Akta

The “i-unit” is a form of “personal mobility” that seeks to attain a greater balance of meeting individuals’ wishes to enjoy freedom of movement, harmony with society, and harmony with the Earth’s natural environment. Move over Segway, Toyota has revealed two robotic exoskeleton-like vehicles designed for transporting humans. Toyota prefers to call them "wearable personal mobility vehicles". The i-foot is a two-legged walker with an egg-shaped cockpit for a seated human rider. The i-unit is a 4-wheeled vehicle with a single seat that is upright for slow travel and reclines for high-speed travel. Toyota will be demonstrating these new modes of transportation in their booth at the upcoming EXPO 2005 World Exposition, where they'll be introduced by Toyota's music playing robots. More photos are available from Reuters and in a Gizmodo article. The Toyota robots won't be the only robots at EXPO 2005.
Taken at Robots.net

More info at FreeRepublic.com

News from REDNOVA and BLEEX - the Berkeley Lower Extremities Exoskeleton.
The mere thought of hauling a 70-pound pack across miles of rugged terrain or up 50 flights of stairs is enough to evoke a grimace in even the burliest individuals. But breakthrough robotics research at the University of California, Berkeley, could soon bring welcome relief — a self-powered exoskeleton to effectively take the load off people’s backs.

"We set out to create an exoskeleton that combines a human control system with robotic muscle," said Homayoon Kazerooni, professor of mechanical engineering and director of UC Berkeley’s Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory. "We’ve designed this system to be ergonomic, highly maneuverable and technically robust so the wearer can walk, squat, bend and swing from side to side without noticeable reductions in agility. The human pilot can also step over and under obstructions while carrying equipment and supplies."
Video here (QT).

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I have found some very interesting articles on National Geographic News by Brian Handwerk. He writes about robots and military (GYRE link).

The military robots currently available, however, are not nearly as sophisticated as those that are sometimes portrayed by Hollywood films. "We're probably 10 to 20 years behind the least sophisticated system you'd see in something like Terminator 3," Robin Laird said. "But we're getting there."

Fighting robots are currently in development for land, sea, and air use.
Once the fantasy of science fiction, battlefield robots are now a reality.

"The whole idea is to take the war fighter out of harm's way," said Robin Laird. He is supervisor of the Unmanned Systems Branch of the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego.

"In my mind, someday we'll be doing battle with robots—not killing people," said Laird, whose program serves all four branches of the U.S. military.

Snakelike robots may also soon fight terrorism, save lives, and make repairs on everything from battleship engines to the human body. Sound like science fiction? New research is bringing these incredible possibilities closer to reality. A leading researcher behind this endeavor is Howie Choset, a mechanical engineer and roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His goal is to perfect what he calls the "snakebot." Choset's team is backed by a very interested party—the United States Navy's Office of Naval Research. The research branch has funded Choset's research since 1997, seeing promise in the application of snakebot technology to tasks as diverse as routine engine maintenance to diffusing bombs planted by terrorists.

The same company that makes those cute little household vacuuming robots now has a military robot that is equipped with a pump action shotgun capable of firing shotgun rounds and presumably killing enemy combatants (or anyone who happens to be standing in front of the 'bot). The robot is called the Pacbot, and it has already seen action in Iraq. The Pacbot weighs about 40 pounds, and is propelled by heavy-duty tracks. It also has chemical sensors that detect nuclear, biological, and chemical contaminants. It's currently being tested by the 29th Infantry Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia.

U.S. Army tests battlefield robot armed with pump action shotgun; bring on the Terminators!
Of course, the big story here is not that robots are being used in Iraq or tested by the U.S. Army-- the big news is that they are being equipped with lethal weapons. Up until now, robots have always been limited to support roles, such as carrying equipment, sniffing out bombs, or performing remote detection of nuclear, biological, or chemical contaminants. But now there are Army robots with shotguns. Next up? Robot-controlled Hummers that can't drive straight, but can still shoot. Once they get the bugs out of the software, they'll even be able to limit their shooting to the enemy rather than just randomly firing off shotgun rounds at anything that moves.
Text and links taken from the Newstarget Network site (great place), the rest of the article is here. I sill look for pictures of these robots. The only links I found are dead 404 pages.

I suggest you go check this video advert shot in Johannesburg. Made by the talented peoples of The Embassy Visual Effects Inc.(the authors of the post image).

Well after those last robots posts I thought I would vary a bit. But I have to say I didn't expect Citroën to release a car Transformer movie like the one which came out some time ago. Very well made 3D. I wasn't sure first when I saw it. From the Mini Cooper site these links are some nice and interesting robot related pages. I guess I enjoy blogging about robots. Strange. I always liked robots have to admit. If anyone reading this post knows who made any of the two adverts in 3D, please let me know.

I remember seen last month the Red Planet movie on TV. In this film the Mars explorer team has an droid-puma called AIMEE. It's a discovery unit helping the Nasa guys arround than slips into guerilla-search-kill-and-destroy-superchop-mode... I am gathering more stuff to make a post about it later.

-Wabot - 1 from Waseda University in 1973.
-The MIT Leg Lab
-Stanford's Dexterous Manipulation Lab.
-TEME, Centre for Mechanical Technology and Automation
-Dante II from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University
-Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species

Must be those episode of Ghost In The Shell... Still a robot post tonight. Above is a picture of the TMSUK T5 robot. More in a Patlabor style this time. Little brother of the T52 "Hyper Rescue Robot". These picture a re from RoboDex 2000, so they are not super new. But I had ever seen them. This machine is 2.9 meters tall, 1.8 meters wide and has water based hydraulic powered arms. If you like robots you will like this very nicely made site.

The TSMUK company started a company only devoted to the development of a rescue robot. Called ENRYU. Some interesting infos on their site like this picture of the T-52 cockpit. The kind of images from SF movies only or Big Mech warriors anime movies like Patlabor.
This page has a complete history of the TMSUK company (in english).
The Robo Sapiens title comes from the Robot System laboratory of the Korean Institute of Science and Technology.

T52 Video Here