Jan 16
19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMBDUomv_Fo
ssince controversial ‘hoverboards,’ first graced the markets, the misnomer of the design has made for an ironic distinction —they don’t actually hover.Now, Arca Space Corporation in New Mexico has developed an electronic flying vehicle that can hover over any terrain, including water. The design can hold up to 243 lbs and flies a foot above the ground – at a price
The ArcaBoard’s creators are calling it the first revolutionary breakthrough in motion since the bicycle, automobile, and airplane, and say it will allow every person to fly whenever they want.That is, if you have $20,000 to buy one The ArcaBoard is equipped with 272 horsepower and 203,000 watts of installed power.
Its maximum endurance is just six minutes, though, so you’d better plan for a short trip.The rectangular flying machine is the lightest personal vehicle ever created, according to Arca, and can move in every direction, including upward.
It is made from composite materials, and weighs 180 lbs.To achieve flight, the design features 36 high power electric ducted fans, which can reach a maximum thrust of 430 lbs.By using 36 power fans we ensure that even in the case of multiple motor failures there are enough motors remaining to take over so you keep on riding,’ the website says.
And, a stabilization system built into the ArcaBoard can be controlled by smartphone to ensure a safe ride.
The hovercraft can also be steered by its rider’s body.
Inside of the board, 90 percent of the space is occupied by the fans, along with controllers and batteries.These components create heat, which is then dissipated through a high performance coding system.ArcaBoard represents a revolution in motion,’ said Dumitru Popescu, CEO of ARCA Space Corporation.For the last 17 years we have developed aerospace technologies that looked to the sky. We took our knowledge and applied it to everyone’s dreams. Dreams of flying.’
Jan 16
5
Starship Technologies is leading the revolution in local delivery. By introducing smart, friendly robots that travel the sidewalks, Starship is aiming to ultimately make the local delivery of goods free.
For the delivery of goods we’re doing what broadband did for the delivery of content. We call it the Broadband of Things.
SELF-DRIVING DELIVERY ROBOT
Starship robots are revolutionary devices that can carry parcels or grocery bags within a 3 mile (5km) radius. Starship’s technology and approach allows us to lower the cost of local delivery by a factor of 5-10x.
Parcels and groceries are stored in Starship’s hubs and delivered when the clients request a delivery via the mobile app. It takes 5-30 minutes for the shipment to arrive, and the journey of the robot can be monitored on the shoppers smartphone device.
FRIENDLY AND SMART
Starship’s robots can drive intelligently on the sidewalks at pedestrian speeds. They know their location and can navigate their way through an area with perfect precision all whilst seamlessly merging with pedestrian traffic. The robots can detect obstacles, adjust speed or stop and safely cross the streets.
Additionally, Starship’s robots are monitored by human operators who can, at any time, take control over the device and view the world through the robot’s eyes, communicating with people around it if necessary.
SAFE AND SECURE
Starship’s robots run at pedestrian speed and weigh no more than 40 pounds fully loaded. They are inherently safe, navigate around objects and people, and do not cause inconvenience.
For security, the cargo bay is locked throughout the delivery and can be opened only by the recipient via the mobile phone. The location of the robots are tracked throughout the journey.
SAVINGS EVERYWHERE
Starship’s robots have practically zero environmental footprint. They run on batteries and consume less energy than most light bulbs.
Starship’s platform replaces door-to-door deliveries currently done by large delivery vehicles. Instead, the delivery vans can drop their parcels in bulk at Starship hubs, resulting in massive efficiency gain. It also helps to replace around one third of trips and saves an hour per day per household normally spent on personal shopping trips on average.
source:https://www.starship.xyz/concept/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28243-painting-bot-follows-your-eyes-to-create-art/
It’s no Picasso, but it’s a start. A robotic arm that can be controlled with your eyes has just painted its first picture: a simple image of a house, grass and the sun.
Developed by Aldo Faisal of Imperial College London and his team, the system takes a different approach to that used for other robot artists, which are simply programmed to draw. Instead of operating on its own, their bot extends the human body by providing it with a third, artificial arm. “It’s the first step to human augmentation with additional limbs,” says Faisal.
