I would like to introduce you to a new "elastomeric rolling robot" -- a soft robot made of inflatable, silicone actuators that pressurize in sequence to make the robot move.  This new robot hails from MIT's Distributed Robotics Laboratory and has a major distinguishing feature compared to other soft robots: it is entirely self-contained -- no more off-board electronics or pneumatics; everything is on-board. Two technologies facilitated this new robot:  (1) A "pneumatic battery" that uses mechanical feedback to self-regulate a chemical (hydrogen peroxide) reaction and maintain a stable pressure inside the robot's on-board pressure vessel.  (2) An energy-efficient pneumatic valve design based on electropermanent magnets (one of my favorite topics!).  These two new technologies were just presented at recent robotics conferences (ISRR 2011 and IROS 2011).  Be sure to check out the video below.

Take a moment and envision an electromagnet: a simple coiled wire driven by a hefty electrical current gives a fully-programmable magnetic field strength (on, off, and everything between).  Electromagnets are ubiquitous, but it turns out that there is a little-known device with similar functionality yet zero static power consumption -- they are called electropermanent magnets, and they've been around and in use since the 1960's!  A 2010 PhD thesis by MIT Media Lab's Ara Knaian examines the physics, scaling, trade-offs, and several new actuator designs (eg. stepper motors) using these little-known wonders.  Recently, electropermanent magnets facilitated an innovation in "programmable matter," where they were instrumental in creating the world's smallest self-contained modular robots to date (12mm/side).  Read on for details about this fascinating technology, along with discussions about existing and possible robotic applications.

Apparently novel robot end-effectors are popular this week (see the particle jamming robot grippers), as we've spotted another: a previously-unseen robot gripper from SRI International that uses an electrically controlled reversible adhesion called electroadhesion.  We've looked at SRI's electroadhesive wall-climbing robots before, where electrostatic forces are able to support extreme loads with relatively little power consumption. Several friends and I ruminated about the possibility of embedding the electrodes in a robot's gripper to ease manipulation, but it seems SRI beat us to the punch.  It also looks like they're developing general-purpose, highly-compliant electroadhesive pads for a variety of applications; according to the specifications, I should be able to walk up a wood wall using a pad of less than 16x16 inches² while consuming less than 18 milli-Watts -- cool stuff!  Few details are currently available, so I will post updates in the comments as we learn more.  In the meantime... pictures! 

Remember that compliant "jamming" end effector unveiled by Colin Angle (iRobot CEO) at TEDMED 2009?  Even then, it was demonstrated picking up medication bottles, keys, and water bottles (a hand-held version was also demonstrated).  Well, it just got a whole-lot more official with the publication of "Universal robotic gripper based on the jamming of granular material" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).  The cool thing about this method of grasping is its relative simplicity: a rubber sack (balloon) filled with coffee grounds is pressed onto an object, it conforms to the object's natural contours, and the air is pumped out (a volume change less than 0.5%) to form a stable grasp-- no complex grasp planning required.  Be sure to check out the new video and photos!

Dr. Aaron Dollar of Yale's GRAB Lab was recently awarded the prestigious "MIT Tech Review 2010 Young Innovators Under 35" award, better known as TR35, for his work on building flexible robot hands through shape deposition manufacturing (SDM).  The SDM process allows multiple materials to be integrated into a single mechanism, including soft finger pads, compliant joints, rigid members, sensors, and even tubes to run wires and cables.  In fact, this is the same / similar process by which the Meka Robotics H2 Hand (eg. on Simon) is constructed.  Anyway, this is a promising trend for robotics research; TR35 seems to consistently recognise the contributions of top roboticists, such as Andrea Thomaz (2009), Andrew Ng (2008), Robert Wood (2008), Josh Bongard (2007), etc. Congratulations Aaron!

This new robot blimp, powered by electroactive polymers (EAPs), comes from the Swiss Federal Labs for Materials Testing and Research (EMPA). It reminds me of the Festo Air Ray, and definitely ranks up there with other cool EAP robots like the Artificial Muscle EPAM variants previously discussed on Hizook.  Be sure to check out the video.

Back in 2007 and 2008, funding agencies had a pretty hefty interest in robots with amoeba-like locomotion, also known as whole-skin locomotion (WSL), blob 'bots, or Chembots.  NSF awarded $400k to Dr. Dennis Hong of Virginia Tech's RoMeLa Lab and DARPA awarded $3.3M to iRobot to develop such robots.  Now, most people are familiar with iRobot's jamming skin robot announced at IROS 2009 (photos / videos below).  However, I would like to share with you the equally-clever and interesting work of Dr. Hong, including a new whole-skin locomotion robot called ChIMERA: "Chemically Induced Motion Everting Robotic Amoeba" that was unveiled at a recent TEDxNASA event.  Dr. Hong's robots resemble those slippery water-snake toys that are incredibly difficult to grasp, with silicone skin (flexible but rugged exterior) and water or gel inside (soft interior).  Read on to learn more!

Building capable robot end effectors, particularly high-complexity hands, can be a daunting challenge.  In this article, we will examine the fabrication of a robot hand with compliant, under-actuated fingers that is rugged enough to bounce back from twisting, end-on and side impacts, falls, collisions, and even severe back-bending.  The specific fabrication process explored is akin to shape deposition manufacturing using materials such as resins (epoxy / Delrin) and urethanes (a "rubbery" substance) of various durometer (hardness).  This particular technique was used to build early hand prototypes for MIT's Nexi (or MDS) robot from the Personal Robotics Group, and further refinements resulted in the Meka Robotics H2 Compliant Hands, as seen on the Simon robot.    Read on for details and pictures -- this should be of interest to robotics hobbyists and professionals alike.

I saw a press release by Robosoft (a French company that creates "advanced robotics solutions") with attractive CAD drawings of a robotic walker meant to assist the elderly.  I thought this was a good opportunity to examine some of the other robotic solutions in this space, from the more complex Care-O-Bot II from Fraunhofer to the most simplistic passively-breaking walkers that prevent stumbling and excessive acceleration.  Read further for more information, and if you know of any examples of robotic walkers to assist the elderly, please chime in!

By now, most roboticists are familiar with the myriad gecko-type robots that employ Van der Waals forces (created by microscopic synthetic setae) to cling to walls.  Less well-known is the work on an electrically-controllable alternative developed by researchers at SRI International (formerly called Stanford Research Institute) called "electroadhesion".  Impressively, the electroadhesive can support 0.2 to 1.4 N per square centimeter, requiring a mere 20 micro-Watts per Newton.  This means that a square meter of electroadhesive could hold at least 200kg (440 lbs) while only consuming 40 milli-Watts, and could turn on and off at the flick of a switch!  Read on for pictures, videos, and discussion.

There was a paper just released in Science (Materials) about "Giant-Stroke, Superelastic Carbon Nanotube Aerogel Muscles." This is a rare case where I believe the research material far exceeds the buzzword hype!  The new material responds to applied voltages by expanding 220% in a few milliseconds, operating in temperatures as low as liquid-nitrogen and as high as the melting point of iron.  It has the strength and stiffness of steel (by weight) in one direction and yet is as compliant as rubber in the other two.  It has extremely low density due its airy (aerogel) properties, is conductive, and transparent.  This materials innovation has the potential to rejuvenate research on artificial muscles, which has generally been focused on shape memory alloys (i.e. nickle-titanium or Nitinol),  piezoelectrics (such as PZT), or electroactive polymers (EAPs).  Read on for a discussion about these alternative technologies, their drawbacks, and why this new material may be a game-changer!