DARPA Robot ARM Simulator

At the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American  visitors can play interactive games with the DARPA Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) robot, see what the robot "sees" on video screens behind the robot and learn how robots process information. The exhibit teaches visitors about how robotics can impact society and encourages young people to pursue careers in science and engineering. DARPA is also offering the public the opportunity to develop and test code to perform tasks in the robot simulator, then upload that code to an actual robot and watch it execute the task in real-time via the web.

The DARPA ARM robot is a cutting edge robot designed as a tool for researchers at leading U.S. universities and research labs to find ways to enhance the types of tasks robots can perform while minimizing the amount of human input necessary.

Worlds First Robotic Bellman at Yotel New York

Image: Yotel

When London based Yotel hotel chain will open it´s new hotel at Times Square New York on June 1st guest will meet 15 feet high white ABB robotarm Yobot in the lobby that mechanically stores guests' luggage for $ 2 a bag.
Yotel calls it "the worlds most radical approach to storing left luggage, it's fun, efficient and only the beginning of baggage management ..."
Standard rooms go for $149 a night through September 5, but Yotel's Facebook friends can acquire a rock-bottom rate during the first week of June. Find Yotel's Facebook page at facebook.com/YOTELHQ.

Empire Challenge 2011

Image: Northrop Firebird OPV

Empire Challenge (EC) is an annual joint and multinational live intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) interoperability demonstration sponsored by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Intelligence (USD/I). EC showcases emerging ISR capabilities and provides vital lessons learned to improve joint and combined ISR interoperability to support warfighters at the tactical edge. EC 11 will be conducted May 23 - June 3, with a focus on near-term capabilities that can be delivered rapidly to the warfighter.
Northrop Grumman is planning to publicly unveil its new and to showcase the use of up to four payloads – including high-definition full-motion video, electro-optical/infrared sensors, electronic support/direction finding and a communications relay — simultaneously on Firebird. The company plans to land, reconfigure the sensor payload and launch a new sortie within an hour. Northrop Grumman aspires to challenge General Atomics that dominate the US large UAV market with their Predator B systems.

Next Generation UAVs

Image: Boeing Phantom Ray

Boeing announced on May 3, that Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system (UAS) successfully completed its first flight April 27 at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
The 17-minute flight took place following a series of high-speed taxi tests in March that validated ground guidance, navigation and control and verified mission planning, pilot interface and operational procedures. Phantom Ray flew to 7,500 feet and reached a speed of 178 knots. The Phantom Ray is expected to have an operating altitude of 40,000 feet and a cruising speed of just over 600 mph, not so far from the speed of sound.

From Stealthy Helicopter to Stealthy Robot

The attack on Bin Laden used stealthy helicopters that had been top secret according to The New York Times, refering to aviation analysts, who studied news photographs of the surviving tail section revealing modifications to muffle noise and reduce the chances of detection by radar. The commandos blew up one of the helicopters after it was damaged in a hard landing.

U.S. Stealthy Helicopter Program
The U.S. military first started its helicopter stealth program in the 1980s, with AH-6 Little Bird attack helicopters. In the 1990s, U.S. Special Operations Command reportedly began working with Lockheed-Martin and Boeing to take some of the stealth technology used on the F-117 Nighthawk attack aircraft, and apply it to MH-60 Black Hawks. In 2004 the stealthy Comanche helicopter project was canceled after billions of dollars in cost overruns. With the lack of anti-aircraft threats in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army officials decided that full-scale production of stealth copters was not worth the cost.

U.S. Stealthy Robot Project

Credit: Lockheed Martin

Researchers at Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories (ATL) are working also on future military robotics systems that will be expected to perform with the same context understanding and impact awareness as their human counterparts. These capabilities will be required for both specific missions such as reconnaissance and surveillance as well as in everyday operations. In 2010 ATL has launched a research effort that focuses on developing a robot that could dynamically determine the path of least detection and audibly detect threats. To operate robustly, robots must be capable of perceiving various aspects of the world and reasoning over an integrated world model. Lockheed Martin ATL has developed a multi-layered world model representation that combines obstacles, threats and light sources to create a complete indivisilility model that can be used for planning in complec environments.

The robot is capable to covert robotic movement for reconnaissance, real-time audible detection and avoidance of threats, provides situation awareness via video and still imagery, extends the awareness of the warfighter while reducing risk.

