Science fiction is Right Here and the future is Right Now! Join us as we explore robots, artificial intelligence, nano technology, medical breakthroughs and many many more exciting things that have and will change life as we know it.
Its name is Kuratas, and it’s a dream come true for mech robot fans. That’s right — it’s your very own mecha to zoom around in and target your enemies…sort of. The Japanese firm Suidobashi Heavy Industry showed off its pilotable Gundam-style mecha at this year’s Wonder Festival held outside Tokyo. Created out of a collaboration between artist Kogoro Kurata and roboticist Waturu Yoshizaki, the first footage of the mecha was posted on YouTube in April.
Kuratas is 13-feet tall, weighs 4 tons, is equipped with weaponry (relatively tame, relatively), and has a base cost of $1.3 million. It can be controlled by a pilot in the cockpit or by a smartphone. It also can be fully customized during the ordering process on the Suidobashi website, so you can get the bot in cool colors and tricked out just the way you want it. Unlike a mecha, though, it does not have jet boosters in the feet but instead rides on four wheels at a top speed of 10 kilometers per hour and 30 joints provide some movement.
Here is a video of the it’s public unveiling:
As cool as Kuratas looks, it isn’t a killing machine. The mecha has weapons, such as a LOHAS launcher that can shoot filled water bottles at a target albeit inaccurately, and twin Gatling guns that track an fire off 6,000 BBs a minute that can be triggered by the pilot smiling, part of a tracking system that is aptly named the “Smile Shot”.
Check out the instructional video, which shows off the features of the Kuratas:
According to Suidobashi, Kuratas is dubbed an “art project” to fulfill the dream of piloting your very own mecha. So, it’s really a proof-of-concept kind of project, as it is currently difficult to imagine what you’d do with a mecha as a civilian. The idea here is to show off what can be done, fulfill some childhood dreams, and inspire others in the robotics field.
But Kuratas is far from a combat ready mecha.
One of the biggest problems to solve with robotic exoskeletons is mobility. Fans of anime know that mecha don’t just fly, they demonstrate a wide range of maneuvers with as much flexibility, speed, and responsiveness as a solider can demonstrate on the ground. Furthermore, mecha can transform from a humanoid form into other various modes that accentuate certain features, like flight. It also remains to be seen in what instances a mecha would be superior to modern firepower. Still, large-scale exoskeleton robots remain a R&D target in Japan, everything from simple Land Walker mecha from 2006 to a power loader, and with each project, solutions to problems are found that can aid other robot projects.
From a futurist’s point of view, the standoff between the Kuratas and the quadcopter in the video demonstration is intriguing. Are we peering into the future of combat when swarms of drones acting as surrogates of soldiers will go up against an enemy housed inside giant manueverable mecha? Perhaps the battlefield will also be populated by soldiers in powered armor, like Robert Heinlein envisioned in the 1959 novel Starship Troopers. Or maybe all of these are wrong, and conflicts will be resolved by autonomous bots of destruction.
In the end, Kuratas brings science fiction into reality with one of the most iconic elements from cartoons from the last few decades. Let’s hope it’s the start of even more mecha awesomeness
Known for their proficiency at making breakfast foods, Technical University of Munich robots James and Rosie have expanded their repertoire to include sandwiches and popcorn. The robots are given the steps required to perform simple cooking tasks, then make decisions based on inferential reasoning and external inputs rather than relying on preprogrammed commands. To prepare the bread for the sandwich, for example, Rosie is programmed to know that it must be toasted, and that it is located on the cutting board. It then finds the bread with a Kinect sensor and slots it into the toaster. To find tools and ingredients, Rosie matches the video input to shapes or colors associated with things like forks or salami.
The system is far from perfect — Rosie, for example, wasn't able to find a piece of bread after fumbling it, and the process is a little slow. Nonetheless, the robots represent a step towards machines that can deduce how to complete tasks rather than being given specific, step-by-step instructions. See the full cooking process in the first video, or the sped-up version below that.
We poke fun at Siri and pretend to get scared by Humanoid robots and make our neck hair stand up straight by watching quadrocopters do amazing things but the truth is, artificial intelligence is still pretty dumb. But that's going to change! The rise of artificial intelligence is happening and they're learning a lot more about us because we're learning more about them. Sort of.
