Robotic Glove For Auto Workers And Astronauts
General Motors and NASA are jointly developing a robotic glove that auto workers and astronauts can wear to help do their respective jobs better while potentially reducing the risk of repetitive stress injuries.
The Human Grasp Assist device, known internally in both organizations as the K-glove or Robo-Glove, resulted from NASA and GM's Robonaut 2 – or R2 – project, which launched the first humanoid robot into space in 2011. R2 is a permanent resident of the International Space Station.
When engineers, researchers and scientists from GM and NASA began collaborating on R2 in 2007, one of the design requirements was for the robot to operate tools designed for humans, alongside astronauts in outer space and factory workers on Earth. The team achieved an unprecedented level of hand dexterity on R2 by using leading-edge sensors, actuators and tendons comparable to the nerves, muscles and tendons in a human hand.
Research shows that continuously gripping a tool can cause fatigue in hand muscles within a few minutes, but initial testing of the Robo-Glove indicates the wearer can hold a grip longer and more comfortably.
For example, an astronaut working in a pressurized suit outside the space station or an assembly operator in a factory might need to use 15 to 20 pounds of force to hold a tool during an operation but with the robotic glove they might need to apply only five to 10 pounds of force.
Inspired by the finger actuation system of R2, actuators are embedded into the upper portion of the glove to provide grasping support to human fingers. The pressure sensors, similar to the sensors that give R2 its sense of touch, are incorporated into the fingertips of the glove to detect when the user is grasping a tool. When the user grasps the tool, the synthetic tendons automatically retract, pulling the fingers into a gripping position and holding them there until the sensor is released.
Instructions For Developing Your Own 3D Camera
The Hackengineer web site has complete plans for building a portable 3d camera. The system uses a Texas Instruments DLP pico projector, Leopard Imaging’s Leopardboard 365 VGA camera board, a small 2x telephoto lens, and a BeagleBoard. The system uses the concept know as Structured-light. Structured light uses a set of temporally encoded patterns that are sequentially projected onto the scene. When the pattern is seen from different viewpoints, the pattern appears geometrically distorted due to the surface shape of the object. This information is used to construct the depth data.
Truss Climbing Robots
Cornell's Creative Machines Lab constructed a robot testbed capable of re-configuring simple truss structures. The robot can add and remove bits and pieces as it goes. The goal of the project is to eventually have similar robots that could be used to assemble structures in difficult situation such as disaster recovery or space exploration.
Julian: A Open Source Grammar Based Speech Recognition Library
Achu Wilson is building a personal robot called Chippu. Using Julian, a special version of Julius Speech Recognition Library, he was able to recognize and execute voice commands. He details the process of getting the library working with ROS in his blog post here.
President Signs FAA Bill To Integrate Unmanned Vehicle Systems By 2015
President Obama has signed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act 2012. The bill will allow the FAA to rebuild its air traffic control system to the next generation technology which will include switching from radar to a GPS air traffic control system. The law will open up the skies to unmanned drones by September 2015.
According to AUVSI (Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International), major UAS provisions in the FAA bill include:
Setting a 30 Sept., 2015 deadline for full integration of UAS into the national airspace
Requiring a comprehensive integration plan within nine months
Requiring the FAA to create a five-year UAS roadmap (which should be updated annually)
Requiring small UAS (under 55 pounds) to be allowed to fly within 27 months
Requiring six UAS test sites within six months (similar to the language in the already-passed defense bill)
Requiring small UAS (under 55 pounds) be allowed to fly in the U.S. Arctic, 24 hours a day, beyond line-of-sight, at an altitude of at least 2,000 feet, within one year
Requiring expedited access for public users, such as law enforcement, firefighters, emergency responders
Allowing first responders to fly very small UAS (4.4 pounds or less) within 90 days if they meet certain requirements
Requiring the FAA to study UAS human factors and causes of accidents
Humanoid "Projet Romeo" Greeting Video
Projet Romeo is being developed by Aldebaran Robotic, the same group working on the NAO. Project Romeo is a 4 foot tall humanoid designed to assist elderly and disabled individuals in their daily activities. The robot will be able to walk through a home, fetching food from the kitchen, taking out the garbage, and acting as a loyal companion who helps entertain its owners and keep tabs on their health. The project started in 2009 but the company hasn't released much info about it until now. Below is the first video of Projet Romeo, sitting in a chair, talking and moving his arms and hands:
Origami Robots
Ramses Martinez, Carina Fish, Xin Chen and George Whitesides have published a paper describing a soft pneumatic actuator constructed by combining paper with a silicone elastomer. On pneumatic inflation, these actuators move anisotropically, based on the motions accessible by their composite structures. They are inexpensive, simple to fabricate, light in weight, and easy to actuate. This class of structure is versatile: the same principles of design lead to actuators that respond to pressurization with a wide range of motions (bending, extension, contraction, twisting, and others). Paper, when used to introduce anisotropy into elastomers, can be readily folded into 3D structures following the principles of origami; these folded structures increase the stiffness and anisotropy of the elastomeric actuators, while being light in weight. These soft actuators can manipulate objects with moderate performance; for example, they can lift loads up to 120 times their weight. They can also be combined with other components, for example, electrical components, to increase their functionality.
