Robot of the Day: Microswimmer Robot Taking Pictures of Your Intestines

This is a robot I read about recently, a robot the size of a pill that can swim inside your body powered by external MRI machine's magnetic fields with the task of taking pictures of your intestines.

Credit: Tel Aviv University and Brigham & Women's Hospital

The robot was developed by scientists at Tel Aviv University in Israel and Brigham & Woman's Hospital in Boston and introduced in a recent paper published in Biomedical Microdevices. Although still in the early testing stage in a water tank, the tiny robot seems to maneuver well with its 20mm x 5mm tail. The eventual objective of robot is to enable doctors to see the inside of a patient's intestines and detect early stages of gastrointestinal cancer.

Presently doctors can already have patients swallow a pill-sized camera. Pictures are taken every half second or so until the camera is passed. However, doctors have no control of the camera's movement when they wanted pictures of specific part of the body. One challenge with the robot idea is how to power the robot because embedding large power supplies would increase the size of the robot and cause other problems. The beauty of the proposed solution is that it uses magnetic field to control the movement of the robot via the little copper and polymer tail. And since MRI machines are already a common device in hospitals, they can become very handy.

I remember seeing a video of how live bacterias can be controlled by magnetic fields to push around a "nano-robot" in a Discovery Channel documentary. In this case, the magnetic field controls the robot directly which is probably more predictable than trying to control bacterias.

Some people even suggest that we can leave such robots inside us permanently like parasites. Now imagine having a bunch of these things inside your body, constantly posting images or videos online of your internal like those live web cams.... Now you not only have no privacy outside of your body, you don't even have privacy inside your body.... Well, but if lives can be saved, I guess it's okay.

To read more about this, click here.





The good news: the robot is reusable!
The bad news: the robot is reusable!

Robot of the Day: CQ-10 Snowgoose Cargo Delivery Glider UAV

CQ-10 Snowgoose is a glider UAV developed by Mist Mobility Integrated Systems Technology (MMIST), a Canadian firm, for the purpose of pinpoint precision small cargo delivery. It is one of the earliest UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) used by US military in the war in Afghanistan.

The Snowgoose UAV uses a parafoil for lift and then a "pusher" propeller to help with the glide. A newer version of the UAV CQ-10B actually includes an autogyro rotor for lift and is capable of vertical take off and landing. Therefore the UAV is capable of three types of deployments:

• ground launching from the back of a truck or Humvee,
• air launching from the back of a cargo plane,
• or self launching using the gyro rotor.

The Snowgoose UAV has six modular cargo bays and can be used for leaflet dispensing or delivery of small amount of ammo or medical supplies. The newer model can carry up to 2400 lbs of cargo and travel up to 93 miles. Operator can upload flight plans to the UAV and then the UAV will perform the delivery fully autonomously. This can be very helpful in search and rescue missions, disaster relief efforts, or support military operations in hostile environment.

In 2003, U.S. Special Operations Command bought five of these for $250,000 each and deployed them to Afghanistan in support of special operations in the tough terrains.

With the steep price tag, it is unlikely to see such UAVs used in search and rescue missions (with the exception of this story), which is kind of a shame. That's why cheaper and smaller Micro-UAVs stand better chance of actually deployment in local search and rescue teams.


Video of the Day:

A woman floating on a surfboard near Santa Cruz, California almost ended up on the lunch menu for a humpback whale.

Robot of the Day: Air Hogs Gyro X RC Helicopter

Maybe because of the frequent sightings of helicopters flying over our house, my three-year-old son developed this special interest in helicopters and always wanted a helicopter. And since my research is related to robotic airplanes, I also have a strong urge to own a robotic airplane myself. So when I found out about the Black Friday deal on the Air Hogs Gyro X RC Helicopter, I jumped on it, under the claim that the helicopter was really the birthday present for my son's three-year-old birthday!

The RC helicopter normally sells for $40, but I was able to get one at half price thanks to Black Friday sales at RadioShack. It is a remote-controlled toy airplane, so the kit included a controller that lets the user controls the throttle (to fly the helicopter up and down) together with an omnidirectional stick to control the flying directions. The controller also has a wheel on the side that allows you to trim the plane (adjusting the balance of the plane so it doesn't keep rotating in one direction). The controller also acts as a charger. Powered itself by four AA batteries, the controller has a wire to connect to the airplane for charging the battery on the airplane.

This RC toy can actually be categorized as a robotics device because it has built-in a "gyro" electronic stabilization system for smooth flight. The "gyro" sensor can sense the roll of the plane and then adjust the speed and direction of the small tail propeller to automatically stabilize the plane. What this means is that a beginner can easily focus on the throttle of the helicopter (controlling the altitude) and not worry about keeping the helicopter in an upright position. In a sense, the "auto-pilot" on the tiny plane can take over some of the responsibility for keeping the plane hovering in the same spot, which is extra nice because now even my three-old son can fly this thing around the house.

In robotics terminology, this type of function is called "Shared Control". For example, you can direct a ground mobile robot to go toward a certain direction, but the robot is capable of going around obstacles autonomously, so you don't have to worry about it. Although in the RC helicopter case, the stabilization autonomy falls pretty low in Tom Sheridan's Levels of Autonomy, it is a start. The robotic planes we use in our research also can stabilize themselves in the air in various wind conditions and maintain a constant speed. And once we load the terrain data into the control station, the UAVs can also maintain their height-above-ground. With GPS capabilities, the research UAVs can also follow way points.

