Tag Archives: video

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!):

ICRA 2022 – May 23-27, 2022 – Philadelphia, PA, USALet us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos.
We first met Cleo Robotics at CES 2017, when they were showing off a consumer prototype of their unique ducted-fan drone. They've just announced a new version which has been beefed up to do surveillance, and it is actually called the Dronut.

For such a little thing, the 12 minute flight time is not the worst, and hopefully it'll find a unique niche that'll help Cleo move back towards the consumer market, because I want one.
[ Cleo ]
Happy tenth birthday, Thymio!

[ EPFL ]
Here we describe a protective strategy for winged drones that mitigates the added weight and drag by means of increased lift generation and stall delay at high angles of attack. The proposed structure is inspired by the wing system found in beetles and consists of adding an additional set of retractable wings, named elytra, which can rapidly encapsulate the main folding wings when protection is needed.
[ EPFL ]
This is some very, very impressive robust behavior on ANYmal, part of Joonho Lee's master's thesis at ETH Zurich.

[ ETH Zurich ]
NTT DOCOMO, INC. announced today that it has developed a blade-free, blimp-type drone equipped with a high-resolution video camera that captures high-quality video and full-color LED lights glow in radiant colors.
[ NTT Docomo ] via [ Gizmodo ]
Senior Software Engineer Daniel Piedrahita explains the theory behind robust dynamic stability and how Agility engineers used it to develop an unique and cohesive hardware and software solution that allows Digit to navigate unpredictable terrain with ease.
[ Agility ]
The title of thie video from DeepRobotics is “DOOMSDAY COMING.” Best not to think about it, probably.

[ DeepRobotics ]
More Baymax!

[ Disney ]
At Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, they're trying to figure out how to make a COVID-19 officer robot authoritative enough that people will actually pay attention to it and do what it says.

[ Paper ]
Thanks, Andy!
You'd think that high voltage powerlines would be the last thing you'd want a drone to futz with, but here we are.

[ GRVC ]
Cassie Blue navigates around furniture treated as obstacles in the atrium of the Ford Robotics Building at the University of Michigan.
[ Michigan Robotics ]
Northrop Grumman and its partners AVL, Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Michelin are designing a new vehicle that will greatly expand and enhance human and robotic exploration of the Moon, and ultimately, Mars.
[ Northrop Grumman ]
This letter proposes a novel design for a coaxial hexarotor (Y6) with a tilting mechanism that can morph midair while in a hover, changing the flight stage from a horizontal to a vertical orientation, and vice versa, thus allowing wall-perching and wall-climbing maneuvers.
[ KAIST ]
Honda and Black & Veatch have successfully tested the prototype Honda Autonomous Work Vehicle (AWV) at a construction site in New Mexico. During the month-long field test, the second-generation, fully-electric Honda AWV performed a range of functions at a large-scale solar energy construction project, including towing activities and transporting construction materials, water, and other supplies to pre-set destinations within the work site.
[ Honda ]
This could very well be the highest speed multiplier I've ever seen in a robotics video.

[ GITAI ]
Here's an interesting design for a manipulator that can do in-hand manipulation with a minimum of fuss, from the Yale Grablab.

[ Paper ]
That ugo robot that's just a ball with eyes on a stick is one of my favorite robots ever, because it's so unapologetically just a ball on a stick.

[ ugo ]
Robot, make me a sandwich. And then make me a bunch more sandwiches.

[ Soft Robotics ]
Refilling water bottles isn't a very complex task, but having a robot do it means that humans don't have to.

[ Fraunhofer ]
To help manufacturers find cost effective and sustainable alternatives to single -use plastic, ABB Robotics is collaborating with Zume, a global provider of innovative compostable packaging solutions. We will integrate and install up to 2000 robots at Zume customer's sites worldwide over the next five years to automate the innovative manufacturing production of 100 percent compostable packaging molded from sustainably harvested plant-based material for products from food and groceries to cosmetics and consumer goods.
[ ABB ] Continue reading →

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We'll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!):

ICRA 2022 – May 23-27, 2022 – Philadelphia, PA, USALet us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos.
Telexistence and FamilyMart introduced a new robot TX SCARA equipped with TX's proprietary AI system Gordon to the FamilyMart METI store to perform beverage replenishment work in the back 24 hours a day in place of human workers, thereby automating high-volume work in a low-temperature environment where the physical load on store staff is significant.
[ Telexistence ]
It would be a lot easier to build a drone if you didn't have to worry about take-offs or landings, and DARPA's Gremlins program has been making tangible progress towards midair drone recovery.

