Robotics Innovation by Dennis Hong

Reference: Ted Talks

Locomotive Ideas from the Animal Kingdom

The animal kingdom provides great insight for creating mobile robots. Locomotion is an important aspect of their functions, which can contribute to fundamental design principles. An example is a lightweight carbon-fiber foam composite cheetah that is built to move. The cheetah has an extremely flexible backbone that gives extra speed or force to its running motion. The greatest challenges in building this prototype is to get enough power from motor devices to generate desired speed.

Reference: wired

Robotic Butler

Intel Research's Personal Robotics project aims to develop useful robotic assistants for indoor, populated environments. The project is spread across the Pittsburgh and Seattle labs. Currently, Pittsburgh focuses on mid-range perception, motion planning, and manipulation research, while Seattle focuses on short-range sensing and perception, and human-robot interaction.

Reference: http://personalrobotics.intel-research.net/

Herb: A Home Exploring Robotic Butler

An autonomous mobile manipulator that performs useful manipulation tasks in the home

Manipulation Planning with Caging Grasps

Algorithm for performing constrained tasks such as opening doors and drawers by robots such as humanoid robots or mobile manipulators

Robotic Swimming Fish

The picture shown are prototypes for a new type of robotic fish that only costs a few hundred dollars each. The tiny new robotic fish that mimic swimming style of brass or tuna by controlling the vibration of the fishes body. Thus, it can maneuver into places too small for underwater autonomous vehicles. Each fish is built from a small piece of soft, flexible polymer that is resistant to various elements. There are potentially important applications for this robot.

Reference: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/robofish/

High Speed Robotic Hand

Ishidawa Komuro Lab's high-speed robot hand movement, Impressive!

Reference: http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/papers/fusion_movies-e.html