Meet the SMORES-EP robot: a modular self-assembling robot that can create complex configurations to adapt to a wide variety of tasks. It can change shape to act as a mobile manipulator, RC car, and a whole lot more. The 3-step docking process is based on navigation, pose adjustment, and approach actions.
Here is an advanced robotic prosthetic arm that brings the sensation of touch and feel to amputees. It has direct connection to the user’s nerves, muscles, and skeleton and is mind controlled. All the electronics are contained with its body, so there is no need to carry additional equipment. Here is how it works:
The sensation of touch, is possible through stimulation of the nerves that used to be connected to the biological hand before the amputation. Force sensors located in the thumb of the prosthesis measure contact and pressure applied to an object while grasping. This information is transmitted to the patients’ nerves leading to their brains. Patients can thus feel when they are touching an object, its characteristics, and how hard they are pressing it, which is crucial for imitating a biological hand.
Meet the Misa Robot: a new social robot designed to keep you company. It has a 7″ display, quad core 1.8GHz processor, and WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity. It comes with touch/drop/range/ultrasonic sensors. It comes with dual microphones and HD/AR camera.
Virtual reality environments can be fun to explore but researchers are always looking for ways to make them more immersive. FaceHaptics takes an interesting approach to this issue. It uses a robot arm attached to a VR headset to deliver facial haptics.
The device comes with actuators, rubber tip, and radial fan. Thanks to this, you will be able to feel the leaves brushing your face or wetness of a virtual waterfall.
[HT]
UV light is used at hospitals for sanitization. More hospitals are now relying on robots to take on this task. Akara Robotics has turned the TurtleBot 2 into a UV disinfecting robot. It can go from room to room and rotate to cover every area, without putting humans in danger.
There are plenty of fancy vacuum cleaners on the market. Not all of them are tiny enough to fit under your furniture though. The JNC Teeny Tiny Robot Vacuum Cleaner is a slim robot that can access hard to reach areas. It has a 2.95cm body, 3 cleaning patterns, and 2 brushes. It delivers suction power up to 1000pa.
Meet the Quantix Recon: a fully automated reconnaissance unmanned aircraft with VTOL design and radio frequency silent mode. It can survey up to 1.6 square kilometers or 20 linear km per 45 minute on battery.
Arduino and Raspberry Pi are wonderful platforms for building custom programmable robots. As this video from Mech-Dickel Robotics shows, it is possible to build a robot dog based Arduino, with Lynxmotion Smart Servos. It has a handcrafted aluminum chassis with high impact polystyrene parts.
There are plenty of drones that can be controlled with a joystick or smartphone. With a haptic controller, you can easily control your drone’s trajectory with accuracy. This video by EPFLLIS shows a hand-worn haptic drone controller that is much easier to get a handle on than a radio controller.
Electronic skins are nothing new. We have covered a bunch of them in the past. University of California researchers have come up with an e-skin that can be embedded with sensors to monitor users’ vitals. Best of all, it draws energy from sweat.
