Robot Living

Is everyone’s favorite robotic dinosaur Pleo coming back?

Jetta Company Limited is the company that originally produced all of the parts for Pleo.  They recently bought all of the intellectual property rights to Pleo when Ugobe had it’s bankruptcy sale.

Below is part of the original press release.

Jetta Company Limited acquires Ugobe out of receivership

Hong Kong – Jetta Company Limited acquired the assets of Ugobe and will be re-launching “Pleo” in the near future. Established in 1977, Jetta has focused on manufacturing an extended range of toy, consumer electronics, juvenile, robotic and gift products and is one of the most recognized engineering and OEM companies within the toy industry. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Jetta currently operates five production campuses in Guangdong Province which combined has over 4.5 million square feet of production floor space. At the forefront of the fast-paced toy and robotics industries, Jetta continues to strive for “excellence” and is pleased to add “Ugobe” to its operations.

Robots Rule have spoken with Steve Ohler, who is the United States  liaison for Jetta Company and confirmed that they want to bring Pleo back.  No timeframe has yet been given.

Link via (Robots Rule)

Tags: dinosaur, pleo, robot

Like some robotic Squeezel, Boston Dynamics and the University of Pennsylvania have created version 3 of RiSE.

This robot can climb at almost the rate of one foot per second and now sports 4 legs instead of the previous 6.

The folks working on Rise recently released a paper and the abstract states:

The robot’s general-purpose legged design coupled with its specialized ability to quickly gain elevation and park at a vertical station silently with minimal energy consumption suggest potential applications including search and surveillance operations as well as ad hoc networking.

Pretty soon it will be putting telephone pole workers out of a job.

See our previous post on RiSE here.

Video after the break.

Link via (BotJunkie)

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Tags: pole climbing robot, Rise

US Fish and Wildlife officials are now using robotic animals to catch poachers.

They have previously caught people shooting at turkeys from a car.  Shooting at animals from a car is a $500 fine in the US.

The robotic animals are molded fiberglass covered in real fur or animal skin from donations or illegal kills.  You can get anything from a turkey to a grizzly bear at a cost of $500 – $5,500.

Get your own robotic animal such as a turkey, dear, bear, raccoon or other animal at Custom Robotic Wildlife, , or check out the full National Geographic story here.

Check out some videos of the animals here.

Link via (National Geographic)

Tags: hunting, poaching, robots

Festo has done it again.  First they had the impressive Aquajelly and Airjelly robots and now they have the AquaPenguin.

The penguin, along with the Bionic Tripod, Fin Gripper and other items are part of Festo’s Bionic Learning Network.

The penguin travels at 5 km/h for 6-7 hours at a time.  The PDF brochure states:

The bionic penguins are designed as autonomous underwater vehicles
(AUVs) that independently orient themselves and navigate
through the water basin and develop differentiated, variable behaviour
patterns in group operation.

The brochure goes on to give the following stats:

Overall length: 0.77 m
Dry chamber: 0.42 m
Max. torso diameter: 0.19 m
Wing span: 0.66 m
Weight in air: 9.6 kg

Check out the penguin in action in a video here.

As Festo likes to create water and air counterparts, check out the AirPenguin as well.

Link via (Engadget)

Tags: bionic learning network, penquin, robot

Spain is set to unleash a school of robotic fish in the port of Gijon. The fish were developed by the University of Essex in England and the BMT Group.

The fish will be outfitted with tiny chemical sensors in order to detect pollution such as leaks from pipes or ships.

The fish will be 1.6 yards long and swim at about 1.1  yards per second.  Professor Huosheng Hu and his team at the University of Essex hope to have five of these fish in the water by the end of next year.  If all goes well, the fish will eventually be deployed to other areas of Europe.

Also put in place will be a charging hub and wi-fi station for the robotic fish.  This will allow the fish to send back any results they get and recharge their batteries at the same time. They will return to the station approximately every 8 hours when their batteries are low. Luck fish, I wonder if they will get free cable tv along with the free wi-fi.

Watch the video after the break.

Also see our previous post on Robotic Red Snapper.

Link via (Financial Times)

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Tags: fish, robotic fish, robots