The bot listens for sounds of human activity and the based on those sounds, and some clever programming, makes a guess as to where the humans might be looking. Then, if it needs to, the robot will find itself a dark hiding spot. The robot is equipped with a 3D laser scanner that allows the bot to create detailed maps of the building or area it is in. Along with a set of acoustic sensors that allow the robot to localize footsteps and voices, it can make a fairly accurate predictions about where you are on the map. When the robot sense a human is near it takes its pre-determined escape route to the dark and waits for the danger to pass, which means it may not be so stealthy in places lacking darkness or escape routes.

Underwater Robots to Help Japan Recovery

A team of experts and four state-of-the-art small underwater vehicles led by Texas A&M with funding from the National Science Foundation will be working with their Japanese counterparts to help with inspect damaged bridges, docks, and pipelines, as well as with victim recovery.  Restoration of utilities, transportation, and shipping typically depend on inspections by manual divers, who must work in murky waters and in fear of debris being washed into them by the high currents.  Advanced underwater vehicles have been used in the aftermath of Hurricanes Wilma and Ike and the Haiti Earthquake, but little is understood about how these robots can be used for disasters or how they can be designed to be more effective. In order to learn more about these technologies while helping local townships, the International Rescue Systems (IRS) institute in Japan invited the team to assist with an intense five-day effort from April 19-23 around Sendai and Minami-sanriku-cho.

The robots vary in size from the tiny football-sized AC-ROV to the suitcase-sized Seamor, making them easy to transport to the ravaged coastline around Sendai. Three of the robots carry specialized sonars that can see through muddy water and one, the Seabotix SARbot, has a gripper designed especially for rescuing victims trapped underwater.  All of the robots have a tether to allow the operators to see and control the vehicles in real time.

The five person team consists of industry experts from AEOS and Seabotix and researchers from Texas A&M and the University of South Florida’s Center for Ocean Technology. The team is being led by Prof. Robin Murphy, director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue (CRASAR) at Texas A&M University, and Dr. Eric Steimle from AEOS, a  Florida start-up company specializing in marine environmental monitoring.  The team members are donating their time and equipment through the CRASAR humanitarian Roboticists Without Borders program. CRASAR is the leading organization in the world and has deployed land, sea, and aerial robots to 11 previous disasters including the 9/11 World Trade Center Collapse and Hurricane Katrina.

Robotic Scouts of America

Boy Scout Robotics

The Robotics merit badge is part of the Boy Scouts of America´s (BSA) new curriculum emphasis on STEM: science, technology, engineering, and math. The BSA focus on STEM takes a fun, adventurous approach to helping Scouts develop critical skills that are relevant and needed in today’s competitive world. The new merit badge is one of 31 STEM-related merit badges that Scouts can earn.
“The Robotics merit badge is an example of how Scouting remains true to its roots to help young people be prepared,” said BSA Chief Scout Executive Bob Mazzuca. “While the guiding principles of Scouting - service to others, leadership, personal achievement, and respect for the outdoors - will never change, we continue to adapt programs to prepare young people for success in all areas of life.”
This merit badge involved approximately 14 months of development and input from more than 150 youth members, leaders, and industry professionals from across the nation. Earning the Robotics merit badge requires a Scout to understand how robots move (actuators), how they sense the environment (sensors), and how they understand what to do (programming). Scouts will spend approximately 14 hours meeting the requirements of this merit badge, including that they design a robot and demonstrate how it works. The BSA anticipates more than 10,000 Robotics merit badges will be earned in its first year.


The robotics merit badge program is supported by AUVSI Foundation, Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy, Carnegie Science Center, Roboworld, iRobot Corporation, LEGO Education North America, Museum of Science, Boston, NASA, National Electronics Museum, National Robotics Week, Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, University of Texas-Dallas, Science and Engineering Education Center, VEX Robotics, Inc.

Girl Scout Robotics

 

Sadly the 2.3 million Girl Scout of the USA (GSUSA) members are not part of the new boy scouts robotics STEM program but have to manage their own robotics program.

Girl Scouts started a partnership with FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) in 2008 to encourage more girls into STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers, and gender equity. In 2009 six Girl Scout teams from around the country participated in the 2009 FIRST Robotics World Championship. The partnership is made possible through support from the Motorola Foundation.

