Meet the Pongbot: a table tennis robot that uses high-speed cameras to detect the ball’s speed and rotation as you play with it. It predicts the trajectory and hits back swiftly. Its AI brain enables the robot to improve over time and help humans become better players.
Here is a two-tonne robot that can be controlled from within its cockpit or over WiFi. Matt Denton was inspired by Star Wars to build this giant machine. It measures 2.8 m x 5 m and is powered by a 2.2-liter Perkins turbo diesel engine. It has a max speed of over 1 km/hr.
In the past few years, we have covered plenty of cool robotic cocktail mixers and bartenders here. This Arduino Robotic Bartender project from DIY Machines is also worth a look. It shows what it takes to build a 3D printable robotic bartender with Arduino and Bluetooth control.
Here is a wearable system designed to reduce fatigue in soldiers, search & rescue workers, and firefighters. A multidisciplinary team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute and Harvard SEAS developed this mobile multi-joint soft exosuit with automatic tuning.
In nature, we can find plenty of examples of birds capturing moving prey off the ground or in water. As it turns out, such functionality can be added to quadcopters. As Vijay Kumar explains, the idea is to add dynamic grasping to drones for fast pick & place operations and delivery of objects. The idea was implemented with a motion capture system without external sensors.
The team developed a
methodology for flying and grasping a cylindrical object using feedback from a monocular camera and an inertial measurement unit onboard the aerial robot. This is accomplished by mapping the dynamics of the quadrotor to a level virtual image plane, which in turn enables dynamically-feasible trajectory planning for image features in the image space, and a vision-based controller with guaranteed convergence properties.
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In the past few years, we have covered a whole host of robotic 3D printers that can erect custom and complex structures. This video from the CRI Group @ NTU covers a machine that is capable of 3D printing structures while moving. This allows the robot arm to get the job without needing additional help.
There are plenty of cool racing drones on the market. They mostly require pilots for control. MAVLab has shared a video that shows what it takes to make autonomous racing drones. The software is replaced by the Paparazzi UAV open source autopilot solution.
Meet the DelFly Nimble: a nature-inspired robot that flaps its wings and performs fruit-fly-inspired rapid banked turns. It has a lightweight design and can achieve a top speed of 25km/h. This robotic creature can hover or fly in any direction. Its motion is adjusted with its two pairs of flapping wings.
Meet the COBOTTA: a collaborative robot that can assist workers with a variety of repetitive task. It has a portable body and open platform. The entire unit weighs about 4kg. The COBOTTA has 500g lifting capacity.
Here is a rugged robot that can be customized for a variety of jobs. The Super Mega Bot Robot has a 4-wheel drive system and can tow items up to 3000 lbs. It has payload capacity of 250 lbs. It works over a variety of uneven surfaces.
