Wired talks to Sangbae Kim, of MIT’s Biomimetic Robotics Lab, about his biomimetic robots: The iSprawl, SpinyBot, the StickyBot, and his latest project, the terrifying robotic cheetah pictured above. By mimicking a cheetah, Kim is looking to increase the speed of robots, the fastest of which aren’t that quick on their feet/wheels/paws.
So far, the biomimetic robots pumped out by local researchers have been as fun as anti-landmine technology can be — the Ghost Swimmer, Robofish, RoboLobster, RoboLamprey, RoboClam, even Kim’s StickyBot. I’m still waiting on someone to develop a robot monkey, and we jump all the way to this?
Seriously, this isn’t funny any more, guys. I’m picturing the heavily armed MBTA cops at South Station getting these things to replace their bomb/drug/turnstyle jumper-sniffing dogs. I don’t want that malevolent-looking, 70-mph-running, lightweight carbon-fiber-foam composite piece of death following me down the street at night. Or at noon, either.
Nick Roy and the Robust Robotics Group at MIT CSAIL has developed a helicopter robot called the RANGE (Robust, Aerial, Navigation in GPS-denied Environments) that models its surroundings as it flies, using 3-D cameras and laser scanners.
In what can only be taken as a direct challenge to its landlocked cousin, Boston Dynamics’ kick-resistant Big Dog, the video includes a scene where the robot corrects itself after being poked by a two-by-four.
If you thought the BigDog video was disturbing, iRobot’s “chembot” video is flat-out revolting: From the title: “Jamming Skin Enabled Locomotion” (JSEL, with the much more pleasant-sounding pronunciation, “Giselle”), to the animation of the green, shrimp-looking robot rendering, to the use of the term “jammable slurry,” — mmm … jammable slurry — to the pulsating, throbbing, ball of pasty colored I-don’t-know-what straight out of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” video.
BUToday notes the arrival of BigBelly Solar’s fancy garbage can today, with an animated feature explaining how they work. The school is adding 20 of the solar-powered trash compactors to the three already on its campus.
Tonight is Game 1 of the Red Sox’ five-game divisional series against the Angels, which creates two near-certainties: Another Sox/Yankees ALCS; and “worker productivity” becoming an oxymoron at offices throughout New England tomorrow. This thing doesn’t start till 9:37 p.m., for Hendu’s sake, and postseason baseball tends to go well with alcohol.
But what baseball taketh away, it can also giveth, or whatever. The sport has inspired some nifty innovations in analytics, robotics and … let’s call it life sciences.
MIT News Office photo
• In spring training, the Sox, who even give their IT guy World Series rings, supplemented hitting coach Dave Magadan with the MIT Media Lab, naturally. For the last few years, researchers from the Media Lab’s Responsive Environments Group, has been strapping sensors to minor leagers while they’re batting at the Sox camp at Fort Myers. The info from accelerometers and gyroscopes could provide insight on differences in swing mechanics during a hot streak or a slump.
• Using an arm developed at MIT, University of Tokyo researchers have developed baseball-playing robots that could make the Fall Classic either more interesting, or entirely pointless, to watch. Think of all the time and money the Sox would save on scouting, not to mention free agency. And J.D. Drew would presumably be injured far less often if he were a robot. (more…)
The MIT Biomimetics Lab’s “Stickybot“ has footpads that mimic a gecko’s, allowing it to scale walls. The robot could be used in military surveillance and search and rescue.
The biomimetics lab is also working on a robot inspired by the cheetah, according to MIT. Yikes.
Boston Dynamics, the Waltham-based maker of military robots that are incidentally quite entertaining, should really look into monetizing its test videos. Gizmodo posts videos of the Little Dog, the Scrappy-Doo of the headless robotic dog set.
After the jump, watch another video of the Little Dog operate in view of an organic version of a robotic dog made from biological materials, who does not seem happy about the whole situation. (more…)
60 Minutes took a look at New Hampshire Inventor Dean Kamen’s latest invention, a prosthetic arm developed by his company, DEKA Research & Development, with a four-fingered hand with an opposable thumb.
MHT first wrote about the arm in 2007. DEKA created the prosthetic with help from Holliston-based Liberating Technologies Inc., and funding from DARPA’s $100 million Revolutionizing Prosthetics project.
The robotic arm is powered by a lithium battery and equipped with multiple microprocessors, sensors and haptics technology. The prosthetic is designed to move and function similar to a real arm and hand that can grasp bottles and lighter objects.
Users control the arm — which is designed to be able to curl weights of up to 20 pounds — with sensors in their shoes and a joystick they can either move with their shoulder muscles or remaining portions of their natural arm.
Last month, MIT researcher Hugh Herr — who lost both of his legs below the knee to frostbite at age 17 — landed $20 million for from General Catalyst and WFD Ventures for his startup iWalk, which is developing robotic ankle and foot prosthetics.
The Waltham-based company is working under a DARPA-funded grant from the Sandia National Laboratories., which developed the robot. The Hopper platform is designed to navigate autonomously on its four wheels and use its one leg to jump up to 25 feet in the air, according to Sandia.
As flying robots start to pop up with increasing frequency, Sandia says hopping is a more fuel-efficient means of getting over obstacles up to about 33 feet high.
Intuitive Automata has posted video of its Autom weight-loss coach robot. The company is an MIT Media Lab spinout making robots for the health care industry.
Intuitive Automata CEO Cory Kidd has turned up in MHT before, talking about the then-unnamed Autom and robotics in general. The company has since moved to Hong Kong.
Kidd worked in the Media Lab’s Personal Robotics Group, also home to Nexi, the emotion-mimicking robot. Autom itself has slimmed down a bit since its Media Lab days — it’s also lost the molded plastic hair and added a mouth. After the jump, watch video of Kidd presenting an earlier version of the robot.
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The Waltham-based company is working under a 
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