In 2011 the GENIUS robotics team from the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, a team of six girls, ages 12-13, was the first all girls team to win 1st place at the Georgia State FIRST LEGO League Tournament. GENIUS was one of 80 teams invited to participate in the FIRST World Festival in St. Louis in April 2011.  GENIUS chose to help out their friend, Quinn, a 10 year old boy who uses a wheelchair due to a neuromuscular disease called Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Quinn had trouble seeing behind his wheelchair, making it difficult to backup. The team developed a backup system for Quinn’s chair using a camera and monitor. The girls raised money and worked with engineers from Georgia Tech, to install the camera system on Quinn’s wheelchair. The girls are planning to install another backup system on the wheelchair of a fellow Girl Scout.
Girl scouts that participate in FIRST LEGO League (FLL) are eligible to earn the Girl Scout Robotics Participation Patch

Celebrating US Robotics 2011

NRW 2011 Events

The second annual National Robotics Week, April 9-17, is aimed to increasing public awareness of the growing importance of robot technology and the tremendous social and cultural impact that it will have on the future of how people will live, work and play worldwide. Key academic and industry influencers lead joint effort celebrating the United States’ role as a leader in robotics technology; introduce regional events and activities to allow the public to “Experience the Possibilities”
Online Events
The IEEE Computer Society hosts events inside of the virtual world of Second Life. Various events are scheduled including in-world presentations, tours of virtual robotics and AI applications, game engine AI applications, advanced bots, training & simulation robots, large scale bot culture communities, robotic machines, virtual learning centers, a robot hunt, and a week-long virtual robot building competition with prizes. Hands-on classes related to building and scripting robots, and Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) basics will be taught inworld.
Open House Events and demonstrations
RoMeLa, Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at Virginia Tech will host an open house event!
The Museum of Science and Industry will host a Robot Block Party during museum hours.
The AUVSI Foundation will host a demonstration of student-built ground robots on the National Mall, in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC
Robot Competions
RoboGames 2011 is the olympics of robots - The 8th annual International RoboGames features over 500 robots from over 30 countries competing in 70 events: combat robots, fire-fighters, LEGO bots, hockey bots, walking humanoids, soccer bots, sumo bots, and even androids that do kung-fu. 

Trend Report 2011: From Battlefield to Safe Urban Transport

Credit: Google Car

Robotland Robotics Trend Report 2011
Robotics has developed from science fiction into a strategic technology to revitalize industries, secure welfare and develop society. In recent years new robotics visions and roadmaps have been developed by leading roboticists proposing new concepts such as Japanese "Humanoid Servants", Korean "Ubiquitous Robotic Companions", European "Soft, Sentient Robot Companions for Citizens", or American "Unmanned Robotic Army".

In a serie of reports Robotland will describe some global robotics trends to create awareness and insights that might affect markets, industry and society in the near future. 

Battlefield Robotics
Military applications account for a growing number of robot installations. The U.S. and much of the rest of the world are betting big on the role of aerial drones. Especially in the United States the U.S. military has set clear goals on the capabilities of future unmanned systems. When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, it had just a handful of drones. Today, U.S. forces have around 7,000 unmanned vehicles in the air and an additional 12,000 on the ground, used for tasks including reconnaissance, airstrikes and bomb disposal. In 2009, for the first time, the U.S. Air Force trained more "pilots" for unmanned aircraft than for manned fighters and bombers.

This development leads also to concerns and debate about the use of robots on the battlefield. Almost 50 countries either already have or are developing war robots. Some researchers fear that advances in robotic systems will lead to more countries committing to war, since robots would be taking the place of humans on the battlefield.  Last year a group of researchers already called the international community to urgently commence a discussion about an arms control regime to reduce the threat posed by these systems. 

Unmanned Ground Vehicles for Safer Trafic

How applications for many military-derived robots can be transferred into civil applications is another issue. For example, UAVs for police and coastguard use are natural successors to military UAVs. The first promising examples of unmanned technology application on civil ground are the Google car, a visionary step from cyberspace into robotspace, and the European OFAV project, driving a van 13.000 km from Italy to Shanghai. It shows that it is possible to move people and goods in real life conditions with virtually no human intervention. The demand of greener and safer transport systems may be a strong driving force for further development of driverless vehicles. But many technical, and also legal, ethical and social issues have to be solved before the driverless fleet will arrive next to your door.
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Robotland  is watching and mindmapping global robotics trends continuously and systematically to identify disruptive innovations, market trends, business blind spots, market barriers and new investment opportunities in more than 60 countries.  Robotlands Global Robotics Brain has recently been featured of IEEE Spectrum Automaton  

US Rescue Robots for Japan Recovery

Credit: QinetiQ NA

20 days after the natural and nuclear disaster in Japan the Japanese government has now accepted disaster robots from abroad to assist Japan´s reponse teams to accomplish critical and complex recovery tasks at a safer distance from hazardous debris and other dangerous conditions.

