TED TALK: Autonomous Agile Aerial Robots

Autonomous Agile Aerial Robots

In this TedTalk, Vijay Kumar introduces autonomous agile aerial robots. These robots are related to unmanned air vehicles; also known as UAV’s. But unlike UAV’s, autonomous agile aerial robots are much smaller in comparison weighing less than 1 pound. Also, unlike UAV’s, these small robots are very agile and are able to perform very acrobatic maneuvers. In the discussion, Vijay shows the physics of how these robots are able to perform these agile maneuvers by changing rotor speeds, pitch and yaw. The robots are able to have this type of ability due to their fast processors which receive environmental input 100 times per-second and adjust controls 600 times a second. This gives these robots the ability to be aware with neighboring robots to perform group tasks like flying in formation.

Vijay Kumar's Perspective 

Autonomous micro aerial robots can operate in three-dimensional environments, and offer many opportunities for the field robotics community. I will describe the challenges in developing small, agile robots and our recent work in addressing these challenges. I will also discuss the problems in deploying large numbers of aerial robots with applications to cooperative manipulation and transport, construction, and exploration and mapping in indoor environments.

Future of UAV's

Future applications of UAV systems will depend on the aircraft autonomous behavior and decision capabilities. Search and Rescue is one complex possible mission and is here taken as a case study. The ReSSAC project is a multidisciplinary project at ONERA. Its main challenges are related to the architectures and algorithms for autonomous decision and information processing onboard UAVs that perform their mission in cooperation with operators. The feasibility demonstrations and results of the project are intended to be reused and extended in further studies, projects and collaborations. A first step of the project was to develop an autonomous control architecture for our two rotorcraft. In this paper, we present the current status and preliminary achievements of the ReSSAC project, especially some records of past experimental flights with our autonomous aircraft. We further discuss ongoing studies and research perspectives.

TED TALKS Video

Vijay Kumar talks about different functionalities of this UAV in this video

'Robot Biologist' Solves Complex Problem from Scratch

First it was chess. Then it was Jeopardy. Now computers are at it again, but this time they are trying to automate the scientific process itself.


An interdisciplinary team of scientists at Vanderbilt University, Cornell University and CFD Research Corporation, Inc., has taken a major step toward this goal by demonstrating that a computer can analyze raw experimental data from a biological system and derive the basic mathematical equations that describe the way the system operates. According to the researchers, it is one of the most complex scientific modeling problems that a computer has solved completely from scratch.
The paper that describes this accomplishment is published in the October issue of the journal Physical Biology and is currently available online.

The work was a collaboration between John P. Wikswo, the Gordon A. Cain University Professor at Vanderbilt, Michael Schmidt and Hod Lipson at the Creative Machines Lab at Cornell University and Jerry Jenkins and Ravishankar Vallabhajosyula at CFDRC in Huntsville, Ala.

The "brains" of the system, which Wikswo has christened the Automated Biology Explorer (ABE), is a unique piece of software called Eureqa developed at Cornell and released in 2009. Schmidt and Lipson originally created Eureqa to design robots without going through the normal trial and error stage that is both slow and expensive. After it succeeded, they realized it could also be applied to solving science problems.

One of Eureqa's initial achievements was identifying the basic laws of motion by analyzing the motion of a double pendulum. What took Sir Isaac Newton years to discover, Eureqa did in a few hours when running on a personal computer.

In 2006, Wikswo heard Lipson lecture about his research. "I had a 'eureka moment' of my own when I realized the system Hod had developed could be used to solve biological problems and even control them," Wikswo said. So he started talking to Lipson immediately after the lecture and they began a collaboration to adapt Eureqa to analyze biological problems.

"Biology is the area where the gap between theory and data is growing the most rapidly," said Lipson. "So it is the area in greatest need of automation."

Software passes test

The biological system that the researchers used to test ABE is glycolysis, the primary process that produces energy in a living cell. Specifically, they focused on the manner in which yeast cells control fluctuations in the chemical compounds produced by the process.

The researchers chose this specific system, called glycolytic oscillations, to perform a virtual test of the software because it is one of the most extensively studied biological control systems. Jenkins and Vallabhajosyula used one of the process' detailed mathematical models to generate a data set corresponding to the measurements a scientist would make under various conditions. To increase the realism of the test, the researchers salted the data with a 10 percent random error. When they fed the data into Eureqa, it derived a series of equations that were nearly identical to the known equations.

