DARPA

You know how you had to watch The Matrix I again just before Reloaded came out to psych and prepare yourself for an awesome sequel? Well, with the Urban Challenge - aka Grand Challenge II - right around the corner, we wanted to relive the moments of the Grand Challenge and found this awesome video series on the historic robotics contest here on PBS NOVA. If you are not familiar with it, PBS NOVA is an award winning and incredibly brilliant television series covering science and technology and it's broadcast in freely available media (public television and the Internet). Each of their one-hour television episodes has a dedicated web space like this one on the Grand Challenge. I watched the Grand Challenge episode for the first time online and it was great! They have mesmerizing aerial video of Stanley and Highlander racing through ... continued

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Michael Goldfarb, a professor at Vanderbilt University, has led the development of a prosthetic arm that, get this, is powered by miniature rocket motor systems! The fuel, hydrogen peroxide, is burnt in a catalytic reaction generating steam that opens and closes valves connected to the joints of the arm. The mechanical parts that make up the arm were precision machined to avoid any leaks. A small canister of hydrogen peroxide loaded into the arm provides sufficient energy to allow 18 hours of normal arm movement! At 450°F (232°C) one would think the super-heated steam would cause a tincy mincy discomfort to the user. Fortunately, the researchers thought of end-user comfort and insulated the really (really) hot parts of the arm. Look at the video.. the motion is quite amazing. The thumb and fingers are controlled independently. It probably sounds really cool too!

This amazing work, funded by DARPA as part of its Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, seems to focus only on the mechanical development of the arm. Other research in the program is looking at connecting such arms to our nervous system at Caltech, University of Utah and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. There's another video with commentary on Vanderbilt University's website ... continued

A few days ago, DARPA announced the semi-finalists of this year's urban challenge after having wrapped up the site visits. We gave you a preview of MIT's car a few weeks ago. The 36 semi-finalists include teams like Stanford's Junior, Team MIT and CMU's Tartan Racing. A few German teams have also made it to the semi-finals.

The next stage called the National Qualification Event is scheduled for October 26-31 and will be held in Victorville, CA. Count on waziwazi.com to be there and bring you all the highlights!

Robert Wood, a Harvard University roboticist has built a robotic fly that actually mimics the flying motion of the living version. He has only recently achieved flight with his contraption. The fly weighs only 60mg and is constructed from carbon fiber and electroactive polymers that change shape with an applied voltage. Potential applications for such a life-like insect are quite obvious. Besides unleashing the fly onto an unaware professor thus livening up his snoozefest of a lecture, DARPA, which is funding the research, probably envisions sending the fly on spy missions. The fly is currently tethered flying only in one direction and is hooked up to an external power supply.

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Here's a video of the MIT Urban Challenge car in action!

DARPA are continuing their site visits to narrow down the contestants for the much anticipated Urban Challenge. Last week, they visited MIT. Ford, which formed a research alliance with MIT, provided the team with a brand spankin' new Land Rover LR3 to play with. The team's got some heavyweight research support, drawing together the expertise of MIT and Olin College faculty, students and Draper Labs.

Can you hear the servos of robots everywhere zipping around in excitement? Urban Challenge is nearing! DARPA has begun making site visits to decide what teams will make the semi-finals of the much anticipated robot competition. During these site-visits, the robot cars will be put through a test course with a four-way intersection and moving traffic. DARPA will wrap up the visits around July 20 and announce, on August 10, the 30 semi-finalists and location for the big event.

Stanford's Junior seemed to have passed the test last Thursday. Junior has 8 LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) systems for distance measurement and path detection. Junior's positioning system is accurate to about 30cm.

Fresh from calling for proposals for shape-shifting robots, DARPA, the US government's defense research arm, is now looking for ideas for unmanned underwater riverine craft, or UURC, for use in surveillance or reconnaisance in shallow waters. As with the ChemBots, DARPA is not shy about stating what it wants: a robot that can carry a host of sensors, evade the enemy by burrying in the river bed for example, unload listening or tracking devices and be deployable by air or water.

Superbot is quite an ingenious morphing robot developed by USC's Polymorphic Robotics Lab. The robot consists of smaller autonomous robots that can link into several different configurations allowing the super-robot to roll down a hill, caterpillar through a pipe or walk like a bipedal bot for example. Take a look at the video below and read on after by clicking the read more link below.

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DARPA, the agency responsible for the Grand Challenge and Urban Challenge, is looking for brilliant ideas for shape-shifting robots. DARPA refers to these as ChemBots because it forecasts that these robots will use advanced soft-materials to be able to squeeze through small openings for example. There's a growing interest in soft-bodied robots. As previously covered, VT's WSL project goal is to create a search-and-rescue robot that can squeeze through cravices.

DARPA is setting a lofty goal for Phase I as seen in their request for submissions. They would like you to demonstrate a ChemBot that is palm-sized, can travel through a 1cm opening and morph back into its original form in 15 seconds!! I'm sure there'll be a lot of bio-inspired solutions.