The arm uses an off-the-shelf eye-tracker to follow a person’s gaze, sending instructions to an industrial robot arm depending on how and where the painter looks. Faisal focused on gaze gestures that could control the robot seamlessly, in the same way as picking up objects without thinking about how to move your limbs. The commands are able to move the arm instantly using, for example, fixed gazes and sequences of prolonged blinks.
Dec 15
22
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeX5VqerOP4
The picture at the top of this article almost definitely isn’t Verb’s new surgical robot. It’s Taurus, from SRI Robotics, which (according to a press release) “is licensing next-generation robotics technology to Verb Surgical that we believe will impact both the open and minimally invasive surgery markets and ultimately make the benefits of robotic surgery accessible to more patients around the world.”
While Taurus, originally designed as a bomb-disposal robot, is very much not a surgical robot in its current implementation, it represents several technologies that are very valuable in a surgical context: highly dexterous small manipulators and an advanced teleoperation system with haptic feedback.
The SRI press release also says that “Verb Surgical is developing a new robotic surgery platform that will integrate technologies such as advanced imaging, data analysis, and machine learning to enable greater efficiency and improved outcomes across a wide range of surgical procedures,” which is interesting because of the reference to machine learning. Machine learning can be applied to all sorts of things, of course, but existing commercial surgical robots have mostly steered far away from any kind of learning behaviors or anything that is in the least bit autonomous. If the technology can be made reliable enough, it would be an enormous advance if surgical robots could collaboratively lend their intelligence to human-controlled surgery.
This is true for the same reason that autonomous cars are better drivers than humans are: they have the potential to digest enormous amounts of data (including types that humans can’t directly access) and rapidly make highly informed decisions. We’re not suggesting that purely robotic surgeons are the way to go anytime soon, but as intelligent tools, they could be invaluable.
Along with Taurus, SRI also has been developing more traditional surgical robots, which could also be part of Verb’s new robotics platform. The M7 telerobotic surgical system is designed to do all kinds of crazy things, providing auditory, visual, and tactile sensation, tremor compensation, and even motion compensation for operating in a moving vehicle (!). Over the last decade, the M7 has been demonstrated in an underwater laboratory and in microgravity. The most recent look at the system that I can find is this very brief overview from SRI’s 2015 open house:
Perhaps we’re focusing too much on SRI here, but we know about at least some of their robotics technology, which is more than we know about most of the rest of these guys. And this is all speculation on our part, mind you: we don’t have much information at all on exactly what Verb is going to be doing. There are about a hundred people working for Verb in Mountain View, Calif., doing…stuff. And there are likely to be even more, soon, continuing to do…stuff. Hopefully, at some point not too terribly long from now we’ll find out what all the stuff is, and until then, we’ll just have to keep on speculating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6gai4SbRIU
A 26-year-old man who is paralysed in both legs has walked for the first time in five years – just by thinking about it. He is the first person to have his brain activity recorded and used to control a muscle-stimulating device in his legs.
Every year, 250,000 to 500,000 people worldwide suffer spinal cord injuries, which can leave them partially or completely paralysed below the site of damage.
Many rehabilitation clinics already offer functional electric stimulation (FES) devices, which activate the nerves that innervate leg muscles at the push of a button. But people with upper-body paralysis are not always able to operate the FES in this way. The new system bypasses the button and returns control to the brain.
“We want to re-establish the connection between the brain and the leg muscles, to bring back the function that was once present,” says Zoran Nenadic at the University of California Irvine. To do that, Nenadic and his colleagues combined an FES system with a brain-computer interface.
The team developed an electrode cap that picks up the brainwaves created when a person thinks specifically about walking or standing still. They tailored the device to pick up brain signals from their volunteer – a man who has had little sensation below his shoulder blades for five years.
Virtual training
The group created an algorithm to translate the two patterns of brain activity into signals that would switch an FES device attached to the man’s legs on or off. Before they tested the device in a real-world setting, the group trained their volunteer to use the device in virtual reality. At the start of training, the man could control whether the device was on or off with his thoughts 70 per cent of the time. “We got this up to about 99 per cent accuracy,” says Nenadic. Throughout the training period, the man also underwent physical exercises to strengthen his leg muscles.