"What's really amazing is that it produced these equations a priori," said Vallabhajosyula. "The only thing the software knew in advance was addition, subtraction, multiplication and division."

Beyond Adam

The ability to generate mathematical equations from scratch is what sets ABE apart from Adam, the robot scientist developed by Ross King and his colleagues at the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. Adam runs yeast genetics experiments and made international headlines two years ago by making a novel scientific discovery without direct human input. King fed Adam with a model of yeast metabolism and a database of genes and proteins involved in metabolism in other species. He also linked the computer to a remote-controlled genetics laboratory. This allowed the computer to generate hypotheses, then design and conduct actual experiments to test them.

"It's a classic paper," Wikswo said.
In order to give ABE the ability to run experiments like Adam, Wikswo's group is currently developing "laboratory-on-a-chip" technology that can be controlled by Eureqa. This will allow ABE to design and perform a wide variety of basic biology experiments. Their initial effort is focused on developing a microfluidics device that can test cell metabolism.

"Generally, the way that scientists design experiments is to vary one factor at a time while keeping the other factors constant, but, in many cases, the most effective way to test a biological system may be to tweak a large number of different factors at the same time and see what happens. ABE will let us do that," Wikswo said.

The project was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative.


Posted by : Faran Ali

Army Exoskeleton Suit Gives Man Superhuman Strength

Super hero movies are all the rage these days.  Take a look at the swollen coffers of Marvel and DC and it will be apparent.  With such a vested interest in the super-human, it seems only natural that it would be brought to real life.  No, there has not been a revolutionary breakthrough in gene therapy (X-Men style), and nobody is as diesel as Batman, but the researchers over at Raytheon’s recent acquisition, Sarcos Lab, have set their sights on super-strength with the design of their XOS exoskeleton.  Capable of lifting over 200 pounds without the operator breaking a sweat, this DARPA funded meld of man and machine will make any Iron Man fanboy plotz.

We have featured other exoskeletons here on the Hub, but this one takes the cake.  The super-suit is being designed for the U.S. Army, where the plan is to turn soldiers into workhorses.  They would be able to lift hundreds of pounds of ammunition and cargo without feeling the slightest bit of strain, making the fast unloading of precious cargo take significantly less time.  The system is run by a computer that receives input from six pressure sensors located on the exoskeleton.  With that input, the computer can then determine which action the user is trying to do and tell the suit to mimic the action before the human actually exerts any force.  The user only feels the weight of his or her arms and not that of the object being lifted.
Currently, the suit is limited in terms of mobility because power and hydraulic pressure come from an external source.  The researchers at Sarcos have yet to develop a portable power source for the suit, but that is on the shortlist of improvements for future designs.  The first step for the researchers was to create an effortless shadowing system and, now that it has been accomplished, they are now moving onto the power problem.  Take a look at the video below to see the XOS suit work its magic.  It’s a few years old but, because of the classified nature of this project, there’s not much footage out there.

Capable of lifting 200 pounds, but still gentle to the touch.

Work has already begun on reducing energy consumption so that the device may be powered by a battery pack for up to a days worth of continuous use.  The hydraulic valves that act as the suit’s muscles have been redesigned so that they only require energy when in operation, an improvement in hydraulic function that researchers at Sarcos claim they had to innovate themselves.  While much of the information regarding the project is classified, it is known that military trials of the suit are set to begin sometime this year, if they haven’t already.  While the power situation does not seem to have been worked out just yet, the first uses for the suit will probably be for stationary manual labor.

Such a marvel (pun certainly intended) of engineering and robotics has been a long time coming.  The project began in 2000 and has gone through four evolutions of the suit.  The pace at which this project progressed to the point where superhuman strength is an effortless feat can give credence to the thought that the future is not far off.  Perhaps it may be a few years before these suits are seen on the battlefield, but it is impressive enough to hear somebody say that they gave up on lifting a 200-pound weight after 500 repetitions not because they were tired but because they were bored.

