Ghost Swimmer « Mass High Tech Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Ghost Swimmer’

MIT robotic cheetah can run 70 mph, give you nightmares

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

MIT rendering

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.

Tags: Biomimetic Robotics Lab, Ghost Swimmer, MIT, RoboClam, RoboFish, RoboLamprey, RoboLobster, Sangbae Kim, Stickybot, Wired
Posted in Education & Training, Massachusetts, robotics | No Comments »

MIT’s “Stickybot” gecko robot will not sell you car insurance

Friday, September 25th, 2009

A robotic gecko has been added to the local robotic zoo that already includes a tuna, a dog, a smaller dog, a lobster, a lamprey, a clam, and a whole school of fish.

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.

Tags: Big Dog, Ghost Swimmer, Little Dog, MIT, MIT Biomimetic Laboratory, RoboClam, RoboLamprey, RoboLobster, RoboTuna, Stickybot
Posted in Defense, Education & Training, Massachusetts, robotics | No Comments »

More robotic fish: MIT researchers build school of robo-fish

Monday, August 24th, 2009

It’s robotic fish day at the MHT Blog. Not content to be messing around with building just one fish robot, MIT reports two of its researchers, Kamal Youcef-Toumi and Pablo Valdivia Y Alvarado, have developed a whole school of fish robots. MIT News offers a few differences between these new RoboFish and the MIT-developed RoboTuna, the precursor of Boston Engineering’s Ghost Swimmer:

Robotic fish are not new: In 1994, MIT ocean engineers demonstrated Robotuna, a four-foot-long robotic fish. But while Robotuna had 2,843 parts controlled by six motors, the new robotic fish, each less than a foot long, are powered by a single motor and are made of fewer than 10 individual components, including a flexible, compliant body that houses all components and protects them from the environment. The motor, placed in the fish’s midsection, initiates a wave that travels along the fish’s flexible body, propelling it forward.

Tags: Ghost Swimmer, Kamal Youcef-Toumi, Pablo Valdivia Y Alvarado, RoboFish, RoboTuna
Posted in Education & Training, Massachusetts, robotics | No Comments »

Boston Engineering’s Ghost Swimmer AUV spotted in the wild

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Boston Engineering has posted video on the company’s YouTube page of its Ghost Swimmer autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) swimming in a pool, looking like a tuna.

The biomimetic Ghost Swimmer, which imitates the motion of a bluefin tuna, first appeared in MHT as the RoboTuna. The Ghost Swimmer was developed with about $100,000 in STTR grants.

The Waltham-based R&D engineering firm has been busy lately — in June, Boston Engineering won a $100,000 SBIR grant to develop a version of the AUV to inspect the hulls of oil tankers. Around the same time, the company brought in $70,000 in a Phase 1 SBIR grant to work on giving landlocked reconnaissance robots the ability to open doors.

At the end of July, the company got a $70,000 SBIR grant to develop a robotic platform to catch, service, refuel and relaunch unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Incidentally, whoever came up with the UAV and AUV acronyms either didn’t see the kind-of-similar-but-totally-opposite technologies gaining steam at about the same time, or hates me.

Tags: AUVs, Biomimetics, Boston Engineering, Ghost Swimmer, UAVs
Posted in Defense, Massachusetts, robotics | No Comments »

Boston Engineering lands SBIR grant for BIOSwimmer

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Computer model of Boston Engineering's Ghost Swimmer

Boston Engineering has landed a $100,000 Phase 1 SBIR grant from the Department of Homeland Security to develop a version of its tuna-mimicking Ghost Swimmer robot (pictured at right) to inspect the hulls of oil tankers, according to the company.

Under the grant, the company will also develop sensors for performing the inspection. The robot, called the BIOSwimmer, could have applications in harbor protection and inspecting tankers on land, the company said.

Boston Engineering also reports bringing in $70,000 in a Phase 1 SBIR grant from the U.S. Army to work on giving reconnaissance robots the ability to open doors.

MHT’s animal robot coverage is getting to be prolific. There’s robotic tuna and lobster, clams, dogs, humans, and some kind of crazy lamprey-like robot made out of biological material.

Tags: Biomimetics, BIOSwimmer, Boston Engineering, Ghost Swimmer, RoboClam, RoboLamprey, RoboLobster, robotics, SBIR
Posted in Defense, Massachusetts, robotics | No Comments »

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