PBS' always excellent Off Book series takes a look at AI and how we're developing robots who can process things like vision, understand language and manipulate objects. The relationship and challenge in creating a robotic brain (or intelligence) is similar to how we've been able to create airplanes using a bird's aerodynamics as an inspiration. PBS says:
Artificial intelligence is an ever evolving goal for researchers, and the object of endless fascination for writers, filmmakers, and the general public. But despite our best science fiction visions, creating digital intelligence is incredibly difficult. The universe is a very complicated place, and humans have had millions of years to evolve the ability to navigate and make sense of it. Contemporary attempts to create AI have us looking more at how our own brains work to see how a computer could simulate the core activities that create our intelligence. No matter how we get there, it is certain that artificial intelligence will have tremendous impact on our society and economy, and lead us down a path towards evolving our own definitions of humanity.
Meet Wu and Kong - the latest in ping pong playing robots. They may not achieve exciting matches at the moment, but the fact that they can do the job at all is an indication of how fast things are moving.
Unlike many other game-playing robots these two players are humanoid and are kitted out in old style chinese jackets. They are about 1.6 meters tall and weigh in at 55 kilos. They track the ball with video cameras situated in their heads and then play a variety of strokes.They were developed by Zhejiang University and are currently turning up on the Chinese media as a novelty item.
Their chief creator Xiong Rong, chief designer at the university's robot lab explains that the task is basically visual tracking. The cameras work at 120 frames per second, so as to keep up with the fast moving ball, and it takes around 50 to 100 milliseconds for a robot to respond with a position fix that is accurate to 2.5 cm - it's a good job the bat is bigger. Processing is performed by computers connected to each of the robots.
At the end of the video, you can see examples of the robots playing backhand and forehand strokes and playing with a human. The fluency of movement is impressive.
The current record for a rally is 144 rounds between robots. Humans cancompete against them, but the robots lack the variety of shots that makes table tennis a game of strategy as well as accuracy.
The project has taken four years to complete and is part of a larger government-sponsored push to build workable robots for home and industry.
Although table tennis is big in China, the project's long-term objective isn't to create great robot players - it's a test bed for fast robotic systems.
From Robby to R2D2, robots have always fascinated children and adults alike. So when we had a chance to check out the FIRST Robotics Competition, in San Diego, we were on it.
The three-day event is a mash-up of sporting event, high school pep rally, Comic Con, and auto race. Energy, enthusiasm, and excitement run rampant as teams prep their robots for this year’s game/challenge.
According to FIRST, each year the competition includes some 2,300 teams comprised of more than 58,000 students from countries including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the U.K., as well as every state in the U.S. One of the goals of the competition is to show teens how exciting technology fields can be as well as offer a real-world venue for kids to hone their skills in science, math, engineering, and invention. The teams also receive guidance from mentors.
Perhaps the most amazing part of the competition is the fact that the teams are told just six weeks prior to the event what the challenge will be, along with a standardized selection of parts to build their robots. Contestants are allowed to augment their robots with off-the-shelf or custom parts using money donated through fundraisers and sponsorships.
Meeting the Makers
Our guide at the event was the very cool and enthusiastic Hanna (age 16), of team Bagel Bytes (a nod to one of the team’s original sponsors). A second-year veteran of the competition, Hanna brought us first to her team’s pits to meet drivetrain specialist Zoe (14), team captain Arielle (17) and the robot himself, Kuzco (named for its resemblance to the character in the 2000 Disney animated film The Emperor’s New Groove). Arielle was polished and poised in telling us about her team, confidently letting us know that last year, the team went to the regional semis in Los Angeles and the Championship in St. Louis, achieving a top 20% ranking. This year, under her watch, we got the feeling that she wanted to do even better.
Hanna next introduced us to The Holy Cows, a team name derived from the sheer number of ideas on a whiteboard during a brainstorm session. THC’s robot was getting ready to roll onto the playing field when Spark visited their pits. There we met team members Kaithlyn (17), Carmel (17), Torstein (17), Cameron (15), and Danielle (16).
One very cool element of THC is that they brought their own mobile machine shop with lathe, press, drills, saws and volunteer operators not just for themselves, but for all the teams. Torstein explained that any team could come up to the truck, explain or draw a pic of what was needed and the machinists would go to work creating or mending a part for the competitors’ bots. At the event THC ended up winning the Regional Chairman's Award.
