AIO Robotics teases Zeus all-in-one 3D scanner and printer

A new Kickstarter project is set to launch the world's first all-in-one 3D copy machine that can scan, copy, print and even fax 3D objects. Sporting a 7-inch touchscreen and four easy to operate buttons, the Zeus is a stand alone machine that can work independent of both an internet connection and a desktop computer. So instead of running out to buy a hammer the next time you need one, you could simply scan your neighbors or have a friend fax across their hammer scan and print it out on your end.

3D printers are becoming more affordable especially with MakerBot's recent announcement about the Replicator 2 3D printer being made available through select Microsoft retail outlets in the US for a price of $2,549. However these machines only print 3D objects. The field is wide open for a machine that integrates 3D scanning, copying and faxing abilities in addition to printing and that's where AIO robotics plans to step in with Zeus.

Set to launch on September 4 at Kickstarter, the Zeus features an on-board computer and a 12-inch turntable. While there's little information available on the official site, posts made by the company on the RepRap forum, state how initial tests demonstrate the machine's ability to print at a 100 micron resolution or lower.

Created by Computer Science PhD students, Kai Chang and Jens Windau at the University of Southern California, who founded AIO robotics, the Zeus is touted to be easy for non-techies to use – even simpler than operating a household printer. Objects can be scanned on the Zeus thanks to the on-board computer and the data can be faxed over the internet if needed.

Though there isn't any firm word on the price, it's expected to be cheaper than getting a MakerBot Replicator and Digitizer scanner. More details are expected to be made available once it makes its debut at Kickstarter.

Read More »

Add Comment

RC Apps, Computers, Gadgets, News, Robots

Robotic Device Could Suck 92% Blood Clots Out Of The Brain

Robotic Device Could Suck 92% Blood Clots Out Of The Brain

We have seen in yesterdays' article how can a robotic intubation device "GuideIN Tube" automatically identifies lungs in case the patients find it difficult to breath on their own. This time robotic device is used in sucking out of  blood clots out of the brain.

When a blood vessel in the brain bursts, and the blood which subsequently leaks out of that vessel forms a clot, places pressure on the surrounding brain tissue known as Intracerebral hemorrhaging. It’s difficult to treat, and is fatal in about 40 percent of cases. A team from Nashville’s Vanderbilt University has created a robotic device "steerable needle" that is designed to remove those clots, in a safe and minimally-invasive fashion.

A robotic device "steerable needle", designed to remove blood clots in a safe and minimally-invasive fashion

"When I was in college, my dad had a brain hemorrhage. Fortunately, he was one of the lucky few who survived and recovered fully. I'm glad I didn't know how high his odds of death or severe brain damage were at the time, or else I would have been even more scared than I already was," Robert J. Webster III mechanical engineering professor who helped to innovate the needle, said.

In the Steerable Needle procedure, a CT scan would be used to determine the exact location of the clot. The robotic arm would be positioned outside of the skull, and a tube would be inserted into the brain until it was able to suck out the blood. The business end of the device consists of a tube-within-a tube. The straight outer tube is less than one-twentieth of an inch in diameter

Graduate student Philip Swaney work with Steerable Needle procedure in which  a CT scan would be used to determine the exact location of the clot

The system would most likely be able to remove about 92 percent of the clot.

"The trickiest part of the operation comes after you have removed a substantial amount of the clot. External pressure can cause the edges of the clot to partially collapse making it difficult to keep track of the clot's boundaries," Webster said.

The researchers are now working on adding ultrasound imaging to the device along with a computer model in which brain tissue deforms around a clot, in order to ensure that the device is able to safely remove as much of the clot as possible.

RELATED VIDEO:

Read More »

Add Comment

RC Robots, Tech-News

Robotic Intubation Prototype "GuideIN Tube" Automatically Identifies lungs Using An Infrared Source And Navigates Toward It

Students designed a self-guided robotic intubation device "GuideIN Tube" that crawls to the lungs in difficult situations

When ill patients find it difficult to breath on their own, then a plastic tube is placed into the lungs. This process maintains a clear air passage to the lungs, and is known as intubation. The current procedure requires the physician to see the trachea and choose between two very similar holes, one leading to the lungs, the other to the stomach. Failure to identify the correct hole can lead to patient death. Worse, intubation sometimes has to be carried out in the field, during military operations, or on patients that have blood or liquids obstructing the way.

In order to make it safer and easier, students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Biodesign program have created a robotic intubation device called GuideIN Tube, that takes some of the guesswork out of the procedure. This device automatically identifies the lungs using an infrared source and navigates toward it. The device was successfully tested on cadavers at the Hadassah Medical Center, and clinical trials will begin as soon as next year.

