In the future, more robots will be used to explore other planets in our solar system. NASA is already testing a prototype robotic space explorer on the lava fields of Iceland. This location was chosen due to having similar features to the red planet’s surface.
Meet Buddy from Blue Frog: an intelligent & emotional robot that can act as your personal assistant. It can bring you useful information, help you stay organized, and keep an eye on your home. The robot stands 60cm tall and expresses itself through its smart display. It will have an open platform, so developers can build apps for it.
Here is a table tennis robot that you can control from your smartphone to give you plenty of practice. The JOOLA Infinity can emulate any shot. It has customize settings for spin, frequency, speed, oscillation and trajectory and can challenge you with topspin, underspin, side spin and no spin shots. It can launch 100 balls per minute at speeds up to 45mph.
Here is another tough robot designed for explosive ordnance disposal and radioactive material handling. As this video from Nex Robotics shows, the robot can open a car’s door and remove dangerous packages while providing the operators a view of all the action from a safe distance.
Meet the SparkFun JetBot AI Robot: a smart robot powered by NVIDIA Jetson Nano that can work with various artificial intelligence platforms, such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe, and MXNet. It comes with JetBot ROS & AWS RoboMaker with AWS IoT Greengrass. The robot can be taught to avoid collisions and follow objects.
Meet the Minibot: a rugged inspection robot that can travel into long pipeline to transmit video to the operator. It has a water resistant shell and can turn on a dime. The Minibot weighs only 9lbs. It can be combined with a GoPro Fusion 360-degree camera to give you a view of everything.
Here is a lightweight exosuit designed to assist with walking and running. A team of researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and the University of Nebraska Omaha developed this wearable robot to assist with gait-specific hip extension during both walking and running. The actuation system is attached to the lower back and controlled by a smart algorithm to detect transition from walking to running.
According to the team, this exosuit can reduce metabolic rates of walking by 9.3% (4% for running). The algorithm
“can robustly and reliably detect a transition from one gait to the other by monitoring the acceleration of an individual’s center of mass with sensors that are attached to the body,”
said Philippe Malcolm, Assistant Professor at University of Nebraska Omaha. More info is available here.
Here is a large VTOL drone that can carry up to 200lbs of weight and fly for 25 minutes straight. Star8 is currently developing the EMAV drone in Philippines, planning to bring it to the market in 2020. A EMAV 2-seater and 4 seater flying taxi are also in the works.
[HT]
Table tennis is a lot of fun to play but you will need a partner to practice. The iPong V300 is a table tennis robot with adjustable ball frequency, side-to-side oscillation, and top/back spin speed that can give you plenty of practice. It holds over 100 balls and can shoot 70 balls per minute.
Robot vacuums keep getting more advanced all the time. The DEEBOT OZMO 950 Robot Vacuum is a vacuum and mop robot that lasts up to 3 hours on battery. It has normal, Max, and Max plus suction power levels and smart features such as multi-floor mapping and carpet detection.