The $20 Air Hog RC Helicopter of course is not that sophisticated. Besides, GPS works terribly in an indoor environment. However, it is totally possible that I could use some computer vision program to estimate the position of the plane and then send control signals from a computer instead of the RC controller. Then the little plane might display a slightly higher intelligence.

Another great thing about this helicopter is its durability. You can crash it left and right without worrying about damaging the device (which is a rare thing in robot world). The biggest downside is that the tiny battery in the plane only flies for about 5 minutes with a full charge --- frankly, a bit too short for me, especially when time seems to zoom by quickly when I have a great time flying this thing. Then it takes 20-30 minutes to charge. The upside about this is that it really teaches my kids that patience is a virtue.

Anyway, this RC helicopter is a great toy for beginner operators and kids. If you want to read a more detailed review of this RC Helicopter, click here.


Picture of the Day:

Staples.com Black Friday Fail! Only a programmer will get a kick out of this!

Robot of the Day: Panasonic's Hair-Washing Robot

Washing your hair might not be a difficult or tedious task that needs to be automated, unless you are a disabled person, an elderly, or a nurse at a hospital who has to give many patients many hair washes everyday.

At the International H.C.R. Exhibition (International Home Care & Rehabilitation Exhibition) 2010 held at Tokyo last year, Panasonic demoed a prototype robot that's capable of washing a person's hair autonomously. That robot had 16 fingers. In the upcoming H.C.R. 2011. Exhibition that will be held next week at Tokyo, Japan, Panasonic will demon a newer version of the hair-washing robot, one with 24 fingers and supposedly capable of delivering a more comfortable wash.

The hair-washing robot, with the size of a washing machine, is fully automous and can perform all the tasks of your regular hairdresser from wetting to shampooing, rinsing, conditioning and drying. It can even give you a head message at the end of hair wash like how most hairdressers do it in China. The robot first scans the shape of the person's head and then uses two robotic arms to guide the 16 fingers to work on your head. Sensors built into these fingers also make sure they apply the right amount of pressure to your head so your head does not explode. The video below shows you how the robot works.

In the video the robot only worked on a dummy. I would have liked to see a real human getting served by the robot. I don't know if real human have been used to test the robot, but I am pretty sure this kind of experiments would never get approved by the IRB at the universities here in the US. (On a side note, all those military robots never seem to run into this IRB problem, somehow.)

It would be really fun to open a shop equipped with these robots. For now people would just walk in to get a hair wash and massage. In the future, customers might also get a haircut in these unmanned barber shops. That would my idea type of robots -- robots that work and make money for me, so I don't have to. LOL! Of course one challenge is to help people overcome their fear of the robot malfunctioning. In fact, the lack of regulations and rules regarding the liabilities and safety of such kind of robots (robots with close human-robot interactions) is the precise reason why Panasonic has not commercialized the robot. Rumor has it that the situation will change dramatically during the year of 2012.

To be honest, I don't mind having one of these at my house if I don't have to pay for it. I'll even wash my hair once a day! But what I really need is a robot that can wash my kids autonomously several times everyday. Somehow they are always dirty!





Now I know why some people don't hate mowing the lawn, because they either have a robot lawn mower or they have a self-propelled lawn mower (which counts as a half-robot). I got one of those self-propelled lawn mowers, and man, what a difference! Now mowing the lawn feels like walking the dog.

Robot of the Day: MABEL, the Two-Legged Running Robot

MABEL (not an acronym) is the name of a bipedal "humanoid" robot created by researchers at University of Michigan. It just got its fame recently because it could run in a human-like gait at speeds up to 3.06 meters/second. That is 6.8 miles per hour. That is the world record for a bipedal robot with knees.

MABEL was originally built in collaboration with Jonathan Hurst, then a doctor student at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Then researchers at U-M spent years improving the feed-back system in MABEL's training. MABEL was intentionally built to look like a human, with a heavier torso and light flexible legs. When it is running, MABEL is in the air for 40 percent of each stride, which is almost like a real runner. The robot can self balance in real time with a closed-loop control, and switch gaits as commanded autonomously. It can even transition from completely flat surface to uneven grounds. The video below shows MABEL running.

The researchers envision that two-legged robots can travel over rough terrains and function better in places built for humans. They can be used to enable wheelchair-bound people to walk again or to be used for robot rescuers that can step over small obstacles. Biped robots certainly have the advantage over wheeled robots when it comes to bumpy surface or stairs, however one important factor is that biped robots look more human-like compared to say a three-legged or 6-legged robot. The truth is that many four-legged animals run much faster than us two-legged human, and multiple-legged insects handle uneven surface much better than two legged ones. But would you rather have a two-legged humanoid robot serving you a drink or an eight-legged spider-looking one? Actually even the same MABEL robot walking backward looks more like a bird and seems weird (see video below).

I could envision multiple-legged robots to be very useful in space colonization. Most likely the surface terrain at another planet would not be flat, and the multiple-legged robots could easily transport goods for human and explore the planet surface more efficiently.

Back to the MABEL robot. It's hard to describe the feeling when I watched the robot running with large strides. There's certainly some uncanny valley effects there, but there's something beautiful about the strides, because they looked natural. Now we just have to put a soccer ball in front of it and then teach it to dribble and shoot...

To find out more about the MABEL robot, visit the researcher's project page here.


Video of the Day:

An interesting Logitech commercial showing a biped humanoid blending in the human environment. Enjoy!

