I just received word from Berthold Bäuml, a lead scientist in realtime dynamic motion planning at DLR, that they've developed a new humanoid robot named "Agile Justin."  Agile Justin is very similar to Rollin' Justin (the ball-catching, Pulp Fiction-dancing robot), except that it has improved dynamic performance.   To test the new hardware, DLR researchers have programmed Agile Justin to throw a baseball.  Naturally, since Rollin' Justin is able to catch a baseball (see the DLR project page), researchers set up an impromptu game of "catch" between the two robots -- shown in a sneak peek video below.   It sounds like this new system is just ramping up and will be used to push the envelope in terms of full-body control: real-time coordination of hands, arms, torso, and mobile base for dynamic tasks.  I'm told that technical details should be forthcoming in academic publications later this year along with demonstrations at Automatica 2012.

I'm really excited about inflatable robots... they have the potential to be low-cost, lightweight, extremely powerful, and yet "human safe" -- ie. perfect for many robotics applications.  With that in mind, I would like to introduce you to two new (breakout) inflatable robots: a 15-foot-long walking robot (a Pneubot named Ant-Roach) and a complete, inflatable robot arm (plus hand).  Both of these robots were developed by Otherlab as part of their "pneubotics" project (in collaboration with Meka Robotics and Manu Prakash at Stanford University), with some funding from DARPA's Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program.    These robots use textile-based, inflatable actuators that contract upon inflation into specially-designed shapes to effect motion.   Since these robots are built out of lightweight fabric-and-air structural members and powered via pneumatics or hydraulics, they exhibit large strength-to-weight ratios.  For example, Ant-Roach is less than 70 lbs and can probably support up to 1000 lbs; the inflatable robot arm is less than 2 lbs and can lift a few hundred pounds at 50-60 psi.  Be sure to read on for details and lots of videos!

The Swarmanoid project is a cool twist on swarm robotics -- researchers use a heterogeneous swarm of robots to achieve distributed mobile manipulation. The swarm is comprised of three different robot varieties: Hand-Bots (manipulation and climbing), Foot-Bots (wheeled mobility and sensing), and Eye-Bots (quadrotors for recon and sensing).   The latest video of Swarmanoid retrieving a book won the "Best Video Award" at the Artificial Intelligence Conference (AAAI 2011) in San Francisco just the other day.  You can check out the robots and winning video below.

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.

Carol Reiley, a surgical robotics PhD student at Johns Hopkins' Computational Interaction and Robotics Laboratory, wrote in to share how they unwind after a long day of research.  She writes, "Here's a video of the Johns Hopkins Robotics lab playing the board game Operation on the $1.3M dollar (Da Vinci Surgical) robot. The video emphasizes the robot's precision and hand tremor reduction as well as how difficult Operation is to play, even with a robot. :-)" Fun, whimsical, and a bit meta.  Surgical roboticists seem to enjoy themselves; seems like just yesterday they were using the robot to make little paper airplanes or produce dance videos.

Heartland Robotics, the stealthy robotics startup founded by iRobot co-founder and robotics legend Rod Brooks, was in the news again last week after closing a $20M financing round.  Little is known about the company beyond broad superlatives from executives about building robots to "increase productivity and revitalize manufacturing."  Now, successful fundraising by a robotics startup is great news, but alone it was insufficient to draw my laser-focus away from thesis work.  However, a Boston.com article this weekend provided a tantalizing new nugget of information that I absolutely must share -- Heartland is working on a new mobile manipulator with a $5,000 projected price point complete with one or two arms, grippers, sensor head, and a mobile base.  If coupled with a depth camera (eg. Kinect) and a decent computer, this could be a really compelling robot platform!  If this price point is real, perhaps those superlatives aren't so inflated after all...  

A few weeks ago, my labmates from Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Lab presented a paper at IROS 2010 entitled, "Towards an Assistive Robot that Autonomously Performs Bed Baths for Patient Hygiene."  Their work used Cody, a robot with compliant arms, and a specialized "bath mitt" end effector to perform wiping motions that could clean selected areas of an actual person's body, including the upper arm, forearm, thigh, and leg.  In this robotic cleaning task, the robot initiated and actively made contact with a human.  The psychological impact of such robot-initiated contact is an interesting question -- one I believe will be important for future healthcare and human-robot interaction (HRI) tasks.  Read on for a video and discussion by the authors.

