Category: Robot
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Acting the part
Any robot that moves, performs. But those robots that are built or programmed explicitly to perform can accentuate a repertoire of multiply articulated gestures with naturalistic movements and interaction.
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Exoskeleton gait
In the tradition of bionics, wearers strap a motorised assemblage to their body, and the device senses nerve signals running through the limbs, and amplifies these into movements. It is designed for people with poor mobility (broken leg, aged etc) and rehabilitation.
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Self-designing resilient robot gaits
The robot from Cornell University in this video ‘generates a conception of itself’ and improvises ways of moving around. At startup, the design has been left incomplete, and the robot itself finishes the design.
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Speeding beyond the human
Most robots I’ve seen move at a very deliberate pace. The computational challenge of processing multiple signals, and deciding what to do next (while not draining the battery too much) mean that most research robots take a long time to do pretty much anything.
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Greymouth rescue robot fails. Others follow.
Rescue robots are among the more compelling robot applications, particularly if they can prove themselves as reliable explorers of the places where people can’t go. They promise to reveal truth in the unknown, and provide a hope where it is dwindling.
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Virtuosabots: all-singing, all-dancing robots
The HRP-4, ‘Diva-Bot’ robot singer, which premiered at the CEATEC Japan 2010 trade show in October 2010, is another in a series of virtuosabots. Virtuosabots deliver uncannily human performances, always mimicking a prized human talent: trumpet playing, violin playing or dancing to Bolero.
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Kismet and robotic expression
Kismet was an early robotic research project at MIT Media Lab that helped draw popular attention to the possibility of expressive communication between robots and people.
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BigDog Robot, Black Dog Myth
All gangly limbs and uncanny irresistable force, Boston Dynamics’ BigDog is an image from science fiction thrown onto the YouTube screen. The DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) funded project has built a demo of a mechanical pack mule that can carry loads across environments where wheels fear to roll.