Robot of the Day: Mars Pathfinder and the Sojourner Rover

On July 4th, 1997, which also happened to be the Independence Day of the United States, the Mars Pathfinder successfully landed on Mars. It made history because it was:

• The third lander (since the two Vikings) successfully landing on Mars.
• The first time a bouncing air bag landing mechanism was used for a lander.
• The first time a robot rover was successfully deployed.
• The first time a space mission was broadcasted on the Internet live.

After the successful landing, images of the mysterious red planet from the planet surface was broadcasted "live" on the Internet. This event had profound and extraordinary impacts on the public interests in space exploration, robotics technology, and web technologies, and inspired a generation of potential roboticists.

The Mars Pathfinder consisted of a lander and lightweight wheeled robotic rover named Sojourner (named after a a nineteenth-century black feminist and campaigner for the abolition of slavery). It was wrapped in large airbags. After entering the Martian atmosphere, a parachute was first deployed to slow down the falling of the capsule. Then a self-inflating airbag system in the shape of a tetrahedral was released, which "soft" landed on the terrain surface of Mars and rolled and bounced up and down all over the place. After the tetrahedral finally stopped rolling, the airbags were deflated and the lander unfolded itself, letting lose of the robotic rover. It is simply mind-boggling to see how the lander and the rover survived such vigorous movements, especially when one would have expected the scientific equipments on board to be very delicate devices. The video below shows some animations and footage of the landing process.

The main objective of the mission was to demonstrate it is possible to perform extraterrestrial exploration with low cost. As added benefit, the Mars Pathfinder also conducted some scientific experiments with a cameras, atmospheric structure instruments, and a spectrometer on the rover. The rover had six independently-controlled wheels and performed rock analysis as it roved about not far from the lander. The video below shows some footage of the rover moving about.

Roughly three months later, the mission control lost contact with the Pathfinder, but the mission had exceeded its goals just during the first month. Although still visible from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter up high in the Martian sky, the robot (system) had become fully autonomous and just wondered about like a lonely ghost. Just like its name suggests, it had finally broken free from its human masters and became a free, uh, robot!

When I interned at NASA Ames in California in 2009, I was very fortunate to spot a prototype of the Sojourner Rover at the Intelligent Robotics Group (see pic on the left). I am strong believer in space colonization because we must "spread the seeds of human civilization" before we totally destroy our planet earth. And to make space colonization possible, we totally need robots that can build habitats for us. I wish the government would spend more on robotics and space exploration instead of sending troops to other countries to torture their citizens under the name of spreading "democracy" and "freedom".


Anyway, if you want to find out more about the Mars Pathfinder, you can watch "The Pathfinders" Documentary on YouTube.



Picture of the Day:

Photo of a meteor taken by astronaut from the International Space Station.

Robot of the Day: Clocky, R2-D2-like Alarm Clock on Steroid

Clocky is a robot alarm clock created by Gauri Nanda, a graduate from the MIT Media Lab. Unlike other stationary alarm clocks, this R2-D2 or Droid-like little robot rolls off your nightstand when it's time to wake up, and rolls all over your room while making cute noises. This also means, in order to stop the alarm, you can't just keep hitting the snooze button and have to really get up to chase down Clocky in order to turn it off. What a great idea!! In fact, this idea is so great that after graduation, Nanda started her own company, Nanda Home, to commercialize the product and have already made millions.

This is yet another one of those innovative ideas of using simple robots to solve real world problems. Clocky is not a complicated robot at all. In fact, it doesn't really have any navigational capabilities or make any intelligent decisions. It just runs around randomly, looks cute, and annoys the hell out of you. But you have to admit, it does get the job done. The only possible downside is that you might be so mad after waking up and want to throw it out of the window. Although it's build to withstand falls from your tables or nightstands, but it probably won't survive free fall from anything higher than the second floor. The robot sells for around $49, and you can find many with different colors from places such as Amazon. I must admit, this little robot makes a great gift idea. So if you ever plan to send me a gift...cough...you know...

Last year, the company made Clocky a cousin and named it Tocky. Tocky rolls around like a ball, can also play MP3 files, and is $20 more expensive. So pick the one that's easier to catch for you.

I really wonder if someone will make another robot that will chase Clocky down and shuts it off, so we can go back to our sweet dreams uninterrupted. I can imagine how hard it is to develop such a robot, because you probably have to understand concepts such as Kalman Filter or Particle Filter.






If it has a wiki page, it's worth something! (Now someone creates a wiki page for me please! :)




Video of the Day:

Check out Flying Alarm Clock. At first I thought this is Clocky moving in 3D. But I was wrong!

Robot of the Day: WheeMe, Your Personal Massage Robot

Ever wanted to have a back massage but couldn't find anyone to do it for you (for free, to be more precise)? Now there's an answer to your prayers: WheeMe, your personal massage robot developed by DreamBots. For only $49 apiece, WheeMe can massage not only your back, but also your tummy, your chest, or even your behind.

The palm-sized robot operates on three AA batteries and can move at 4.5 cm per second. It has four wheels, or "Fingerettes", which can tickle you wherever it goes. With intelligent sensing capabilities, basically accelerometers, it knows not to fall off your body, and then with random moving patterns, such as rolling back and forth or spinning in circles, it tricks you into thinking it's actually giving you a quality massage. And don't roll if you ever falls asleep, because you might severely crush damage your personal massage assistant and also scratch your back.