We live in an age of constant progress where man’s mastery of the human body and the world around it has shown that there really are no limitations.  Well, maybe time travel could get a little sticky with all the paradoxes and such, but science fiction and fantasy are fast becoming reality.  This idea began as a children’s story when it first debuted over 45 years ago as Iron Man and nobody but the most die-hard comic book fans ever though that a mechanized suit would possibly exist.  These comic book writers are effectively predicting the future.  Perhaps it is time to switch religions to the Church of Marvel?

Running robot: MABEL is now the world's fastest two-legged robot with knees

"It's stunning," said Jessy Grizzle, a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. "I have never seen a machine doing a motion like this."

MABEL was built in 2008 in collaboration with Jonathan Hurst, who was then a doctoral student at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Grizzle and U-M doctoral students Koushil Sreenath and Hae-Won Park have spent the years since ratcheting up MABEL's training. They've been progressively improving the feedback algorithms that enable the robot to keep its balance while reacting to its environment in real time.

MABEL started off walking smoothly and quickly over flat surfaces. Then it moved on to uneven ground. It took its first real jog in late July, and with that, Sreenath met the ultimate goal of his research just days before he was scheduled to defend his thesis.

Few robots can run, and the researchers say no machine but MABEL can do it with such a human-like gait. Its weight is distributed like a person's. It has a heavier torso and light, flexible legs with springs that act like tendons. MABEL is in the air for 40 percent of each stride, "like a real runner," Grizzle said. Other running robots are almost speed-walking. Their so-called flight phase when both feet are off the ground lasts for less than 10 percent of each step.

"We envision some extraordinary potential applications for legged robot research: exoskeletons that enable wheelchair-bound people to walk again or that give rescuers super-human abilities, and powered prosthetic limbs that behave like their biological counterparts," said developer Hurst, who is now an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Oregon State University.

Two-legged robots with good running form would also have the advantage of being able to travel over rough terrain and inside places built for humans. They could one-day serve as robotic soldiers or rescuers, the engineers say.

"The robotics community has been trying to come up with machines that can go places where humans can go, so a human morphology is important," Grizzle said. "If you would like to send in robots to search for people when a house is on fire, it probably needs to be able to go up and down stairs, step over the baby's toys on the floor, and maneuver in an environment where wheels and tracks may not be appropriate."
Wheels are a great way to move across flat surfaces, Sreenath said, but when the ground gets rocky, two legs are much more efficient.

"Imagine a future where you don't have to first clear a path and build roads before a vehicle could move around," Sreenath said, "but rather, we have a class of running machines like animals that could transport you around with no roads, but with a smooth and efficient ride."

More information: http://www.eecs.um … s/MABEL.html

DARPA Commissions a Super-Fast Running Robot Cheetah

oston Dynamics--developer of the headless humanoid PETMAN and the equally creepy Big Dog robots--has landed itself two more DARPA robotics grants to the tune of several million dollars each. New to the production queue: another humanoid designed to traverse rough terrain and a fast four-legged design modeled on the Cheetah that aims to be the fastest legged robot in the world.

ATLAS, as the humanoid will be called, will be a Skynet-styled super-strong, super-agile human-like bipedal robot that will build on Boston Dynamics’ PETMAN program. DARPA wants it to be able to climb, turn sideways to sidle through narrow spaces, and use its hands to augment maneuverability.

Cheetah, on the other hand, has one defining characteristic: speed. The four-legged ‘bot is expected to move at a pace of 20-30 miles per hour, but researchers see no reason why it couldn’t eventually keep pace with its biological counterpart.

“There’s no fundamental reason why it can’t go as fast as the animals (60 to 70 mph), but it will take a while to get there,” said Marc Raibert, Boston Dynamics’ president, in the Boston Herald.
DARPA is funding the initiatives out of its Maximum Mobility and Manipulation Program, which aims to create a framework for building robotic systems faster and enhancing their ability to move around and manipulate natural environments. If speed is what they’re looking for, the Cheetah is expected to deliver in more ways than one; the first prototype of the ‘bot is due in just 20 months.

Check this video link

Nanobots replacing neurons

Royalty free animation 3D animation of Nanobots replacing neurons (nerve cells)

Nano robot at work replacing human nerve cells with artificial nerve cells. This CG animation visualizes one of the possible future applications and uses of nanotechnology.