When the team felt the man was ready, they taught him to walk in the real world. “When we told him to, he could start walking,” says Nenadic. “He walked 1.8 metres to a traffic cone, could stop for 30 seconds, and then continue the length of a 3.6 metre course.”
With practice, the man was able to walk the course six times in a row. During the test, the man was supported by a harness, to catch him if he fell. But he never did fall, says Nenadic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVYz7g-qLjs
At the recent International Conference on Robotics and Automation, MIT researchers presented a printable origami robot that folds itself up from a flat sheet of plastic when heated and measures about a centimeter from front to back.
Weighing only a third of a gram, the robot can swim, climb an incline, traverse rough terrain, and carry a load twice its weight. Other than the self-folding plastic sheet, the robot’s only component is a permanent magnet affixed to its back. Its motions are controlled by external magnetic fields.
“The entire walking motion is embedded into the mechanics of the robot body,” says Cynthia R. Sung, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science and one of the robot’s co-developers. “In previous [origami] robots, they had to design electronics and motors to actuate the body itself.”
Joining Sung on the paper describing the robot are her advisor, Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; first author Shuhei Miyashita, a postdoc in Rus’ lab; Steven Guitron, who just received his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT; and Marvin Ludersdorfer of the Technical University of Munich.
Watch the MIT researchers’ origami robot fold itself up and complete tasks.
Video: Melanie Gonick/MIT
Fantastic Voyage
The robot’s design was motivated by a hypothetical application in which tiny sheets of material would be injected into the human body, navigate to an intervention site, fold themselves up, and, when they had finished their assigned tasks, dissolve. To that end, the researchers built their prototypes from liquid-soluble materials. One prototype robot dissolved almost entirely in acetone (the permanent magnet remained); another had components that were soluble in water.
“We complete the cycle from birth through life, activity, and the end of life,” Miyashita says. “The circle is closed.”
In all of the researchers’ prototypes, the self-folding sheets had three layers. The middle layer always consisted of polyvinyl chloride, a plastic commonly used in plumbing pipes, which contracts when heated. In the acetone-soluble prototype, the outer layers were polystyrene.
Slits cut into the outer layers by a laser cutter guide the folding process. If two slits on opposite sides of the sheet are of different widths, then when the middle layer contracts, it forces the narrower slit’s edges together, and the sheet bends in the opposite direction. In their experiments, the researchers found that the sheet would begin folding at about 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once the robot has folded itself up, the proper application of a magnetic field to the permanent magnet on its back causes its body to flex. The friction between the robot’s front feet and the ground is great enough that the front feet stay fixed while the back feet lift. Then, another sequence of magnetic fields causes the robot’s body to twist slightly, which breaks the front feet’s adhesion, and the robot moves forward.
Outside control
In their experiments, the researchers positioned the robot on a rectangular stage with an electromagnet at each of its four corners. They were able to vary the strength of the electromagnets’ fields rapidly enough that the robot could move nearly four body lengths a second.
In addition to the liquid-soluble versions of their robot, the researchers also built a prototype whose outer layers were electrically conductive. Inspired by earlier work from Rus and Miyashita, the researchers envision that a tiny, conductive robot could act as a sensor. Contact with other objects — whether chemical accretions in a mechanical system or microorganisms or cells in the body — would disrupt a current passing through the robot in a characteristic way, and that electrical signal could be relayed to human operators.
“Making small robots is particularly challenging, because you don’t just take off-the-shelf components and bolt them together,” says Hod Lipson, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University, who studies robotics. “It’s a challenging angle of robotics, and they’ve been able to solve it.”
“They use digital manufacturing techniques so that the intelligence of the manufacturing is embedded in the material,” Lipson adds. “I think the techniques they describe would scale to smaller and smaller dimensions, so they by no means have reached a limit.”