US Robots bound for Japan
The first rescue robots have already been shipped from USA and will arrive in Japan the next days. After iRobots, sending four robots and six experts to Japan,  QinetiQ North America announced on March 28, it will provide unmanned vehicle equipment and associated training to aid in Japan’s natural disaster recovery efforts. The equipment being staged in Japan for rapid, on-call deployment includes QinetiQ North America’s Robotic Appliqué Kits, which turn Bobcat loaders into unmanned vehicles in just 15 minutes. The kits permit remote operation of all 70 Bobcat vehicle attachments, such as shovels, buckets, grapples, tree cutters and tools to break through walls and doors. The unmanned Bobcat loaders include seven cameras, night vision, thermal imagers, microphones, two-way radio systems and radiation sensors, and can be operated from more than a mile away to safely remove rubble and debris, dig up buried objects and carry smaller equipment.

Credit: QinetiQ NA, TALON

QinetiQ North America is also staging TALON and Dragon Runner robots in Japan in the event they are needed. TALON robots have previously withstood rigorous deployment and twice daily decontamination at Ground Zero. The TALON robots are equipped with CBRNE (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive) detection kits that can identify more than 7,500 environmental hazards including toxic industrial chemicals, volatile gases, radiation and explosive risks, as well as temperature and air quality indicators. The TALON robots provide night vision and sound and sensing capabilities from up to 1,000 meters away.

Credit: QinetiQ NA, Dragon Runner

QinetiQ North America’s lightweight Dragon Runner robots, designed for use in small spaces, will be available for investigating rubble piles, trenches, culverts and tunnels. Thermal cameras and sound sensors on the Dragon Runners can provide data from up to 800 meters away, permitting the robot’s “eyes and ears” to serve in spaces too small or dangerous for human access. In addition to the unmanned equipment, a team of QinetiQ North America technical experts will provide training and support to Japan’s disaster response personnel.


About QinetiQ North America
QinetiQ North America delivers world-class technology, responsive services, and innovative solutions for global markets, focusing on US government and commercial customers. More than 6,000 QinetiQ North America engineers, scientists and other professionals deliver high quality products and services that leverage detailed mission knowledge and proven, reliable tools and methodologies to meet the rapidly changing demands of national defense, homeland security and information assurance customers. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, QinetiQ North America had annual revenues of more than $1 billion in the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2010. QinetiQ North America is part of QinetiQ Group PLC (LSE:QQ). For more information, please visit www.QinetiQ-NA.com.

Decommissioning Scenario for Fukushima Dai-ichi

Credit: TEPCO - Fukushima Dai-ichi

Two weeks after the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that damaged the nuclear power plant Fukushima Dai-ichi the Japanese government and Tokyo Electric have mentioned the likely decommission of the nuclear plant when the current crisis has been overcome.

Decommissioning of Nuclear Power Plants
The process of decommissioning of a nuclear facilities is regulated and includes many administrative and technical actions such as all clean-up of radioactivity and progressive demolition of the plant. Once a facility is decommissioned, there should no longer be any danger of a radioactive accident or to any persons visiting it. After a facility has been completely decommissioned it is released from regulatory control, and the licensee of the plant no longer has responsibility for its nuclear safety. 
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has defined three options for decommissioning, the definitions of which have been internationally adopted: Immediate Dismantling (Early Site Release/DECON in the US), Safe Enclosure (SAFSTOR) or Entombment (ENTOMB).

According to the World Nuclear Association to date, about 80 commercial power reactors, 45 experimental or prototype reactors, over 250 research reactors and a number of fuel cycle facilities, have been retired from operation. Some of these have been fully dismantled. Most parts of a nuclear power plant do not become radioactive, or are contaminated at only very low levels. Most of the metal can be recycled. Proven techniques and equipment are available to dismantle nuclear facilities safely and these have now been well demonstrated in several parts of the world. Decommissioning costs for nuclear power plants, including disposal of associated wastes, are reducing and contribute only a small fraction of the total cost of electricity generation. Some examples of decommissioning are folowing below. 

Safe Enclosure Japan: The Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant (1966-2018) 

One of the first decommissioning projects in Japan was the Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear power plant in Japan, built in the early 1960s to a 160 MWe British Magnox design, and generated power from 1966 until it was decommissioned in 1998. The plant has passed decommissioning phase SAFSTOR (1998-1999) and DECON will end in 2018. The decommissioning cost was estimated to yen 93 Billion (Euro 660 Million) by the OECD in 2003. JPY 35 billion for dismantling and JPY 58 billion for waste treatment which will include the graphite moderator (which escalates the cost significantly).

