Tag: robotics
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Special: Patent Office Director — Software Patents Working
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) director David Kappos pushed back at complaints about software patents harming American innovation, saying the current patent system has generated “an explosion of innovation.” Kappos discussed software patents today in a speech to the progressive think tank Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C. Kappos answered charges that the…
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Algorithm Improves Brain-Controlled Cursor Movements
Engineers, neuroscientists, and computer scientists in the U.S. and U.K. designed an algorithm offering more sensitive and accurate control of a computer display cursor controlled by thoughts. The team led by Krishna Shenoy, Stanford University professor of neurobiology and engineering, published its findings online yesterday in the journal Nature Neuroscience (paid subscription required), and aims…
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Robotic Programming Language Devised for Bio Labs
Researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California created a programming language for robotic devices in biology labs. The high-level language called PaR-PaR — short for Programming a Robot — is described this month in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology. Par-Par is written to help train robotic devices perform repetitive…
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Resourceful Robot for High-Level Tasks in Development
A research team at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta is building a robot with the ability to use objects in its environment to accomplish high-level tasks. The three-year project, being led by computer scientist Mike Stilman, is funded by a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research. “We want to understand the…
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Wearable Sensor System Creates Real-Time Environment Maps
Computer scientists at Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed a portable array of sensors that can create a digital map of a person’s environment, such as a building, while the person wearing the system walks around that environment. Maurice Fallon (pictured right), a research scientist in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and colleagues, will…
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Consortium Launched for Industrial Robotic Operating System
Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio unveiled a research consortium to speed development of an operating system for robots meeting the needs of industrial users. The ROS-Industrial Consortium aims to build an extension of the Robot Operating System (ROS), an open-source common framework of software libraries and tools, currently for service and research robotics applications.…
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Control Algorithm Developed to Fly Robot Aircraft Indoors
Aeronautical and computer engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology built and tested an autonomously driven fixed-wing model aircraft guided by algorithms that let it navigate a complex indoor flight space. The team from MIT’s Robust Robotics Group describe their invention in a paper presented in May at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.…
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NASA Awards Contracts for Commercial Human Space Flights
NASA signed new agreements today with three American companies to design and develop the next round of U.S. human space flights, succeeding the Space Shuttle and leading to a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next five years. The agreements, which call for a base development period of 21 months, were made through…
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Virtual Reality Patients Devised to Train Psychologists
A University of Southern California researcher developed conversational virtual patients with symptoms of clinical psychological disorders that can interact with therapists. Albert “Skip” Rizzo of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (pictured right) discussed his research today in a session of American Psychological Association’s annual meeting in Orlando. Because of advances in technology, virtual humans can…
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Algorithms Devised to Aid Inspections of Mines on Ship Hulls
Engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have written algorithms that help underwater robots inspect the hulls of ships for mines as small as an iPod. The findings of mechanical engineering professor Franz Hover and Ph.D. candidate Brendan Englot will appear in a future issue of International Journal of Robotics Research. The algorithms help guide a…