Okay, enough sarcasm, this is definitely an innovative way of using robots to solve everyday problems. And the price tag of $49 is really not very expensive for a robot. And to be honest, other than my robot, who's going to give me a massage for free? I haven't had the chance to try it because it's not available on the market yet, but you can pre-order from DreamBots web site and get one some time around the first quarter of 2012. It certainly makes a very unique Valentine's Day present!!

Since my creative juice is flowing right now, let me throw out some ideas. Wouldn't it be nice if the robot is also capable of:

• Playing some soothing music while giving you a message to put you to sleep.
• Acting as an alarm clock to wake you up when needed.
• Having a video camera so you can see through the eyes of your personal robot (maybe using a goggle display of some sort) and look at your own back?
• Having basic navigation skills, so you can put a leash on it and walk your robot "pet".
• Having Internet access, so it can read latest news to you.
• Transforming into a mobile phone so you can talk to your friends while getting massaged.
• Can post updates to your Facebook, twitter, Google+ accounts via voice commands.

 Well, one thing for sure, if it's capable of all those things, you won't get it for $49. Anyway, glad to see creative ideas with simple mechanism being put into real cool products. I am off to massaging my own tummy now.









Women estimate time like programmers. You have to double or triple the time when they say: "I'll be back in an hour."

Robot of the Day: Fitbot, Shape-shifting Robot Lets You Try Clothes Before You Buy

Ever wondered how a shirt or dress looked good on you when YOU wear it? Mirrors in fitting rooms don't really tell you the entire story. And things get worse if you are buying from a catalog by phone or order one online. Thanks to robotics technology, your wish might be coming true. Before I say anything else, check out this video below.

The robot is the female version of the FitBot, a shape-shifting robot mannequin created by Fits.me, an online clothing store. The company also has a male version.

In many past occasions, we have been lured into buying dresses from catalogs or online stores because the dresses looked wonderful in the pictures but turned disastrous when we put the actual clothes on. What was the problem? The answer is simple: we are no models. That's why those beautiful models get paid big $$$s to put these clothes on and look beautiful in the pictures. But we had to jump through all kinds of hoops to return the dresses and get refunds. We are not alone.

Wouldn't it be nice if I could see how the dress would look on me, not that beautiful model? Wouldn't it be nice if I could see how the dress looks like when I walk around and get into different body postures with the dress on? The answer to the problem: robot! Using servo motors, the FitBot can actually change its shape into your body shape based on your own body measurements.

Now before you get all excited about the many possibilities, that's not how the robot is used at the present time. The retailer actually enumerates all the possible (humanly possible, that is) body shapes with the robot with each dress and then take many photos. These photos are made available through the web site, so after you enter your body measurements, the photos with those body measurements would be shown to you so you know how the clothes would look like if you had worn it.

Well, don't get too disappointed, this is at least a step closer. I could almost envision how it works in the future: After you log into your account with the online store, the system automatically loads your body shape measurements into one of the waiting mannequin robots. Then the robot will retrieve the dress you are interested in, put it on, and then get into various poses for you. You can probably even pose yourself, and a camera on your computer will recognize the pose and send that to the robot to imitate. The robot can slowly rotates around so you can see the full 360 degrees view. There might even be an added benefit: when you see how gross you look no matter what pose your use and what clothes you put on, you might have more incentive to get off your ass, walk away from your computer and try to get rid of some of those fat.

Anyway, glad to see another innovative way of using robotics technology to solve real-world problems. You can read this article for more details if you like. I am going to get off my lazy ass, walk away from my computer to do some exercise now! Ciao!






I am so glad drinking coke is not against the Honor Code of the university.

Robot of the Day: Vgo Telepresence Robot Lets Texas Student Attend School as a Robot

Vgo is a telepresence robot developed by Vgo Communications.It has a very simple design: a wheeled mobile base, a video camera at the top, and a small monitor with speakers and microphone. Although many people have built their own telepresence robots of a variety of forms, Vgo is one of the few that actually commercialized it as a product. Although the company has mainly targeted business customers and promoted using Vgo for tele-conferencing and business meetings, it had become famous recently for helping a Texas student to attend school as a robot.

Baty drives Vgo around school to attend classes (photo credit: CNN)

Lyndon Baty, a young man who suffered from a polycystic kidney disease, could not attend school because his immune system has been severely weakened from his treatments.But thanks to Vgo and technology-prone school officials, he can now happily attend classes every day at his high school in Knox City, Texas, as a robot! Like his classmates, he would switch between classes, and even chat with friends in the hall way during break time. For a boy who has spent much of his life in isolation, this robot has really set him free. Especially for teens who are used to social interactions through technologies such as Facebook, Skype, Baty, represented by Vgo, fits right in. Look at that big smile on Baty's face in the following video.

As great as the story sounds, the robot Vgo is definitely not cheap, with a retail price of $6000 plus a $1200/year service contract. I could probably throw a Netbook on top of a Roomba (or Create) and achieve similar effects for roughly $450. Also Vgo doesn't have any arm, so it always required extra help when it comes to opening doors (as you can see from the video above). Will people be willing to pay the big bucks for such telepresence capabilities? Will robotics companies like this one survive and become profitable?

It's worth noting that telepresence robots also might raise many additional concerns. For example, the video camera on the robot can record and reproduce everything it sees, and the video stream might even be hijacked, thus invading people's privacy. The robot might also be remotely hacked and taken over, thus enabling ill-intentioned foul play. But one thing we can all be sure: these robots are coming into our lives and we'll only see more and more of them everywhere as time progresses.

