Robot Living

Czech company Neovision has invented a robot that cleans air ducts using dry ice.

The robot can clean round , rectangular or square ducts and climb vertical ducts to clean them too.  How long the robot stays cleaning in one place and how much velocity the nozzle jet has can also be controlled by the user.  The robot is attached to a cable and controlled via a joystick.  The cleaning process can also be viewed easily thanks to an on board camera.

Neovision states the advantages of using dry ice.

The method of dry ice blasting is regardful of the cleaned surface and does not cause any damage. Another advantage is that no waste is created after dry ice treatment (solid carbon dioxide) as the dry ice is converted into the gas and leaves the pipes through the vent. Indispensable advantage is a fact that the carbon dioxide is an inert and non-toxic gas.

Click through for an animation of how the robot works.

Link via (Tech Crunch)

(more…)

Tags: Czech Republic, Jetty, Neovision

Photo: White House

President Obama visited Carnegie Mellon University last week to announce a new manufacturing initiative called the Advanced Manufacturing Partnership or  AMP.

AMP is a a $500 million partnership between universities like Carnegie Mellon and companies like Corning, along with the government to bolster manufacturing in the United States.  Part of this initiative will support the creation of robots.

The National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Agriculture are coming together to make available today $70 million to support research in next generation robots. These investments will help create the next generation of robots that will work closely with human operators – allowing new ability for factory workers, healthcare providers, soldiers, surgeons and astronauts to carry out key hard-to-do tasks.

This sounds very similar to the robots Heartland Robotics is gearing up to make and also similar to FRIDA by ABB. In the photo, President Obama is shown with a Sensabot. This is a robot that is designed to monitor industrial facilities. President Obama went on to actually sign the robot.

Click through for a video of the announcement.

Link via (CMU)

(more…)

Tags: CMU, obama

Heartland Robotics, founded by Rodney Brooks , formerly of iRobot,  has been operating in stealth mode for a couple of years now.

On 11/30 of last year, Heartland Robotics announced they had received an additional $20 million in funding. After that, it was revealed that they will be working on a worker type humanoid robot.

Supposedly the robot is humanoid from the waist up and is aimed at revitalizing the manufacturing industry, starting with a very low $5,000 price tag.

The robot could do things like pack boxes or monitor production lines and work 24 hours a day without a break.

And now it looks like Heartland Robotics are ramping up for production as they move from a 7,000 sq foot facility to an 18,400 square foot facility in Boston’s “Innovation District”.  Heartland Robotics also hopes to add 50 new jobs by the end of the year.

Bezos Expeditions, the investment company of Jeff Bezos from Amazon, has invested in Heartland Robotics.  Amazon also now owns Zappos, which uses the Kiva warehouse robots.  We think Heartland Robotics would be a good match for the Kiva robotics system.  The Kiva robots could go fetch the required shelves and the Heartland Robotics robots could pack the boxes.

Link via (Boston.com) via (BotJunkie)

Tags: boston, heartland robotics, rodney brooks