ACEIZE Tracking the current state of Science and Technology

In a move that has been anticipated since Dec, 2009 Gostai released an open source version of their Robotics Operating System, Urbi. Gostai was started in 2006 and has since grow to a team of 20 people. Their software is in use by several manufacturers more than 30 research laboratories. Urbi is currently involved with several projects including Sony's Aibo, Robotis' Bioloid, iRobot's Create, Mindstorms NXT for LEGO,Segway RMP, Wifibot, and others. Jean-Christophe Baillie, the CEO of Gostai recently took the time to answer some of my questions about Urbi and Gostai. But first, a little more information about what Urbi is all about.

NASA is currently looking for ways to expand the scope of robotics in space. Their current plans include robotic engines, probes, fueling depots, and a humanoid helper robot. These robotic projects are expected to help NASA increase it's scope of operations. The robots may be instrumental in an asteroid visit or mars landing.

Below is a humanoid robot, Robonaut2 (R2), which may eventually be found on the International Space Station (ISS).

Below is the robotic X-37 space plane. This plane will be capable of operating in earth's orbit for an unspecified amount of time and return for a landing on earth.

The golf cart sized Spirit Rover has been on Mars since January 2004. Six years later, Spirit and it's twin, Opportunity, have far exceeded their initial 90 day mission. But the Spirit rover is in trouble. The right front wheel was disabled in 2006. And now the back right wheel is stuck in sand and stalling. The back wheel has been stuck in the sand for 8 months. The wheel stalls have been complicating efforts to free the rover. Now that the rover has only 4 operable wheels, it may be stuck at it's current location until the beginning of the Martian winter. If that happens, the rover is not likely to recover.

Call a tow truck and a garage. Or a good buddy with some tools (Opportunity?). Aren't there tools on those things?

This is a video of a robot from MIT that uses sticky finger pads and some fancy foot articulation to climb walls.

Images Here. Boston Big Picture published a bunch of photographs used in recent news stories and press releases.

Pictured with this story is Honda's brain-machine interface which is being used to control an Amiso robot. I found this image at http://syscone.net/

I saw this video this morning and thought: 'The guy who invented those wheels is a genius'. So I did a little looking.

It turns out that those wheels are called 'Mechanum' or 'Mecanum' wheels. A US patent was filed for in 1972 and obtained in 1975 by Bengt Ilon while he was employed by a Swedish company called Mecanum AB. The US Navy bought the patent and licensed it to various manufacturers in the 1980's.

The Spirit rover mysteriously rebooted twice over the weekend. NASA says that the rover's batteries are charged and the solar panels are generating power. The rover has been operating on Mars since 2004. A recent software update may be the cause of the mysterious reboots. Either that, or the rover is starting to get lonely.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter rebooted unexpectedly for the 6th time since 2005 on Monday.

NASA is trying to figure out the cause of the reboot, but one of their current working theories is that a cosmic ray hit the orbiter and caused it to think that there was a power surge.

First off, NASA has a computer that has flown through space and sits in orbit around Mars which has been rebooted less than any server which I work with. Cool.

Secondly, My mind starts tingling a little when I think about a single cosmic ray causing a computer to shut down and reboot. It sounds like something out of a comic book.

Sarcos is still moving ahead with their exoskeleton project. Here's a video that was posted on Live Leak:

At the moment the suit has battery power for about 30 minutes worth of use. In these demonstrations the suit is wired up to a power source. The current suit generates about 20 times the wearer's strength. A software engineer named Rex Jameson was wearing the suit for some of the publicity events. He mentioned that there is a strange delay in the suit's response time to the wearer's actions. Apparently this just takes some getting used to and doesn't hinder performance. He said the learning curve was, "to relax and trust the robot".

I'm still trying to let my schedule settle back to a more regular pace so I can post my regular insightful articles. Unfotunately today is not that day. But I've got a few links I've been saving.

AP News -- 'Robots take on social tasks', an article about the current hopeful market for robotics; Moving from the Roomba to more advanced household and hospital helpers.

I've been crazy busy lately. Here's a few quick links of things that I want to keep track of.

A Robotic Fish video. From my nemesis nation, The United Kingdom.

Protein synthesis in the race to create for artificial life

Rustum Roy's Burning Salt water?

Robots becoming essential to farming.

Up to date articles on commercial and research robotics.

This year's RoboCup has some very small entrants. The NanoCup was played on Saturday with five competitors from the US, Canada, and Switzerland including ETH Zurich and Canada's Simon Fraser University. They competed in two events; A two-millimeter dash and a challenging slalom, where the robot must reach a goal that is blocked by stationary defenders that look like running men but are about the diameter of two hairs.

The nanobots were placed inside a glass tube, the contents of which were projected onto a screen via two high powered microscopes. Competitors used remote controls to send commands to their robots, or more precisely to send commands to electro-magnets surrounding the glass tubes.

I spent a large part of my weekend reading through some of the information and links from e-panorama. This site is a great resource for learning about the electronics necessary for hooking up motors in electronic circuits.