Crave

The autonomous Audi TTS makes test runs on salt flats.

(Credit: Volksagen)

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) conducted its autonomous vehicle races, the Grand Challenge and the Urban Challenge, in 2005 and 2007, but Volkswagen is still researching the technology. A combined effort with Volkswagen's Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL), Stanford University's Dynamics Design Lab (SDDL), and Sun Microsystem's resulted in the autonomous Audi TTS. The group working on the car is considering a run up the 12.4-mile Pikes Peak Hill Climb course in 2010 to demonstrate the capabilities of its driverless technology.

This new robot car is based on a 2009 Audi TTS, the sport version of the TT coupe. This car has Quattro all-wheel-drive and is motivated by a turbocharged, direct injection, 2-liter, four-cylinder engine producing 265 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. ERL fitted this car with the sensors, servos, and drive-by-wire equipment necessary for computer control, while SDDL developed the programming so the car can respond appropriately to sensor data. Sun built the computer platform to run the car.

Past autonomous cars from Volkswagen, developed by Stanford, have been a Touareg SUV and a Passat wagon. A video promoting the new Audi TTS shows the technology has progressed so that it can handle drifting and cross-turning the wheels, maneuvers necessary for any speedy run up Pike's Peak.

While this technology could lead to commutes and long freeway trips where you could sit back and let the car do the driving, the point of the current research is developing new safety technologies.

(Credit: Video screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)

Say salam wa aleikum to an Arabic-speaking android developed at United Arab Emirates University and billed as the first of its kind in the world. It could enter mass production to help people at shopping malls.

The Ibn Sina robot, named after an 11th century philosopher, can recognize faces, converse with people by speaking in classical Arabic, connect to the Internet, and retrieve information. As seen in the video below, it can also exchange kisses with people.

Software for Ibn Sina was developed by a team led by computer science assistant professor Nikolaos Mavridis, with the mechanics by Hanson Robotics. Mavridis says some companies have approached his lab and asked about using the turban-wearing, bearded bot in shopping malls or as a receptionist.

Doubtless Ibn Sina, known as Avicenna in English, would have been pleased.

(Credit: Michigan State University)

Michigan State University researchers are spawning robot fish to monitor the quality of lake water and the effect of harmful algae.

The prototype fish resemble other robot fish, such as those being developed at MIT to check for pollutants in water.

An electric charge in the 9-inch MSU prototype causes its polymer fins to bend so the robotic perch can maneuver. Designs call for onboard sensors to record temperature, oxygen, pollutant, and algae data, which would be relayed to a docking station when the fish surfaces. GPS systems and infrared sensors could be developed to aid navigation.

The fish are designed to be low-cost for applications such as monitoring aquafarms and water reservoirs. Compared with water sampling by humans, the robo-fish would provide a more regular data feed by communicating with each other and their docking station.

The MSU researchers hope to make the robot more robust so it can swim through currents. Currently it can only move through calm water.

(Credit: Robo-Garage)

Japanese robot wunderkind Tomotaka Takahashi has created a new humanoid robot that can jump 3 inches off the floor, an impressive feat for a small bipedal machine.

Known for his anime-inspired robotic creations used for product promotion, Takahashi's latest bipedal walker is called Ropid (from "robot" and "rapid").

The cute carbon fiber and plastic droid weighs 3.5 pounds and has 30 degrees of mechanical freedom.

Seen in the video below, Ropid can get up, walk, run, and even jump 3 inches into the air.

It does all that while maintaining its balance thanks to its four onboard gyro sensors and four accelerometers.

Takahashi's stylish robots, such as Chroino, are often featured in magazines and on TV in Japan.

It took Takahashi two and a half years to develop Ropid at his Kyoto University-based start-up Robo-Garage. The robot is based on patented technology developed in 2007.

(Via Robot Watch)

MIT's concept robot head mounts on the dashboard to assist with navigation.

(Credit: MIT)

MIT intends to revolutionize GPS navigation by making it friendly and predictive, using a friendly robot helper to anticipate your needs. The Affective Intelligent Driving Agent (AIDA) is a robot head on an articulated neck, reminiscent of movie robots from the 1980s, that mounts in the center of the dashboard.

It incorporates an expressive "face" that can smile, look sad, show warning signs, and even wink at you. AIDA was developed as a collaboration between the Personal Robots Group at the MIT Media Lab, MIT's SENSEable City Lab, and Volkswagen Group of America's Electronics Research Lab.

AIDA's expressive behaviors are designed to endear the device to you as it helps in your daily navigation. The robot learns your daily commute and which areas you frequent for which purposes.

For example, if you always head to a particular district in your city around dinner time, it will assume you like to eat dinner there. After it memorizes your commute, it will automatically plug in your route to work when you get into the car on a weekday morning. If you go to a hotel for a dalliance every Thursday at noon, it will probably give you a wink and a knowing grin as it maps the route for you.

