Robotics: IEEE Spectrum

Origami Robots Make Complex Movements With Just Paper and Air

Evan Ackerman — Fri, 10 Feb 2012

You remember that freaky air-powered boneless robot, right? Well, the same group that unleashed that thing on the world (George M. Whitesides' lab at Harvard) has started to manufacture these beautiful (and superbly functional) air-powered origami robotic actuators out of paper and elastic.

The Evolution of Robot Soccer

Evan Ackerman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012

This is the official goal of the RoboCup soccer competition:

"By mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall win the soccer game, complying with the official rule[s] of the FIFA [Fédération Internationale de Football Association], against the winner of the most recent World Cup."

LS3 AlphaDog Robot Begins Outdoor Assessment (Video)

Evan Ackerman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012

We got our first look at Boston Dynamics new bigger, badder, and bigger and badder BigDog back in September, and DARPA's already gotten on the horse and saddled up the bot with a bunch of luggage and chased it out into the wilderness to see how it'll do.

DARPA's Crowdsourced UAVs Get Real

Evan Ackerman — Tue, 07 Feb 2012

Back in December, we showed you a bunch of concepts from DARPA's crowdsourced UAVForge competition. The teams involved have just submitted their proof-of-flight videos, and while there are a bunch of quadrotors and hexacopters that won't surprise you, there are at least a few designs that will.

This Robotic Black Box Will Make Your Life Warmer

Evan Ackerman — Mon, 06 Feb 2012

This robot may not look like much. In fact, we're absolutely sure it doesn't look like much. But if you give it a chance, it'll be your new best friend on those cold and lonely winter nights as it stores up heat and re-emits it to keep you nice and toasty.

Robots Aboard the International Space Station

Evan Ackerman — Fri, 03 Feb 2012

NASA's doing a good job of keeping the International Space Station well-stocked with robots just in case there's a surprise alien invasion. Robonaut 2 is up there, along with a pack/fleet/swarm/assemblage of SPHERES robots. NASA's Ames Research Center, Johnson Space Center, and MIT have put together a little vid to keep us all up to date with their on-orbit robot happenings and how they plan to give Robonaut his own personal spaceship rear-attachment.

Anybots Now Offering AnyLobby Robotic Staffing Service

Evan Ackerman — Thu, 02 Feb 2012

Do you need a receptionist at your company? Are you having trouble affording another employee? Do you like spending time with robots more than humans? If you answered yes to any of these questions (or all of them), you might want to check out a brand new service being offered by Anybots called AnyLobby that will solve all your problems.

Swarming Quadrotors Get Nano-ized

Evan Ackerman — Wed, 01 Feb 2012

The GRASP Lab at the University of Pennsylvania is already famous for its quadrotor tricks, including bots that can fly through windows and hula hoops, build structures, and even land on each other. Now, those big bad quadrotors have been shrunk down into much smaller "nano quadrotors," and the GRASP Lab has been playing around with lots of them.

Update: Eye3 Drone Officially Too Good to Be True

Evan Ackerman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012

The eye3 camera drone that we posted about last week had a ring of too good to be true about it, and we voiced a number of concerns from people familiar with DIY drones expressed in this thread over on, uh, DIY Drones. As of last Thursday evening, Kickstarter has pulled their support for their project, effectively ending it, amidst evidence of photoshopped pictures and rumors of other projects by the same people that went way, way south.

Cute Little Drone Could Soar Through the Skies of Saturn’s Moon Titan

Evan Ackerman — Mon, 30 Jan 2012

The surface of Titan, one of the moons of Saturn, is a bizarre place, as the Huygens probe found out back in 2005. There are hydrocarbon lakes kept full by methane rain, with volcanoes that spew mixtures of water and ammonia. It's definitely strange enough that we should take another look at the place, and a mission being proposed by a group of scientists would send an airplane there to cruise Titan's nitrogen skies.