KUKA has developed an impressive array of omnidirectional robot platforms: OmniMove, OmniRob, and youBot. A new video on the youBot Store shows how an OmniMove holonomic base (containing eight mecanum wheels) can be transformed into a seriously heavy-lifting mobile manipulator through the addition of a huge Titan robot arm, which has been called the "world's strongest robot arm" and is capable of lifting 1000 kg.  The video (embedded below) shows this latest platform towering over the smaller youBot platform. I wonder if this new platform would qualify for BattleBots...?  It would make for a fun exposition match!

Dejan Pangercic of the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Group at TUM (Technische Universität München) wrote in to show us a cool dual-robot demonstration where a PR2 robot (TUM's James) and TUM-Rosie combine their efforts to prepare and deliver pancakes -- Yum!  The demonstration system is quite impressive, featuring: door and drawer opening, object recognition, grasping and manipulation, navigation, multi-robot cooperation, etc.  The demo seems to use a fair bit of stock ROS functionality, as well as some new functionality and CRAM integration (Cognitive Robot Abstract Machine, a reasoning framework from TUM).  I'm anxious to learn more about the system: assumptions, limitations, and methods.  Hopefully more advanced details are forthcoming.  Check out the video below.

Yesterday Georgia Tech's PR2 robot made a LIVE appearance on CNN.  The event was accompanied by interviews of Dr. Charlie Kemp (director of Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Lab and my advisor) and Keenan Wyrobek (Willow Garage figurehead).  Travis Deyle (yours truly) was also present and responsible for the robot demonstration.  While some of the PR2's movements (some driving, waving to the audience, etc) were scripted or teleoperated via joystick, the actual medication delivery demonstration was fully autonomous and used UHF RFID sensing (a major component of my PhD research), the base laser rangefinder, and a slightly-modified TrajectoryPlannerROS.  The demo went off without a hitch, and as Keenan mentioned on the PR2-Users mailing list, "Their demo is a milestone (albeit a gutsy one) for PR2.  The first nationally televised, LIVE, sensor-based demo with a PR2."  Check out the video (embedded below), as well as some behind-the-scenes pictures of the PR2 inside CNN's studio.

There is an interesting article in the Seattle Times about former Microsoft robotics evangelist, Tandy Trower, launching a new startup named Hoaloha Robotics.  His goal is to create a $5k-10k personal robot (aka mobile manipulator) in the next five-to-ten years that can address the needs of older adults, such as telepresence activities and other healthcare tasks.  Hoping to leverage cheap 3D sensing (like depth cameras a la Microsoft's Kinect) and inexpensive computing, this one-man (so far) company is another entrant in a new, budding market.  Having been personally involved with the design, construction, programming, and brief home-deployment of a mobile manipulator (EL-E), I can confidently say that Tandy & co. have a lot of work cut out for themselves -- I wish them luck and success.

By now, you're probably familiar with the Nao humanoid robot from Aldebaran Robotics -- the robot that supplanted the Sony Aibo as the robot du jour for Robocup's Standard Platform League (international robot soccer competition) back in 2007 and retains that prestigious title yet.  Recently, Aldebaran announced a new Educational Partnership Program that aims to expose students of higher education to the joys of programming advanced robots.  Contemporaneously, Aldebaran announced a set of four product derivatives to match varied academic budgets, ranging from full humanoids, to upper-body manipulation rigs, and 2-DoF robot heads for audio-visual experimentation (see details below).  Crucially, this new initiative provides a stable hardware platform with a comprehensive software suite (alternatively, extensive open-source ROS drivers) to match your educational, research, or just whimsical robot needs.

Apparently my hunch about the recent humanoid being the standard platform for the DARPA Autonomous Robot Manipulation Software (ARM-S) program was spot-on!  A new blog post on ROS.org confirms that this is the DARPA "ARM Robot" and that there is a public contest to name the robot.  The blog post gives a few hardware details: "The 'ARM Robot' has two Barrett WAM arms, BarrettHands, 6-axis force torque sensors at the wrist, and pan-tilt head. For sensors, it has a color camera, SwissRanger depth camera, stereo camera, and microphone."  The program winners are also enumerated: Carnegie Mellon University, HRL Laboratories, iRobot, NASA-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, SRI International and University of Southern California.  Be sure to check out the video of the (now confirmed) unnamed DARPA ARM-S robot platform embedded below. Updated Sept. 1st, 2010: This robot was integrated / developed by RE², a Carnegie Mellon spin-off located in Pittsburgh, PA that specializes in agile defense robotics with an emphasis on intelligent mobile manipulation platforms.

