Researcher Daan Hobbelen of TU Delft has developed a new, highly-advanced walking robot: Flame. This type of research, for which Hobbelen will receive his PhD on Friday 30 May, is important as it provides insight into how people walk. This can in turn help people with walking difficulties through improved diagnoses, training and rehabilitation equipment.

TU Delft is a pioneer of the other method used for constructing walking robots, based on the way humans walk. This is really very similar to falling forward in a controlled fashion. Adopting this method replaces the cautious, rigid way in which robots walk with the more fluid, energy-efficient movement used by humans.

PhD student Daan Hobbelen has demonstrated for the first time that a robot can be both energy-efficient and highly stable. His breakthrough came in inventing a suitable method for measuring the stability of the way people walk for the first time. This is remarkable, as 'falling forward' is traditionally viewed as an unstable movement.

Modelling the walking process allows researchers to construct two-legged robots which walk more naturally. More insight into the walking process can in turn help people with walking difficulties, for example through improved diagnoses, training and rehabilitation equipment. TU Delft is working on this together with motion scientists at VU University Amsterdam.

Hobbelen cites ankles as an example. These joints are a type of spring which can be used to define the best level of elasticity. Research conducted by Hobbelen into Flame's ankles has provided motion scientists with more insight into this topic.

BigDog is The Most Advanced Quadruped Robot on Earth

BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots. It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog's legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.

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BigDog has an on-board computer that controls locomotion, servos the legs and handles a wide variety of sensors. BigDog’s control system manages the dynamics of its behavior to keep it balanced, steer, navigate, and regulate energetics as conditions vary. Sensors for locomotion include joint position, joint force, ground contact, ground load, a laser gyroscope, and a stereo vision system. Other sensors focus on the internal state of BigDog, monitoring the hydraulic pressure, oil temperature, engine temperature, rpm, battery charge and others.

Here's a wish for the future sent by Lee through my contact page :

"
Project: Robotic Symphony

Throughout history, mankind has succeeded to improve him/herself with the almighty machine in a wide variety of clever applications. And yet why can't I buy tickets to go see a fully automated computer orchestra this weekend?

With the help of talented robotic research companies like Toyota. Now the time has come to give competition to the arrogant attitudes of over practiced musicians, with intelligent gifted instrument playing robots who will finally force many of these over paid blow hards to actually find real jobs for a change.

People make mistakes, and machines only get better!
"

I hear you Lee and nothing is yet really done like we'd like to see/hear it. There are software for jazz improvisation, there are robots playing instruments, and yet we still have to see a live band of robots, doing something else than repeating a scripted concert.

Thanks to Lee for his message, if you too have something to say about robots, let me know about it!

A meeting in Japan between psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein and Repliee Q1, a beautiful and lifelike android.

Dr. Robert Epstein seems to be anxious about the point of singularity towards the end of the video, don't worry Robert, we'll see what happens when it'll happen.
Read "My Date With a Robot," Scientific American Mind, June/July 2006, available at http://www.drrobertepstein.com

Simroid is a new robot from Japan designed to help train dentists. Simroid is a dental patient robot developed as a training tool for aspiring dentists. It can follow spoken instructions, closely monitor a dentist's performance during mock treatments, and react in a human-like way to pain.

It was built by Kokoro Company Ltd.

We are afraid when thinking about dentists, but now they will be very happy with Simroid, a 5 foot, 3-inch bot developed at Nippon Medical School by Kokoro Company which will teach them how to better communicate with their patients. If the dentist hits a nerve with his/her drill, the robot will say “ouch” and will react to pain by moving her eyes and hands.

If it is touched in an inappropriate place on her chest, it will record that to later incriminate the offender. :-)

Simroid was unveiled at 2007 International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo, Japan.

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