the "first bilateral shoulder-level amputee" to wear two MPLs at the same time. Unlike Jan Scheuermann who controlled a robotic arm with a pair of neural implants, though, Baugh had to undergo a procedure called targeted muscle reinnervation, which reassigned the nerves that once controlled his arms and hands.
MIT's robotic limbs pave the way for real-life Doc Ock (video)
Two groups of MIT scientists are working on robotic limbs, which when worn together can make you look like one famous comic book villain: Doctor Octopus. Unlike prosthetic limbs developed to replace real ones, the teams' (from MIT's d'Arbeloff Laboratory) Supernumerary Robotic Limbs (SRLs) are designed to supplement your existing arms. One team showcased its latest shoulder-mounted SRL prototype at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Hong Kong, where members showed how it can take over tasks when your real arms are too busy. These particular SRLs take data collected by the accelerometer and gyro embedded in the base of the shoulder mount, as well as their accompanying wrist monitors. The limbs then move on their own based on your actions -- for instance, they move up when you raise your real arms, and in the future, they could open doors when you're carrying something.
NASA's JPL maneuvers a robot arm with Oculus Rift and Kinect 2, points to more immersive space missions
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has been on the hunt for a more natural way to maneuver robots in space for some time now, resulting in cool experiments like using a Leap Motion controller to remotely control a Mars rover and using an Oculus Rift plus a Virtuix Omni to take a virtual tour of the Red Planet. It therefore made sense for the folks at JPL to sign up for the latest Kinect for Windows developer program in order to get their hands on the newer and more precise Kinect 2 (which, incidentally, is not available as a standalone unit separate from the Xbox One) to see if it would offer yet another robotics solution. They received their dev kit in late November, and after a few days of tinkering, were able to hook up an Oculus Rift with the Kinect 2 in order to manipulate an off-the-shelf robotic arm. According to our interview with a group of JPL engineers, the combination of the Oculus's head-mounted display and the Kinect's motion sensors has resulted in "the most immersive interface" JPL has built to date. Join us after the break to see a video of this in action and find out just why one of them has called this build nothing short of revolutionary.
Curiosity rover starts light robotic arm workout in preparation for scientific main event
As NASA promised, Curiosity has stopped at the quarter pole toward its first scientific destination to test its robotic arm and attached scientific instruments. After 100 yards of driving, the rover extended its 7-foot limb, and will now spend six to ten days checking its predetermined positions and range of motion. That will ensure the appendage is ready after surviving the chilly vaccuum of space and subsequent setdown, and will let its minders see how it functions in the unfamiliar Martian gravity and temperatures. The JPL scientists in charge of the six-wheeler will also peep the Mars Hand Lens Imager and made-in-Canada Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer to warrant that they're up for all the geology to come. If all goes well, the rover will start scooping, drilling and analyzing in earnest when it hits Glenelg, then Mount Sharp -- so, we'd limber up first before tackling all that, too.
Insert Coin: Cardboard Robot brings craning, plucking and learning with a dash of whimsey (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Cardboard Robot has lowered it's crane claw boom on all the Kickstarter money business, and said "Hey, let's have a little fun here, too." It's a robotic arm kit consisting of four stepper motors, a controller, USB computer connection, and a structure made from corrugated cardboard with a claw or smartphone camera mount. While able to pick up small objects like socks and stuffed animals or crane a smartphone around, the fanciful bot's main function seems to be the fun of piecing it together, with its pliable surface also safer for working with kids. To that end, the mech's maker said that not only would it be easy to build, but the source code would be included for tweaking and with every $3k raised, one of the kits would be donated to a US school. So, if you want your own carton-y bot arm kit for learning and light plush toy duty (assembly required), the minimum pledge is $175 -- check the Kickstarter source to see how to pony up, or the video after the break.
Pentagon starts Phoenix trial to harvest defunct satellites, MacGyver new ones from orbit
The Phoenix Frankenprogram to harvest the corpses of expired satellites and cobble together new ones seemed like one of DARPA's more daft ideas, but this one has actually kicked off its first phase of development. The plan is to first launch a service craft -- replete with robotic arms and enough processing horsepower to work independently if needed -- followed by the tiny base-unit skeleton satlets. The service mothership would dip into an orbital area called the "graveyard", grabbing pre-chosen cadavers and picking off usable parts, especially valuable antenna arrays, with its robo-limbs. Those parts would be jury-rigged to the bare-bones units, creating usable Pentagon satellites and saving the $10,000 per pound launch cost. So far, a $2.5 million contract to develop the needed technology has been put in place, and bids for the no-frills satlets went out last week. Plenty of dirty work is still needed, so check the video after the break to see if the overly-elaborate plan can un-moot $300 billion of orbiting cold metal.