Researchers from Slovenia are developing a skiing robot that can not only carve up the snow; it can slalom around racing gates.

Bojan Nemec of the Jozef Stefan Institute recently told an audience at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems that the robot is designed to ski downhill autonomously using ordinary skis. It can avoid obstacles and identify the gates to plan its path.

Shown in the 2008 video below, the robot can slowly maneuver its way around the gates without toppling over, though a separate blooper reel depicts it wiping out.

The machine only has three degrees of freedom. It relies on GPS, cameras, gyros, and force sensors to remain stable and gauge speed and trajectory. The data is processed by computers in the upper and lower parts of the robot.

Why build a robot skier? Nemec said it could be used to test skiing equipment or modeling virtual-reality skiing applications.

The machine won't be giving human skiers a run for their money anytime soon, he added.

(Via IEEE Spectrum)

The Rex is designed to take a huge load off of foot soldiers' shoulders.

(Credit: Israel Aerospace Industries)

"Fetch" and "heel" may be the latest commands to join the military lexicon, with the arrival of Rex, a small, six-wheel-drive load-bearing robotic vehicle designed to follow squad-size units in response to voice commands.

Envisioned as a robotic "beast of burden" for the modern soldier, Rex can carry more than 400 pounds, a typical load for groups of 3 to 10 ground soldiers, for 72 hours at a time without refueling, according to developer Israel Aerospace Industries.

"The robotic vehicle follows the lead soldier from a given distance, utilizing technology developed and patented by IAI. Using simple commands (one might give his pet dog), including 'stop,' 'fetch,' and 'heel,' the lead soldier controls the robot without being distracted from the mission at hand," IAI's Ofer Glazer said. "Controlling the robot in this way allows for intuitive interaction and rapid integration of the product on the field within a short time frame."

IAI says it developed the platform in response to "an urgent operational need," estimating that military and civil demand could amount to tens of thousands of orders, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

"The Rex platform is unique in its state-of-the-art operational capabilities and its user-friendly interface, both of which are central to the platform's superior performance," Glazer boasted.

Rex is but one of the robocaddies appearing on the military market. Aimed at infantryman, it's unclear whether these present-day pack mules may take a load off the grunt or just end up as more junk to haul--and ultimately leave behind.

Teletubbies? No, real research at Georgia Tech. The cat is supposedly displaying the following "emotions," from left: anger, happiness, disgust, and fear.

(Credit: Georgia Tech)

If you can't determine the emotional states expressed by this virtual robot, chances are you might be an older adult, according to a study by Georgia Tech.

You might also have trouble serving our future robot overlords. But I digress.

In a rather strange study, researchers in the school's Human Factors and Aging Laboratory tested people's ability to gauge the emotional state of a robot by presenting them with a virtual feline displaying seven emotional states at various levels of intensity: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, and neutrality.

Graduate student Jenay Beer tested adults' ability to read a robot's expressions.

(Credit: Georgia Tech)

The groups consisted of adults between the ages of 65 and 75 and teens and adults between the ages of 18 and 27. The researchers found that the older cohorts had more difficulty recognizing anger, fear, and happiness in the robot cat, confusing happiness with its neutral state.

But problems with programming the robot to express an accurate representation of emotion might be the cause of the discrepancy between age groups. We may indeed be able to read robot "emotions," but only if they simulate our own feelings well enough.

While you might wonder why anyone would be studying robot emotions in the first place--especially when the robocat makes such simplistic expressions--the researchers believe that if robots are going to become commonplace in our society, we must be able to read their faces well to get along with them.

The iCat character is a virtual version of the iCat robot developed by Philips Research as an intelligent agent.

(Credit: Pink Tentacle)

A female android developed at Tokyo University of Science has been working as a receptionist at a department store in the Japanese capital.

Saya, an air-servo-powered robot created by Professor Hiroshi Kobayashi, just finished a stint greeting customers at Takashimaya, one of the most prestigious retailers in Japan.

Saya can interact with people by responding to questions posed through a microphone. Decked out in a Takashimaya jacket and hat along with makeup by RMK, she directed customers to the appropriate floor of the retailer's flagship store in the Nihonbashi district.

Saya has about 700 programmed voice responses, including small talk like, "My name is Saya and I was created at Tokyo Science University." Servos in her face can simulate expressions such as surprise and happiness, as well as move her eyes and mouth.

(Credit: Pink Tentacle)

Saya has also been put to work teaching in a Tokyo elementary school and greeting visitors at an Israeli hospital.

Compared with some other androids developed in Japan, including the Repliee series and Actroid, Saya has fewer servomotors. I think this results in appearance and behavior that doesn't quite overcome the Uncanny Valley problem, in which realistic robots seem zombielike.

Anyway, Takashimaya shoppers weren't creeped out by the droid, which had pretty good voice recognition results until one customer told her she was pretty. To which Saya responded: "Are you crazy?"

Maybe she's right.

(Via Pink Tentacle)