Biomimicry: Roboeel to investigate Oceans of the Solar System

NASA funded robotic eel project is one of the most enticing venture so far. With an aim of delving deep into the ocean-bed of Europa, (Jupiter’s moon), the soft robotic eel is fabricated for scavenging electrical energy from magnetic fields and employing it for creating oxygen and hydrogen so that the machine can generate an outburst, which’ll further help for it’s propulsion. There is still more to it, the bot is sheathed with a soft flexible cover, which is not only stretchable but also electroluminescence.

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Controlling bots via Tablet: Multi-Robot System Interface

Controlling dozes of bots at the same time seems to be a Sci-Fi concept but the technology has made its presence felt within some enthusiastic segments of robo scientists. Thinking on the same line of thought, Georgia Tech’s GRITS Lab has fabricated a method of dynamically controlling huge swarms of robo minions by just using just a tablet and a finger or two probably. The idea is to rely on swarm of tiny bots by intuitive controlling than a single big robo-machine.

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SpiderFab: The Self-Fabricating Space Systems

Tethers Unlimited, an American aerospace company is busy making ‘SpiderFab’, a manufacturing system inspired by spider’s web making concept. The arachnids like robots are being built with an aim of placing gigantic objects and building big structures in orbit and beyond. For instance, these spider bots could be employed for constructing huge radio antennas, the extendible spacecraft booms, multiple solar panels, trusses and other multifunctional structures within the coming ten years as stated by Rob Hoyt, CEO and chief scientist of Tethers Unlimited.

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Robots to Run Futuristic Japanese Hotel: Kokoro’s Actroids

A hotel run by humanoid robots is no more a far fetched dream, especially from a country that is famous for robotics and technological innovation, Japan. The Henn-na Hotel located in Nagasaki plans to recruit 10 humanoid robot also named as actroid androids. These lifelike bots would greet the guests with a smile and would assist the guests by carrying their baggage, prepare coffee and even clean their rooms. Actroid, woman robot of Japanese descent Kokoro is the robotics company that is developing theses actroid robots since 2003 that looks…

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Smartphone driven Autonomous Drone: The Smart Copter

For the first time consumer-grade electronics are used for programming autonomous drones. This drone makes use of smartphone as its brain. The phone senses its environment by taking real time pictures. Even the real time computation is done on the device itself along with higher-level autonomy, maneuvering, navigation, control and computer vision algorithms. The product is the brainchild of GRASP Laboratory, University Of Pennsylvania. Click on the video below to see the autonomous flying robot: This makes me think, if you lose your smartphone, you’d end up losing the drone…

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Hector Robot is the Giant Stick Insect: Biomimicry

Biomechatronics researchers at Bielefeld University, Germany have come up with a bot called Hector that is inspired from stick insect, another invention in the field of biomimicry. The insect bot has six limbs with an ability of functioning independently. The embedded sensors help it in reacting autonomously to its external setting and accordingly assist in learning from experience. Only for research platform Jan Paskarbeit, the developer envisions Hector in areas like testing animal locomotion theories. The bot however, is not designed with an intention of severing humans in areas like…

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Nanoparticle Compound delivered directly into the Gut Tissue: Self-propelling Nanobots

Experts believe that micromachines or nanobots use in the field of medicine can change the way some of the medical conditions are diagnosed and treated. Using these nanobots, medical payload would be sent directly to the specific injury site. Until now the researchers have achieved to test such micromachines in cell samples under laboratory conditions. 

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