Video of the Day:

I can't find anything more appropriate than this video below for today's Video of the Day. The Big Bang Theory: The Big Bang Theory - Sheldon-bot. Enjoy!

Robot of the Day: Murata Girl, the Robo Unicyclist

Just recently we talked about the bicycle-riding robot Murata Boy in a previous blog post, but did you know that the Murata Boy now has a very cute cousin, the Murata Girl, who made her debut in 2008 and demonstrated her amazing unicycling skills at CEATEC JAPAN 2009.

Ever since the Murata Boy robot became a huge hit with his impressive bicycle-riding skills, fans had demanded his maker, the Japanese company Murata Manufacturing, to build him a companion. So the development began in 2007, but this time, the engineering team decided to make a female version, and to make it more challenging, the Murata Girl would only ride on one wheel, instead of two wheels like her cousin.

The Murata Girl uses the same kind of gyroscopic sensors and a spinning fly wheel at her chest to maintain balance. She is 50cm tall and weights 5kg. She can ride forward, reverse backward, remain idling, avoid obstacles, and even follow others. Then using Bluetooth technology, the Murata Girl can also take commands from a remote PC. The camera on her head also allows the remote operator to see from her perspective. The robot's project page shows more details about her capabilities and her internal mechanism.

Riding a unicycle is certainly more difficult than riding a bicycle (that's why most people know how to ride a bicycle, but not a unicycle). Murata Girl sometimes does fall down, but when she is in a good mood, she could cross a narrow bridge as narrow as 20mm (that's less than an inch) on her unicycle. Here's a video footage of her adorable performance.

The engineering team behind the Murata Girl is still working on improving her skills and capabilities. Wouldn't it be nice if they could teach her how to juggle while riding the unicycle? That would make her a true performer, and we'll be one step closer to a robot circus!

Video of the Day:

It's so sad to see Messi exiting the World Cup stage without scoring a single goal, despite the fact that he had the most shots (30 shots and 15 on goal) among all players including several shots hitting the poles or the crossbar. Argentina is crying (so is Germany)! Well, enjoy this beautiful song by André Rieu: Don't cry for me Argentina!

Robot of the Day: Murata Boy, the Robo Bicyclist

His name is Murata Boy, and it's hard to believe that he can ride a bicycle better than any person or any other robot. It is equally hard to believe that this robo-bicyclist robot has been out there for five years.

The Murata Boy robot only came to existence because the Japanese company Murata Manufacturing wanted to show off some of their various sensors technologies, hence the name. The robot made his first debut at CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) Japan 2005 and people immediately fell in love with this little adept robot who can ride a bicycle like no robots before.

The Murata Boy is only 2-foot tall, which means he can only ride the tiny bicycle custom-built for him. The robot is equipped with four types of sensors: two gyro sensors used to detect angular velocity and inclination; an ultrasonic sensor to detect obstacles; and a shock sensor to detect rough surfaces (you can see more detailed specifications at the project web page here). With wireless network connection to a PC, the robot can follow remote commands such as forward, stop, and reverse. It can also follow pre-programmed paths. The robot can reach maximum speed of 30 inches per second and can even balance while at a complete stop. The robot's sensors work so well that the robot can even ride on a very thin balance beam as show in the video below (toward the end of the video).

Ever since its first debut in 2005, the robot has become very popular at technology exhibitions. And throughout the years, it also had to take on additional challenges with the help of the team of developers. The newly acquired skills include ones such as riding on an S-shaped beam and going uphill on a quite steep slope. Such tasks might sound easy, but requires precise sensor measurements and very accurate motor control. The end result, a very amazed crowd whenever the robot goes. (Change the video resolution to 480 for the two videos below for better viewing experience.)

Murata Boy riding and balancing on an S-Shaped beam

Murata Boy riding uphill

Although the robot is not capable of complex autonomous behaviors (not something Murata Manufacturing wants to show off), it certainly gives a good demonstration of what the sensors are capable of. Once we can develop advanced intelligence to combine with the wonderful engineering feats, who knows, maybe once day we'll see robots throwing morning newspapers at your doors. That is, of course, after the robot is equipped with dog-repelling (or evading) mechanisms. But anyhow, respect to the engineering team behind the Murata Boy!

The team of engineers at Murata Manufacturing who developed the Murata Boy robot

It's worth mentioning that some people opted to turn real bikes directly into robots. For example, the first video below shows the effect of some Japanese inventors working on a noodle-delivering unmanned bike. And the second video shows a Vietnamese attempt. Just imagine a fleet of unmanned bikes on the streets of Beijing, China, taking people to their work! What an amazing scene that would be! Here in the US, however, an unmanned bike is likely to end up an exercise equipment so the robotic bike will do the exercise so the lazy fat human won't have to do it. LOL!

Video of the Day:

Vuvuzela Concerto in B^b. If you click the video to open it in YouTube, you can also click the soccer button in the lower right corner to make it a real concerto!! And here's the music score that goes with it.

Robot of the Day: HINA, the Cutest Mini Robot Maid

This mini-robot has got to be the cutest robot I'd ever run across, and her name is HINA, made by Mujaki Clockwork (a secretive Ninja name of some sort, and here's the link to his blog in Japanese, which I can't understand). As soon as I laid my eyes on her, I couldn't help but think: "I so must get my daughter one of these!!"

