Crave

The maple seed device seen next to actual samara seeds.

(Credit: Eric Schurr/A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland)

Remember as a kid being entertained by how maple tree seeds (or samara fruit) would spin like helicopters as they fell around you in the fall? I do, and that's why I love this prototype rotorcraft by graduate students at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering.

It's a remote-controlled monocopter with a design based heavily on the aerodynamic and geometric properties of maple seeds. Researchers have tried for years to create an unmanned aerial vehicle that could mimic maple seeds' spiraling fall. The results out of Maryland are awesome.

As you can see in the video after the jump, the patent-pending device uses just one blade to take off, as well as a stabilizer to keep it steady. It looks weird, but it works. This is a great example of nature influencing science.

The students say they've created he world's smallest controllable single-winged rotorcraft, with the most minuscule having a maximum dimension of about 3.7 inches and a wing equal in size to a natural samara. Graduate student Evan Ulrich says he thinks the 'copter could be mass produced as a toy for less than $100, which even sounds high to us given that one of the parts experimented with is a vibrating motor from a pager.

There could also be military or rescue applications: a flyer fitted with a small camera could easily be sent across an area looking for survivors--or targets.

But no matter what the flyer ends up being used for, one thing is sure: I want one badly.

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.

(Credit: UC Berkeley)

Researchers in California are developing a simple robot cockroach that can be assembled in an hour, move quickly, and survive 92-foot falls.

The Dynamic Autonomous Sprawled Hexapod, or DASH, is a neat example of the insectile robotics from UC Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab.

Robot cockroaches have been designed before, but DASH seems relatively simple to put together before it can be used to creep everyone out.

The 4-inch, 16-gram bug is put together by folding cardboard and polymer sheets. A DC motor runs the six legs while a servomotor bends the frame to induce left or right turns.

It can scoot along the ground at nearly 5 feet per second, which is equivalent to 15 body lengths, and surmount obstacles taller than itself.

Best of all, DASH's flexible frame allows it to keep on crawling even after falling from heights of up to 92 feet, according to the researchers.

Applications for the U.S. military, which is already developing miniature spy robots inspired by insects, are easy to imagine.

Meanwhile, DASH will be improved with different materials, better turning ability, and all-terrain mobility.

For now, it's palm-size, sure, but what if something terrible happens, and it can't stop inflating?

(Credit: YouTube screenshot by Leslie Katz/CNET)

We're getting a first glimpse of that shape-shifting ChemBot we first told you about last year, and well, it looks like the love child of a beating heart and a wad of Silly Putty.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Research Office awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to iRobot to create the flexible military bot. The maker of the Roomba and Scooba, along with University of Chicago researchers, showed off the oozy results at the Iros conference (the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) in St. Louis this week.

DARPA envisions the palm-size ChemBot as a mobile robot that can traverse soft terrain and navigate through small openings, such as tiny wall cracks, during reconnaissance and search-and-rescue missions. It gets around by way of a process called "jamming," in which material can transition between semiliquid and solid states with only a slight change in volume.

In ChemBot's case, a flexible silicone skin encapsulates a series of pockets containing a mix of air and loosely packed particles. When air is removed from the compartments, the skin attempts to equalize the pressure differential by constricting the particles, which shift slightly to fill the void left by the evacuated air.

In that way, the weird little blob inflates and deflates parts of its body, changing size and shape--and scaring the living daylights out of us. We don't know exactly when ChemBot will join the Armed Forces, but we can only beg: please, oh please, keep it away from us.

(Via IEEE Spectrum)

(Credit: Sandia National Laboratories)

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has demoed its Precision Urban Hopper robot, a wheeled ground unit that can leap over 25-foot-tall obstacles and keep on truckin'.

Seen in the video below, released last week by the Sandia National Laboratory, the shoebox-size Hopper easily takes on a chain-link fence, bounces a bit after landing, and then keeps rolling. It seems that a piston-fired leg makes it fly.

The Precision Urban Hopper is being developed by Sandia and Boston Dynamics, creator of the famously creepy BigDog robot, for surveillance operations in urban terrain. Guided by GPS, it is designed to "bolster the capabilities of troops and special forces engaged in urban combat," navigating autonomously, according to Jon Salton, a program manager at Sandia.

Sandia said hopping has "shown to be five times more fuel-efficient than hovering," when it comes to getting around obstacles less than 30 feet tall. It added that other potential applications of the Hopper include law enforcement, homeland security, search and rescue, and exploring other planets.

