Tag Archives: Robot Companions

Robots Get Cultural

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Using machines to study social behaviour

How does culture emerge in human societies and those of other social animals? To tackle this question, a study funded by the UK’s  Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) lead by the University of Bristol and 5 other UK universities, is combining the expertise of researchers from diverse disciplines including : Computer science, social science, philosophy, theoretical biology, art history and cultural theory and robotics.
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Make Your Own Robot

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Designed, programmed and printed!

The video above displays three prototypes resulting from a new project lead by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL). With a 10 million USD grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the collaboration of teams from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, researchers hope to develop technology that could enable anyone to manufacture their own customized robot.
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More Humanoids in Action

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Check out some of the most life-like robots out there!

The  HRP-4C Humanoid  robot was developed by The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) of Japan and Kawada Industries. As you can see above, this robot can put on quite the show! Created mainly for entertainment purposes, this robot has even hit fashion runways! Actroid- DER3, developed by Osaka University and the robotics company Kokoro, is also being used for similar purposes.
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Humanoid Robots

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They’re doing their best to walk the walk and talk the talk

Humans may not have the fastest or strongest bodies on earth but they are super multifunctional. Sure, we can’t jump as high as frogs, or swim as well as dolphins but we’re still able to achieve both forms of motion. The versatility of our physical ability has inspired us to create a world filled with tools and structures that would be impossible for many other animals to use – can you picture a cat using a door handle or a fish using stairs?
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Robots Explore City Sewers

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Municipalities save time, money and create new jobs

This month, a team of robots will be working their way through the underground of Peachtree City, USA to inspect sewer pipes. RedZone Robotics has developed the Solo: a light weight, autonomous sewer inspection robot. The main advantage this new technology provides is time–saving. The Peachtree water and city authority will end up with an inspection of all their collection pipes in the system in just a little over a year;an assessment that would normally take about 15 years to carry out but without the help of the robots.
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Robojelly

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This robot’s not snacking on shrimp or plankton to get its energy

Many of us consider jellyfish a nuisance when we’re walking along the beach or swimming in salty waves. While some species are highly hazardous, and others are nothing but harmless, for a bunch of (essentially) brainless animals, they sure do have some moves!
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Dextre: The Robot Handyman

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This bot is practicing its satellite-fixing skills in space
According to an article in CNET News, there are over 200 decommissioned satellites orbiting the planet. The majority of these expensive tools are eventually destined to become  orbiting piles of junk  if they break or simply run out fuel.
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Robot Companions

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The goal is ambitious but there’s a motive behind it!

The video above by Reuters features some of the robots that were on display at this year’s INNOROBO Conference in Lyon, France. A recent article in the BBC which featured the conference suggests that it may be time we forget about the idea of robots as companions however, some of the robots displayed in the video above seem like they could provide valuable human accompaniment to suit a variety of human needs.
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iCub: the Robot Dj

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The iCub and a human jam together on the Reactable

At the Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems group (SPECS) at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, it’s just your average Jam session. Fellow music makers include a PhD student, a robot and the Reactable! The demonstration featured in the video above merges two projects into one: The Reactable and the Experimental Functional Android Assistant  (EFAA), which is using the iCub robot as its main research platform.
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