and ROBOTS

More documents

Recommendations

Info

worldmags 26 SERVO 12.2010 GOTTA HAVE HEART A 15 year old Italian boy has become the first child patient in the world to be permanently implanted with an artificial heart. The boy — who has not been named — underwent a 10 hour operation last week and at last report is still in intensive care but has woken up following the surgery and is said to be well and talking. As he already suffers from a muscle wasting illness called Duchenne syndrome. he was ineligible to be placed on the heart transplant waiting list. The illness causes rapid muscle degeneration and the teenager had been confined to bed and unable to walk, and was close to death when surgeons decided to install the artificial heart. Paediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Antonio Amodeo carried out the operation with an eight-member strong team at the Bambino Gesu Children's Hospital in Rome. HIT ME Isaac Asimov would probably be horrified at the experiments underway in a robotics lab in Slovenia.There, a powerful robot has been hitting people over and over again in a bid to induce anything from mild to unbearable pain — in apparent defiance of the first law of robotics which states that "a robot may not injure a human being." However, the robo-battering is all for a good cause, insists Borut Povše, who has ethical approval for the work from the University of Ljubljana, where he conducted the research. He has persuaded six male colleagues to let a powerful industrial robot repeatedly strike them on the arm to assess human-robot pain thresholds. It's not because he’s defying the first law of robotics. It’s to help future robots adhere to the rule. "Even robots designed to Asimov's laws can collide with people.We are trying to make sure that when they do, the collision is not too powerful," Povše explains. "We are taking the first steps to defining the limits of the speed and acceleration of robots, and the ideal size and shape of the tools they use, so they can safely interact with humans." Povše and his colleagues borrowed a small production-line robot (made by Japanese technology firm Epson) normally used for assembling systems such as coffee vending machines.They programmed the robot arm to move towards a point in mid-air already occupied by a volunteer's outstretched forearm, so the robot would push the human out of the way. Each volunteer was struck 18 times at different impact energies with the robot arm fitted with one of two tools: one blunt and round, and one sharper. The volunteers were then asked to judge for each tool type whether the collision was painless or engendered mild, moderate, horrible, or unbearable pain. Povše — who at least tried the system before his volunteers — said most judged the pain was in the mild to moderate range. TAKES THE CAKE Yes, robots are taking our jobs, but it takes a truly evil mind to design a robot to put grandmothers out of work.This robot cake decorator works sort of like a Spirograph; the cake rotates in a circle while an arm moves back and forth depositing frosting.A separate arm drops those little silver balls that you always wonder whether or not you’re really supposed to eat them. It was designed by Katherina Mischer and Thomas Traxler. worldmags
worldmags GET THE DIRT The newest Roomba version now offers modular parts that can be removed and replaced easily by users. Instead of mapping and memorizing a room — which would take additional technology and raise the price of the Roomba (which starts at $200) — the unit's iAdapt technology uses an internal dirt sensor which literally listens for the sound of dirt being scooped up.With this information, the unit can decide to return to the scene of the dirt to give it additional sweepings. iRobot introduced its fifth generation Roomba at a recent press event in New York. �� WALK TALL The woman in this picture is Amanda Boxtel, who has had a T11/12 spinal injury for 18 years. She’s a paraplegic, but now she’s able to walk with the aid of eLEGS — a robotic exoskeleton system from Berkeley Bionics.You probably remember Berkeley Bionics from their cargo-carrying exoskeleton, HULC, which they’ve since licensed to Lockheed Martin for production for the military. eLEGS is largely based on HULC, except it’s designed for (eventual) home use.The system is relatively light at 45 pounds, and you strap into it by yourself while sitting down.After only a few hours of practice, paraplegics are able to use eLEGS to stand up and walk. �� SERVO 12.2010 27 worldmags
Page 1 and 2: Vol. 8 No. 12 SERVO MAGAZINE ARDBOT
Page 3 and 4: worldmags 2500941 ......... $ 16.95
Page 5 and 6: worldmags PAGE 70 PAGE 52 PAGE 61 I
Page 7 and 8: worldmags FOR THE ROBOT INNOVATOR E
Page 9 and 10: worldmags www.servomagazine.com/ind
Page 11 and 12: worldmags www.servomagazine.com/ind
Page 13 and 14: worldmags By now, First LEGO League
Page 15 and 16: worldmags Listing 1: Bugbot setup a
Page 17 and 18: worldmags Listing 2: continued. sle
Page 19 and 20: worldmags Programmable 2 x 150A DC
Page 21 and 22: worldmags Regional South African FL
Page 23 and 24: worldmags FUN WITH THE SUN Now you
Page 25: worldmags SOLAR FLAIR At the recent
Page 29 and 30: worldmags these great features, eve
Page 31 and 32: worldmags Put a Coat On Remember th
Page 33 and 34: worldmags (Editor’s note: In my j
Page 35 and 36: worldmags ricochet around the arena
Page 37 and 38: worldmags worldmags
Page 39 and 40: worldmags ;————————
Page 41 and 42: worldmags That’s Far Enough We’
Page 43 and 44: worldmags the SO_SEL output pin. SO
Page 45 and 46: worldmags 0b00000111 becomes blank
Page 47 and 48: worldmags This time, we’ll take a
Page 49 and 50: worldmags Figure 5. Click the “In
Page 51 and 52: worldmags Figure 13. Drag in two li
Page 53 and 54: worldmags enough for the basic expe
Page 55 and 56: worldmags the offset of the servo d
Page 57 and 58: worldmags FIGURE 11. If you need ad
Page 59 and 60: worldmags damage it. Here’s an im
Page 61 and 62: worldmags VEX Stepper By Daniel Ram
Page 63 and 64: worldmags FIGURE 3. The SunBot II a
Page 65 and 66: worldmags TABLE 1. Bill of Material
Page 67 and 68: worldmags The SERVO Webstore Attent
Page 69 and 70: worldmags The SERVO Buddy Kit An in
Page 71 and 72: worldmags repetitive actions requir
Page 73 and 74: worldmags FIGURE 9. Propeller contr
Page 75 and 76: worldmags PWM(), respectively. Exam
Page 77 and 78:
worldmags FIGURES 3A-B. German Aero
Page 79 and 80:
worldmags humanoid robots that can
Page 81 and 82:
worldmags Electronic Parts & Suppli
Page 83 and 84:
worldmags worldmags
show all

and ROBOTS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?