Category: Robots

RC TOYS VS. IEDs

RC Combat!

Outstanding! I hope the 27 and 49MHz frequencys used are good over there and won’t mess up any military equipment.

A young private [named “E.S.”] in that platoon has one of those radio-controlled toy cars. When they find unidentifiable debris in the road, E.S. sends out his little RC car and rams it. If it’s light enough to be moved or knocked over, it’s too light to be a bomb, so we can approach it and get rid of it. If it’s heavy, we call EOD [explosive ordnance disposal — the military’s bomb squad]. At night, they duct tape a flashlight to the car.

Defense Tech: RC TOYS VS. IEDs
[Snagged from Gizmodo]

Self-Replicating robots

go forth and prosper

More robotic coolness over at Boing Boing tonight.

To begin replication, the stack of cubes bends over and sets its top cube on the table. Then it bends to one side or another to pick up a new cube and deposit it on top of the first. By repeating the process, one robot made up of a stack of cubes can create another just like itself. Since one robot cannot reach across another robot of the same height, the robot being built assists in completing its own construction…

Self-replicating robots

robots, replicate, cool

Auto Auto

Robot

Neat, I hope these guys do a bit better than everyone did at the last DARPA challange.

“The H1ghlander robot is a driverless vehicle that will race through 175 miles of hostile desert terrain for a $2 million prize. On Thursday morning, the H1ghlander was being evaluated by a team from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). If the vehicle passes the evaluation, it could advance to the semi-finals at California Speedway in September. The H1ghlander is one of 118 teams hosting similar evaluations.”

CMU’s H1ghlander Robot Demonstrates Skills
DARPA, robotcs, Carnegie

WL-16RII Walking Chair

WL-16RII

Now if the Segway guy had come up with this as the next big thing he would have been right.

Waseda University and tmsuk, Japan, are showing off the “WL-16RII” , a new 2 foot robot to assist people in climbing up and down stairways. The robot presented in Fukuoka will go on sale in 2010. In the demonstration “WL-16RII” succeeded in the stairway ascent and descent of height 20 centimeters. Sensors (not on board) inspect the height and width , etc., of the stairway and programs movement beforehand allowing for safe ascent and descent. In the future using RFID chips on stairways, information can be passed to the WL-16RII allowing it to walk freely in town.

Ployer – WL-16RII
Original story here,
Translated via Excite (The images won’t show up, its due to some weird stuff on their server. It loads fater any way…)

Japan, robot, walking, cool