Robotic Blogs

A new fire fighting robot from InRob Tech (OTC BB:IRBL.OB). You may remember InRob from the remote controlled bulldozer, remote control Hummer upgrade kit and various bomb robots.

Their new firefighter, FFR-1, is a little monster. It weighs in at 940 kg (almost 2100 lbs). It runs on treads and can climb up to 30 degree incline dragging a 3 inch firehose. It is not meant for crawling into small spaces - it is about 5 feet long and 4 feet wide and tall. But it probably can go through walls anyway. The all electric power will run for 3 hours.

The FFR-1 is operated from a portable remote control and can go deep into the hot fire zone. The specs say that the cooling system allows it to stay at only 600 C when the outside temperature is up to 6000 C (that's really, really, hot in degrees F).

see the video.

It comes with vision and thermal imaging cameras. Of course can be upgraded with radiation, chemical and biological sensors - the works.


InRob Adds New Features to Its Wireless Fire Fighting and Rescue Robot: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

The founders of Vision Robotics Corporation have applied for a US patent on an agricultural robot that uses a vision and mapping to guide harvester robots through the farm.

The patent proposes that a scout robot is first sent through the farm or orchard to map out the fruit, weeds, plants that need trimming or other farm work that needs to be done. Once the farm is mapped - for example all of the ripe fruit located - then a plan is formulated. Once the plan is done then the robot goes about its harvesting or maybe a team of harvester robots are sent out to pluck the ripe fruit.

Their innovation is the use of a scout robot to visually record and map the details of the orchard before work begins.
Having an accessible view of the plants will save time walking the farm and will also help optimize the use of the harvesting machines.
Other organizations are investigating using autonomous flying robots to get a good look over their farm.

US Patent application 20060213167

Toymaker Hasbro released their list of toys they are promoting this year for holiday season.

As far as robots go, I was not all that impressed. They have their Furreal creatures like Butterscotch the pony and your various Furreal chimps and doggies. They have your next generation pooping doll, Baby Alive. Yawn.

The toy I liked the best is the Nerf Cosmic Catch ball. I guess it is stretching the definition a bit to say that this is a robot ball, but it is pretty smart.

The players each where a colored RFID wrist strap. The smart ball knows what colored hand it is in. It calls out "purple!" "red!" "green!", etc and you have to throw the ball to right person. Cosmic!

It plays other color coordinated catch games as well. If I were a kid I would want one. Only $25 .


Hasbro media - release

The US National Institute of Standards and technology (NIST) are doing their part to solve the problems caused by the aging population and shortage of healthcare workers.
Healthcare Mobility Project

They are developing a robot to help disabled people move around their home. The robot acts a wheelchair but also gives a helping hand to get out of bed and get on and off other seats, like maybe the toilet. It can also help to give support during rehabilitation.


The prototype robot is called HLPR for Home Lift, Postiion and Rehabilitation. They started with a standard small forklift and added a seat, arm supports and joystic control.
See the video here.

It is small enough to fit through most doorways. Future work will give it the ability to dock with toilets or connect to an elevator.


They have barely begun to work on the brains yet. They would like the robot to learn navigation and voice recognition so that it comes when called and knows on its own how to take you to the bathroom.

It is interesting to see the difference between this US version of the 'helper to the elderly' robot compared to how the robot is developing in Japan.

NIST Tech Beat - Sept. 28, 2006