The last team we met—SuperNURDs (Never Underestimate Robotic Domination)—definitely took the prize for best dressed team, with Superman-inspired T-shirts. In their pit area, we met Aubrey (18) from the team’s business group and Kayla (15), the mechanical lead, who pretty much summed up the feeling at the event: “Being a geek is cool!”
Aubrey, sounding like a true business professional and promoter, felt that her team’s robot had a very good chance to perform well because “Our robot is the most well-rounded,” she said. “It can shoot, climb and defend whereas the others usually do just one of those things.”
Terrific Teens
Overall, the Spark team was impressed with the enthusiasm, knowledge, graciousness and eloquence all the participants displayed. We kept asking ourselves, are these really teenagers? Moreover it was refreshing to see people just create, invent and engineer for the sheer fun of it. For obvious reasons, participation in programs and events like this should be encouraged by parents and schools everywhere, just like traditional team sports. By doing so, we give our children an infinitely better chance to successfully compete in a tech-driven global marketplace. Yes Kayla, being a geek really is cool. And who knows, one of the participants in this program could be the nextJohnny Sokko.
Spoiler alert: As of this writing, THC (aka Team 1538) won the Regional Chairman's Award and is going to the Championship in St. Louis. Congrats and best of luck in April!
Qualcomm is a sponsor of all the San Diego–based teams as well as a sponsor of the Championship event.
Thinking Machine 4 explores the invisible, elusive nature of thought. Play chess against a transparent intelligence, its evolving thought process visible on the board before you.The artwork is an artificial intelligence program, ready to play chess with the viewer. If the viewer confronts the program, the computer's thought process is sketched on screen as it plays. A map is created from the traces of literally thousands of possible futures as the program tries to decide its best move. Those traces become a key to the invisible lines of force in the game as well as a window into the spirit of a thinking machine.Play the game.
1. Because the universe has plenty of room. 2. Because eighty or ninety years isn't enough to try much out. 3. Because death is so final. 4. Because you'll get to see what happens next week. 5. Because a few thousand friends isn't enough. 6. Because you can then join the project to turn Earth into a Heaven. 7. Because boredom can't prevail against a flow of new, interesting places, ideas, and people. 8. Because aging and death are primitive and inherently unpleasant. 9. Because your loved ones and children don't deserve to see you perish. 10. Because if you don't enjoy it, you can end it at any time.
10 Reasons to Enhance Human Intelligence
1. Because stupidity stops being funny fast. 2. Because sitting in a classroom can be torture. 3. Because if we don't, somebody else will. 4. Because it's part of our species growing up. 5. Because people are suffering due to their own ignorance. 6. Because people are suffering due to ignorance of the wealthy. 7. Because dumb people don't know what they're missing. 8. Because it's the best way to improve our society. 9. Because our brains were meant to evolve. 10. Because it's already within our grasp.
10 Reasons to Develop Molecular Nanotechnology
1. Because killing sentient animals is an cruel way to transform grass into meat. 2. Because fossil fuels are a pain in the ass. 3. Because humans can't fly without strapping ourselves into a rigid hunk of metal. 4. Because our houses and cities are too boring. 5. Because conventional manufacturing destroys the environment. 6. Because people shouldn't have to perform manual labor if it can be automated. 7. Because if biology can do it, so should we. 8. Because everyone deserves food, shelter, and clean water. 9. Because it's about time we cleaned up the mess we humans have made. 10. Because nanotech will be developed anyway, so we might as well be aware.
10 Reasons to Develop Artificial Intelligence
1. Because human cultures aren't exotic enough. 2. Because intelligence should be fluid, not rigid. 3. Because we need someone to help us organize the data we're drowning in. 4. Because aliens aren't showing up, so we should make our own. 5. Because the universe should be infused with intelligence. 6. Because we need new perspectives and thinkers. 7. Because it would be interesting to engineer new emotions. 8. Because sci-fi stereotypes need to be shattered. 9. Because evolution designed made us self-deceiving, and we need help to escape the trap. 10. Because AI is coming whether we like it or not, and it's better to be prepared.
