HRP-2m Choromet

The Choromet is expected to be available from General Robotics in September, with price which is less then five grands. The Choromet is about 13-3/4 inches tall, and is capable of walking upright on two legs. Four companies in Japan have created a relatively low-cost, user-programmable humanoid robot targeting educational and research applications. The HRP-2m Choromet uses technology from Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), and is user-programmable thanks to open software running on a user-space real-time Linux implementation. AIST hopes Choromet's ability to run software-based movement programs on a real-time Linux platform will enable researchers and schools to experiment with the effectiveness of humanoid robot motion pattern applications. The Choromet is based on several technologies developed by AIST, including A business-card sized SBC (single board computer) 240MHz SH-4 processor, 32MB of RAM, "ARTLinux," an operating system that provides a user-space real-time Linux environment. Humanoid motion application software based on OpenHRP (Humanoid Robotics Project) Some other Choromet features are: Triaxial force sensors on legs, Accelerometer and gyroscope in trunk, and real-time sensor feedback.

AIBO the Dog

The Sony Entertainment Robot Aibo (ERS-110), uses a combination of robotic and media technologies with machine intelligence to generates interaction with its operator. An examination of the Aibo hardware and software reveals how an inanimate object becomes a life-like companion. The Sony product name Aibo stands for Artificial Intelligence roBOt. It can respond to voice commands, detect obstacles, plays tricks, and more.
Aibo's personality develops by interacting with people. Each AIBO grows in a different way, based on its individual experiences. AIBO becomes customized based on feedback and the software being used.
Aibo's mood changes with its environment, and its mood affects its behavior. Aibo also has instincts to move around, to look for its toys, to satisfy its curiosity, to play and communicate with its owner, to recharge when its battery is low, and to wake up when its done sleeping. AIBO is capable of six feelings - happiness, sadness, fear, dislike, surprise, and anger. There are 28 LED lights on the Illume-Face display, and Aibo shows various expressions by changing the pattern of lights. Aibo uses its camera and microphone to remember your face and voice as its owner. The owner becomes special to Aibo, and it will respond to the owner.

BigDog the Mule

Boston Dynamics has created BigDog the robotic pack mule which according to them is "the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth!" BigDog can carry four infantry backpacks while keeping its balance over different type of terrains. The following freaky video (28MB WMV) shows BigDog walking through mud, over slippery snow, over rocks, up a hill, and even keeps itself from toppling over when it's being kicked! BigDog stands about waist high, can carry 165 lbs (75 kg), can walk through most terrain and can always keep its balance. The on-board computer controls locomotion, monitors external & internal sensors and keeps itself balanced. A gasoline engine powers BigDog's hydraulic system for actuating the hydraulically controlled legs.

Sony Dream Robot SDR-4X

Sony Dream Robot SDR-4X is a humanoid robot that can walk, move, and even dance. It is only 23 inches tall and weighs 14 pounds.

Powered by a two of RISC processors, the SDR-4X is capable of 38 separate degrees of movement (older version SDR-3X had only 26). SDR-4X has a real-time adaptive motion control system and better communication technology including facial recognition and complex speech recognition.

Newer version SRD-4X-II has three RISC processors and has advanced motion control, illusion of higher intelligence (vocabulary of approximately 20,000 words), better safety and identification features. SDR-4X-II came in April 02, 2003, lets see when we will see the newer version.

ASIMO Humanoid Robot

ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative MObility) is a bipadel humanoid robot from Honda . This robot has been evolving since its inception in 1986. Current version of ASIMO is 1.2 meter tall and weighs 43 Kg. This size enables ASIMO to actually perform tasks within the realm of a human living environment. It also walks in a smooth fashion which closely resembles that of a human being.
Advanced Walking Technology Predicted Movement Control (for predicting the next move and shifting the center of gravity accordingly) is combined with existing walking control know-how to create i-WALK (intelligent real-time flexible walking) technology, permitting smooth changes of direction.

