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(Credit: iRobot)

The military sees a need for a flying robot that can swoop into an enemy position, transition to wheel or track mode, and then get busy icing bad guys--something along the lines of the Griffon UGV/UAV Air Mobility System.

While unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can wing in quickly to reconnoiter or attack enemy positions, they can't follow a target into a cave or a building. Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), on the other hand, can enter structures, search for targets, and examine them at close range, but they're slower than UAVs, have less range, and are limited by rough terrain.

Awhile back, the U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command and the Armaments Research, Development, and Engineering Center funded an iRobot team led by Brian Yamauchi and Pavlo Rudakevych to develop a solution. They came up with the Griffon (PDF), an iRobot PackBot prototype strapped to a gasoline-powered, propeller-driven, radio-controlled, steerable parafoil system. The UVG hangs from a superstructure on which is mounted a 32cc Fuji engine behind an 18- by 8-inch propeller.

For the parafoil, the team considered a wide range of extreme sport kite surfing and traction wings but settled on the 11-meter Ozone Razor. This parafoil is attached by two hang points on the sides, with two arms to control the wing surface and a quick release to jettison the whole contraption on touchdown.The PackBot's on-board computer does the driving and controls the gas. Video, audio, and autonomous ground GPS navigation is also a standard PackBot feature.

The kit is designed to be man-packable and could be used by civilian teams for search-and-rescue in hazardous terrain in addition to military recon and strike missions in urban environments, according to the researchers.

A prototype was tested a few years age and apparently worked well, although it wasn't much to look at. It took off, soared up to 200 feet, landed, and then moved out at speeds of more than 20mph, all under remote control--a first, according to the inventors Yamauchi and Rudakevych. Unfortunately, that's the last it was heard of. The concept deserves another look; it has the makings of a great DARPA challenge.

The U.S. District Court of Massachusetts has granted iRobot its requested injunction against Robotic FX's Negotiator robot.

iRobot has alleged that the Negotiator robot built by Robotic FX infringes on two of its patents for the PackBot military robot.

iRobot is also suing Robotic FX's president, Jameel Ahed, as an individual. The company has accused the former iRobot employee of misappropriating confidential PackBot information he had access to while working at iRobot and using it in his company's Negotiator robot.

"The precise terms of the injunction follow in a separate Order, which shall be issued under seal because it narrowly specifies the trade secrets not to be infringed," U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner said in her order of November 2.

That separate order was filed by Judge Gertner on November 5, according to the U.S. District Court's official electronic document filing system.

The court held a sealed hearing on the matter over four days before coming to its decision. A pretrial conference is set for March 2008, with a trial to start no later than April 7, 2008, according to court documents.

"We are pleased with the court's decision," Colin Angle, iRobot's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Robotic FX was not immediately available for comment.

Ahed and Robotic FX have said that they are not in violation.

(Credit: irobot)

The company that ate the robot market, iRobot, has just received an order from the U.S. Army for 40 more PackBots, which means that will soon be more than 1,000 of these robots on active duty around the world.

Units ordered include some equipped with the ICx Fido Explosives Detector. Fido allows an operator to detect explosive vapors and particulates from munitions or IEDs from a safe distance using a game-style controller.

The 510 model was also included. It can lift 30 pounds and scoot around at almost 6 mph, climbs stairs, roll over rubble, rocks, mud and snow on polymer tracks that use a patented flipper to stay right-side-up. All around it's one tough little SOB, as seen in the video below.

Plus, the Army has ordered 300 new high-performance radios to retrofit existing PackBots to increase the robot's operational range.

The Bots, plus spare parts and other equipment, will be delivered to the Army's Robotic Systems Joint Project Office at Redstone Arsenal, Ala., by the end of next year. The contract is worth $8.8 million, bringing it to a total of $45 million in orders to date, according to the company.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The Boston area has become a leading robotics hub, with a larger cluster of related companies than any other area in the U.S., according to a group of panelists assembled for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Enterprise Forum on Robotics Wednesday night.

The Stata Center, where the MIT Enterprise Forum on Robotics was held Wednesday night, houses MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL).

(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET News.com)

The group, which consisted of executives from ABB Robotics, Brooks Automation, iRobot, Kiva Systems, North End Technologies and Vecna Technologies, said robotics companies are drawn to the university-rich New England area because of their unique need for highly educated employees from a multitude of disciplines.

While there are some great robots, the panelists said, they are not yet user-friendly enough to be viable as consumer products. Part of that is due to a lack of quality designed interfaces, something that will come from hiring people in disciplines other than just software and engineering.

"Here's a little thing for you engineers out there. Engineers make the suckiest interfaces ever," said Rod Brooks, the director of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and the chief technology officer of iRobot.

After field soldiers had trouble figuring out how to control the PackBots iRobot initially made for the military, one iRobot engineer suggested that the robots needed better trained people to work them, not 19-year-old soldiers, according to Brooks.

"Now we ship (PackBots) with a game controller and have instant usage. Know your market user," he said.

iRobot's PackBot with a video game style-controller.