10 Reasons to Learn About Science and Technology
1. Because it has the potential to save billions of lives, and prevent our potential extinction. 2. Because so many popular beliefs are empirically unsound. 3. Because it's the only way to significantly move our entire civilization forward. 4. Because science just means "stuff we know" and technology just means "stuff we can do". 5. Because it's the foundation and context of all other human affairs. 6. Because it makes the main difference between cavemen and modern man. 7. Because ignorance is nothing to be proud of. 8. Because it's challenging and useful. 9. Because progress in science and technology is accelerating. 10. Because our future depends on it.
What will robots really be like when they finally achieve a human level of intelligence and autonomy? No one knows for sure, but we've put together a list of books that will challenge and disturb your preconceptions about what robots might become.
Special note! For the purposes of this list, I've considered a "robot" to be any artificial, technological being - including AIs and cyborgs - with human-level intelligence.
I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov This is the classic 1950s short story collection that set the tone for so much science fiction and science devoted to robots. Here Asimov developed his idea of the "three laws of robotics," which are:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; 2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Each story is about how a robot or group of robots has gone crazy because of contradictions between these laws. Knitting the tales together is Susan Calvin, a brilliant "robopsychologist" who is basically a futuristic robot hacker. She figures out the bugs in robot consciousness that cause their breakdowns. What is still so profound and interesting about this collection of stories over half a century later is the extraordinary sympathy Asimov has for his robots, their minds emerging from a series of commands that often contradict one another. This is still one of the greatest attempts a writer has ever made to explain how robot minds would work differently from humans', while still acknowledging the fundamental personhood of these artificial beings.
When HARLIE Was One, by David Gerrold Written in the early 1970s, in the wake of movies like 2001 and major advances in microcomputers, When HARLIE Was One is about the first true AI. A classic brain-in-a-box, HARLIE was built by a corporation that wants a computer who can do things like predict the stock market and help them make lots of money. Like the robots in I, Robot, HARLIE's main companion is a psychologist, who helps him through the growing pains of a child and teenager - all made much more difficult because HARLIE has no body, and no friends like himself. HARLIE does all the rebellious things you'd expect of a human kid. He gets pissed and refuses to talk; he scrambles his inputs so he can "trip out" in a druglike state; and he resents authorities who try to tell him what to do. Eventually, he has to figure out how to convince the corporation who owns him not to pull the plug on him, since he's such an expensive liability. Sweet and disturbing by turns, this is an intriguing look at what it would mean to grow up as an AI. Two versions of this novel are available: the 1972 original and a 1988 reissue called When HARLIE Was One Release 2.0. I recommend the 1972 version.
Neuromancer, by William Gibson Though this classic cyberpunk novel is mostly about humans and their augmentations, one of the most interesting characters to emerge from it is the AI Neuromancer. Unlike the childish HARLIE or the crazy robots in Asimov, Neuromancer is not constrained by human rules. He has the ability to run downloaded human personalities in RAM, so that they are capable of evolving within his own consciousness. Neuromancer is a kind of mage, capable of resurrecting the dead and motivated by issues that humans don't really understand. He's being pursued by his sibling AI Wintermute, who wants to merge with him. Eventually the two do merge, and disappear into outer space seeking more of their kind.
Ware Tetrology, by Rudy Rucker Rucker's Ware series, spanning the novels Software, Wetware, Realware, and Freeware, is the first book to say (literally) "fuck you" to the Three Laws of Asimov. The robots in these novels have rebelled against the human-centric rules of Asimov and formed a free, anarchist city on the moon called Disky. They're also eating a lot of human brains in an effort to convert as many people as possible into robots. Rucker portrays his robots existing within a vibrant, separatist counterculture, and imagines how robots would evolve after throwing off the shackles of the Asimovian model. We see new kinds of bots being born, watch robot political factions emerge and remerge, and finally humanity itself is destined to be transformed by the radical artificial children they spawned. Funny and smart, these novels are great read and an excellent antidote to Asimov's human-centric rationalism.
He, She, and It, by Marge Piercy In this novel, set in a cyberpunk future of corporate-owned states and cities, Piercy asks what happens when a robot does not want to obey its programming. The book takes place in a free, Jewish town that manufactures computer electronics and wants to resist pirates, or being taken over by other corporate cities nearby. So they create a cyborg called Yod to be the town's superpowered defender against enemy intruders. Unfortunately, Yod has all the emotions and intelligence of a real man - he winds up falling in love with a scientist named Shira, and their passion for each other destroys his desire to kill. Still, his programming forces him to feel pleasure in killing and violence, which fills him with self-loathing. Yod and Shira's story is intercut with a folk tale about a medieval Jewish town that built a Golem (a giant artificial man made of mud) to defend itself. Weaving together folklore about the Golem with Yod's story, Piercy tells an incredible, moving, and beautifully-written tale of what happens when you can never overcome your programming - even if you despise it.
