Here is another auto converting robot for Transformers fans. The Robosen Megatron transforms from robot to a tank. It has 2 touch zones that you can use to interact your Megatron. You get 5 ways to program it, including block-based programming.
This is the Festo BionicBee: an autonomous robotic fly capable of autonomous flying in a warm. It weighs only 34 grams, measuring 22cm long, with a wingspan of 24 cm. It has a brushless motor, 3 servomotors, battery, gear unit, and circuit boards inside in its compact body.
Here is an end-to-end planner for reconfigurable modular robots that allow for collaborative object manipulation and transport. This method can be used to coordinate the actions of multiple robots, allowing these modular robots to transport objects of various shapes and weight.
As the researchers explain:
Our approach is based on a centralized planner using stochastic best-first search with a custom heuristic and pruning strategy. We use Quadratic Programming to define multi-robot controller to evaluate action feasibility for transitions between the search tree nodes with respect to important constraints of the system (collisions, joint and torque limits). The controller can be design to be aware of human reachable space for object handover and use it as a measure to asses closeness to the goal node.
[HT: Aurélien Morel, Anastasia Bolotnikova, Celinna Ju, Jan Rabaey, Auke Ijspeert]
Autonomous vehicles are getting smarter all the time. Most of them are designed for regular roads. Teaching these vehicles to handle off-road conditions take a bit more work. DARPA’s latest video shows the RACER Fleet Vehicle completing an autonomous run. The vehicle negotiated ditches and vegetation successfully.
As DARPA explains, its forth experiment involved testing these vehicles on courses from 3 to 30 miles in length with speeds up to 30 miles per hour.
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This is the PaintCam Eve: a robotic security camera with AI that can fire paintballs at threats. It comes with audible and visual warnings to keep intruders at bay. The Eve has a trained AI to detect threats. It supports warning and action zones. The Eve Pro comes with animal and face detection.
Robots are going to do many things for us in the future. They can carry various payloads, including sensors and weapons. The Thermonator is a robot dog with a flamethrower. It can be used for snow & ice removal and agricultural missions. This robot comes with LiDAR and FPV navigation
This robot has laser sighting and 30ft firing range. It is listed for $9420 at the time of this writing.
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Robotic mowers are getting smarter all the time. Many of them now work with smartphones. Take the PowerSmart Robot Lawn Mower for example: it is an app controlled mower that lets you adjust its settings and schedule from your phone. It can cover up to 1/4 acre of lawn. It has a rain sensor to sense when it needs to stop mowing.
This is the Artemis: a smart humanoid robot that can walk up to 2.1m/s speed. It can walk on uneven, rough terrain. It can also run. It is operated untethered. It uses custom torque-controlled, “proprioceptive actuators.” This robot stands 1.42m tall, weighing 37kg. It has 20DOF with 5DOF per leg.
Here is a robot that moves in low gravity environments through hopping motion. As a part of the SpaceHopper project, students at ETH Zurich developed this legged robot for microgravity environments. It has 3 legs with 3 degrees of freedom. This approach can be used to hop to traverse large distances and carry a scientific payload.
There are plenty of fancy drones on the market but most of them have a very limited payload capacity. The Malloy Aeronautics T400 is a heavy load UAS that can lift 400lbs of load. It has removable batteries that can be lifted by humans. This drone has max range of over 70km with cruise speed of just over 78 mph.