[ DARPA ]
At Cobionix, we are developing Cobi, a multi-sensing, intelligent cobot that can not only work safely alongside humans but also learn from them and become smarter over time. In this video, we showcase one of the applications that Cobi is being utilized: Needle-less robotic intermuscular injection.
[ Cobionix ] via [ Gizmodo ]
It's been just a little bit too long since we've had a high quality cat on a Roomba video.

[ YouTube ]
Scientists from MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), in the ever-present quest to get machines to replicate human abilities, created a framework that's more scaled up: a system that can reorient over two thousand different objects, with the robotic hand facing both upwards and downwards. This ability to manipulate anything from a cup to a tuna can, and a Cheez-It box, could help the hand quickly pick-and-place objects in specific ways and locations — and even generalize to unseen objects.
[ MIT CSAIL ]
NASA is sending a couple of robots to Venus in 2029! Not the kind with legs or wheels, but still.

[ NASA ]
The Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology division at Berkeley Lab has built a robot, called the EcoBOT, that is able to perform “self-driving experiments.”
[ EcoBOT ]
Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a new approach in which robotic exosuit assistance can be calibrated to an individual and adapt to a variety of real-world walking tasks in a matter of seconds. The bioinspired system uses ultrasound measurements of muscle dynamics to develop a personalized and activity-specific assistance profile for users of the exosuit.
[ Harvard Wyss ]
We propose a gecko-inspired robot with an optimal bendable body structure. The robot leg and body movements are driven by central pattern generator (CPG)-based neural control. It can climb using a combination of trot gait and lateral undulation of the bendable body with a C-shaped standing wave. This approach results in 52% and 54% reduced energy consumption during climbing on inclined solid and soft surfaces, respectively, compared to climbing with a fixed body. To this end, the study provides a basis for developing sprawling posture robots with a bendable body and neural control for energy-efficient inclined surface climbing with a possible extension towards agile and versatile locomotion.
[ Paper ]
Thanks Poramate!
The new Mavic 3 from DJI looks very impressive, especially that 46 minute battery life.

[ DJI ]
Sonia Roberts, an experimentalist at heart and PhD researcher with Kod*lab, a legged robotics group within the GRASP Lab at Penn Engineering takes us inside her scientific process. How can a robot's controllers help it use less energy as it runs on sand?
[ KodLab ]
The Canadian Space Agency is preparing for a Canadian rover to explore a polar region of the Moon within the next five years. Two Canadian companies, MDA and Canadensys, have been selected to design lunar rover concepts.
[ CSA ]
Our Boeing Australia team has expanded its flight-test program of the Boeing Airpower Teaming System, with two aircraft successfully completing separate flight missions at the Woomera Range Complex recently.
[ Boeing ]
I do not understand what the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots folks are trying to tell me here, and also, those colors make my eyeballs scream.

[ Campaign to Stop Killer Robots ]
No doorbell? Nothing that some Dynamixels and a tongue drum can't fix.

[ YouTube ]
We present an integrated system for performing precision harvesting missions using a legged harvester (HEAP) in a confined, GPS denied forest environment.
[ Paper ]
This video demonstrates some of the results from a scientific deployment to Chernobyl NPP in September 2021 led by University of Bristol.
[ University of Bristol ]
This a bottle unscrambler. I don't know why that's what it's called because the bottles don't seem scrambled. But it's unscrambling them anyway.

[ B&R ]
We invite you to hear from the leadership of Team Explorer, the CMU DARPA Subterranean Challenge team, as they discuss the challenges, lessons learned, and the future direction these technologies are headed in.
[ AirLab ] Continue reading →