iCRAFT robotic feeding arm (eyes-on)
We're back for another day of exploring the Northeastern University labs. We checked out a handful of projects yesterday, including the HyCycle, a runner-up in the school's Capstone award. Today we checked out the winner: iCRAFT -- that's short for eye-Controlled Robotic Arm Feeding Technology. The project was developed by a group of seven electrical and computer engineering students looking to create an inexpensive solution for helping the disabled and elderly feed themselves at home. As the Apple-esque name implies, the project utilizes eye-tracking to help the user feed him or herself. The hardware side of the project involves a robotic arm and controller (which run a combined $640), a hacked Creative webcam and IR light (around $114), three bowls, a water bottle and a custom built power supply. On the software side, the team used the open-source ITU gaze tracker software, combined with a custom GUI. The whole thing is designed to be simple to use right out of the box -- though, being in prototype stage, there were naturally a few hiccups in the process. It didn't work perfectly when we demoed it today, but it certainly wasn't much more buggy than what many companies try to pass off as finished products. %Gallery-158173%
PSA: Watch the SpaceX Dragon's first attempt at docking right now! (video)
SpaceX's Dragon is rapidly approaching its historic meeting with the International Space Station. It's due to begin its first docking procedure at 7:30am ET, and NASA is streaming footage from both the ground crew, the ISS and the private craft itself. Once within a safe range, the station will extend its robotic arm and draw the Dragon in to dock -- with the hatch being opened tomorrow. We've embedded the video after the break so you can watch along at home, popcorn in hand. [Image credit: SpaceX]
Northeastern University students develop eye controlled robotic arm that's happy to feed you
As an alternative to receiving brain implants for robotic arm dominance assistance, check out this surprisingly cheap eye-tracking solution developed by six electrical engineering students at Northeastern University. Labeled iCRAFT, for eye Controlled Robotic Arm Feeding Technology, the award-winning senior project drew its inspiration from one team member's difficulty syncing spoonfuls with the eating pace of elderly and disabled patients. Simply gaze at the on-screen box that corresponds to your food or beverage choice and the robotic arm will swing your way with grub in its grip. Ambitious DIY-ers can chase down the open-sourced software behind iCRAFT, and construct a contraption of their own for about $900 -- considerably less than self-feeding rigs living in the neighborhood of $3,500. You can catch a video of the robot arm serving up some fine Wendy's cuisine after the break.
Mind-operated robot arm helps paralyzed woman have her cup o' joe (video)
Researchers at the Braingate2 consortium have made a breakthrough that allows people with spinal cord or stroke injuries to control robotic limbs with their minds. The original project allowed subjects with motor cortex-implanted chips to move cursors on a screen with their minds, but they can now command DEKA and DLR mechanical arms to grasp foam balls and sip coffee. Researchers noted that dropped objects and missed drinks were frequent, but improved brain sensors and more practice by subjects should help. To see the power of the mind move perhaps not mountains, but good ol' java, jump to the video below.
Universal robot gripper sinks shots, throws darts, makes us feel inadequate (video)
Soon there will be little left for us puny humans. Robots have long since replaced us at most menial tasks, now they're looking to claim our lucrative professional sports contracts. They've already proven their mettle at baseball, basketball and hockey. Now researchers at the University of Chicago and Cornell are getting their coffee-filled balloon bot in on the action -- albeit with slightly less ambitious prey in its sights. Dorm room stoners proficient in NERF basketball, drunken dart fanatics and school yard marble hustlers may all be answering to this mechanical party favor soon enough. Don't believe us? Check out the video after the break. Just hope this guy is on your team in the next round of beer pong.
Lego-built robotic arm will pour you a drink, collapse under pressure (video)
We've seen countless robotics projects made either partly or entirely out of Lego, but this pneumatic arm built by Max Sheppard has to rank among the most impressive. As you can see in the video above, while it may be a bit on the slow side, the arm's range of motion is remarkably life-like (even by non-Lego standards). It's also able to grip objects of different sizes, and with enough precision to pour water out of a cup, although Sheppard says it can't lift anything more than a couple of pounds. No word if he has any plans to attach the arm to something.
NASA developing tractor beams, no plans for Death Star... yet (video)
Fully functional LightSabre aside, a tractor beam has to be high on most geek wish-lists; lucky for you NASA has started working on one. Before you drop your sandwich (or whatever that object in your left hand is), this won't be for sucking up star cruisers, but the more modest task of sample and space dust collection. The basic concept has already been proven, but now NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist has given boffins $100,000 to make the dream a reality. Three potential methods are already on the table, which in lay-terms resemble laser tweezers, a light vortex and a conceptual rippling beam. Once developed, it could signal the end of traditional mechanical sample collecting -- and just plain luck -- consigning robotic arms to the history books. Check the video after the break for science-tastic mock up of how it might work.
