Monitoring underwater facilities such as oil and gas pipelines is a whole lot safer and easier with robots. Autonomous underwater vehicles are already being used for this. They are mainly deployed and recovered by larger ships.
This is the HAOHAN Firefly: an upcoming FPV patrol drone with multiple flights modes and smooth performance. It has 10km HD video transmission. It has a modular quick release design. The entire aircraft can be assembled in a minute. It has a footprint of 1080mm × 690mm × 376mm.
This is the HERO-BLUE: a multimodal underwater robot capable of swimming, crawling, and walking. It has a salamander-like spine and soft undulating fin for these modes. It combines swimming and legged motion to overcome challenging underwater environments. The below video shows this robot in action:
![[HERO BLUE] T-RO: total video](https://www.roboticgizmos.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-youtube-lyte/lyteCache.php?origThumbUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FkGHJ-qnjyLs%2F0.jpg)
This robot can traverse rough benthic terrain. It can change mode without hardware replacement in the middle of the session. BLUE is 0.6m wide and 0.3m tall. It weighs 11.32kg.
[HT:Taesik Kim; Juhwan Kim; Son-Cheol Yu]
You can find all kinds of fun projects on Kickstarter. The XGO-Rider is a new AI desktop robot that will be launched soon. It is an omnidirectional self-balancing industrial robot with ChatGPT integration. It will have an open source design. It will have a two way camera according to its project page.
XGO-mini2 Dance Battle XGO-Rider #raspberrypi #Robotics pic.twitter.com/1DoiGXQgOe
— XGO (@luwu_dynamics) February 3, 2024
The good folks behind it are posting video updates on X all the time. The above video shows the XGO Rider and XGO-mini2 in action.
[Ht]
This is the Cinebot MAX: a live-action camera robot with a portable design that and an extended range of motion. It stands 3.2m tall with a 1.75m reach. It has 20kg capacity. It can be manually maneuvered with the tap of a button. It can be used to execute dynamic motion sequences.
Here is a 6-armred robot that can autonomously navigate and pollinate flowers in a greenhouse. The Stickbug has arms that act as independent agents. It relies on “a compact holonomic Kiwi drive to navigate narrow greenhouse rows, a tall mast to support multiple manipulators and reach plant heights.” It has a felt-tipped end-effector for pollination.
iRobot has a new Roomba to clean your home. The Roomba Combo Essential Robot is a 2-in-1 robotic mop and vacuum, slim enough to grab dirt from hard to reach areas. It has 3 levels of suction power and 3 levels of water. This robot is app controlled but you can also control it with voice assistants such as Siri.
This is Toyota Research Institute’s Punyo: a soft robot for whole body manipulation. Its hands, arms, and chest are covered with compliant materials and tactile sensors, so it is capable of feeling contact. This robot can conform to the items it is manipulating. Its tactile sensors allow for safe interactions.
This robot has two hard robot arms, a rigid torso frame, and a waist actuator. Its arms are covered with air-filled bladders. The above video shows this robot in action.
[HT]
Robots are going to help astronauts on the moon and other planets in the future. Many companies are working on advanced robots and rovers for these types of missions. The Lunar Dawn LTV was recently awarded a NASA Lunar Terrain Vehicle contract. It comes with autonomous navigation and operation.
There are plenty of fancy robotic mowers on the market but most of them are not designed to take on steep slopes. The Mowrator S1 is a remote controlled slope mower with a 21-inch blade. It can take on large yards and steep slopes. It has an adjustable cutting height of 1.5 to 4.6 inches. It can also handle off-road conditions.