LS3 AlphaDog Heads Outdoors
Boston Dynamics' LS3 is a four legged military robot designed to go anywhere and carry up to 400 lbs of gear with enough fuel for missions covering 20 miles. The development of LS3 is being funded by DARPA and the US Marine Corps. The project has been in development for sometime and now DARPA released a new video of the prototype traversing hills and uneven ground as they test it outdoors.
Liquid Silver Printed Circuit Boards
University Of Illinois engineers have demonstrated a method of printing liquid silver onto flexible surfaces to create conductive trails. The advantage of silver is that the particles are much smaller than other conventional electronic ink making it easier to print using a inkjet nozzle. Hopefully in the future this silver ink will make printing circuit boards with a simple desktop printer a reality.
Britain's UAV Industry Plans New PR Effort
Companies seeking to enable the routine use of surveillance drones across Britain are planning a long-term public relations effort to counter the negative image of the controversial aircraft. The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems Association (UAVSA), a trade group that represents the drone industry to the UK government, has recommended drones deployed in Britain should be shown to "benefit mankind in general", be decorated with humanitarian-related advertisements, and be painted bright colours to distance them from those used in warzones, details from a UAVSA presentation show.
Plans are also under way to establish corridors of segregated airspace to fly drones – or UAVs – between restricted "danger zones" (airspace where test flights take place) in isolated parts of England and Wales.
A series of presentations given by industry figures in recent months show public opposition is considered a major hurdle. UAVSA has discussed how it could use the media to disseminate favourable stories, creating a narrative that presents the introduction of drones in the UK as part of a "national mission".
North American Robotics Industry Breaks Records For 2011
A total of 19,337 robots valued at $1.17 billion were sold to companies in North America, beating the previous record of 18,228 robots sold in 2005. When sales by North American robot suppliers to companies outside North America are included, the totals are 22,126 robots valued at $1.35 billion.
Robots sold to automotive component suppliers in North America jumped 77% over 2010, while robots sold to automotive OEMs increased 59%. Sales to non-automotive customers grew 27%, led by metalworking industries (+56%) and semiconductor/electronics/photonics (+24%).
GRASP Lab Demonstrates Nano Quadrotors Swarm
The GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania have developed tiny versions of their quadrotor swarming robots. The swarm is able to align in complex formations and remain in formation while traveling through small areas like windows or doors.
TurtleBot Xtion Mounting Kit
The ASUS Xtion Pro Live is ASUS' Kinect alternative. I Heart Engineering now sells a Xtion Mounting Kit for the TurtleBot personal robot development platform . The mount is available for $39.95 here or can be purchased with a ASUS Xtion Pro Live for $249.95 here.
$25 Raspberry Pi Credit-card Sized Computer Almost Ready For Shipment
The Raspberry Pi is a ARM based single-board computer developed to run Linux for just $25 ($35 for model B with WiFi). The board contains an ARM1176JZFS, with floating point, running at 700Mhz, and a Videocore 4 GPU. The GPU is capable of BluRay quality playback, using H.264 at 40MBits/s. It has a fast 3D core accessed using the supplied OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG libraries. The board has an HDMI port, one USB 2.0 port, one micro USB port for power, an audio jack, RCA video out and a SD card slot.
They aren't taking orders yet but you can track the status by joining their mailing list here.
NASA Open Sources Aircraft Design Software
OpenVSP (Vehicle Sketch Pad) is a parametric aircraft geometry tool. OpenVSP allows the user to create a 3D model of an aircraft defined by common engineering parameters. This model can be processed into formats suitable for engineering analysis. VSP allows even novices to quickly become proficient in defining three-dimensional, watertight aircraft geometry.
The predecessors to OpenVSP have been developed by J.R. Gloudemans and others for NASA since the early 1990's. On January 10 2012, OpenVSP was released as an open source project under the NASA Open Source Agreement (NOSA) version 1.3.
Windows, Mac or Linux versions are available here.
A set of video tutorials can be viewed here.
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