YouTube - Robot learns to flip pancakes

YouTube - Robot learns to flip pancakes

Robot skill learning is becoming pretty advanced and reliable.

South Korea deploys robot capable of killing intruders along border with North - Telegraph

South Korea deploys robot capable of killing intruders along border with North - Telegraph: "the operator can order it to fire its gun or 40mm automatic grenade launcher."

Revenge of the quadrocopters: now they move in packs (video) -- Engadget

Revenge of the quadrocopters: now they move in packs (video) -- Engadget

Very slick work from the GRASP lab at U. Penn.

Military drone aircraft: Losses in Afghanistan, Iraq - latimes.com

Military drone aircraft: Losses in Afghanistan, Iraq - latimes.com

Thirty-eight Predator and Reaper drones have crashed during combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and nine more during training on bases in the U.S.

This is why autonomy is so important and why the USAF is being pushed to get pilots out of the loop.

Blogging, Tic Tac Toe and the Future of Math at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics

A better way of doing science: Blogging, Tic Tac Toe and the Future of Math at Steven Landsburg | The Big Questions: Tackling the Problems of Philosophy with Ideas from Mathematics, Economics, and Physics

When will robotics and computer science become as collaborative as this?

Air Force to launch robotic winged space plane - Yahoo! News

Air Force to launch robotic winged space plane - Yahoo! News: "After a decade of development, the Air Force this month plans to launch a robotic spacecraft resembling a small space shuttle to conduct technology tests in orbit and then glide home to a California runway."

Later, in the article: "The Air Force released only a general description of the mission objectives: testing of guidance, navigation, control, thermal protection and autonomous operation in orbit, re-entry and landing."

Adorable Laundry-Folding Robot Gives Your Towels Fastidious Attention | Popular Science

Ahhh, this is how the guys at Willow Garage are going to make money .... Adorable Laundry-Folding Robot Gives Your Towels Fastidious Attention

Unmanned Aircraft in Commercial Airspace

Robotics Business Review: "On December 3, 2009, GE Aviation and partner AAI Corp., makers of the Shadow family of tactical unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), successfully demonstrated the ability for an unmanned aircraft to be controlled by a four-dimensional trajectory (4DT) FMS certified by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for operations in the U.S. national airspace system (NAS)."

ICRA'10 Program

ICRA'10 Program available.

Such a huge conference.

Mataric USC

Maja Mataric, a former student of Rod Brooks at MIT and a pioneer of behavior-based robotics, now runs a lab at the University of Southern California, focusing on assistive robots. See more here.

Or just go to the cool videos.

Robot bartenders

Great attitude:

“We really just like robots and cocktails, and both together seemed like the perfect thing,” said Simone Davalos, one of the organizers of the Barbot 2010 event. “There is no real aim for world-changing, paradigm-shifting technological achievement, at least not from our perspective, but who knows? Lots of amazing things have happened over cocktails.”

Wired article.

Journal of Autonomous Robots

Not a lot of multi-robot stuff in the Journal of Autonomous Robots. In fact only one in the two 2010 issues and only 1-2 more in the 13 "Online First" articles. The articles that do appear are swarm robotics.

Here is the only multi-robot article for 2010, on swarm robots self assembling and repairing themselves.

Buying UAV time instead of UAVs

The lead story in this months Robotic Trends newsletter (here) is about AAI a company offering UAV time to defense, industry and academia.

I think this is a fantastic way to run a UAV company. I think a big reason that UAVs are not getting the penetration they should, outside of defense, is the technical skill required to use them, fix them, service them and integrate them into other systems. AAI is doing all that for you and providing the data. We'll see if this opens the floodgates.

What is AI? When will we get it?

A silicon.com article ask what AI really is and when we will get there. With quotes from people like Daphne Koller, Eric Horvitz and Warwick.

In today's popular imagination AI still conjures up ideas of intelligent robots - Data in Star Trek, or a disembodied and often malevolent super-intelligence of the kind seen in The Matrix. These incarnations of AI project an image of machine intelligence that is superior to man's, at least when it comes to things like reasoning and problem solving. Emotionally, of course, fictional AI has always been a bit simplistic - if not downright psychopathic, and keen to do away with the human competition.

Lots and lots of drones ...

The Fiscal Year 2010 budget calls for funding to field and sustain a 50-drone orbit by 2013. But the addition of another 15 orbits by 2015 won’t be the end of it. According to the draft QDR, the Pentagon is also “exploring ways to enhance the effectiveness of its fleet of ISR aircraft by developing innovative sensor technologies, support infrastructures and operating concepts.”

More

Finally a useful robot

Korean scientists have created a domestic robot that cleans up, dumps clothes in the washing machine and even heats food in the microwave.

Full article.

"The network capabilities of the robot makes it capable of doing jobs in areas that are dangerous, contaminated or previously unvisited, as every movement can be remote controlled,'' You said.

..... Sounds perfect for my bedroom.

Alternative energy UAVs

There are various UAVs around that are powered with alternative means, including solar. This one from ONR is interesting, powered by a fuel cell.

I suspect that as UAVs take on a wider range of forms and as they are used for more different missions than current manned aerial vehicles, we'll see more creative ways to use alternative energy.

EuroHawk

European version of the GlobalHawk

http://warnewsupdates.blogspot.com/2009/10/eurohawk-uav-finally-goes-global.html

ChemBot

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10375216-1.html

Now this is a fun robot.

Deployed USV

Israel's unmanned "boat"

The Israeli navy will shortly begin deploying unmanned craft along the Mediterranean coast, particularly off the Hamas-held Gaza Strip in the south and Lebanon in the north where Hezbollah guerrillas operate.

This vehicle is fully remote controlled from shore, but would provide an interesting platform for future MRS.