Nov 15
16
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fpcnm_90z4
隨著通訊技術演進，手機背殼的彈丸之地可能就塞進了 2G、3G、4G、Wi-Fi、GPS，甚至是 NFC 天線，空間已經飽和，但是未來還有更多的通訊技術要塞進手機背殼之後，在手機體型不變的前提下，工研院研發的「雷射誘發積層式 3D 線路技術」，是目前最先進的解決方案之一。
雷射誘發積層式 3D 線路技術（Laser Induced Metallization 3D Circuit，LIM-3D）的核心，能將獨特配方的「奈米活性觸發膠體」噴塗在任何能於任意不規則曲面上，直接製作多層電路上，包括玻璃、陶瓷、金屬、任意高分子材質等，輔以雷射圖案化及金屬沉積，可在不規則曲面上製作多層金屬線路。由於活性膠體同時還能當做觸發層與絕緣層，所以能用於多層 3D 金屬微結構的製作。
這個技術能賦與天線設計更高的自由度，讓天線結構更加微型化且多樣化，最大的產業效益是突破目前天線市場天線製造的領域中，德國所主導的技術佔有九成市場的局面，當物聯網時代連網裝置的多元天線需求來臨時候，台灣業者將因為這個關鍵技術，可以有更多的產業發揮空間。
Nov 15
12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TML8KQrYdw
由德國公司 Bosch 資助的新創 Deepfield Robotics 開發設計田間機器人名為 Bonirob，只有一臺小車的大小。Bonirob 可以接手簡化田間繁瑣的事務，像是播種、插秧和除草，全由機器人處理。Bonirob 經由機器學習領域中，決策樹學習 (decision tree learning) 的過程，還能夠分辨農作物和雜草，而不需要施放除草劑。
Deepfield 公司專案經理 Amos Albert 說：「這一陣子，Bonirob 經由辨別葉子形狀、顏色和大小，能夠越來越精確區別我們要的作物和其他不要植物之間的不同。」
Bonirob 的除草套件叫「ramming death rod」，能夠徹底打擊雜草，讓作物能在相對優勢下成長。在胡蘿蔔田間試驗中，除草套件有 90% 的效率，並且不需要農藥。除了田間工作，Bonirob 也同時能監測田間狀況，判斷植珠生長的狀況，是否需要施肥或是需要水。
Oct 15
19
The wheelchair is electric powered and balances on two wheels while driving on even ground. To climb and descend stairs or overcome bigger obstacles a set of tracks can be lowered dynamically to keep the user level at all times.
Oct 15
19
Makerarm是款多功能的機械手臂，它支援更換各種工作刀頭與模組，不但能夠包辦3D列印、雷射、雕刻、切削、繪圖等工作，使用者也能透過HDK開發 各種新功能，讓Makerarm能夠擴充更多功能，更棒的是它的尺寸並不笨重，全機重量只有8.2公斤，讓一般使用者也能方便使用與收納。
可換刀頭發揮多種功能
Makerarm所瞄準的使用者是永遠都有用不完創意的創客，讓創客能夠擁有各種實用工具，將這些創意透過Makerarm化作實際成品。Makerarm的外型與一般機械手臂相當類似，具有可以上下升降與水平旋轉的機構，特別之處在於它的「手掌」的部分為模組化刀頭，使用者可以依所需更換刀頭，讓Makerarm發揮各種功能。
Makerarm最主要的功能就是3D列印，它可以在各種平面上進行3D列印，由於它的手臂能夠大範圍轉動，因此能夠列印物件的尺寸也相當大，最大的直徑可達30吋（76.2公分），高度則可達10吋（25.4公分），實用度相當高。
Makerarm的雷射刀頭採用功率為500mW的雷射（波長為405奈米），能夠在塑膠、木材、皮革、硬紙板等物件上蝕刻出各種圖案。雕刻與銑削功能能夠對塑膠、木材等軟性物件進行加工，切割刀頭則是能夠對乙烯基聚合物（如PVC）與各式模板加工，繪圖功能則是讓Makerarm能夠握著各種筆畫出設定的圖案。
此外Makerarm也能進行印刷電路板加工，對電路板銑削、鑽孔、焊接、上料組裝等PCBA製程（Printed Cirruit Board + Assembly）。若裝上真空吸盤或是電磁等夾具模組並配合組裝模組，就能讓Makerarm就能充當搬運各種零件的機械手臂，並以螺絲或膠將物件組裝起來。