Showing posts with label Robot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robot. Show all posts

March 19, 2013

iRobot For Your Windows


A Chinese company, Ecovacs, has developed a robot that cleans your windows--and it looks quite like an iRobot that cleans your floors.

You spray the cleaning pad, attach it to your window, and it senses that boundaries of the window and calculates a path to clean them. 


The spray pad wipes them, the squeegee collects dampness, and another wipes it dry. 


There are multiple safety features including dual suction rings, a safety pod with a tether, and an alarm if Winbot runs into problems. 


The spray pads once used can be removed, washed, and dried for another cleaning run. 


I like Winbot as long as it is just cleaning windows and not also looking in the window and listening to what you are doing to gain competitive advantages in a cyberspace that these days, knows few, if any, security bounds. ;-)

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October 20, 2012

Dance Robot, Dance!


This robot has rhythm and can dance Gangnam Style.

It is called CHARLI-2 (Cognitive Humanoid Autonomous Robot with Learning Intelligence--Version 2).

Charlie was developed by Virginia Tech's Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa).

At five feet tall, CHARLI is the United States' "first full-size humanoid robot."

Charlie can do things like walk, turn, kick, and gesture--he is agile and coordinated--and as you can see can even dance and also play soccer!

One of the things that makes CHARLI special is his stabilization technology--where it can orient itself using sensors such as gyroscopes.

According to Wired Magazine (19 October 2012), The Office of Naval Research has provided a grant of $3.5M to CHARLI's creator to develop a nextgen robot called the Autonomous Shipboard Humanoid (ASH) to work aboard Navy ships in the future and interact with humans.

CHARLI won the Time Magazine "2011 Best Invention of the Year" as well as the Louis Vuitton Best Humanoid Award.

While the CHARLI robots still move relatively slowly, are a little awkward, and are almost in a child-like "I dunno state," we are definitely making exciting progress toward the iRobot of the future--and I can't wait till we get there.

For me, I see the potential and this robot can certainly dance circles around me, but that's not saying much. ;-)

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October 7, 2012

The iFirefighter


This the the first fire fighting robot and is built by Howe and Howe called the Thermite. 

Key features:

- Moves steadily on treads instead of wheels

- 1 ton of fire fighting power

- Fits through most doorways

- Douses fires with 600 gallons per minutes

- Doesn't tire like a human firefighter 

- Costs about $96,000 per unit

- Useful in chemical, radiological and other hazardous incidents

While I generally like these fire fighting robots, there are a number of  thoughts that come to mind about these:

- If someone is caught in a burning building or otherwise needs to be rescued, I believe that for now we are still going to be on the lookout  for the real human hero to come through the door and save the day. 

- The next advance will be autonomous firefighting robots (firefighting drones that can identify the fire, encircle it, and put the right suppressants to work to put it out quickly and safely.

- Soon it will be drones, drones everywhere--fighting everything from fires to the enemy and we will no longer be just people, performing alone, but surrounded by our little assistants--perhaps pulling the majority of the weight, leaving higher value activities to us humans.

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