Dr. Motilal Agrawal from the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International just sent an email to the robotics worldwide mailing list seeking qualified PhD or Masters job candidates (or interns) with experience in ROS, C++ / Python, and grasping / manipulation.   In the email, Dr. Agrawal points to a movie that shows off a new humanoid robot  being used at SRI that sports dual Barrett WAM arms, each with a Barrett three-fingered hand -- see the movie embedded below.  I can't wait to see what SRI plans to do with its new robot; they always seem to do such thorough work.  You'll notice that this design is becoming increasingly common, from Intel / CMU's HERB robot to Alexander Stoytchev's robot at Iowa State.  Updated Aug. 31st, 2010:  My hunch was correct; we just received confirmation that this robot is indeed the "standard" hardware platform for the DARPA ARM-S program and was developed / integrated by RE².

Two weeks ago, Engadget / CrunchGear posted videos of RAPUDA (Robotic Arm for Persons with Upper limb DisAbilities) from AIST's Intelligent Systems Research Institute -- a wheelchair-mounted, light-weight robot arm with a prominent telescoping link that was demonstrated grasping a cup from a table, lifting the cup for drinking, and grasping an object from the floor via teleoperation (video embedded below).  Given my proclivity for clever mechanisms, I wanted details about the telescoping link, specifically to determine how it compares to the Geosystems Situational Awareness Mast (aka Zippermast).  Well, I found what I was looking for: a Japanese patent application for "Linearly Moving Extendable Mechanism and Robot Arm Equipped with Linearly Moving Extendable Mechanism."  Basically, the telescoping segment consists of a series of small interlocking modules that are expelled (or reeled-in) through the "shoulder" link.  Check out the pictures -- cool stuff!

FastCompany spotted a new version of HERB (Home Exploring Robot Butler) at the CMU Quality of Life Technology Center.  HERB is a joint effort between Intel Research's Personal Robotics Program and Carnegie Mellon University.  The new version sports two Barrett WAM arms on a Segway RMP mobile base and has a very distinctive rotating (instead of tilting) planar laser rangefinder.  The new HERB certainly has a unique design -- be sure to check out the photos and video below where HERB grasps objects from a table.

This week KUKA Robotics is demonstrating their latest product offering at the Automatica conference in Munich: the youBot robot.  YouBot is a mobile manipulating robot with a 5DOF arm coupled to a mecanum omnidirectional base -- essentially the same product that Hizook predicted when the individual components were being demonstrated at IROS 2008.  KUKA will start delivery in November for Germany (March for the US), and the robot will cost approx $24,000 USD (less with educational discounts), and components will be available separately.  The youBot looks to be a solid robot platform and is not encumbered by the large control boxes characteristic of some larger KUKA arms -- a few photos and videos are embedded below.

On Wednesday night, midway through a week-long PR2 training workshop, Willow Garage held a press conference and party celebrating the launch of the PR2 Beta Program, essentially signifying the completion of their Milestone 4.  The night featured speeches by Willow Garage founder (Scott Hassan), CEO (Steve Cousins), and Personal Robotics Program co-founders (Keenan Wyrobek and Eric Berger).  Eleven PR2 robots, destined for recipient robotics institutions around the world, made dramatic entrances before performing an impressive 11-robot coordinated dance (see video below).  I was privileged to attend the event as both a workshop participant and as a Hizook "press" representative, providing access to the press conference where I met other elite robotics bloggers, such as Norri Kageki (GetRobo), Evan Ackerman (BotJunkie), and Erico Guizzo (IEEE Spectrum Automation Blog).  The event was fun, and definitely strengthened my impression that the personal robotics revolution is near.  Updated June 2^nd 2010:  The official Willow Garage mashup from the "PR2 Graduation Party" has been posted (embedded below).

Last week Willow Garage kicked off its official PR2 Beta Robot Workshop, where approximately 50 robotics researchers from the 11 PR2 recipient institutions gathered to become familiar with ROS on the PR2, hack on the robot alongside Willow personnel, and have plenty of stimulating robotics discussions.    Attending as a grad student in Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Lab, I had a front-row seat to this enjoyable but grueling event.  I'll give my high-level day-to-day overview of the week (below), which included the "PR2 Launch Party" on Thursday night that featured many prominent folks from Silicon Valley (more detailed coverage).  As an aside, I was proud to hear that so many robotics professionals at the event read and enjoy Hizook -- be sure to contribute your photos and impressions in the comments.

