Tag: robotics
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Engineers Develop Robotic Driver-Assist Safety System
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have devised a semiautonomous safety system using robotics to help cars and drivers avoid accidents. Sterling Anderson, a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering and Robotic Mobility Group researcher Karl Iagnemma presented their findings last month at the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium in Madrid, Spain (paid download required). The system…
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Smart Headlights Help Drivers See Better in the Rain
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh have devised a new type of car headlight that is better able to illuminate the road ahead in rain or snow. The team led by computer scientist Srinivasa Narasimhan (pictured left) says lab tests have demonstrated the feasiblity of the new headlight. The system works by…
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Robotic Legs Developed with Human Walking Motion
Engineers at University of Arizona in Tucson have developed a robotic pair of legs with a biologically accurate walking motion. Theresa Klein (pictured right) and Anthony Lewis at Arizona’s Robotics and Neural Systems Laboratory published the results of their work this week in the Journal of Neural Engineering. The researchers say the robotic legs have…
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Robot Recommends and Plays Music Based on Listener Feedback
A robotic device developed at Georgia Institute of Technology, and licensed to a start-up company in Atlanta, can recommend songs based on listeners’ tastes, and even dance to the music selected. Shimi, a musical companion derived from technology developed at Georgia Tech’s Center for Music Technology, is expected to be demonstrated today at Google’s I/O…
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Robotic-Guided Brain Surgery Performed
Mazor Robotics Ltd. in Caesarea, Israel says it completed three robot-guided brain surgical procedures with its technology. The nature of the procedures was not disclosed. The procedures were performed by neurosurgeons In-Se Kim and Robert Schönmayr at Horst Schmidt Kliniken in Wiesbaden, Germany. Mazor Robotics is a developer of robotics for spinal surgery, often involving…
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Small-Scale Surveillance/Emergency Robot Developed
ReconRobotics Inc. in Edina, Minnesota has unveiled a compact and lightweight robotic device for military, police, and emergency-response applications. The company plans to demonstrate the Throwbot XT Reconnaissance Robot at the Eurosatory defense and security exhibition, 11-14 June in Paris. The Throwbot is designed to be physically thrown into harm’s way by military, police, and…
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SpaceX Dragon Capsule Docks at Space Station [Updated]
Update: 31 May 2012 NASA reports that the SpaceX Dragon capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 11:42 a.m. EDT a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico, marking the completion of the first mission by a commercial company to resupply the International Space Station. The capsule earlier began a 9-minute, 50-second deorbit…
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Consortium Developing Synthetic Biology Technology Platform
The Flowers Consortium, a group of five universities in the U.K., is developing a common platform technology for synthetic biology. Development of the platform — a basic set of standard technologies, from which specific applications can be designed — is being funded by a grant of some £5 million ($US 7.8 million) from the Engineering…
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Japanese Robot to be Adapted for Work with Humans
Engineers at the Tecnalia Research and Innovation Centre in San Sebastián, Spain will further develop the intelligence of a Japanese humanoid robot to enable the device to work along side humans in European factories. The robot model, known as Hiro — short for Human Interactive Robot — is made by Kawada Industries in Tokyo. The…
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Two Paralyzed People Use Brain-Controlled Robotic Arms
Two stroke victims with tetraplegia — total loss of the use of limbs and torso — were able to control robotic arms with brain activity to reach, grasp, and use physical objects. The results of this study from the BrainGate project are reported today online in the journal Nature (paid subscription required). The BrainGate project…