Meet the LightWare LiDAR’s SF45 microLiDAR: a smart module that gives your drones and robots eyes for obstacle avoidance and navigation. It provides accurate position, distance and proximity sensing to drones and UGVs. It weighs only 59g. It is compatible with Ardupilot/PX4 and has APIs for Raspberry Pi and Arduino.
In the past few months, we have covered many videos that show what Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot dog is capable of. It can also take on construction jobs by automating on-site data capture. Spot can autonomously capture 360-degree image sand video indoors on challenging sites. It can survey confined space and keep workers out of dangerous areas. The below video shows it in action:
Meet the Jueying X20 from DEEP Robotics: a waterproof quadruped robot designed to perform tasks in challenging conditions. It can operate on rainy days and can overcome up to 18cm obstacles. It has max load capacity of 40kg. The robot can overcome up to 30 degree slopes. It has a depth sensing camera and laser radar for autonomous navigation.
The robot is capable of thermal imaging and autonomous charging. It can be equipped with a robot arm to do more. You can find out more about it here.
Here is an inflatable soft robot made of polyethylene sheets. By folding them and combining airbags, it is possible to achieve movement by changing the air pressure of each bag. As researchers from Motion Intelligence Lab show in the below video, they made a 4-joint robot arm with an inflatable structure using this approach. The joint part was made with a 3D printer. By changing the pressure of the airbags, the joints can be moved.
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Meet ATVer from GE: it is an autonomous robot that can navigate in unstructured environments. This robot is a risk-aware autonomous ground vehicle that can navigate in off-road situations. The below video shows how it can safely move around trees and obstacles in the wood.
Here is a swimming robot that helps researchers study locomotion in aquatic creatures. EPFL’s AgnathaX is a long, undulating swimming robot that mimics a lamprey. It has motors that actuate its 10 segments to replicate the muscles along its body. The robot also has force sensors that work like pressure-sensitive cells.
UBTECH is behind some of the neatest robots we have covered. The Walker X is also worth a look. It is a smart humanoid robot with dynamic self balancing capability that can assist you with chores in your home. It can even give you a massage. The robot has a 160-degree 4.6k HD curved display with 28 facial expressions. It has smooth movement with 41 servomotor joints. It has a walking speed of 3km/h.
There are plenty of advanced robot arms on the market that can teach you a thing or two about coding. They are not always cheap though. This 6 DOF Robot Arm with Raspberry Pi Pico is fairly affordable but comes with everything you need to get hands on experience. It comes with a servo driver, 5V power supply, 2 servos, and everything you need to get started.
Meet the Sybil Robot: a gardening robot with machine learning that seeds, weeds, and maps your garden. It is solar powered and uses LiDAR and two front mounted cameras for mapping. It is neural network trained with 140k samples to understand your garden and target weeds only.