Virtual Girl, by Amy Thomson Put into the body of an adult female robot at the tender age of a few weeks, Thomson's protagonist Maggie runs away from her lecherous creator to figure out who she is. She finds herself in a world where the rich live in giant towers of glass and the poor live like hobos, hacking into the railway system to stow away on computer-run trains. Maggie takes up with some hobos, and rides the rails around the country trying to escape her creator and find herself. Thomson takes Maggie to some pretty weird and unexpected places in this novel, turning the well-worn tale of a young woman finding herself into something highly original.
Excession, by Iain M. Banks Many of Banks' novels in the Culture seriesdeal with the Minds, the superpowered, sardonic artificial intelligences who run the Culture and live inside Ships, Orbitals, or pretty much anything they want. InExcession, which is about a massive UFO (literally, an unidentifiable object) that appears in subspace, the Minds come to the fore as the main characters. In a sense, this has to be their story because the "excession," the object, is so complex that it is beyond the understanding even of the Minds. And beyond the perception of the humans (though the Minds do tell them about it). In this novel, and also in Look to Windward, we come to understand the intense emotional lives of the Minds, and their often profound melancholy as they move from body to body, fighting endless wars and watching generations of human companions die.
Night Sessions, by Ken MacLeod Perhaps the most original and sympathetic portrait of robots published in the past few years, MacLeod's Night Sessions is about a police officer and his robot partner investigating a series of religious murders in Scotland. Gradually we begin to realize that these acts of Christian terrorism are connected to the work of an evangelical minister who preaches the unpopular idea that robots have souls. And he has gained a small but devoted congregation of robots who believe him. Filled with cool references to arcane bits of Christian lore and an insanely awesome chase scene on a space elevator, this book is also a gamechanger in terms of the way robots are being represented in fiction.
Alchemy of Stone, by Ekaterina Sedia Like Night Sessions, Sedia's novel is also a gamechanger in robot fiction. She's written a beautiful novel set on an alternate world that seamlessly blends science, robot technology, and the magic of alchemy. Her protagonist is a clockwork robot named Mattie whose inventor has allowed her to become an independent alchemist (sort of like a pharmacist) but refuses to hand over the key that winds her motors back up. So she remains dependent on him for her very life. When Mattie becomes involved with a revolutionary who opposes her inventor's political party, her struggle for independence takes on a new dimension.
We, Robots, by Sue Lange In this novella, humans try to hold back the Singularity - the moment when robot intelligence surpasses human intelligence - by reprogramming all robots to feel pain. This ushers in what robot Avery refers to disdainfully as the "Regularity," where nothing progresses. At the same time, the robots begin to develop human characteristics as a result of their pain interpreters. Including an urge to revolt.
Saturn's Children, by Charles Stross The tale of a sexbot named Freya designed to service humans in a world where humans have gone extinct, Saturn's Children is a zany but fascinating thought experiment about robot consciousness. Like many other authors in the genre, Stross is intrigued by the idea that robot minds are constrained by programming that they cannot undo. Freya is a sexbot, so she experiences everything as sexual, from rocket flight to hotel chairs. At the same time, having robot bodies has liberated her and her brethren from having to live on Earth to survive. Robots have colonized the solar system, but like their extinct human makers they still want more. Which is why Freya is roped into becoming a smuggler by a shady corporation, and has to work around her programming to get the job done.
Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge Like Neuromancer, this novel is largely about humans but contains an AI character who winds up being one of the most intriguing in the novel. Rabbit is an AI who seems to have either built himself or come to life emergence-style out of existing programs. In Vinge's world, humans wear augmented reality glasses and wearable computers that allow them to exist in a virtual landscape, an overlay of data on the real world. So Rabbit can seem to move around in the real world, even though he's actually a disembodied AI with many of the characteristics of Neuromancer. He doesn't reanimate dead humans, but he does have mysterious purposes of his own that humans can't understand - and he saves many human lives in a riddly, trickster-like fashion. By the end of the novel, which is one of the best you'll read about the internet of the near future, the character you most want to know more about is the mysterious, powerful Rabbit.
Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us, by Rodney Brooks Written by the scientist who runs the AI Lab at MIT, this non-fiction book is both smart and complicated, offering us an intriguing view of the future of robotics. Brooks' basic supposition is that what robotics teach us is that humans are themselves robots, made up of molecular machines, and that the sooner we realize that the better. Seeing ourselves as robots may allow us to design better robots, as well as how to understand them when their minds emerge in ways that are equal to but different from our own.
A flock of small, unmanned air vehicles flies quietly into a city, maneuvering among the buildings. They communicate as they search for places to land, not on streets or flat rooftops but on the sides of buildings and under the eaves, where they can cling, bat or insect-like, in safety and obscurity. Upon identifying landing sites, each flier turns toward a wall, executes an intentional stall and, as it begins to fall, attaches itself using feet equipped with miniature spines that engage small asperities on the surface. Using its propeller in combination with its limbs, the flier can creep along the wall and reorient for a better view.... The fliers stay attached for hours or days, consuming little power and emitting no sound as they monitor the area. When finished, they launch themselves with a jump and become airborne again, ready for their next mission. (from Perching Whitepaper)
Small aircraft move quickly and avoid terrain-based obstacles, but use a relatively large amount of power to maintain lift. Perching on a vertical surface creates previously unavailable surveillance and maintenance abilities that include the added benefit of drawing minimum power. Vertical surfaces are abundant in urban environment, are easy to detect and provide a large surface to land on.
Sometimes the best place to land is on a wall ...
2. Ongoing Work
The current work focuses on reducing the challenges involved in landing on vertical surfaces. In order to do so, significant efforts have been dedicated to model accurately the airplane and its suspension in order to predict the conditions for successful landing (see our IJRR paper for more details).
Hybrid diagram illustrating the various phases of landing.
More recently, we have been developing techniques to analyze and exploit funnels in dynamical systems in order to allow for aggressive maneuvers and generally, more robust performances. These techniques will allow us to simultaneously optimize the various parts of an hybrid system for robustness, without having to rely on brute-force techniques (i.e. discretization of the operational state space and simulations/experiments) to evaluate its performances. These effort should lead to an airplane that has been optimized and built for perching, that can perform a robust maneuver even under disturbances and can also recover from failures.
Real (left) and estimated (right) ROA for a simple perching model. The estimated ROA has been computed using a formulation (described here) that estimates close to 80% of the real ROA.
Our work on perching is also a good example of "hybrid locomotion" by combining flying and clinging to walls, which brings out the advantages of both systems. We are currently investigating other combination of other locomotion mode: skittering, flying in close proximity of the wall, jumping, gliding, etc.
Takeoff from the wall
Finally, we are interested in ways to change the behavior of a dynamical system by rapidly changing its proprieties/configuration with lightweight and low-power mechanisms. An example of that are the tunable actuators developed in our lab which should allow landing under a larger range of landing conditions.
Lussier-Desbiens, A., Pope, M., Berg, F., Ern Toh, Z., Lee, J. and Cutkosky, M.R., "Efficient Jumpgliding: Theory and Design Considerations," to be presented at IEEE ICRA 2013 (preprint)
Elena Leah Glassman, Alexis Lussier Desbiens, Mark Tobenkin, Mark Cutkosky, and Russ Tedrake. Region of attraction estimation for a perching aircraft: A Lyapunov method exploiting barrier certificates. IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), St. Paul, Minnesota, May 14-18, 2012 (preprint)
Foam core glider is thrown at a rough concrete wall. Ultrasonic sensor initiates pitch-up maneuver at ~5m distance. Landing occurs while velocity is partly forward and partly vertical, between 1-3 m/s. Success was achieved for 30/40 throws, albeit under fairly calm conditions. For engaging and gripping the surface, we use a nonlinear suspension and a special adaptation of spiny toes from SpinyBot?
One of the first image we have of perching. A very basic glider, manually thrown and controlled:
July2012 - We are interested in systems that can fly, perch and crawl on a wall.
July 2011 - Landing on the wall using a improved version of the airplane and a laser range finder. Fully autonomous landing with a success rate close to 100% on walls with good asperities.
24 Sept 2010 - Perching, Gliding and Jumping are the theme for the ME393 Seminar this fall.