HINA is not one of those cheap robot toys you can just buy at Wal-Mart, she is a real robot that has servos with many degrees of freedom and can run complex scripts. Besides being cute always, she can also be quite a little helper sometime and can even provide maid services such as making you a cup of morning coffee!

The above video is obviously staged, but it does shed some lights about what the robot is capable of. Hina is made using Kondo's KHR-2HV, a Japanese robotic kit that could cost $1,299.99 in the US, but customized by Mujaki to give her a very adorable look. She is 36 cm tall and weighs 1.1 kg. With a total of 21 DOFs (Degree of Freedoms) -- legs 6x2, arm 4x2, neck 1 -- she is capable of walking, lifting things up and moving them around. HINA is also equipped with 2 gyroscopes and acceleration sensor, which makes her a real robot, just not a very sensitive one. But with some further customization, it wouldn't be difficult to add a mini-webcam, some touch sensors, and two microphones to give her more capabilities to learn about the world around her. Laser and sonar would probably be out of the question for her tiny slim figure, which means you might need racks of server to process data collected from these sensor in order to produce some intelligent autonomous behaviors.

But still, isn't she the cutest robot in the planet?! And besides providing maid services, she can also entertain you with some cute break dancing moves! So what are you waiting for?





Watching World Cup games is another great way to put your 1.5 year old son to sleep (it might have something to do with the constant bee-like buzzing sounds from the vuvuzelas) .

Robot of the Day: iRobot 1KA Seaglider, the Deep-Dive UUV/AUV

In a previous post, I talked about several robots used to fight oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico. Today I will focus on only one of them -- the iRobot 1KA Seaglider.

The Seaglider robot was originally developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory at University of Washington. It is submarine like UUV (Unmanned Underwater Vehicle) or AUV (Autonomous Underwater Vehicle) used to collect oceanology data under the surface of ocean water. (Go here to see more pictures.)

Seaglider ready to launch (Photo credit APL-UW)

Seaglider in action (Photo credit APL-UW)

Seaglider is 1.8 meter long with wing span of one meter and weighs only 52 kg dry. Powered by 24V Lithium battery, Seaglider has a cruising range of 4600 km and can dive up to 1000 meters. As shown in the short animation below, the robot doesn't have any propeller and flies through water using changes in buoyancy for thrust. This minimum energy consumption allows the robot to stay in water for very long missions that many times last months long.

The Seaglider robot had been used to "track deep-diving mammals by their high-frequency clicks and squeals." It had also been deployed to the poles months underneath the sea ice for a study of climate change as shown in the video below. Every once a while, the robot would surface and then using the long antenna in its tail to send data to a satellite, which then become accessible from web-enabled devices. The operator can also upload preset way points to the robot for it to survey a certain region. The robot is also capable of loiter and drift modes that will allow the robot to maintain neutral buoyancy at any depth.

In June 2008, the Massachusetts based robotics company, iRobot (yes, the one that makes the popular home vacuum cleaner robots), purchased the Seaglider technology to mass produce it for military use. With its top speed at 25 cm/s, I'd think the robot is probably going to used for reconnaissance use instead of the more action-packed 007 style attacking missions. However, at $100,000 a piece, I don't know if this is tax money well spent. In the BP Oil Spill Crisis currently in progress, iRobot has sent several of this sleek autonomous submarines to the Gulf of Mexico to help collect ocean data and track the movement of the oil spill.
Obviously, this robot is only good for the very patient type users. However, I just can't help asking this question, "if, by any chance, the robot gets swallowed by a big fish, will the fish get diarrhea?"

Picture of the Day:

How often do you see this man in a suit? And can you believe these two used to be teammates?

Argentina's coach Diego Maradona (L) speaks to midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron after substituting him during their 2010 World Cup Group B soccer match against Nigeria at Ellis Park stadium in Johannesburg June 12, 2010.
Photograph by: DAVID GRAY
Credit: REUTERS

Robot of the Day: Geminoid-F, the Female Android Twin

Not too long ago, we talked about Geminoid, Dr. Ishiguro's "twin brother" robot in a previous post. That robot was built in 2006. Four years later in April 2010, Dr. Ishiguro unveiled his latest creation: a female andriod named Geminoid-F (F stands for female), built after an unnamed female model in her 20s (photo credit Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP), according to this article at IEEE Spectrum.

The female robot is really the product of joint effort among Osaka University, ATR Laboratory, and Kokoro Co., a small Japanese firm specializing in building androids. Compared to the old male model, this new, more advanced model have the following improvements:

• It can exhibit facial expressions much more naturally.
• It only has 12 actuators (male model had 50)
• Air servo valves and the control system are not embedded into the robot's body, and there is only a small external compressor (male model had a large external box for compressors and valves.)
• The tele-operation system is using facial recognition software, so the operator doesn't have to wear any sensor at all.

Similar to it's male predecessor, Geminoid-F cannot walk and only have limited movements with its arms and legs. Most of the actuators are located around the neck and face. The main purpose of the robot is for tele-presence where an operator would be sitting in front of a camera and the robot would mimic the person's facial expression and lip/neck movements. One possible application of the robot is to support remote companionship. Dr. Ishiguro plans to test the robot in hospitals.

With a price tag of US $110,000 per copy, such a robot might not be very attractive to consumers even for people who seriously long for a twin brother or sister. However, the research team at least accomplished two things:

• advanced the technology of natural expression for a robot, and
• generated ample interest from the public to pay more attention to robotics technology

That leaves me with only one question: Who is he going to duplicate next time?


