Meka Robotics is a San Francisco robotics startup founded by MIT roboticists Aaron Edsinger and Jeff Weber, of Domo fame.  They have produced some pretty amazing products in the last few years, including the humanoid robot Simon that was recently featured on Hizook.  As I'm somewhat familiar with these arms and hands, I'd like to share some more detailed information, including new videos of the torso and a more detailed look at the anthropomorphic hands.  In particular, it is worth noting that all motors on the 7-DOF arms and 4-DOF hands employ series-elastic actuators (SEAs), a technology that offers natural compliance and provides torque measurements at each joint -- two very useful qualities for robots interacting directly with people.  Be sure to read on for videos and many pictures.   Updated Oct. 19th 2009:  exclusive photos, product data sheets, and new videos added.

At ICRA 2009, the Rollin' Justin humanoid robot (the lovable robot that "Danced Like in Pulp Fiction") demonstrated some impressive teleoperation capabilities.  The man-machine interface (MMI) consists of two components.  The first component comprises two DLR-III lightweight arms, the same type employed by the robot, terminated with force-torque sensing load cells to command the omnidirectional base or the arms / hands.  Meanwhile, the second component, a fully-immersive heads-up display with vicon (optical) head tracking, constantly streams robot-mounted camera images to the heads-up display while simultaneously panning and tilting the robot's head in concert with the user's head movements.  All-in-all, this is a very impressively engineered system.  Be sure to check out the pictures and video below.

I came upon this new commercial (video below) entitled "The Runner -- Exploit Yourself" created by Big Lazy Robot (a design / visual effects studio) for Nike.  The humanoid robot performs impressive feats of urban acrobatics, strongly resembling a more agile version of the movie-star robot, Hinokio.  It is always interesting to compare robot fact with fiction.  Hopefully the future lives up to (nay, exceeds) our expectations.

While Hizook covered the Rollin' Justin robot over three months ago, the rest of the world (including Engadget) had to wait until CeBIT, where Rollin' Justin "debuted" today.  Lots of great pictures and videos were taken, including a video where Rollin' Justin is led around by the hand (I assume using the force/torque sensing capabilities of the DLR-III lightweight arm or the DLR-II hand).  However, the "serious" coverage at CeBIT left out one of Justin's most hilarious commands:  "dance like in pulp fiction."  We show this video (to be shown at the upcoming ICRA 2009 conference) below.

This is great!  Honda is celebrating its 50th year in the US by creating a 49-foot tall Asimo float that will lead off the Rose Parade on January 1st, 2009.  To quote the Honda press release: "Honda's Rose Parade float, a 49-foot replica of Honda's ASIMO humanoid robot, and the parade's first-ever hydrogen-powered fuel cell pace car, the Honda FCX Clarity, will lead the 120th Rose Parade as well as kick off Honda's 50th anniversary of U.S. operations."  I'm always a fan of robots being displayed (and appreciated) by the general public; thanks to DVICE for pointing this out.

You may recall Justin, the humanoid robot sporting two DLR-III lightweight arms and two DLR-II hands.  Well, Justin has recently acquired a 4-wheel mobile base dubbed "Rollin' Justin".  The base utilizes a "powered-caster" design similar to the Willow Garage PR2, except that the torso-caster linkage contains a spring-loaded lift mechanism that gives the base a variable footprint.  I'm sure this will prove useful when trying to squeeze through doors, adapting to uneven terrain, or providing a larger support polygon.  While we currently do not have any video of the system in action, there are a number of great pictures and design documents below.

Back in November of 2007, I saw a presentation by Professor Siciliano from University of Naples where he briefly mentioned (and had a video) of a very cool humanoid robot named Justin.  I've seen a lot more of DLR-III lightweight arms now that DLR and Kuka are working together to push them out into industry; though I must admit that I like Justin's blue arms compared to the characteristic Kuka-orange.  Perhaps the most impressive aspect of these arms is that each has a power-to-weight ratio greater than unity.  This, combined with some very capable DLR-II Hands make Justin an impressive bi-manual research platform.