Kismet Robot

Kismet is a robot made in the late 1990's at MIT with auditory, visual and expressive systems intended to participate in human social interaction and to demonstrate simulated human emotion and appearance. In order for Kismet to properly interact with human beings, it contains input devices that give it auditory, visual, and proprioception abilities. Kismet simulates emotion through various facial expressions, vocalizations, and movement. Facial expressions are created through movements of the ears, eyebrows, eyelids, lips, jaw, and head.

Four color CCD cameras mounted on a stereo active vision head and two wide field of view cameras allow Kismet to decide what to pay attention to and to estimate distances. A .5 inch CCD foveal camera with an 8 mm focal length lense is used for higher resolution post-attentional processing, such as eye detection.

By wearing a small microphone, a user can influence Kismet's behaviour. An auditory signal is carried into a 500 MHz PC running Linux, using software developed at MIT by the Spoken Language Systems Group that can process real-time, low-level speech patterns. A 450 MHz PC running NT processes these features in real-time to recognize the spoken affective intent of the caregiver.

In addition to the computers mentioned above, there are 4 Motorola 68332s, 9 400MHz PCs, and another 500 MHz PC.

The Shadow Dexterous Hand

The Shadow Dexterous Hand is a humaniform robot hand system developed by The Shadow Robot Company in London. The hand is comparable to a human hand in size and shape, and reproduces all of its degrees of freedom. The Hand is commercially available and currently used by NASA, The University of Bielefeld and Carnegie Mellon University.The Shadow Dexterous Hand has been designed to be as similar as possible to the average hand of the human male. The forearm structure is comparable in length to the human forearm, although at the base it widens to 146mm.

The Shadow Dexterous Hand has been designed to have a range of movement equivalent to that of a typical human hand.

The four fingers of the hand contain two one-axis joints connecting the distal phalanx, middle phalanx and proximal phalanx and one universal joint connecting the finger to the metacarpal.

The little finger has an extra one-axis joint on the metacarpal to provide the Hand with a palm curl movement.

The thumb contains one one-axis joint connecting the distal phalanx to the proximal phalanx, one universal joint connecting the thumb to the metacarpal and one one-axis joint on the bottom of the metacarpal to provide a palm curl movement.

The wrist contains two joints, providing flex/extend and adduct/abduct.

This means that that the Shadow Dexterous hand has 24 joints all together, with 20 degrees of freedom.

Robonova-1 robot from Hitec corporation

A robot which can do a lot of amazing things has been released by Hitec corporation. The Robonova-1 robot from Hitec, can walk,run, kick and can stand on one leg. The most interesting thing is that Robonova-1 will also dance for you.

The Robonova-1 is powered by 16 powerful servomotors and this robot will do several things that the ones in the market cannot do. The acrobatic maneuvers performed by the Robonova -1 is sure to take the owners by surprise.

The Robonova-1 can be made to lie down, turn a flip, do push-ups and the robot does all this with the press of a button on the wireless remote control. The Robonova-1 uses a rechargeable 5-cell NiMH battery, and with a 1 hour recharging the Robonova-1 will work for almost 45 minutes.

Along with the robot, the owner will also get some additional programming tools which can be installed on our PC and the Robonova-1 can be configured to do some additional movements and sequences. With the kit, we would also be able to add expandable features when they are available.

The Robonova-1 from Hitec corporation is priced at $1,199.95.

Wii controlled USB missile launcher

The Nintendo Wii caught the attention of the gamers mainly because of the innovative remote. Now apart from gaming, here comes something serious. Here comes the USB missile launcher which can be controlled by the Wii remote.

The Wii remote controlled missile launcher can be used to aim distant objects with precision. The Wii controlled USB missile launcher uses Bluetooth technology to do this.

Using the Wii controlled missile launcher, we can aim, change direction and fire, thanks to the advanced Bluetooth technology.