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TOKYO — Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works. The experimental device, unveiled Friday, is designed to support bodyweight, reduce stress on the knees and help people get up steps and stay in crouching positions.

Texan researchers are mimicking the physical and biological characteristics of a pterosaur to create a 'pterodrone' - an unmanned aerial vehicle that flies, walks and sails like the original. "The next generation of airborne drones won't just be small and silent," said Texas Tech University, "they'll alter their wing shapes using morphing techniques to squeeze through confined spaces, dive between buildings, zoom under overpasses, land on apartment balconies, or sail along the coastline." The research team consists of palaeontologist Sankar Chatterjee of Texas Tech, University of Florida aeronautical engineer Rick Lind, and their students Andy Gedeon and Brian Roberts. The...

The latest request from the Pentagon jars the senses. At least, it did mine. They are looking for contractors to provide a "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" that will let packs of robots "search for and detect a non-cooperative human". One thing that really bugs defence chiefs is having their troops diverted from other duties to control robots. So having a pack of them controlled by one person makes logistical sense. But I'm concerned about where this technology will end up. Given that iRobot last year struck a deal with Taser International to mount stun weapons on its military robots, how long...

June 19, 2008 -- IRobot, best known for their cute Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner, has teamed up with Metal Storm, purveyors of the million-rounds-per-minute electric gun, to create a slick, Terminator-like war robot for the U.S. military. The as yet unnamed war bot is being marketed for "border patrol" and "crowd control" scenarios, although other military situations are also under consideration. "We want our soldiers to have the option of controlling a robot that could go ahead and investigate, engage or deter an enemy and not put human soldiers at risk," said a spokesman for Metal Storm who wished to...

The US army is poised to unleash the dogs of war – four-legged, petrol-powered robots to help its troops in battle. Billed as ‘the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth’, BigDog has been devised to support American troops by carrying up to four packs of equipment on awkward terrain unsuitable for wheeled vehicles. Standing at over 2ft tall and more than 3ft long, BigDog comes equipped with all manner of high-tech gadgets, including laser gyroscopes, a video camera sensor system and a sophisticated on-board computer – but, sadly, no wagging tail. The 11 stone machine, created by Boston Dynamics, can...

U.S. researchers said they've created microscopic robots that can dance on a surface smaller than a pin head. Computer scientist Bruce Donald of Duke University said the microelectromechanical system (MEMS) microrobots are almost 100 times smaller than any previous robotic designs of their kind, the university said in a release. Videos produced by Donald's research team show two microrobots dancing to a Strauss waltz on a dance floor just 1 millimeter across. "Our work constitutes the first implementation of an untethered, multi-microrobotic system," Donald's team said in a report presented during the Hilton Head Workshop on Solid State Sensors, Actuators...

Taking its inspiration from the grasshopper, a tiny two-legged robot that stores elastic energy in springs has leaped 27 times its own height, smashing the record of 17 times set by a previous robot. Its creators hope that swarms of such hopping robots could spread out to explore disaster areas, or even the surfaces of other planets. The robot is only 5 centimetres tall, and weighs just 7 grams. A motor designed to power the vibration unit of a pager drives a system of gears that gradually wind two metal springs (see image, right).

WHAT do you call a surgeon who operates without scalpels, stitching tools or a powerful headlamp to light the patient’s insides? A better doctor, according to a growing number of surgeons who prefer to hand over much of the blood-and-guts portion of their work to medical robots controlled from computer consoles. Many urologists performing prostate surgery view the precise, tremor-free movements of a robot as the best way to spare nerves crucial to bladder control and sexual potency. A robot’s ability to deftly handle small tools may lead to a less invasive procedure and faster recovery for a patient. Robots...

CHICAGO, April 26 (UPI) -- U.S. hospitals are starting to use pharmacy robots designed to eliminate life-threatening medication errors, Loyola University Hospital says. The Chicago hospital said it is the first in the Midwest to use the PillPick, a two-armed robot that places single doses of medication in small plastic bags marked with a bar code to identify the drug. A nurse can scan the bar code on the medication bag along with the bar code on the patient's wrist band. The computer will sound an alert and an pop-up warning will appear if it is the wrong drug or...