Safe Enclosure USA: Three Mile Island (1979-2036)

Credit: CMU 

After the Three Mile Island, Unit 2 (TMI-2) accident on March 28, 1979, which resulted in severe damage to the reactor core, TMI-2 has been in a non-operating status since that time. The licensee conducted a substantial program to defuel the reactor vessel and decontaminate the facility. All spent fuel has been removed except for some debris in the reactor coolant system.
The first robotics vehicle to enter the basement of Three Mile Island after the meltdown, was Remote Reconnaissance Robot 1983 developed by CMU roboticist William L. ''Red'' Whittaker. The robot worked four years to survey and clean up the flooded basement. The CoreSampler, 1984, was a remote vehicle drilling core samples from the walls of the TMI basement to determine the depth and severity of radioactive material that soaked into the concrete at the site.

The plant defueling was completed in April 1990. The removed fuel is currently in storage at Idaho National Laboratory, and the U.S. Department of Energy has taken title and possession of the fuel. TMI-2 has been defueled and decontaminated to the extent the plant is in a safe, inherently stable condition suitable for long-term management. This long-term management condition is termed post-defueling monitored storage, which was approved in 1993. There is no significant dismantlement underway. The plant shares equipment with the operating TMI - Unit 1. TMI-1 was sold to AmerGen (now Exelon) in 1999. GPU Nuclear retains the license for TMI-2 and is owned by FirstEnergy Corp. GPU contracts with Exelon for maintenance and surveillance activities. The licensee plans to actively decommission TMI-2 in parallel with the decommissioning of TMI-1. The current radiological decommissioning cost estimate is $836.9 million. The current amount in the decommissioning trust fund is $576.8 million, as of December 31, 2009. Estimated Date For Closure: 12/31/2036.
Entombment USSR/Ukraine: Chernobyl Case (1986 - 2065)

Credit: Wikipedia - Chernobyl

The worst nuclear power plant accident in history, the only one classified as a level 7 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale, is the Chernobyl nuclear disaster on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the Ukrainian SSR (now Ukraine). After a 1991 fire in Reactor 2, this reactor was taken offline, and decommissioned in 1996.

First in 1999, after the End of the Cold War, reconnaissance robot Pioneer entered the radiated plant for structural analysis of the Unit 4 reactor building. Even this robot was developed by CMU roboticist William L. ''Red'' Whittaker and his company RedZone Robotics. The robot was a teleoperated mobile robot for deploying sensor and sampling payloads, with a mapper for creating photorealistic 3D models of the building interior, a coreborer for cutting and retrieving samples of structural materials, and a suite of radiation and other environmental sensors.

Credit: CMU/RedZone Pioneer

Reactor 3 was switched off in 2000 to close the plant. In early 2002 the European Commission paid the first installment of its promised €40m additional Shelter Fund. The fund was paid in four installments from 2001–2004. It helped to support the decommissioning work at the site.

In 1997 the Chernobyl Shelter Fund was established at the Denver 23rd G8 summit to finance the Shelter Implementation Plan (SIP). The plan calls for transforming the site into an ecologically safe condition by means of stabilization of the sarcophagus followed by construction of a New Safe Confinement (NSC). While the original cost estimate for the SIP was US$768 million, the 2006 estimate was $1.2 billion. The SIP is being managed by a consortium of Bechtel, Battelle, and Electricité de France, and conceptual design for the NSC consists of a movable arch, constructed away from the shelter to avoid high radiation, to be slid over the sarcophagus.
New Safe Confinement 2013

On 7 January 2010, the Ukrainian Government passed a state law to transform the Chernobyl shelter facility into an environmentally safe system in order to protect the surroundings from radiation. The programme will be executed in four stages. In the first stage, nuclear fuel will be moved to a storage facility, which will be completed by 2013. In the second stage which will be completed by 2025, all the reactors will be deactivated. The third stage involves maintaining the reactors until radiation drops to an acceptable level and is envisaged to be completed by 2045. The fourth and the final stage involves dismantling the reactors and clearing the site, which is expected to be completed by 2065.

Novarka is a French consortium for the construction of the new safe confinement over the Chernobyl shelter. Members of the consortium are Vinci, Bouygues (France), Nukem (Germany/UK), Hochtief (Germany) and some Ukrainian companies. In 2007 the Ukrainian authorities announced Novarka as winner of the $ 453 Million contract. Check the video animation below.



Demolition Robots at Dounreay plant, UK 

Credit: NDA - Brokk 40

In the UK robots have been used to take over from human staff to dismantle the uranium fuel reprocessing plant at Dounreay. The plant is too contaminated with radiation for human workers to carry out the work, so the site has turned to specialist demolition firm Brokk to supply the remotely-operated equipment that can work inside cells and a pond. Staff are drilling through the concrete that surrounds the plant to let the electric powered demolition robots move inside and begin dismantling it. The robots which are mounted on tracks like a construction excavator have been fitted with specially-designed tools.

