Robonaut is awsome. And quite willing to answer questions via twitter, see a conversation I had with him last year September - Robonaut 2 Answers Some Questions
Robonaut Designed to Work Safely With Humans, Exercise Limited Autonomy
…the robot uses an impedance controller, which can adjust the stiffness of the arms. This means the arms have limited torque and won’t cause damage to objects—or the crew.
“We went through very rigorous safety evaluations before we can send this robot to the space station,” Diftler told us. “So that you would feel very comfortable shaking hands with it.” In fact, we did shake hands with the robot—and we still have our fingers to type this story!
Diftler also told us about some of Robonaut’s jobs at the ISS. He said the robot is, among other things, assisting the crew with air flow measurements. Before they had the robot, the astronauts had to monitor air flow themselves. Now Robonaut just grabs an air flow meter and performs the measurements, not only collecting data more frequently than before but also freeing the crew from a boring task.
The idea is that Robonaut will increasingly take on other jobs, helping the crew with experiments and maintenance. For that, the Robonaut team designed the robot with varying levels of autonomy, Diftler said.
In autonomous mode, the robot can perform tasks that require little or no supervision. For tasks that require a crew member to monitor or assist the robot, a “supervised autonomy” mode is used. Finally, there are more complex situations when remote operation is the best option, and in those cases an operator (aboard the ISS or on Earth) can use teleoperation gear to fully control the robot.
(via Video: How Robonaut’s Compliant Arms Work - IEEE Spectrum)
Chapter 1 - Is our science fiction right?
by Marshall Brain
Stop for a moment and think about your favorite science fiction stories.
For example, there are the two most popular science fiction franchises of all time: Star Wars and Star Trek. Both of them have brought in billions of dollars through movies, syndication, books and merchandise.
There are popular TV shows — everything from Lost in Space to Battlestar Galactica. There are the big movies like I, Robot and 2001: A Space Odyssey.
From the world of video games there are incredibly popular titles like Halo and Half-life.
And then there are the well-known science fiction books like Brave New World, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Ringworld and Neuromancer.
In other words, you have a very large body of work to choose from when it comes to science fiction.
Here is something that fascinates me. In all of these major science fiction stories there is one universal thread. There is one thing that they all have in common.
In every one of these science fiction stories, human beings have bodies.
No matter how much technology is available in the imagined civilization, no matter how advanced things have gotten, human beings still use the fragile, oh-so-easily-damaged biological bodies that we are born with.
Music and paying the gas bill have been digitalized, so you knew this was next. How can we stop abusing the environment, give ourselves superintelligence, and live forever? H+ Magazine on the inevitable necessity of switching from spongy flesh brains to uploaded ones:
Universal mind…
One single asteroid in our solar system – 241 Germania – has $95.8 (£60) trillion of mineral wealth inside it – nearly the same as the annual GDP of the entire WORLD.
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Photo by Emily Lakdawalla (via futurist-foresight) |
If you couldn’t make it to ICRA this year, don’t worry: We’ll bring ICRA to you. The 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation attracted more than 1,700 people to the River Centre convention center in St. Paul, Minn., last week. We’ve been keeping you informed about the coolest (and the weirdest) projects presented at the conference, and we still have many more stories to come. But today we want to take you to ICRA’s show floor, where over two dozen exhibitors demoed their robotic creations. Check out our video montage after the break. The robots at the exhibit hall included the DARPA ARM (the robot pictured above), NASA’s Robonaut2, Willow Garage’s PR2, Intuitive Surgical’s Da Vinci, and the Scout, from ReconRobotics, which is based in Edina, Minn., and brought a makeshift Afghanistan village to the show floor. Though none of the bots is new, we’ve learned a thing or two about each of them. Watch: (via Video: Throwable Robot, Roomba-Riding Humanoid, and More from ICRA 2012 - IEEE Spectrum)
Subretinal implant uses light instead of batteries, shows promise in initial testing — Engadget
There’s been significant progress in bringing sight to the blind in recent years, and this looks set to continue that miraculous trend. Scientists at Stanford University have invented a subretinal photodiode implant for people who have lost their vision due to degenerative retinal diseases. Existing tech involves batteries and wires, but the new implant works without such crude appendages. Instead, it’s activated by near-infrared beams projected by a camera that’s mounted on glasses worn by the patient and can record what the patient sees. The beams then stimulate the optic nerve to allow light perception, motion detection and even basic shape awareness. It hasn’t actually been tested with humans just yet, but the first few
rodentsvolunteers have yet to lodge a single complaint.