Testing and delivery of the Hopper is scheduled for late 2010.

Injured soldiers and people with disabilities might one day benefit from a hydraulic hand that doubles finger strength. Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory say a "mesofluidic" hand could be used to remotely disarm explosives and manipulate IEDs.

Mesofluidics is the study of applying pea-size hydraulics to applications requiring significant power in a limited space.

An artist's rendering of a mesofluidic "glove."

(Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

So far, the team at the Tennessee laboratory has developed an artificial finger made up of 25 moving parts. It can deliver 20 pounds of pinch force, about double that of a human finger, while remaining lightweight and rugged.

Key innovations were a small, 200 psi hydraulic pump that produces about 30 watts of hydraulic power, as well as miniature high-performance valves that control motion.

The next stage in development is a full hydraulic hand. It could have prosthetic applications similar to DARPA's Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program--described in this "60 Minutes" video--which aims to create an artificial arm with full motor and sensory functions.

Prosthetic technology hasn't advanced much in decades, but current wars and new technologies are changing that. Prosthetics maker OrthoCare Innovations is working with the Oak Ridge team to use mesofluidics for boosting strength in weakened elbows and knees.

But a more intriguing use would be telerobotics. Though robots have been developed for mine detection and disposal, the hydraulic hand could have unparalleled dexterity as a remote-controlled device.

The Oak Ridge scientists are designing a glove with a mesofluidic exoskeleton that will be linked to a remote hydraulic hand with force feedback. Users would be able to roughly feel what the remote hand is manipulating.

That might save some lives--and prevent some expensive robots from getting blown up.

This quadrocopter can find its way around interiors.

(Credit: Ascending Technologies)

Just when you were getting used to the idea of unmanned aerial vehicles patrolling the skies over your city, they're beginning to enter buildings.

This flying robot designed by a U.S.-German team recently won a contest in which the goal was to autonomously navigate inside a simulated nuclear power plant and find and image a control panel without the aid of a GPS.

The Pelican, based on hardware designed by German start-up Ascending Technologies with programming by a team at MIT, accomplished the mission on its fourth attempt, but with only a few minutes to spare. It netted a $10,000 prize at the International Aerial Robotics Competition.

The Pelican is a micro air vehicle (MAV) with a quadrotor design, using four propellers on a carbon-fiber frame for lift and control. It maps hallways and rooms with a 32-yard-range laser scanner and stereo cameras while wirelessly reporting its progress to offboard computers. The location and mapping algorithm was implemented by the MIT team.

Entering its 20th year, the small but venerable IARC proposes challenges that cannot be met with current technology, military or otherwise. In its next mission, the sixth, MAVs will have to penetrate a simulated security compound, steal a flash drive and replace it with a dud before exiting safely and undetected.

It's a good thing MAVs still sound like a thousand mosquitoes due to rotor noise. Otherwise they might start putting spies out of business.

(Credit: Robotic Technology)

A robot's potential advantage in autonomy is limited by its need to constantly refuel, but what if the robot could graze its way through a mission, skipping the gas station and foraging for biomass fuel along the way?

The biologically inspired Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) is designed to do just that--find, ingest and extract energy from biomass throughout its operating environment, and switch to conventional or alternative fuels (such as gasoline, diesel, propane and solar) when needed (see PDF).

Robotic Technology of Potomac, Md., and Cyclone Power Technologies of Pompano Beach, Fla., have completed an initial stage in a collaboration that could lead to the world's first grazing robot. The system would obtain energy by "engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior"--in other words, foraging and eating to keep itself going.

It's a tall order. The robot will need to first identify a suitable biomass (wood, grass, paper, etc.) and avoid the indigestible (rocks, metal, or glass). ... Read more

Badassery.

(Credit: TechEBlog)

I had a fairly good shop program in high school (what's up, Tumwater T-Birds!). Instead of making rickety chairs for our mothers to injure themselves on, or fire-prone wooden ashtrays, our class concentrated on technology. That's where I got to play with my first industrial laser, built my first robotic arm, and designed my first circuit board. It was pretty great.

But not as great as the work of this kid, who, as a side project, built a six-round, bolt-action, high-powered coil gun. For those who don't play video games, a coil gun is an electronic weapon that uses a series of magnetic coils to accelerate a magnetic projectile--like a bullet--to a fast, destructive speed.

We're not sure what school this kid goes to, but that's not important. What we'd like to know is: which teacher signed off on the project that was likely titled "Making a magnetic silent death device"?

You can see a video of the thing in action at TechEBlog.