Fukushima Dai-ichi 2011-20??

Depending on further crisis development and the final status of nuclear reactors at the power plant the decommissioning process and the recovering of the surroundings will take many years and cost billions of yen. Fukushimas will forever be remembered with the nuclear disaster caused by the earthquake and devastating tsunami on March 11, 2011. 

New Mini Spy Robot from iRobot

Credit: iRobot, 110 FirstLook

iRobot has released a new small ground robot called iRobot 110 FirstLook, that provides hasty situational awareness, performs persistent observation and investigates confined spaces. FirstLook is ideal for a range of infantry missions and special operations, including building clearing, raids and other close-in scenarios. It is

The robot can be used for situational awareness in a wide range of mission environments, maintain a persistent presence for more than six hours, can investigate tunnels, ditches, culverts and other hard-to-access places.

The robot weighs less than 2,2 kg and is only 25 cm long, 23 cm wide and 10 cm tall. The robot is throwable and survives 4,5 meter drops onto concrete and is waterproof to 90 cm. It is maneuverable in a variety of environments. The robot climbs steps up to 20 cm high, overcomes curbs and other obstacles, turns in place and self-rights when flipped over. FirstLook operates efficiently in challenging conditions. The robot gets more than 6 hours of runtime on a typical mission and up to 10 hours performing stationary video monitoring. The robot uses IR illumination to enhance low light and no light operations. Four built-in cameras with configurable video compression provide high situational awareness, allowing observation points in front of, behind and on both sides of the robot. The robot also includes twoway audio communication. The wrist-mounted, touchscreen operator control unit (OCU) is battery-powered and includes a built-in radio. Digital mesh networking allows multiple FirstLook robots to relay messages over greater distances, increasing Line of Sight and Non-Line of Sight capabilities. The robot offers multiple public and military radio band configurations.

New US Defense Robots Program

Credit: DARPA

US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA has launched a new robotics program aimed at creating machines to bolster military and defense activities and help human U.S. military personnel work more effectively. 

The new Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program seeks to create and demonstrate significant scientific and engineering advances in robot mobility and manipulation capability.  If successful, M3 will significantly improve robot capabilities through new approaches to engineering  better design tools, fabrication methods and control algorithms. 

M3 research partners include Carnegie Mellon University, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, University of California Santa Cruz, Cornell, Harvard, Tufts, and University of California, Berkeley, Case Western Reserve, Georgia Tech Research Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oregon State University, Tekrona, University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Florida's Institute of Human and Machine Cognition, Raytheon, Vecna Technologies and Boston Dynamics. 

US Ground Robots for Hazmat Mission in Japan

Credit: iRobot, 510 PackBot for HazMat  

One week after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan causing the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima site the Japanese government has asked for robotic help from other countries. One of the first robots that will arrive are from USA donated by iRobot.
NECN Eileen Curran reports that on Thursday morning, the Japanese military contacted US company iRobot asking for help. iRobot is donating two of its 510 PackBots and two 710 Warrior Robots to Japan, along with two week support of six employees. The packbots will be equipped with a hazmat sensor and the warriors will be fitted with a special gripper that can hold a fire hose. iRobot employees won´t be going into the nuclear power plant but actually teach the Japanese military how to use the robots. Nothing was said about the radiation risk for the robots.
According to a leading rescue robot expert microprocessors and especially CCD cameras are highly sensitive to radiation- and thus will unpredictably fail.

The iRobot 510 PackBot for HazMat Technicians detects and identifies dangerous chemical, radiological and organic compounds, providing warfighters, first responders and SWAT teams with critical information on a range of missions

The iRobot 710 Warrior is a powerful and rugged robot that carries heavy payloads, travels over rough terrain and climbs stairs while performing a variety of critical missions such as Bomb Disposal / EOD (IEDs / VBIEDs / UXOs), Route Clearance and Surveillance / Reconnaissance.

Global Hawk over Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant

Credit: Northrop Grumman

According to a Japanese government source the U.S. military will operate a Global Hawk unmanned high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft over Fukushima nuclear power plant, possibly on Thursday, to take a closer look at its troubled reactors. Photographs taken by the plane equipped with infrared sensors could provide a useful clue to what is occurring inside the reactor buildings, around which high-level radiation has been detected.

Credit: Digitalglobe: Fukushima Dai-ichi March 16,2011

The Global Hawk is able to provide high resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR)—that can penetrate cloud-cover and sandstorms— and Electro-Optical/Infrared (EO/IR) imagery at long range with long loiter times over target areas. It can survey as much as 40,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers) of terrain a day. Missions for the Global Hawk cover the spectrum of intelligence collection capability to support forces in worldwide peace, crisis, and wartime operations.

