RR Research

At a glance, Robosapien looks great versus the old school box on wheels with clear dome head. ‘Ooh,’ you say, looks kinda like a muscled storm trooper and the fart button now that’s a hoot. We nod in polite agreement, but behind your back, we snicker at your total lack of appreciation of the advanced robotic theory involved. Each arm has full 360 motion ability allowed by the, ahem, biomorphic shoulder joints and flexible elbows. Ending in three articulated fingers, Robosapien is capable of picking up, gripping, and throwing objects. The genuine full walking motion (most robots don’t genuinely walk outside a lab) is made possible design of the large feet and well placed sensors. And do you know how much power it usually takes to run a robot Fuggedabowdit. Regular robots are dishonorable little battery-eaters always hungry for more, more, more! And who’s going to pay for these batteries, hmmm’ Well Robosapien brings no shame to itself when consuming power, essentially due to the astounding mechanical physics. It runs a full 6 to 10 hours on just one set of batteries. In fact, if you .. more»

Copyright (c) 2007 SharpBrains The goal of Stanford University Media X is to foster collaborations between industry and academia. The 5th Annual Media X Conference on Research, Collaboration, Innovation and Productivity, which I was fortunate to attend, served its purpose well. Let me share the 10 Key Trends that every business executive and innovator should be paying attention to: 1) Personal Robotics is poised to explode soon (predicted by Paul Saffo). It usually takes 20 years science basic science exists until applications reach inflection point and take the world by storm-and we are about to see that happen. Some indicators: DARPA sponsored first robotics attempts in mid-80s, and now we have applications such as the Roomba vacuum-cleaner, and a fully automated racing car. Prof. Kenneth Salisbury showed how there are robots today with great motor skills-i.e., they can unload a dishwasher! 2) Brain Computer Interfaces. Prof. Krishna Shenoy explained how, for many people who can't move/ communicate well, new systems enable the translation of brain signals into control signals, by implanting electrodes in brain that measure signals and help predict behaviors based on response pattern recognition There are .. more»