A shipping company must exercise patience whenever it needs a new a ship’s propeller: Its production is time consuming because a foundry workers must first fashion a model and a mold based on it. Industrial robots will support them in the future.

Ship’s propellers, parts for wind energy converters, turbine housings – such large-volume castings can only be produced with special molds. The procedure is elaborate and cost-intensive because foundry workers must still perform most of the work steps manually.

In the future, industrial robots will support skilled workers when they fabricate molds: Together with their partner firm Modell- und Formenbau GmbH Sachsen-Anhalt MFSA, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF in Magdeburg have developed a procedure for this. “The robots produce large-volume models and molds faster and less expensively. Depending on the process, this can cut costs by up to a third.

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Robot is designed to mirror the actions of guide dogs

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have engineered a biologically inspired robot that mirrors the actions of guide dogs.

Users verbally command the robot to complete a task and the robot responds once a basic laser pointer illuminates the location of the desired action. For example, if a person needs an item fetched, that individual would normally command a guide dog to do so and then gesture with their hands toward the location. The service robot mimics the process, with the hand gesture replaced by aiming the laser pointer at the desired item.

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Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University are to test their Scarab robot designed for lunar prospecting on the cool and rocky slopes of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano in Hawaii.

Scarab was designed and built for NASA’s Human Robot Systems program by Carnegie Mellon. It serves as a terrestrial test bed for technologies that would be used to explore craters at the moon’s southern pole, where a robot would operate in perpetual darkness at temperatures of -385 degrees F.

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A robotic plant that has humidifying, oxygen-producing, aroma-emitting and kinetic functions, has been developed by the robot research laboratory at Chonnam National University.

Developed using characteristics of plants normally grown for ornamental purposes, the robot is 139cm tall and 40cm in diameter. It consists of a pot, stem and five buds of a flower similar to a rose of Sharon.

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An automatic robotic cleaning system that removes marine growth from the hull of a ship is being pioneered at Newcastle University.

Designed to reduce the carbon footprint of the world’s shipping industry, the robot offers a solution to spiralling fuel costs and marine related pollution while removing harmful, non-indigenous species that could be transferred to local waters.

Operating in a similar way to the automatic carpet cleaner, the robot has been developed out of EU funded project, Hull Identification System for Marine Autonomous Robotics (HISMAR), and is able to navigate its own way across the ship’s surface.

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Nissan Motor Co. engineers have taken inspiration for the development of their latest crash prevention technology from the bumble bee.

Based on joint research with the Research Centre for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo, Nissan has built the Biomimetic Car Robot Drive, or BR23C. It is a robotic micro-car that recreates bee characteristics with the goal of producing a system that prevents collisions altogether.

Mitsuhiko Yamashita, Nissan Motor Co., explained: “The BR23C robotic car is positioned as the inner-most layer of this shield. We are expecting that this robotic car will support the development of future collision-avoidance technologies.”

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There are big changes ahead in social interactions, robotics and improvements in the ability of computer to sense the real world, according to Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel Corporation.

Rattner explained: “The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago. There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason in the not so distant future.”

In his keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Rattner looked at how technology is xpected to bring man an machine closer together by 2050.

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A robot controlled by a biological brain formed from cultured neurons has been developed by a team at the University of Reading.

This cutting edge research is the first step to examine how memories manifest themselves in the brain, and how a brain stores specific pieces of data. The key aim is that eventually this will lead to a better understanding of development and of diseases and disorders which affect the brain such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, stoke and brain injury.

The robot’s biological brain is made up of cultured neurons which are placed onto a multi electrode array (MEA). The MEA is a dish with approximately 60 electrodes which pick up the electrical signals generated by the cells. This is then used to drive the movement of the robot. Every time the robot nears an object, signals are directed to stimulate the brain by means of the electrodes. In response, the brain’s output is used to drive the wheels of the robot, left and right, so that it moves around in an attempt to avoid hitting objects. The robot has no additional control from a human or a computer, its sole means of control is from its own brain.

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Based on the ‘dragonfly’, the DelFly Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) from TU Delft, is an ultra-small remote-controlled, camera equipped aircraft, with the potential for use in observation flights in difficult to reach or dangerous areas.

The MAV barely weighs 3g – 1g of which is the weight of the battery. It can fly for approximately three minutes, and has a maximum speed of 5m/s.

The DelFly has a tiny on-board camera that transmits signals to a ground station. Using software developed by TU Delft, objects can be independently recognised.

In the next step of the project, TU Delft plans to develop the DelFly NaNo, which will measure 5cm and weigh 1g.

Robots that can understand grief or happiness or anger, could soon become a reality with technology currently being developed by Felix Growing.

According to the company, software will allow the robot to learn when a person is feeling a certain way. Using cameras and sensors, the robots will be able to detect several variables from the human including their facial expression, voice, and tone. It will then combine the factors to determine what mood the person is in.

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Based on its micromechatronics technology, Epson has developed the uFR, Micro Flying Robot, claimed to be the world’s smallest flying prototype microbot. 

The uFR causes levitation by use of contra-rotating propellers powered by an ultra-thin, ultrasonic motor with a high power-weight ratio. It can be balanced in mid-air by means with a stabilising mechanism using a linear actuator. Furthermore, the essence of micromechatronics has been brought together in high-density mounting technology to minimise the size and weight of the circuitry’s control unit.

By developing the uFR, Epson has demonstrated the possibility of expanding the activity range of microrobots from two-dimensional space (the ground) to three-dimensional space (the air). The company now plans to test any problems related to the functional use of space by microrobots, and further concentrate its efforts on advancing its original micromechatronics technology and cultivating applications to meet future needs.

The US Army is putting robots destined for the scrap heap to good use, by sending them into potentially contaminated areas, so soldiers don’t need to risk their lives.

The robot, the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Unmanned Ground Vehicle, or CUGV (part of the CBRN Unmanned Ground Reconnaissance Concept), was previously used with explosive ordnance disposal units around the Army, but more current models have made them redundant. Now the CUGV is being used to detect ammonia, chlorine, carbon monoxide, oxygen levels, lower explosive limits, volatile organic compounds, gamma radiation rate and dose rate, temperature and humidity. An onboard lightweight chemical detector means the device will also detect nerve and blister agents.

In addition to just finding contaminated areas and deciphering the level of danger, the robot can also mark the areas for further sampling and investigation or decontamination.

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Scientists at Tufts University are to develop ‘soft and squishy’ chemical robots that can squeeze into spaces down to 1cm, then morph back into something 10 times larger, and ultimately biodegrade, as part of a $3.3 million contract from DARPA.

Constructed mainly from rigid materials, today’s robots are unable to navigate complex environments with openings of arbitrary size and shape.

Based on the performance capabilities of the Manduca Sexta caterpillar, such as its flexibility, climbing ability and scalability, the Tufts team aims to develop ‘chembots’ that will be able to access confined and complex spaces, follow cables, ropes or wires and climb trees or other branched structures. The growth of the Manduca Sexta caterpillar also interested the researchers. From hatching to the end of its larval stage, the caterpillar grows 10,000 fold in mass using the same number of muscles and motor neurons.

Key to success of the chembots will be the use of new biomaterials. The initial chembots will be built with existing synthetic soft materials and actuators; however, the next stage of the project will use novel soft bionic composites that will be biocompatible and biodegradable.

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