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Life-Size Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robot: Man Builds Droid That Punches You
By Ben Muessig - AOL NewsScience fiction writers have long imagined the day when robots will rise up and attack humans. It's safe to say that none of them pictured it looking anything like this. An Australian draftsman has constructed a robotic boxing buddy, called Punching Pro, that uses two arms powered by 12-volt windshield-wiper motors to throw blows at its human sparring partners. "This is an automated sparring apparatus that is heaps of fun; it looks and feels like you're challenging a real fighter," Punching Pro inventor Kris Tressider wrote on his website. Even though the robot is made from parts that ...
NASA Plans 2025 Manned Mission to Asteroid
By Lee Speigel - AOL NewsIt's a little soon for astronauts to suit up, but NASA is planning to send a manned mission to an asteroid in 2025. In keeping with President Barack Obama's 2010 vision, the space agency has shifted its sights from returning to the moon and, instead, is aiming for a smaller -- and possibly more dangerous -- rock in space, Space.com reports. "By 2025, we expect a new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first-ever crewed missions beyond the moon into deep space," Obama said last year at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency / ...
US Robots to Peek Inside Japan's Nuclear Meltdown
By Lauren Frayer - AOL NewsThe world may soon get a glimpse inside Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant -- through the "eyes" of a U.S.-made robot. A Massachusetts company that manufactures robots for U.S. military bomb disposal units in Iraq and Afghanistan has sent four of its top-technology robots to Japan, to venture into radiation-exposed areas where it's too dangerous for humans to go. The machines take measurements and record real-time color video, then transmit it back to engineers in the safety zone. The U.S. company, iRobot, sent four robots to Japan last Friday, including two of its top "Warrior" models ...
Internet for Robots: It's Not Skynet, It's RoboEarth
By Beau Brendler - AOL NewsIt's one of science fiction's most familiar ideas: computers that can, when hooked up to other computers, become self-aware and exhibit human characteristics. The results are often sinister, as the machines perceive humanity as a threat and defend themselves to the death. "Star Trek" had its Ultimate Computer, among many others; "2001: A Space Odyssey" had HAL 9000. Heroes of the "Terminator" films fought against Skynet, a group of networked military computers that triggered a nuclear holocaust, then aggressively tried to put what was left of humanity out with the trash. Now RoboEarth -- "a ...
Training Begins for 2011 Robot World Cup Soccer
By Steven Hoffer - AOL News
(Oct. 25) -- Get ready to break out your iVuvuzelas. Although the 2010 RoboCup championship in Singapore has already crowned its champion -- Germany's "B-Human" took first prize in the standard platform league -- researchers at the University of Edinburgh are already gearing up for the 2011 competition. The 2010 RoboCup attracted entries from 40 countries, so team Edinburgh can expect fierce action on the pitch. Roslan Rahman, AFP / Getty Images A robot plays with a ball during a practice at the RoboCup 2010 championship in Singapore on June 24. Dr. Subramanian Ramamoorthy, an assistant ...
Robot Census Taker Finds a Growing Population
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Oct. 12) -- New Carnegie Mellon University graduate student Heather Knight just wanted to get to know some of the robots on campus. What she found was a population explosion. It turns out robots at the university outnumbered the people creating them. Knight counted 547 robots compared with several hundred faculty and students working on robotics at the Pittsburgh school. And her count doesn't include robots at an off-campus, government-sponsored lab. "I was really shocked that the number was so high," Knight told AOL News in an interview. Knight describes herself as a "social roboticist." ...
Robots to Patrol Former Nuclear Testing Site
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Oct. 4) -- An area outside Las Vegas where the United States once tested nuclear weapons is about to be patrolled by robots. The Nevada National Security Site just got the first of three robots, called the Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced today. The robots, which can travel at speeds of up to 20 mph, operate remotely, though a human operator is alerted if a robot encounters a person. They are equipped with microphones and cameras that allow an operator to interact with people the robots may encounter. Sponsored Links ...
Pentagon-Funded Researchers Create Deceptive Robots
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Sept. 16) -- "All war is based on deception," says a famous quote attributed to Sun Tzu, the renowned Chinese military strategist. So perhaps it's not surprising that as robots are being increasingly used in modern warfare, the Pentagon would want to teach them how to deceive the enemy. Now, military-funded researchers say they've developed an algorithm that allows robots to commit basic deceptions in a game of hide and seek. In a recently published paper, roboticists Alan Wagner and Ronald Arkin at the Georgia Institute of Technology say their work, which includes both simulations and ...
Pentagon May Send Robotic 'Mule' to War
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Sept. 3) -- In the 1980s, the CIA sent mules to Afghanistan to help ferry weapons to anti-Soviet fighters. Now, the U.S. military is looking to send robotic pack mules that can carry supplies around the battlefield and lighten the load of overburdened soldiers. Yuri Cortez, AFP / Getty Images The Pentagon thinks overburdened U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan would benefit from the help of robotic "pack mules" designed to transport supplies. The Rapid Equipping Force, a part of the Army designed to provide urgently needed equipment to commanders in military operations, says it wants a cargo ...
Companies Work to Save Bomb-Clearing Robots
By Sharon Weinberger - AOL News(Sept. 1) -- When improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, became the weapon of choice in the early days of the Iraq war, the Pentagon rushed electronic jammers to the field to save soldiers' lives by disrupting the wireless signals that often triggered the deadly roadside bombs. The military also began sending robots designed to help soldiers in the dangerous job of dismantling the bombs. The jammers, and the robots, are credited with saving countless soldiers' lives. Now, in an unusual turn of events, companies are trying to save the robots' lives, too. At a recent robot conference in ...
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