Robot Living

Researchers from MIT and the University of Washington have collaborated to create a quadrotor helicopter that navigates using a Microsoft Kinect.

Autonomous environment mapping helicopters? Just add some weapons and it sounds like a science fiction movie .

Link via (MSNBC)

A new study from the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences shows that babies who have seen a robot interact socially with humans will also interact with it socially.

The babies were put in a room on there mother’s lap with some toys.  After a few minutes the robot is revealed and Rechele Brooks, an assistant researcher,  began to interact with the robot.  When asked where it’s head was, the robot would point to it’s head.  After 90 minutes of interaction like this, the researcher would leave, to see if the baby would continue interacting with the robot.

The robot beeped and shifted its head slightly — enough of a rousing to capture the babies’ attention. The robot turned its head to look at a toy next to the table where the baby sat on the parent’s lap. Most babies — 13 out of 16 — who had watched the robot play with Brooks followed the robot’s gaze. In a control group of babies who had been familiarized with the robot but had not seen Morphy engage in games, only three of 16 turned to where the robot was looking.

Shown here is Andrew Meltzoff, the co director of the institute with Rajesh Rao, an associate professor, and the robot used in the study.

I guess we are now training babies to welcome there new robotic overlords.

Link via (Science Daily)

Graduate students at the University of Washington have created tiny robots as big as your fingernail and thinner than a dime.

In this photo from the University of Washington, the students have put tiny paperclips onto the robot to show that it can carry up to seven times it’s own weight.

On the underside of the robot are many tiny feet.

Technically it is a centipede, with 512 feet arranged in 128 sets of four. Each foot consists of an electrical wire sandwiched between two different materials, one of which expands under heat more than the other. A current traveling through the wire heats the two materials and one side expands, making the foot curl. Rows of feet shuffle along in this way at 20 to 30 times each second.

These tiny shuffling feet allow the robot to move at a rate of three feet per hour.   Quite impressive when carrying seven times your own weight.

Link via (Science Daily)

Researchers at the University of Washington recently studied the RoboSapien V2, the Rovio, and the Spykee robots to search for security flaws.

All of these robots can be accessed over the internet.  Unfortunately the researchers have found several easily hackable security flaws in the robots and their internet connections.

Imagine if your home robot was controlled by  hackers and they spied on you?

Link via (IEEE Spectrum)

iRobot announced it has purchased technology from the University of Washington. Seen here are the components of Seaglider, an underwater AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle).

Seaglider works by diving down and then surfacing. When it surfaces, it’s antennae is in the air and it can determine its position via GPS. It also sends in its data via a satellite and gets any new instructions.

Seaglider is 1.8 m long and weighs 52 kg, a small enough size to launch or retrieve from a small boat by two people.

Helen Greiner, co-founder and chairman of iRobot, said the company has a strong track record of transferring new technology from research initiatives into products that support military missions an stated,

Ten years ago we transformed the original PackBot into a combat-proven robot used today by soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan and licensing the Seaglider from the University of Washington will help our robots conquer new underwater frontiers.

Link to more photos of Seaglider here.

Link via (Engadget)