At IROS 2009, IRobot demonstrated an interesting form of locomotion dubbed "particle jamming skin" (to create what became known as the "blob bot").  The robot was creepy, but the concept was interesting.  In a recently available TEDMED 2009 talk (embedded below), IRobot CEO Colin Angle describes a unique particle jamming end effector (robot hand) for manipulation.  By selectively inflating or deflating, the particle jamming end effector can change from a liquid-like state to ooze around a target object and then harden into a solid-like state to grasp or pickup the object.  Colin shows a video of a PackBot with particle jamming end effector picking up medication, keys, and a (dummy) patient's arm.  He also does a live demonstration using a hand-held particle jamming system.  Be sure to check out the video and stills below -- they will help you understand this bizarre (but compelling) robot hand.

Today Willow Garage announced that eleven (rather than the original ten anticipated) PR2 Beta robots, with a total value of over $4.4M, will be loaned out to academic and research institutions worldwide to develop a slew of impressive capabilities over the next two years.  The recipients include 7 US-based institutions, 3 European, and 1 Asian.  The final list is a panoply of robotics specialists:  University of Freiburg (Germany), Bosch, Georgia Tech, KU Leuven (Belgium), MIT, Stanford, TU Munich (Germany), UC Berkeley, U Penn, USC, and University of Tokyo (Japan) -- full details can be found in the Willow Garage press release.  It is difficult to overstate the importance of this event in the grand history of robotics...  Let me try to explain.

Robotiq is a new Canadian startup spun-out of the Laval University Robotics Lab and founded by Samuel Bouchard, Vincent Duchaine and Jean-Philippe Jobin.  Their first product is a very cool looking three-fingered robot hand called the "Adaptive Gripper."  It is comprised of three under-actuated fingers, two of which can change their position and orientation to support a variety of grasp configurations -- very similar in principle to the Barrett Hand and Schunk SDH Hand.  The Adaptive Gripper's prominent finger linkages lead to a rather beautiful mechanical motion, as seen in the grasping videos (below).  I would imagine the mechanical linkages also offer additional robustness compared to under-actuated cable-driven competitors and cost advantages over fully-actuated competitors.  Unfortunately, its price is still an unknown -- perhaps someone attending ICRA 2010 in Alaska can stop by their booth and inquire...?

This new humanoid robot named "Cody" comes from Georgia Tech's Healthcare Robotics Lab (to which I belong).  Cody is composed of a Segway RMP 50 Omni mobile base, 1-DoF vertical linear actuator, and a pair of 7-DoF Meka Arms with series elastic actuators (the same as Simon).  This mobile manipulator has shown some pretty impressive capabilities.  It can open doors, drawers, and cabinets using equilibrium point controllers developed by Advait Jain and Prof. Charlie Kemp.  It also has a nice direct physical interface (touching interface) to reposition the robot that was developed by Tiffany Chen and Prof. Charlie Kemp. Much of the code controlling this robot is open-source and has ROS (Robot Operating System) interfaces.  Be sure to check out the videos and photos below.

Well, it's official.  Willow Garage CEO Steve Cousins just announced to the Robotics-Worldwide mailing list that Willow intends to give away 10 PR2 robots.  These are some amazingly impressive robots, costing several hundred thousand dollars each.  Willow's PR2 robots and open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) have been widely acclaimed by news organizations such as the New York Times, Popular Science, Hizook, and pretty much everyone else.  This should be an interesting year for Willow Garage.  The full Robotics-Worldwide announcement is below, and the Willow Garage Call for Proposals (CFP) can be found here.  Updated Jan 21st 2010: Included some new (professional) photos of the finished PR2.

Autonomously seeking out power for battery recharging is a pretty crucial capability for advanced mobile robots.  While Roomba-like docking stations are a quick fix, "plugging in" to existing infrastructures is preferable.  Not long ago, the robotics world was abuzz with the Willow Garage Milestone 2, where (among other things) a PR-2 robot plugged itself into 9 different wall outlets.  My curiosity on this subject was further piqued when I saw Intel's Marvin robot use electric fields emanating from an outlet's internal wiring to finely localize an outlet/plug and adeptly plug itself in, all sans camera.  I'd like to share some photos and videos of recent efforts (by both the Willow and Intel folks), as well as examine the history of robots plugging themselves into wall outlets.