We were scanning through the upcoming ICRA2012 program and noticed an interesting paper titled, "Resonant Wireless Power Transfer to Ground Sensors from a UAV."    This certainly piqued our interest -- especially for Travis, who happens to work with wirelessly-powered sensors at his day job.  Come to find out...  the article is by Dr. Carrick Detweiler, PI of the NIMBUS Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (our undergrad alma mater!).  Furthermore, he just provided a preprint of the paper (PDF) and a video on his website.  Score!  Their quadrotor delivers power via magnetic resonance (ie. WiTricity-style) to a load on the ground.  This same type of technology is being actively researched for lots of applications, including: consumer electronics, transportation (eg. electric vehicle recharging), and remote sensing (this application).  Adding it to a UAV adds a bit of flexibility to the system.   Anyway, be sure to check out the video below... and we'll also give a brief overview of a few different wireless power + robotics projects over the ages.

ICRA 2011 kicks off in less than two weeks in Shanghai, China.  Unfortunately, I won't be attending -- I'll have to wait to see y'all at IROS 2011 in San Francisco come September.  However, I was browsing through the program and it looks like there are going to be a lot of great talks! A few that caught my eye: Morgan Quigley's low-cost 7 degree-of-freedom (7-DoF) series elastic actuator (SEA) arm for sub-$5k, Aaron Dollar's helicopter-mounted shape deposition manufacturing (SDM) hand,  and Rollin' Justin's fast reflexes to catch flying (tossed) balls... and these are just the talks that have videos posted online already (embedded below).  Eventually I'll get around to writing about all this cool research (after finishing my dissertation in a few months!) -- but for the time being, here's a quick scatter-shot overview.

I'm intrigued by several recent high-tech robot toys that provide an immersive, augmented-reality experience that is grounded in a real, physical robot.  Almost universally, these new toys are controlled by smart phones or tablet computers (eg. iPad / iPhone / iPodTouch or Android devices) and will likely be hacker / developer friendly.  They are becoming increasingly sensor-rich and often offer video feedback -- all enabled by the commoditization of robotic components.  For example, the Parrot AR.Drone is a quadrotor helicopter that enables UAV aerial dogfights.  Another is the forthcoming Orbotix Sphero, a simple robot ball that will presumably support many mini-games: like a real-life version of Super Monkey Ball or the best cat toy ever!  Yet another example for you hackers out there, Matt Might created an iPhone-based multitouch remote control for a Scribbler robot in just 6 hours and 200 lines of JavaScript / Python!

Perching is one of the most common aerobatic maneuvers executed by birds and is representative of a large and important class of aggressive aerial maneuvers that take advantage of unsteady aerodynamics.  During a perching maneuver, birds often exceed 90 degrees in angle-of-attack, exploiting both viscous and pressure drag for rapid deceleration.  Russ Tedrake and Rick Cory at MIT's Robot Locomotion Group have drawn inspiration from these insane maneuvers by developing a gliding UAV that can perform perching -- eventually (presumably) allowing a UAV to perch and recharge on powerlines.  This is an impressive feat on many levels:  the physics (semi-turbulent flow, visualized in their photos), a controls perspective (dealing with high-speed maneuvers, non-linear dynamics, and real-time constraints), and an application perspective (the eventual integration of powerline recharging).  Be sure to check out the photos and videos!

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are no longer relegated to military and police forces.  Amateurs and hobbyists, working in close-knit online communities, are fusing old RC airplane concepts with modern technology to create UAVs that rival commercial offerings.  Recent efforts suggest that an amateur UAV, complete with on-board cameras, wireless video downlinks, operator heads-up display, autonomous waypoint navigation / autopilot control, and ground tracking stations can all be had for less than $2,000 (read on for details)!  Unfortunately, the FAA (aviation regulatory body in the United States) already treats commercial UAVs as regular planes, requiring aircraft registration and 60 day pre-flight plans.  While the regulations for hobbyists seem to be more lax, I personally believe the FAA should embrace amateur UAV builders in the same way that the FCC embraced ham radio operators of yesteryear.

Early robots have found utility in warfare dating back to World War II (and arguably earlier), with the invention of simple electrical servo-mechanisms for fire control and targeting.  While fire control has become extremely advanced, its "human in the loop"  nature kept us (relatively) oblivious of the ethical implications of robots in warfare.  However, increased autonomy and point-and-click capabilities are forcing us to reevaluate the ethical implications of robots in warfare.  Enter a new book by P.W. Singer, entitled Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.  Singer was recently interviewed by NPR (and on The Daily Show by Jon Stewart), where he talked about a number of interesting issues.  Links and discussion follow.

Festo is known as a top-notch automation hardware manufacturer, but apparently their research division is capable of making very artistic, bio-inspired robots as well.  This post specifically examines their robotic dirigible and submersible manta rays, both of which harbor a life-like gracefulness.  I encourage you to check out the videos below; the technical specifications are provided for good measure.