Tiny Floor Washer Robot for Men “spraying urine"

According to a survey by Western-style toilet manufacturer Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. in 2007 about 60 percent of adult Japanese men do not sit on the toilet to urinate. The survey of 518 men and an identical number of women whose ages ranged from their 30s to 50s showed that the younger the man, the more likely he is to sit down while peeing instead of the traditional method of standing up. Fuji TV conducted a test in which they placed special paper on the floor in a toilet stall and had a man use it in a traditional standing manner. The result was a floor covered with pee! Check video here.

Credit: iRobot

New Robot for "urine spraying" Men
Market leader iRobot might solve this problem with its latest floor washing robot, the tiny Scooba 230, unveiled at CES this year. The Scooba 230 has a three-stage cleaning system that washes, scrubs, then squeegees the floor – a process than iRobot claims neutralizes up to 97% of household bacteria. Unlike iRobot’s original Scooba, the Scooba 230 measures just 6.5 inches in diameter and 3.5 inches tall, so it can clean nooks and crannies that larger vacuums or robots cant reach. The Scooba 230 can clean rooms up to 150 square feet, so it’s ideal for the kitchen or a bathroom. Today, iRobot officially launched the Scooba 230. The robot costs $300, and comes with 2 virtual walls and 4 packets of hard floor cleaner.
Toilet Washer Robot
The next step might be a toilet washing robot. Some ideas and prototypes are already under way such as the toilet cleaning robot prototype developed at the department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechatronics, Ariel University Center, Israel. The robot attaches to the toilet seat and brushes around the bowl. Check out the video below.

Open Humanoid Platform Made in USA and Korea

Virginia Tech's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) has developed an Open Platform Miniature Humanoid Robot for Research, Education and Outreach called DARwIn-OP. Check out the demo video below.



DARwIn-OP (Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence - Open Platform) is a true open platform where users are encouraged to modify it in both hardware and software, and various software implementations are possible (C++, Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, etc.) The open source hardware is not only user serviceable thanks to its modular design, but also can be fabricated by the user. Publically open CAD files for all of its parts, and instructions manuals for fabrication and assembly are available on-line for free.
DARwIn-OP  is an affordable, miniature-humanoid-robot platform with advance computational power, sophisticated sensors, high payload capacity, and dynamic motion ability to enable many exciting research, education, and outreach activities. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States, DARwIn-OP has been developed by RoMeLa at Virginia Tech with collaboration with University of Pennsylvania, Purdue University and Korean Robotis Co., based on the award winning DARwIn (Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence) series humanoid robots in development since 2004.
DARwIn is a research platform for studying robot locomotion and sensing. It was also utilized as the base platform for Virginia Tech's first entry to the humanoid division of RoboCup 2007. The 560 mm tall, 3.6 kg robot (the latest version of DARwIn) has 20 degrees-of-freedom (DOF) with each joint actuated by coreless DC motors via distributed control with controllable compliance. Using a computer vision system and IMU, DARwIn can implement human-like gaits while navigating obstacles and traverse uneven terrain while implementing complex behaviors such as playing soccer.

The Future of Robotics is Self-Assembling

The global success of  apps for smartphones has cross-fertilized many Cyber-Physical System (CPS) ideas and concepts including Internet of Things, Internet for Robots and Ambient Intelligence. The next big hype might be apps for self-configuring modular robots - iMoBots. It could work like this: connect to a robot app store, download an app to a modular robot swarm and watch how the robot modules configure into the object of your choice i.e. a watch dog, a music box or a chair. In the future we might only need a "Buck of Stuff" with small, low-cost robot modules, that can connect to each other in a variety of shapes according to design needs and design instructions downloaded from the Internet.

Credit: Modular Robotics

The first commercially availabe robot modules are called Cubelets, developed by Modular Robotics, a  spin-off from Carnegie Mellon University Computational Design lab.
Cubelets are smart modular cube robots that can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires. The cubelets standard kit comes with 20 magnetic blocks in a variety of sensor, logic and actuator blocks, allowing to create simple reconfigurable cube robots that can drive around on a tabletop, respond to light, sound, and temperature, and have surprisingly lifelike behaviors. The Standard Cubelet pack with 20 cubes is available for $300 direct from Modular Robotics. The basic kit includes 20 Cubelets: Action Blocks: 2 Drive, 1 Rotate, 1 Speaker, 1 Flashlight, 1 Bar Graph, Sense Blocks: 1 Knob, 1 Brightness, 2 Distance, 1 Temperature, Think/Utility Blocks: 2 Inverse, 1 Minimum, 1 Maximum, 1 Battery, 2 Passive, 2 Blocker.
iMobot
The iMobot is a reconfigurable modular robot, developed at the Integration Engineering Lab, at University of California by Prof. Harry H. Cheng, has four controllable degrees of freedom. iMobot is designed for search and rescue operations as well as research and teaching.  iMobot has versatile locomotion including a unique feature of driving as though with wheels and lifting itself into a camera platform.