(Credit: iRobot)

Robotics is an interdisciplinary industry, but also one that's wide open to new methods and business models, according to Debra Theobald, chief executive officer of Vecna Instustries, the maker of the BEAR (Battlefield Extraction and Retrieval Robot).

Some robotics companies, like Vecna, are beginning to follow the software company model and sell services as well as products. Vecna , for example, customizes and implements the open-source JAUS robotic platform to fit the specific needs of customers. (Note: We've fixed that JAUS reference from an earlier misspelling.)

Since robotics is such an interdisciplinary field, its enhancement will largely be dependent on the breakthroughs in other tech industries. Specifically, the panelists said, it comes down to better sensors, renewable or rechargeable power sources and better real-time computational power.

Storage is no longer an issue, as the iPod has shown. Improved computational power will come as software developers learn to better capitalize on quad-core chips through parallel computing. Sensors are a technology that will have to come down in cost, as well as improve in performance in order for robots to improve.

"I was at DARPA. I saw Stanley. While that's very exciting what they don't tell you is that they made sure it would win," said Tom Ryden, CEO of North End Industries, who is also a former iRobot employee.

"It was a beautiful sunny day and there was no wind. What would have happened if it was raining? That car wouldn't have made it ten feet. Sensors are really the area that need a lot of improvement...We need sensors that can provide instant feedback and at an affordable cost," he said.

The BEAR (Battlefield Extraction and Retrieval Robot) from Vecna Technologies.

(Credit: Candace Lombardi/CNET News.com)

Nintendo is one example of a non-robotic company helping the robotic industry with its technology developments. Accelerometers such as those used in the Wii game controller have come down in price since their introduction into such a high volume product.

"We just need to be the benefactors of other industries that are going out and pushing the limits," said Theobald.

"Power is an issue, whether it's making renewable or rechargeable, that will be driven by other technologies. We see battery power improving in our computers and communication devices," she said.

With these improvements already on the way, and an anticipated need for more automation in manufacturing, robotics will go through a revolution similar to the one that took place with software, communications and the Internet. And it will happen just as the world begins to need more robots.

With Chinese wages growing by as much as 35 percent per year within the last few years in some regions and an expected growth in its older population, China will not be the cheap labor haven it is right now for U.S. companies 50 years from now, said Brooks.

"People think it may jump to Africa, but there are a lot of structural needs there, so I think it's going to go to robotics," he said.

The court case continues over the Negotiator military robot built by a former iRobot employee.

Jameel Ahed, who has garnered a $280 million contract to sell military robots to the government through his company Robotic FX, testified in a U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Wednesday.

The Robotic FX president said that his robot was built from his own work while an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois, not trade secrets stolen from iRobot while he worked there, The Boston Globe has reported.

Neither iRobot nor Robotic FX were immediately available for comment.

iRobot has alleged in two separate suits that Robotic FX is infringing on U.S. Patent Nos. 6,263,989 and 6,431,296. It has also alleged that Ahed as an individual misappropriated confidential iRobot information regarding the PackBot military robot that he had access to while an iRobot employee, according to complaints filed with the court.

Ahed and Robotic FX have maintained that they are not in violation.

"We make a vital homeland security device and my former company has known about our growing business for at least two years. Only now, when we are rivals for an important U.S. Government contract did they file this lawsuit. We believe we will prevail," Jameel Ahed, president of Robotic FX, said in an e-mailed statement in September.

On October 2, both parties entered a joint motion requesting presiding U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner to seal specific testimonies and transcripts from the public regarding confidential company information.

Robotics company iRobot announced Monday that it has filed two lawsuits concerning its PackBot military robot and former employee Jameel Ahed, the founder and president of Robotic FX.

Ahed's Illinois-based company sells the Negotiator, a tactical surveillance robot that has been purchased by Illinois state police.

The Negotiator by Robotic FX

(Credit: Robotic FX)

Robotic FX's Negotiator is "a knock-off version of the combat-proven iRobot PackBot robot," said an iRobot statement on the matter.

"We are currently reviewing our legal options and intend to aggressively defend our position," Ahed said in an e-mailed statement.

"Robotic FX sold its first Negotiator Tactical Surveillance robot in July 2004. iRobot's lawsuits, filed more than three years later, comes during a time when the two parties are competing for a significant government contract," according to a Robotic FX statement.

One lawsuit, filed in Massachusetts Superior Court, is against Ahed personally for "misappropriation and misuse of confidential information related to iRobot's PackBot that was used to build the Negotiator," according to an iRobot statement.

The second is a patent infringement lawsuit against Robotic FX in Alabama Northern District Court.

iRobot PackBot

(Credit: iRobot)

The Negotiator allegedly violates U.S. Patent Nos. 6,263,989 and 6,431,296 that relate to robot platform and mobility, according iRobot's August 17 complaint filed in federal district court.

iRobot is suing for a permanent injunction to prevent Robotic FX from selling the Negotiator, treble damages for all the robots sold--including calculated loss of iRobot profits--and attorney's fees, according to court documents.

The company is also requesting that all Negotiator robots proven to be infringing on the PackBot patents be delivered to iRobot "for destruction."