Picture of the Day:

Adeline will have a dance recital tomorrow. But she just lost a tooth the first time ever in her life! So here I present you:

The pretty, little dancer with a tooth missing!

Robot of the Day: Tetris-Bot, Lego Robot Playing Tetris

Remember the Rubik's Cube solving robots in a previous post? Well, as robots are gradually taking on our world, they are also taking on more and more of our games, and this time, it's Tetris -- one of the most popular video games in the world -- hmm, this really reminds me of those long, sleepless nights of a poor college student!

Pointing a web cam at a computer screen, hooking it to a Lego Mindstorms NXT robot, and setting the robot next to a keyboard, Branislov Kisacanin successfully created a Tetris-Bot that's capable of playing Tetris all by itself. Although Branislov claims that this was an educational project for his kids, chances are, he had a lot more fun than his kids.

The setup really had three pieces. The first piece is a camera capturing video of a computer screen running the game Tetris. A digital signal processing board then processes the video and determine how the falling piece should be moved. The DSP board then tells the NXT robot what to do using LED lights. Then the NXT robot uses its three fingers (hands) to punch three keys on a keyboard to move left, move right, or rotate. Although the robot is capable of punching 3 keystrokes per second, it moves at a much slower pace.

The creator Branislov must had a strong engineering background from his choice of using a DSP board for signal processing. If I were to create such a robot, I'd probably use a computer to perform the computer vision task. Recognizing the Tetris pieces and their orientation is not a very difficult task because of the color simplicity. Then the program just have to use a data structure to represent the state of the game and then choose moves that will maximize a certain utility (defined by the programmer). The video below demos the capability of the Tetris-Bot. The actual robot doesn't appear until 1:48, so skip forward if you want to hurry.

Tetris-Bot here plays like a novice player. My guess is that it will probably forever stuck on level 1 because of it's physical constraints. What would be really nice and fun is to implement some kind of learning algorithm so the robot actually learns what strategies to play from its own experiences and then does some advanced planning by thinking about what to do based on the pieces shown ahead of time. If the algorithm can adjust its parameters (such as threshold values on when to get rid of rows quickly vs. when to wait for a long stick), then the Tetris-Bot would look a lot smarter and more intelligent.

This is yet another example of what kind of robots you can build at your home at your free time using commercially available robotics kit. I know what I am getting for my kids' birthday -- I am very serious about my kids' education! Aren't you?

So if robots are doing our work and playing our games for us, what is left for humans to do? Well, I can think of at least three things:

• building better robots
• blog about robots, and
  
• work on my translation projects

Wait, aren't I doing these already? :) That is, of course, until we have robots that build better robots, robots that blog about robots, and robots that can translate better than I do ... and I am sure glad I won't live long enough to that day!

Video of the Day:

This is excellent engineering too: OK Go - This Too Shall Pass

Robot of the Day: Wakamaru, the Robot Actor and Salesman

On the second day of the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) 2010 conference, Dr. Ishiguro, one of the main organizers of this year's HRI conference, led us to a small traditional Japanese theater, and presented us a robotic play titled Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker), where I finally had the pleasure to meet the famous robot actor (and actress) in person. I have heard of them and their play from news media a long time ago.

The two robots stared in the theatrical production are the Wakamura robots made by Mitsubishi, named after the child name of a famous ancient Japanese general, although these yellow, 1 meter tall, and 30 kg robots were originally designed for companionship for elderly and disabled, selling at a hefty price of $14000 each.

The project was headed by Dr. Ishiguro at Osaka University, who sent his grad students to theater classes and also invited famous Japanese playwright, Oriza Hirata, to write a story. The result was a 20-minute piece named I, worker starring two Wakamura robots alongside two human actors. The robots played two depressed household servants who work for a young couple. Learning from the young couple's life experience, the robots grew tired of their mundane lifestyle and longed to break free and see the world.

Although the robots are not capable of facial expressions, their head and limb movements and the autonomous navigation capabilities successfully conveyed the depressing feeling to the audience. Most of the audience that day did not speak Japanese, but fortunately, Dillon, an American who works at ATR research institute in Osaka volunteered the translation on a big monitor, so we were able to follow the story. One interesting thing we noticed was that the robots apologized a lot, probably due to Japanese culture. The video below shows sections of the play in Japanese.

Since the robots were playing robots in the play, it is pretty hard to beat their performance with real human actors, but when asked about how they felt about the two robots in rehearsals and the real play, the human actor and actress actually almost thought of these robots as real human actors. So what if one day we have plays that comprise of robot actors only, when robots are becoming more sophisticated? What if one day we start to see robots sitting in the audience together with human? Don't think that would be interesting and entertaining by itself?

Other than acting, these Wakamaru robots are also acting as salesman in clothing stores now, and one found a job in a Uniqlo store in downtown New York. This robot is not only capable of conversations, it can also recommend promotions to customers, and best of all, it even asks customers to exercise with it, something that could be in great demand here in the US where obesity is a severe problem.

Video of the Day:

I also saw this at the HRI conference (yes, it's a chimpanzee, not a robot), and thought you'd all get a kick out of it!

Robot of the Day: Ishiguro and his "twin brother" Geminoid

Ever wished you could have a secret twin brother so he could go to classes for you while you sleep in or go out for a field trip? Well, maybe that dream could come true some day thanks to robotics and android technologies!

When Dr. Ishiguro decided to build an android robot for his research, he thought to himself, "why not build one that just looks like me?" And not long after, his new "twin brother", Genimoid, was born into this crazy human world!