Credit: UCLA/IE Lab
Roombots
Researchers at the Biorobotics Lab, EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, are featuring the modular robotics platform Roombots designed to self-assemble into changing, active every-day environment elements, e.g. pieces of furniture. As they have multi-purpose features they can be used to assemble legged robots, like quadruped robots. Modular robot furniture can assemble itself, can change shape over time, move using actuated joints to different locations depending on the users needs. See: IKEA's nightmare

Construction with Quadrotor Teams
The last example is from the the GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania, where a team of quadrotors autonomously build tower-like cubic structures from laid out modular parts.

Credit: GRASP Lab

Research in Brain Controlled Robots

Researchers from USA and Switzerland demonstrated state-of-the-art research in brain controlled robotics at the AAAS 2011 Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Brain Controlled Telepresence Robot
José del R. Millan, Defitech professor at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, focused on how brain-machine interfaces can help patients limited in mobility to interact with their families. Not only can the patients keep mental control of the machine, but they can also perform daily tasks at the same time.
Out-of-body experience
Olaf Blanke, assistant professor of cognitive neuroscience at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, presented a virtual reality experiment that focused on self-consciousness in connection with body representation.
Brain Controlled Robot Arm Prothesis
Todd Kuiken, director at the Center for Bionic Medicine at Northwestern University and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, explained the neural interface technique “targeted reinnervation.” Glen Lehman, a retired U.S. Army sergeant who lost his arm while in combat in Iraq, accompanied Kuiken. When Lehman thinks about moving the arm, the arms moves.
Brain Controlled Robot Arm
Andrew Schwartz, professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh, also presented a way to control an artificial arm, but through the brain’s motor cortex. This would be beneficial for people with spinal cord injuries.

$ 2,1 million to U.S. Congress Promoters of Unmanned Systems

The US Defense Budget for 2012 continues strong funding for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) with $4.8 billion. This means jobs in the U.S. defense industry and saving lives of U.S. war fighters. One of the most influential promoters of Unmanned Systems in the U.S. is the Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus (USC), originally formed as the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Caucus in 2009. USC is a bipartisan group of 32 Republican and 10 Democrat members of the U.S. Congress, committed to the growth and expansion of unmanned systems in defense,  intelligence, law enforcement, homeland security and science. USC defines its mission "to educate members of Congress and the public on the strategic, tactical, and scientific value of unmanned systems; actively support further development and acquisition of more systems, and more effectively engage the civilian aviation community on unmanned system use and safety."

Infonaut/GRB2011: Members of the U.S. Unmanned Systems Caucus (Dem=blue, Rep=red)

Co-Chairs of the USC are Republican Congressman Buck McKeon and Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar. McKeon is representative for California’s 25th District that holds several military locations, including Fort Irwin, Edwards Air Force Base, Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, and the Marine Mountain Warfare Training Center. McKeon is also the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, ASC, who influence military policy and have the power to create demand for this industry's commodities. 11 of the USC members are also members of the ASC.

2,1 Million Defense Industry Donations
The hundreds of billions of dollars the federal government spends each year on defense are part of the reason defense firms invest millions of dollars in lobbying activities and campaign contributions. Defense companies concentrate their political donations on members of the House and Senate Appropriations subcommittees that allocate federal defense money. 

Infonaut/CRP

According to data from The Center for Responsive Politics, CRP, a nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics and the effect of money and lobbying activity on elections and public policy, the defense sector has spend about $ 139 Million in 2010 on lobbying. The sector includes defense aerospace, defense electronics and other miscellaneous defense companies. The sector’s biggest companies include Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics, as well as Northrop Grumman and Raytheon. In 2010, more than 1.000 lobbyists represented about 300 clients.
Defense Campaign Donations 2009-2010 
According to data from the Senate Office of Public Records and CRP 29 USC members of 42 have received  about $ 2,1 million from defence industry during the 2009-2010 campaign. The top 3 recipients, 2009-2010 are Co-Chair Buck McKeon R-CA) $322.900, Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) $ 172.900 and Duncan D. Hunter (R-CA) $128.850.
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See also: The House Ethical Rules  and White House fact sheet about special interests reform.