Meet Nuro’s R2: an autonomous vehicle designed for last-mile delivery of packages, groceries, and everything in between. It uses 360-degree overlapping cameras, a thermal imaging camera, LiDAR, short/long range radar, and emergency vehicle audio detection. Lights and signals, redundant braking, and a sound generator are built-in for safety.
Here is a robot that uses live moth antenna to seek out smells. Developed by University of Washington researchers, this autonomous drone navigates towards smells and avoids obstacles along the way. As lead author Melanie Anderson explains:
By using an actual moth antenna with Smellicopter, we’re able to get the best of both worlds: the sensitivity of a biological organism on a robotic platform where we can control its motion.
Antennae from the Manduca sexta hawkmoth were used for this drone. Once removed, they stay biologically and chemically active for up to four hours. Wires were inserted into either end of the antenna to connect it to an electrical circuit and measure average signal from all the cells. You can find out more about the Smellicopter here.
Meet the Qodi: a LEGO compatible wireless programmable coding robot designed to teach young students basics of programming and robotics. It can be programmed via drag & drop but more advanced users can use Python and Java. This robot has a shockproof design. It can be enhanced with additional sensors.
Plenty of companies are working on perfecting robots for planetary and space exploration. The CubeRover is a lunar robot that can carry scientific instruments and other payloads on the surface of the moon. Astrobotic’s robot has a modular, scalable design.
Meet Delft Dynamics’ RH3 Swift: an unmanned helicopter designed to take on all kinds of aerial missions. It can be used to monitor hard to reach areas. As this video shows, the RH3 Swift can fly for 3 hours with max takeoff weight of 12.5kg.
Boston Dynamics robots are truly amazing and capable of taking on a wide variety of tasks. As it turns out, they also know how to party. This video from Boston Dynamics shows these robots dancing to celebrate the New Year:
Meet the TFmini-S: an affordable LiDAR for your DIY Raspberry Pi projects and robots. This single-point ranging LiDAR has a range of 0.1 to 12 meters with configurable frame rate of 1~1000Hz. It has a low consumption rate of 85mW, so you can use it for drones, robots with people and vehicle detection, and everything in between.
Meet the Butter Robot: a cute programmable robot with app control and 3 control modes that reacts to its environment and adapts to become self-aware over time. It has a pass-the-butter mode but you can also activate its pre-programmed moves to keep you entertained. You can also program it via a drag & drop interface.