Dr. Hiroshi Ishiguro of the Osaka University is the general co-chair of this years HRI conference. He was also one of the panelist in the panel discussion in the HRI Young Pioneers Workshop I was attending, so I finally met him in person, exccept for a fraction of a second, I wondered if it was really him, or his "twin brother" that was sitting at the front row of the room. :)

Dr. Ishiguro's ultimate goal in researching android and human-robot interaction is to really learn and understand about human race itself. His grad students had built behaviors resembling his behaviors into the robot, but Dr. Ishiguro didn't think he had actually behaved like that. I guess sometimes we don't really know ourselves, and looking at oneself as from an external viewing angle might be a very strange and suprising experience.

Geminoid had limited capabilities. He could move his head, his hands, and twich his legs. He blinks and moves his lips when he talks. He could also show some limited facial expressions. There are 50+ motors inside him, though he was not built to walk around, so should we say, he was born paralyzed? But he could hear, see, and speak, and one of his applications is for tele-presense, so Dr. Ishiguro could speak at a remote location, and the robot will lip sync with him through controls over the Internet.

Dr. Ishiguro's advice on career were very simple: 1) Do really good work, and 2) Work on new things. "If you do that," he said, "then good things will just happen to you!"

Picture of the Day:

If you have not seen this movie, I would recommend it. See what consequences you might have to face when you can just duplicate yourself.

Robot of the Day: CubeStormer, the Rubik's Cube Solver

Ever played Rubik's Cube before? If you have, then you know how hard and how long it takes to solve a game of Rubik's Cube. The robot we talk about today, however, can solve it within seconds, and most impressively, the robot was built completely using Lego pieces from the Lego Mindstorms Kit, which means you could build a robot just like this yourself for only a couple hundred bucks!

The robot's name is CubeStormer, built by British engineer Mike Dobson using Lego Mindstorms parts hooked up to a laptop computer. The computer acts as the brain and performs tasks such as recognizing colors, solving the puzzle using algorithms, and sending motor commands.

As shown in the video below, the robot first quickly inspects all six sides of the cube using multiple cameras by first rotating it a few times to recognize the current state of the cube. The computer vision task is actually really simple because the cube is placed at a fixed position, so the recognition software only needs to sample a few points for each color piece and then simply detect the color of the pixels (one out of six possible choices). The state of the cube is then passed on to a solver software (such as this free online one) and sequences of moves are generated, which are translated into motor commands for the robot to perform.

What is impressive about this robot, though, is the engineering side of things, such as how parts are connected and how motors are used all with toy Lego pieces. A beautiful designed enabled the robot actuators to solve the game in such short period of time. If you look closely at the video, you'll also notice that two rows of the cube can be rotated at the same time to speed it up!

CubeStormer by Mike Dobson

The time it took the robot to solve a random game was about 12 seconds. This is very much comparable to the fastest human Rubik's Cube solvers such as the one shown below.

Rubik's cube official world record 7.08 Erik Akkersdijk

There are of course other Rubik's Cube solving robots in the wild, such as the one built by UC Berkeley shown in the video below, which solved a puzzle in 6 seconds. But apparently this robot would cost a lot more.

Rubik's cube solver by UC Berkeley

However, the Cubinator, aka RuBot II, by Pete Redmond from Dublin, Ireland gets extra point in my book of Human-Robot Interaction. Although much slower compared to the other two robots, it has a head and two arms. And after picking up the cube all by itself, it even played music and talked to the audience while solving the puzzle.

Cubinator by Pete Redmond

What if the Cubinator not only solves Rubik's Cube, but is also capable of playing board games or hide-and-seek with your kids, tell them jokes, read books for them, and help them with their homework? Would you want one for your kids? If so, for how much? If not, why?

Picture of the Day:

Leftover Valentine’s chocolate? Use it to measure the speed of light with your microwave. Click the picture to find out how!

Robot of the Day: Ikhana, another Predetor UAV used by NASA to support fire-fighting

In my previous posts, I shows the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Predator B Reaper UAVs. I feel obligated, especially after the previous post talking about my opinion on using military technology for civilian use, to introduce you another Predator UAV used exclusively for scientific data collection and fire-fighting support: The NASA Ikhana Unmanned Science and Research Aircraft System


The name Ikhana is a native American word that means "intelligence". It is really just a MQ-9 Predator B Reaper, except the payload does not include missiles or bombs, but scientific equipments (mostly additional sensors, such as thermal sensors) used to help see through heavy smokes from wild fires. Instead of killing people, the Predator UAV is used to save lives, lives of firefighters or local residents affected by wild fires.

Talking about fire-fighting, there were two big fires, the "Station Fire" and the "Guiberson Fire", near Los Angeles in the last California fire season. These two fires were very close to local residence and damaged and threatened many houses and properties. Ikhana was used for data collection in the Station Fire. Although the Ikhana UAV was not used in the Guiberson fire, I was fortunately enough to be part of a NASA team (as a continuation of my summer internship with NASA) and actually flew to LA and participated the fire-fighting, working on another NASA project in support of the fire fighters to better collect information. This project is called GeoCam, and it is the topic of another blog post in the near future.

Picture of the Day:

Here's me videotaping a user from the US Forest Service using an android phone (running our GeoCam client software) to take picture of a live fire at the Guiberson Fire, and he took a picture of me instead. The other person in the picture is the technical manager of the project, a NASA scientist.