Robot Living

iRobot announced a new version of their glider robot Seaglider.
Seaglider is UUV or unmanned underwater vehicle that operates between 65 and 3,280 feet underwater and has completed mission longer than 9 months without needing a battery replacement.  The Seaglider can also house a variety of sensors such as  oxygen sensors and PAR (Photosynthetically Active Radiation) sensors.

The press release states:

Seaglider can now be outfitted with a larger set of fairings that significantly increases the UUV’s volume and mass payload capabilities. Payload mass is doubled over Seaglider’s original design to four kilograms and payload volume has expanded 650 percent to more than 21,000 cubic centimeters, resulting in the ability to integrate both larger sensors and a greater number of sensors with Seaglider.

iRobot also has two other seafaring robots in it’s arsenal. One is called the  the Transphibian and the other is the 15A Ranger.  iRobot also offers a five day training program to become a certified Seaglider pilot.  Three days are in the classroom and two are in the field.

Link via (Boston.com)

Tags: iRobot, UUV

A new robot was recently unveiled at the Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots in Paris.

The robot called Paraswift is a collaboration between Disney Reasearch ( yes, as in Walt Disney) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

The robot uses a spinning tube to create a vortex that creates suction, allowing the robot to stick to the wall.  Shown here is the robot rolling up the side of the building on a piece of fabric.

Once the robot reaches where it should be on the building a mechanical arm made of carbon fiber is deployed to open the paraglider and the vortex is turned off.  The robot then falls off the building and paraglides down.

Check out the video from New Scientist after the break.

Link via (New Scientist) via (Crave)

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The video here shows Mabel the robot running.  When you run you’re feet actually leave the ground and as you can see in this video, so do Mabel’s feet.  I can’t imagine this is easy to accomplish in a robot.

Mabel is a collaboration between Jessy W Grizzle at the University of Michigan and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon. Mabel can run at a top speed of 6.8 miles an hour.

Link via (The Atlantic)

Tags: carnegie mellon, The Robotics Institute, University of Michigan

Flybox is a very thin six blade helicopter made by Skybotix, a spinoff from the Autonomous Systems Lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

This flying robot comes with ROS installed,  uses an ARM 32 bit controller and can last for up to 30 minutes at at time.

Available options include a USB camera, WiFi, XBee and Bluetooth.  No word on price yet.

To learn more, check out the free demonstration at Swissnex in San Francisco on September 30,2011.

Link via (Swissnex)

Tags: San Fransisco, Skybotix, Swiss, Swissnex, UAV

Harry H. Cheng and Graham Ryland from UC Davis founded a company called Barobo, which has just licensed it’s iMobot modular robot to UC Davis.

“UC Davis is proud of its leadership in engineering inventions such as this modular robot technology. We are very pleased to have partnered with the company founded by two inventors to take this technology to market to provide innovative robotic platform for various applications,” said David McGee, executive director of UC Davis InnovationAccess, which manages intellectual property and licensing issues on behalf of the university.

iMobot is a fully functional robot that can crawl, creep and roll along.  While they robot is not built for a specific purpose, it could be used for search & rescue, military or law enforcement applications.  UC Davis hopes to commercialize the robot.

Click through for a video.

Link via (Physorg.com)
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Tags: Barobo, iMobot, UC Davis