Robotic Blogs

The Robotics Industry Association reports that sales of industrial robot units declined by 30% in 2006. The revenue from robot sales fell 22%The decline was due to the falloff in robot sales to automotive manufacturers. 2005 was a particularly good year for sales to the auto industry...

I recently posted about a female robot sage-grouse to be used to lure unsuspecting males like the FBI on Myspace.Now here is another case of robots being used to surreptitiously spy on the males of another species.Jennifer Moore from Victoria University School of Biological Science...

Dexter, a walking robot that is dynamically balanced like a person. He won't fall over when pushed.Monty is on segway wheels and has a working hand.They are being designed to work around the home.From anybots:Dexter balances dynamically, walks and will be able to run. Monty has...

A new robot team from Aethon Inc. of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania is designed to track and deliver equipment around a hospital.The TUG robot is in used successfully in many hospitals already - deliverng samples and medication. Now with a new partner, HOMER, and RFID tags on the equiptment,...

The government of Abu Dhabi announced last week the creation of the Abu Dhabi UAV Investment Company, AD UAV.The company will design, develop, manufacture and integrate unmanned aerial vehicles for both civilian and military customers. They will have fixed wing and vertical take...

The Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation, ARCAA, has launched a competition for students and hobbyists. The UAV Challenge - Ouback Rescue will be held in Queensland, Australia in September 2007.The contest will have prize money up to $40,000 (US $30000) in categories...

Researchers in Japan are experimenting with a robot to help surgeons get deep inside the human body without cutting it open.The small robot is only 2 cm ong by 1 cm wide - about the size of a large cockroach. The robot is released into the body through a small opening in the skin...

An olde time civil disobedience action is planned for Pittsburg on March 2.The organizers, Pittsburg Organizing Group, plan to shut down the National Robotics Engineering Center, at Carnegie Mellon University with a blockade. Uh oh.They chose ths target because, "The military research...

When do you hold your meetings inside a robot?When the robot is a conference room, of course.But is it a robot?Hiroshi Otsuka, SGI Japan's vice president for strategic business development explains, "Actually, it doesn't belong to the category of conventional industrial robots,"...

Just posting this because when I first read it I didn't know if it was from planet Earth or Stargate SG1.word for word:UAV to hover over eastern Maha skies to counter NaxalismNagpur, Feb 20: Unmanned Ariel Vehicle (UAV) is all set to be deployed in eastern Maharashtra to trace the...

Well it seems that there was some confusion with Ugobe. (see the comment to this post) They are not allowing any pre-orders yet. They are not quite sure of the price, maybe, or possibly they do not really have a firm date for deliveries, or maybe, they have not figured out why...

US Army researchers are working on fitting a high powered human-immobilizing spotlight onto an autonomous flying robot.The light is a modified Maxa Beam light from Peak Beam Systems Inc. The high intensity xenon light is already available in a handheld and remote perimeter security...

A good article in Christian Science Monitor about the revitalized sport of camel racing by the introduction of robot jockeys.Before oil, the article says, the owners of the camels would race them. After the money began pouring into the Middle East, the landowners could no longer...

Japanese company DeAgostini has launched a way for everyone to get into the japanese robot craze piece by piece.Each week the subscriber to Robozak will get a magazine with lessons and instructions and parts to build a portion of their own humanoid robot slave.When finished in 80...

Ottawa, Canada company Mist Mobility Integrated Systems Technology Inc. (MMIST) and Technology Partnerships Canada, TCP, have announced that TCP will be making a $30 million investment in development of MMIST's unmanned cargo delivery aircraft.The improved designed will be based...

An article in the Minnesota Medicine Online raises the issue of when medical robots and expensive medical scanners can become too much of a good thing.According to the article, "The complaint coming from a number of quarters is that the proliferation of high-priced technology is driving up health care costs to crippling levels with insufficient evidence...

I am not making this up. From a US patent application:The Bot and Baby Bot are Robots. Bot is the bigger Robot and Baby Bot is the smaller Robot. There will be a switch on the Bot That will let the Baby Bot come out of Bots stomach. The wiring and The computer system will be located...

A hospital near Willmington, Delaware has a new tireless employee dedicated to delivering critical biological samples from patients to the analysis lab.The Speci-Minder robot - who employees have named Frances - automonously completes its rounds through the hospital to the central...

Model kit maker Revell Monogram and VEX robot supplier Innovation First announced more details of their new consumer robot kit today.The VEXplorer robot kit is an direct descendent of the VEX robot kit that is the basis for student robot design competitions. It designed and marketed...

In sting operation worthy of prime time television, scientists at University of California Davis are using a female sage-grouse robot to study the behavior of males with mating on their mind.Dr. Gail Patricelli has used robots in bird research before to fool Australian satin bowerbirds...

Turn trash into a robot. A new kit from 4M Kidz Labs is due out in March to make a robot bug from an empty soda can. No word on the price yet.I did not know that they made soda cans with those pop tops anymore. Maybe they still use them in Hong Kong where 4M is located.Kidz Labs...

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, ITRI, has annonced that they have chosen Evolution Robotics Sofware Platform,ESRP, for a standard software kit for robot development in Taiwan.The software development kit will be offered by ITRI to help standardize robot development...

Professor Hideki Kozima of Japan's National Institute of Communications and Technology, NiCT, presented a paper at the Robotics for Society conference in Vancouver, Canada, on two robots designed for studying child development and interactions with robots.The two robots, Infanoid...

The founders of a helicopter manufacturer in New Zealand have launched a project to bring high altitude rescue to Nepal. Trevor and Glenda Rogers are the founders of TGR Helicorp and of the Everest Rescue Trust. They have launched a new initiative, The Rescue on Everest Challenge:Through...

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG) stock was up 17 percent today on the announcement of a 56 percent increase in their forth quarter revenues. The increase was due to continuing increase in sales of the DaVinci surgery robots but also substantial increases in recurring supplies and services....

Robotics industry leader Kuka Robotics will be demonstrating a robot arm controlled by a Wii game controller at the ATX West Expo during February. Using their industrial KR-16 robot with bluetooth to a Wii controller, the robot can mimic the actions of the Wii master. The interface was designed by SEIS Group, Inc.Kevin Kozuszek, director of marketing...