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The robot vehicle Forbot of the German company Roboterwerk are presented during the Robotik ELROB 2010 show in Hammelburg, southern Germany, Tuesday, May 18, 2010. More than 47 scientist teams present during the show their newest robotic systems, which are use in the army. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

  On the outside, it looks like a normal SUV. But the prototype "autonomous robot car" - fitted with sensors and scanners, multifocal camera systems and powerful computers - might one day help avoid military fatalities from bombings and ambushes - or so its designers hope.

Researchers presented the so-called MuCar-3 at the European Land Robot Trial this week in Germany, where the world's innovators were pitching ideas to military evaluators from the United States, Europe and Japan.
The MuCar-3 can independently follow a lead car, as in a military convoy, and even stop or back up when the lead car does so. It is a step toward providing military commanders with a robotic system that will keep troops out of harm's way whenever possible.
But there are still a few problems to solve, according to the evaluators at the Robot Trial conference, being held near the central German city of Hammelburg.
"We have seen progress, but not as much as we have wished for," said Dirk Ellinger, director of armaments at the German Defense Ministry.
Around the world, armies already use about 10,000 different remote-controlled robot systems for surveillance, reconnaissance or bomb disposal - as seen in the Oscar-winning film "The Hurt Locker." Experts are still waiting for a breakthrough on ground robots to fulfill simple tasks without human guidance.
"For now, there are no solutions for autonomous or semiautonomous systems ready to go into serial production," Ellinger said.
Military commanders are not exactly waiting for something out of the movies - today's priorities don't require sending anything like a Star Wars-like R2 unit or Terminator robot into action, German Army Chief Werner Freers said.
"We are looking for pragmatic solutions that would make life easier for our soldiers in military missions," he said.
Freers said he'd like something that will help soldiers avoid danger, but also wants to spare troops routine tasks so they can concentrate on more important things - "not least of which would be fighting."
Convoy solutions - like the MuCar-3, developed by the military's academy, the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich - could free soldiers from having to move supplies, a stressful and dangerous job in countries like Iraq or Afghanistan.
"This is something we are able to do," said Henrik Christensen, director at Georgia Tech Center for Robotics. But the Munich system is not perfect. It still needs a human-driven car to follow, and it still has someone in the driver's seat for emergencies, though that person need do nothing - as the man in the Hammelburg presentation demonstrated by holding up his hands.
"Maybe, this is not the end of wisdom," Freers said, suggesting the prototype would likely need improvements.
The same could be said about other vehicles at this year's Land Robot Trial. Many looked like things out of 1980s science fiction films, with eye-like cameras, multiple scanners and mechanical arms.
The German University of Siegen presented a robot that was supposed to follow a person, but the cumbersome multi-scanner, multi-camera vehicle kept beeping and stopping, causing its construction team distress.
"It has to be reliable," German armaments director Ellinger said later. "It is helpful as a substitute for human resources only if it is reliable."
Researchers are wrestling with the task of remodeling human senses so that robots can maneuver around obstacles like trees or puddles, but remote-controlled systems are fairly trouble-free.
The MacroUSA & Force Products Group, Inc. of McClellan, California, demonstrated a tiny, durable robot that looked like a radio-controlled toy car but could also transmit video images.
The U.S. armed forces are using the device, which could help check out buildings in a war zone or even in school shootings, MacroUSA vice president Chris Vilter said. Vilter hopes European buyers will be interested in the unit, selling for euro27,000 ($32,900).
More information: Online: http://www.elrob.org

 

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Anybots QB robot. Laser shoots from the right eye.

Anybots, a Silicon Valley start-up company, has developed a telepresence robot called QB, which is a mobile device that can represent you in your next meeting at the office if you are unable to make it, or which can give a company a virtual presence in a remote location. It is in essence a teleconferencing system on wheels.

The mobile robot’s height is variable up to around 1.75 meters and it weighs 16 kilograms. It includes a main computer with Intel Core 2 Duo CPI and Internet connections, several mini-computers, and some self-awareness and autonomy is built-in. The robot is self-balancing and moves around on two aluminum and rubber wheels, reaching human walking speed. The main computer runs a free BSD operating system to drive QB’s motors. The system is controlled remotely by a Firefox browser and simple keyboard commands.
QB “sees” via a five-megapixel video camera in one eye, and a lower resolution camera on the head pointing downwards, and transmits the video feeds to its remote controller via the Internet. Another camera monitors what is at QB’s feet. The robot “hears” via three microphones that feed audio to the telecommuter, and has high-quality speakers for audio in the other direction. The robot feeds an image of the telecommuter to the people in the remote location via a 320 x 240 LCD screen mounted on its head, and the screen doubles as a control panel to enable the Wi-Fi connection. The second eye functions as a laser pointer.

QB is controlled remotely, but an in-built laser guidance system ensures it does not bump into the furniture or door frames. Chief executive officer of Anybots, Trevor Blackwell, explained the point was to make it as simple to control as a character in Second Life or video game. QB runs for up to eight hours on a full charge and will automatically return to its charging base if the lithium battery pack runs low.
The QB robot is expected to be useful for businesses with employees who telecommute, and for companies manufacturing products overseas and wanting a remote presence that can, for example, travel along production lines talking to the staff.

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Anybots QB.

QB is expected to be commercially available later this year, and will retail for about $15,000 per unit. This may seem expensive, but according chief operating officer Bob Christopher, some companies will probably buy multiple units because they will save on air travel costs or even costlier enterprise-class conferencing systems. The robot also has the advantage of allowing a telepresence in conversations outside the conference room. As long as a Wi-Fi connection is available, no extra hardware is required. Public demonstration robots will soon be available via Anybot’s website.

Many people have dreamed of robots helping around the house, vacuuming the carpets, making the beds, and chopping vegetables in the kitchen. Now a new study has found such robots could pose a danger to humans if they use sharp implements such as steak knives.

The researchers were from the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, which is a branch of DLR, the German Aerospace Center at Wessling. They used a 14 kg DLR Lightweight Robot III robot arm capable of holding a range of knives, scissors, a scalpel, and a screwdriver. The articulated arm has a reach of 1.1 meters, and is moderately flexible, and unlike other robots is fitted with position sensors and torque sensors in every joint.
The aims of the experiments were to determine what would happen if domestic robots were trained to use bladed tools commonly found in the home and accidentally struck human soft tissue, and to develop a collision detection system to limit injuries. The results showed in some scenarios when the safety system was turned off the robots inflicted wounds that could have been lethal.

The robot arm was programmed to use the tools to cut, puncture, and stab at different speeds. Tests were carried out on a leg of pork and a lump of silicone, materials simulating human soft tissue. The robot used different maneuvers to strike the materials. Limited tests were also carried out on the arm of a human volunteer (leader of the research team, Sami Haddadin), and in this case a safety system including a prototype collision detector developed by the research team was turned on to limit injuries. When the robot was used with the silicone and pork leg the safety system was turned off and the puncture and stab wounds produced by the robot arm were deep and in some cases would have been serious enough to be lethal if made on a living subject. With the safety system turned on the depth of cuts was reduced and sometimes were prevented altogether.
The research is believed to be the first to study injuries from bladed tools, although there have been studies of injuries that could be inflicted by robots bumping into people. The paper was presented last week by scientists Sami Haddadin, Gerd Hirzinger and Alin Albu-Schaffer at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2010) in Alaska.

The scientists say they have reservations about ever training robots to use knives and other bladed tools in the home, but their research and the safety system they developed will help researchers to develop safer robots.

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