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!

The robot in question is being used to preserve an old and not remotely technologically related discipline.

Japanese schoolchildren are losing the art of traditional dancing, so this robot is stepping in to help. There's no word on how graceful the robot is, and we'd better hope that there's not a lot of legwork involved, but the kids are smiling and taking part which is a good sign.

Not that many people these days know Japanese traditional dance. So the best way to teach kids so that the art form doesn't die out is to program a robot to do it and dispatch it to classrooms across the country. From the looks of it, the bot's a pretty good teacher - even without legs - and the kids look happy to be learning from him.

I know you want to see a picture, or better yet a video, but I'll give you only the picture description, you don't deserve any better...
Children practise their dance moves, following the lead of a ‘wa’ at a special summer robot show today in tokyo (17/08/2006). The 35cm tall robots, dressed in traditional kimono robes, were created for an educational program and perform japanese style dancing.

Robot sex for lonely - and not so lonely - humans

David Levy's book paints a rather positive picture of the future.

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is about a robotic future made of nightmares, but David Levy's book, Love and Sex With Robots, takes a much more bright stance to the story.

The author, who lives in London, states that service robots will advance so quickly we'll be having physical relationships (sex) with sentient pleasure machines before long. The great thing is that artificial intelligence will be mixed with advanced mechanics and natural skin-like texture/fabric to give the perfect girlfriend simulator of the future, he says.

A robot for the girls, too! Of course most of the users will be males at first, but don't be surprised to find that women will soon represent a large share of the love robot market.

David Levy puts forward the notion that love robots will be built to meet the specific needs of any partner.

That's a good thing, let's welcome our robotic bitches!

Do you know what you will desire in a year, or five? To know, we can ask Paul Saffo, who is a veteran Silicon Valley forecaster. He thinks a lot about long-term technological change and also about its practical impact on business and society.

Question: What will be our objects of desire in the next five years?

A: It's robots. Very simple, very clear.

Q: Robots, but to do what?

A: We have the technology. The thing missing is the big idea. For teenage boys, I guarantee you within five years the "it" Christmas gift, the thing everybody is going to want, is going to be a telerobotic UAV [unmanned air vehicle]. When your helicopter is a robot, it flies itself, and you just tell it where to go — no learning curve, just instant gratification. Imagine a flying bot that costs $200 or less, is the size of a paperback book, and teenage boys can terrorize their sisters, or look at the sunbathers in the pool next door...

Q: When will love relationships happen between humans and robots?

A: Some guy (David Levy's Love and Sex with Robots) published a book and says everyone is going to have sex with robots in the near future.

Q: Do the love robots actually exist yet?

A: I haven't really looked into it. It's hard to keep up with these things. But let's pick the low-hanging fruit here. The double-knit-suit thing of the next five years is nano-finishes on fabrics. As you know nanotechnology involves the manipulation of objects as small as molecules. So for clothes that don't stain, that you can spill a glass of red wine on and laugh at, I think that's going to catch on a lot more than love robots within the next five years.

Thanks Paul!

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.