That infrared light source is placeed against the skin on the outside of the patient’s trachea. Detectors at the end of the GuideIN Tube “see” that light shining through on the inside of the trachea, and direct the tube’s flexible probe-like guiding element to point in its direction. Forward momentum of the tube is provided by hand, but it steers itself.

The GuideIN Tube's flexible guiding element

“I strongly believe that GuideIn Tube represents the future of intubation,” said Dr. Elchanan Fried, director of the general intensive care unit in Hadassah Medical Center, and the group’s clinical expert. The device targets a $3 billion market, which is expected to increase by 5% annually. “We really thought about the paramedic in the field”, said Itai Hayut, the leading engineering student on the project. “We wanted something simple and compact that they could trust without fail. I think we hit it on all marks.”

Other students in the group include Tommy Weiss-Sadan, a biology graduate student, as well as Sarah Horwitz and Ariel Shrem who are completing their MBA degrees.

RELATED VIDEO:

Read More »

Add Comment

RC Robots, Tech-News

The Tsinghua University (Beijing) Successfully Completed The 2013 IARC Mission Six

The Tsinghua University (Beijing) Successfully Completed The 2013 IARC Mission Six 

First proposed in 2010, an elaborate espionage operation known as Mission Sixs' scenario is that an enemy has plans for taking control of the Eurasian banking system, a move that could throw the entire world into chaos. This plan is contained in a USB flash drive located in a remote security office of the enemy's intelligence organization.

The IARC Mission Six orders 

The target building has a broken window on the same floor as the security office. This building measures roughly 15 x 30 meters, and is equipped with laser intrusion detectors, floor sensors, video surveillance, and periodic patrols. Mission Six calls for covertly capturing the flash drive, and replacing it with another of the same make to postpone discovery of the theft. Recognizing signs directing visitors to the security office is a part of the challenge. The mission must be carried out within ten minutes to avoid security patrols.

The vehicles are required to be completely autonomous, with no external commands accepted during the mission. The vehicles can be of any type (as long as they fly), must weigh less than 1.5 kg (3.3 lb), and be no more than 1 meter (3.28 ft) in the largest dimension. Most competing teams chose to base their vehicles on quadrotor designs. However, some chose other designs, including birotor and more unusual designs, such as the entry below from Pima Community College in Arizona that includes a balloon above a set of rotors to increase stability.

Details of the enemy building (the internal walls will differ) to be penetrated during the 2013 IARC 

All vehicles must contain their own power supplies. The vehicle is required to sense its immediate surroundings, and decide on its own actions, but need not contain its control computer – it can instead be linked to an external computer by radio. While external navigation aids are allowed, GPS locating is not.

For the past 23 years, the IARC has challenged college teams with missions requiring complex autonomous robotic behaviors that are often beyond the capabilities of even the most sophisticated military robots. This year's competition, which was held in China and the United States over the past week, saw the team from Tsinghua University in Beijing successfully complete the current mission.

The Michigan Autonomous Aerial Vehicles 2013 IARC entry with a navigational video camera atop the sensor platform

The remarkable performance of the Tsinghua University entry in completing Mission Six can be seen in the video below.

RELATED VIDEO:

Read More »

Add Comment

RC News, Robots

Researchers Develop 3D-Printed Self-Assembling Multi-Copter

Researchers Develop 3D-Printed Self-Assembling Multi-Copter

A research team in Zurich has developed the Distributed Flight Array, a series of 3D-printed drones capable of self-assembly by detecting each others' positions and join together to create a larger flying machine. 

The Distributed Flight Array (DFA) has been developed by a team of researchers at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control (IDSC) at ETH Zürich university in Switzerland.

Each robot has a 3D-printed hexagonal plastic chassis with magnets fixed to the sides of the frame and a single propeller fitted in the middle.

Each robot has a 3D-printed hexagonal plastic chassis with magnets fixed to the sides of the frame and a single propeller fitted in the middle

The flying honeycomb-shaped helicopter bots fly in extremely irregular patterns on their own, but they are able to detect the presence of similar drones nearby and connect to form a larger unit using magnets. As a whole, the conjoined units are much more controlled, and function as a highly intelligent system.

The flying honeycomb-shaped helicopter bots are able to detect the presence of similar drones nearby and connect to form a larger unit using magnets

Individually, each modular unit relays informationwith the others and uses sensors to determine how much force will be required during flight.

"The Distributed Flight Array is a flying platform consisting of multiple autonomous single propeller vehicles that are able to drive, dock with their peers and fly in a coordinated fashion," explains the IDSC. "Once in flight the array hovers for a few minutes, then falls back to the ground, only to repeat the cycle again."

