Developing swarms of autonomous aerial vehicles that can navigate in close proximity to each other without obstacle avoidance can be challenging. There are plenty of examples of this done in nature (e.g. honeybees). Vijay Kumar and his team have presented a similar approach for drones. Their idea was to come up with a design capable of sustaining collisions.
Meet the AeroVironment Automated Quantix Hybrid Drone: another smart UAV for farmers that allows them to survey the land in a more efficient and accurate fashion. Farmers can view data after each flight. The drone has auto takeoff and landing capability. It maps each farm to help users monitor crop health.
Meet the Guardian robot: an all terrain, modular surveillance platform that can navigate slopes, rough terrain, and stairs. It can be integrated with 3D cameras, laser, IMUs, GPS, and actuators to take on a variety of tasks. The Guardian V5 is based on ROS. It can carry up to 100kg.
Meet the TUG Robot: an autonomous machine that can move your luggage, show you around a hotel, and deliver room service. As this video shows, the 4ft robot can open doors and elevators and move in tight corners. The TUG robot has sensors to move around people and obstacles.
In the past few months, we have covered how Soft Robotics products are being used for handling food items. This video shows how these soft grippers can be used to hold broccoli while it gets cut with a water jet.
Robots are already being used in hospitals for sanitization and other similar tasks. POLI is a hospital robot that performs non-clinical tasks, so hospital staff can spend more time with their patients. As Fox 7 reports, the robot fetches/gathers supplies and communicates with the staff.
There is no better way to learn robotics than building your own bots. This Prowler 4WD robot kit comes with powerful motors and off-road tires, so you can try simple and complex robotics projects. You get Premium Planetary Gear Motors, 5.4” off-road tires, a 9” x 10.5” chassis, and various other components to put this together.
Teaching robot to use weapons has been tried in the past. Depending on the type of weapon, you will have to deal with different sets of challenges. Dr. Cong Wang and his team have developed a motion capture glove that allows teaching robots by demonstration. They used an AUBO-i5 robot for their project.
Meet the IRB 460 Robot: a high speed robotic palletizer that can perform up to 2190 cycles per hour. This 4-axis robot arm can be combined with the FlexGripper Vacuum to handle carton boxes, pallets, and everything in between.
Meet the FidgetUFO: a fidget spinner that hovers as you spin and release it. It has 4 flying modes, including boomerang and suspended modes. You can play with this on your own or with friends due to its low flying altitude. The FidgetUFO fidget spinner is very simply to use. Simply switch it on, give it a clockwise spin, release when the motors activate, and give it a push.
