P3 and ASIMO - The Honda Humanoid Robots

Although NASA spends most of its budget for space flight in human beings, there were many robotic missions. In 1962, the Mariner 2 mission was launched and became the first spacecraft to pass near another planet (Venus in this case). The missions Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter was essential to discover the nature of the lunar surface before trying to send astronauts. After the two Viking probes landed on the surface of Mars and have returned color photos of Earth. Perhaps more impressive were the Pioneer and Voyager missions that have visited Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Having lost the moon race, the USSR has changed its approach. On 17 July 1975, Apollo 18 spacecraft docked to the Soviet Soyuz 19, in the Apollo-Soyuz project. Although the Cold War has continued until the 1990’s it was an important moment in the history of NASA, and international collaboration that is commonplace today began with this mission. The first space station of the USA, Skylab, was built in the late 1970. Read more »

In Japan, advances in robotics are at heart of new devices health adapted to an ageing society. It’s been a decade that the Japanese Honda automotive group had launched a research program to develop a device walking aid for the elderly and all those with mobility problems. Thanks to ASIMO, a humanoid robot research biped whose invention has required studying the works of man, this apparatus walking aid should soon be operational. It is still in the feasibility study but it is progressing quickly since it will now be tested in conjunction with doctors on patients during rehabilitation sessions to help them move efficiently and safely. Read more »

Through a rather simple equipment, a giant amoeba command the movements of a six-legged robot. Perspective: draw some manufacturing secrets that will one day be useful to robots.Quand the robot to six feet away from itself a source of light placed nearby, it does to any software or even a network Neural. The pilot is… a mold! More precisely Physique polycephalum, a strange organism in forests under the fusillades. This nice six-legged robot moves systematically light. However, no programme and no human would command him to do so.
This kind of yellowish giant amoeba, which is usually a few millimeters but may reach thirty centimeters, eats bacteria and small mushrooms. It has no legs and no body. All the cells were merged into a single plasmodia. Biologists rank among the myxomycetes, along with a few zoological curiosities hardly classifiable or plants or animals.
In short, this modest living being is nothing that can make it the ideal driver for a hexapod robot. Yet the role that made him played Klaus-Peter Zauner, Department of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton (United Kingdom), in collaboration with a team from the University of Kobe, Japan. The driver, it’s him! This Schumacher Car hexapod is a kind of mold inform, moving like an amoeba. Read more »

The Japan concentrates 40% of the nearly 923 000 industrial robots on the planet. It is not surprising therefore that the country is regarded as the kingdom machines. The trend is now for service robots designed to assist a Japanese population ageing.
Heroes manga (comic books) or animated films, industrial or humanoid robots serve as technology showcases the major national groups: the Japanese robots to display a genuine enthusiasm. Currently, all eyes are turning to robotics service in a variety of fields: submarines, medicine, cleaning, security, fisheries, forests, health care, recreation and pets. A segment which, if it remains marginal, is nonetheless promised a bright future. The 2007 International Robot Exhibition to be held in November in Tokyo, had planned to devote more than a third of its programme. The International Federation of Robotics (IFR), based in Paris, distinguishes between two types of non-industrial robots: those for professional use and those for private use. It is estimated that 31 600 units of the first category were commissioned in 2005, of which 18% robot submarines, 17% of cleaning robots and 16% of robots defence / security. Although increasing numbers of robots for private use are also much cheaper. Of the 2.9 million machines of this type listed by the IFR, more than half (1.8 million) were vacuum robots such as “Roomba” by the U.S. firm robot, 1 million robots games and Leisure and about 79 000 robot lawnmowers. According to Marc-Antoine Haudenschild, a specialist in Japan serving Global Equity Research at Credit Suisse, “service robots are only in their infancy. Read more »

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