"If the array's levelled flight is disturbed, each vehicle individually determines the amount of thrust required to correct for the disturbance based on its position in the array and the array's motion," IDSC said.

This project could have huge implications for the future of transportation

"The platform currently flies with either joystick input from an user or input from an external sensor system such as GPS. We are trying to close this gap and make the system completely self-contained and autonomous so that no external input is needed," Kriegleder said.

 This project by the Zurich's Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control (IDSC) was not developed for any specific purpose, although it could have huge implications for the future of transportation.

"The developed algorithms apply to any real systems that needs to be scalable and distributed," Kriegleder said. "One specific example could be a scalable mass transportation system, where one only adds so many modules that a certain payload could be lifted."

RELATED VIDEOS:

Read More »

Add Comment

RC Robots, Tech-News

Researchers Create ‘Soft Robotic’ Devices Using Electrically-charged Hydrogel

Copper ions injected into the hydrogel allow the degree of gel curvature to be dynamically controlled by an electrical current

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique for creating devices out of a water-based hydrogel material that can be patterned, folded and used to manipulate objects. The technique holds promise for use in “soft robotics” and biomedical applications.

“This work brings us one step closer to developing new soft robotics technologies that mimic biological systems and can work in aqueous environments,” says Dr. Michael Dickey, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work.

“In the nearer term, the technique may have applications for drug delivery or tissue scaffolding and directing cell growth in three dimensions, for example,” says Dr. Orlin Velev, INVISTA Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State, the second senior author of the paper.

The "ionoprinting" technique, as the team has dubbed it, uses a copper electrode to inject positively-charged copper ions into a hydrogel material (a highly absorbent polymer material that is nearly 99.9 percent water). The copper ions bond with negatively charged ions in the hydrogel's polymer network, essentially linking the polymer molecules to each other and making the material more resilient, more robust and mechanically stiffer structure. The researchers can target specific areas with the electrodes to create a framework of stiffened material within the hydrogel. The resulting patterns of ions are stable for months in water.

The copper ions create a polymer network that strengthens the hydrogel material

“The bonds between the biopolymer molecules and the copper ions also pull the molecular strands closer together, causing the hydrogel to bend or flex,” Velev says. “And the more copper ions we inject into the hydrogel by flowing current through the electrodes, the further it bends.” This is the first time that the binding of ions has been used to create a more rigid hydrogel network in this way.

The researchers were able to take advantage of the increased stiffness and bending behavior in patterned sections to make the hydrogel manipulate objects. For example, the researchers created a V-shaped segment of hydrogel. When copper ions were injected into the bottom of the V, the hydrogel flexed – closing on an object as if the hydrogel were a pair of soft tweezers. By injecting ions into the back side of the hydrogel, the tweezers opened – releasing the object.

The researchers also created a chemically actuated “grabber” out of an X-shaped segment of hydrogel with a patterned framework on the back of the X. When the hydrogel was immersed in ethanol, the non-patterned hydrogel shrank. But because the patterned framework was stiffer than the surrounding hydrogel, the X closed like the petals of a flower, grasping an object. When the X-shaped structure was placed in water, the hydrogel expanded, allowing the “petals” to unfold and release the object. Video of the hydrogels in action is available here.

The hydrogel “grabber” can grasp and release objects

"We are currently planning to use this technique to develop motile, biologically compatible microdevices," says Dr. Orlin Velev, INVISTA Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State.

“It’s also worth noting that this technique works with ions other than copper, such as calcium, which are biologically relevant,” Dickey says.

This gives the technique potential in not only soft robotics, but also many other biomedical applications. Artificial muscles, enviro-intelligent sensors, actuators, biomimetic microbots, micropatterned thin films, cell scaffolds and drug-delivery are just some of the other potential applications for the technology according to the researchers.

RELATED VIDEO:

Read More »

Add Comment

RC Robots, Tech-News

RHex: The ‘Parkour Robot’ Can Flip, Jump, and Do Pull-Ups

RHex: The ‘Parkour Robot’ Can Flip, Jump, and Do Pull-Ups

 

 

University of Pennsylvania graduate student Aaron Johnson and professor Daniel Koditschek have created RHex, a “parkour robot” that can navigate its way over obstacles even bigger than itself using six springy legs. The duo is currently working on X-RHex Lite, or XRL, a new version of of the robot that can perform double jumps, flips, and even pull-ups by launching itself vertically, hooking its front legs onto the ledge, and dragging its body upward.

The original design for the robot was developed around 10 years ago, but this lighter version — X-RHex Lite (RXL) — was developed by UPenn professor Daniel Koditschek and his graduate student Aaron Johnson. They are teaching it freerunning, or Parkour, with the intent that it will one day be used for applications like searching the jagged rubble of a collapsed building for survivors, or traversing the shifting sands and rocky obstacles of the desert while taking environmental readings.

X-RHex Lite (RXL) was developed by UPenn professor Daniel Koditschek and his graduate student Aaron Johnson

"What we want is a robot that can go anywhere, even over terrain that might be broken and uneven," Johnson says. "These latest jumps greatly expand the range of what this machine is capable of, as it can now jump onto or across obstacles that are bigger than it is."

XRL differs from its earlier relatives by using lighter materials and simpler fabrication methods. A complete shell of carbon fiber panels surrounds the XRL frame, and it has only a single battery compartment. The XRL is 51 cm (20 in) long, 40.5 cm (16 in) wide, and the body alone is 10 cm (four inches) in thickness. The diameter of the six flexible rotating legs is 17.5 cm (6.9 in), giving the XRL ground clearance of 11 cm (4.3 in) regardless of which end is up at the moment. It's weight including battery pack is 6.7 kg (14.7 lb).

The XRL is 51 cm (20 in) long, 40.5 cm (16 in) wide, and the body alone is 10 cm (four inches) in thickness,weighs 6.7 kg (14.7 lb) including battery pack

For motive power, the XRL depends on two 50 watt brushless pancake electric motors by Maxon (one for each leg). The actual peak power for these motors is about 380 watts, or about half a horsepower. These motors are geared down by a factor of either 18:1 or 23:1, depending on the nature of the landscape on which it is being tested. Powered derives from a ten-cell lithium polymer battery with a capacity of 83 W-hr at 37 volts. Battery weight is about 0.6 kg (1.3 lb).

For motive power, the XRL depends on two 50 watt brushless pancake electric motors with peak power of about 380 watts, or about half a horsepower

The XRL legs are equipped with force and power sensors, which allow the work of maneuvering to be analyzed in detail. Among other benefits, the research team found that the response of the legs can be used to give an indication of on what sort of surface the XRL is walking. For example, the XRL responds to vinyl and asphalt surfaces in very much the same manner, but responds very differently to pebbles or grass surfaces (which are in turn similar to each other).

XEL leg response to being driven over different landscape textures

RELATED VIDEO:

Read More »

Add Comment

RC Robots, Tech-News

Toyota Begins Safety Testing Winglet On Public Roads

Toyota Begins Safety Testing Winglet On Public Roads

A Toyota Partner Robot engineer gives a brief summary and demonstration of Toyota’s new personal transport assistance robot, the Winglet.

Toyota’s Winglet, a two-wheeled personal mobility robot, will start testing its safety and practicality features in the real world starting today, and until March 2014. The 80 test subjects will be able to test them in Tsukuba city’s Mobility Robot Experimental Zone, a place designated for this kind of trials in Ibaraki Prefecture.

The first phase of the test, which focuses on safety and compatibility with other real-world components, like pedestrians and other vehicles and traffic. Some 80 test subjects from the local municipality and National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) will have access to eight Winglet Long Types. This model is designed for adults, though Toyota has also shown smaller versions for teenagers and children.

The smallest version of Toyota's Winglet weighs 9.9 kg / 21.8 lb and has a range of 5 km / 3.1 miles

The medium-sized Toyota Winglet weighs 12.3 kg / 27 lb and has a range of 10 km / 6.2 miles

Those who sign up will be able to ride the robots on sidewalks on their commutes or while going out during their work day, and report on their experiences. It appears that they will adhere to road and traffic rules regulating bicycles and scooters. Toyota will be assessing the results of the study in terms of the robot’s overall functionality and convenience. They will also be able to determine whether a demand for something like this will become feasible.

The Winglet, created with the aim of contributing to the development of a society where mobility is safe, freely accessible, and fun, is a next-generation mobility robot that offers users outstanding operability and performance that expands the user’s world, with a compact size and ease of use suited to modern living environments.

The Long Type Toyota Winglet weighs 12.3 kg / 27 lb and has a range of 10 km / 6.2 miles

The Winglet is a smaller and more stylish version of the Segway electric scooter that was launched in the US way back in 2001, but never got off the ground. But Toyota’s version may find more success in the more densely-populated cities of Japan, especially since people are always looking now for more eco-minded concept vehicles. If tests are successful and if they plan to release the Winglet commercially, then the next step would be to broaden laws that will encompass vehicles like it.

But it's still unclear why are these being called robots, as opposed to "vehicles?" If these are robots, are all the cars and motorcycles on the road also robots?

RELATED VIDEOS:

Read More »

Add Comment

RC Automotives, Robots