A humanoid robot will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra next month, mixing two different cultures -- technology and music. Honda Motor Co.'s Asimo robot was built to help people and to someday assist the elderly and disabled in their homes. While many features are still in development, Asimo has already become something of a robotic ambassador.

PITTSBURGH — We already knew that iRobot CEO Colin Angle was running the only successful business in the home robotics game, so it was fitting that he closed his keynote at the RoboBusiness Conference here today by asking if there’s really a robot industry in the first place: “Are we sure we’re not just an adjunct to another industry?” After all, Disney stopped buying its animatronic actors years ago, and started building them. What’s to stop retail chains from adding a robotics division, or an upright vacuum-maker from hiring its own team of roboticists? This is not, we can assume,...

A £4.6 million project to create swarms of hundreds of autonomous, Transformer-style robots has been launched. Scientists aim to create a prototype team of self-organising, shape-changing mini robots that work as a team by 2013. The self-healing robots will be able to dock with each other, share energy and co-operate to maximise their abilities to achieve different tasks. Researchers from 10 universities who are collaborating in the European Union-funded Symbrion programme say future applications include search and rescue missions, space exploration and medicine. Prof Alan Winfield, of the University of the West of England, Bristol, said: "A swarm could be...

The Israel Defense Forces are set to introduce an unmanned jeep into the ongoing conflict with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. While pilotless drones are already common in the Israel Air Force, this is the first time a driverless jeep will be used by the army's ground forces.

Far Ahead of Other Countries, Japan Experiments With Robots As Part of Daily Life TOKYO (AP) -- At a university lab in a Tokyo suburb, engineering students are wiring a rubbery robot face to simulate six basic expressions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and disgust. Hooked up to a database of words clustered by association, the robot -- dubbed Kansei, or "sensibility" -- responds to the word "war" by quivering in what looks like disgust and fear. It hears "love," and its pink lips smile.

LONDON (Reuters) - Killer robots could become the weapon of choice for militants, a British expert said on Wednesday. Noel Sharkey, professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield said he believed falling costs would soon make robots a realistic option for extremist groups.

When you ask a man on the street where revolutionary advanced robots are being developed, he is likely to name Japan and the United States. Japan is well known for such amazing mechanical creations as ASIMO and HRP, as well as robots that dance, engage in martial arts, transform, and play musical instruments. In the United States, the success of iRobot in both military and consumer markets is legendary. The DARPA Grand Challenge demonstrated advanced work on autonomous vehicles. GM has its own autonomous vehicle and expects driverless cars to be on the roads in a few years. (Lexus...

Devices made of heart tissue could screen drug candidates and be used to power implantable robots. In a fourth-floor lab at Harvard University, Adam Feinberg is peering through a low-magnification microscope and using a scalpel to cut out triangles and rectangles from a thin polymer. What's impossible to see with the naked eye is a one-cell-thick layer of heart tissue coating each shape. When Feinberg connects the petri dish holding the triangles and rectangles to a pacemaker, the tissue begins to rhythmically contract, and the shapes come alive--twisting, pinching, and even swimming through a solution. The pieces of "muscular thin...

Scientists Invent Robots That Lie, Real Bender Closer Than Ever Holy crap! The Age of The Machines is nigh: a bunch of scientists in Switzerland have created learning robots that can lie to each other. Okay, so they don't swill beer or put bends in girders—they just communicate to each other with benign flashing lights, thank goodness, instead of using lasers to destroy humans: The team at the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at the Federal Institute of Technology created the little experimental learning devices to work in groups and hunt for "food" targets nearby while avoiding "poison." Imagine their surprise...

Japanese Robot Eats Snow, Poops Out Bricks of Ice Wednesday, January 02, 2008 What's cute, yellow, eats snow and poops out bricks of ice? Meet Yuki-taro, a Japanese robot built to quickly clear roads after heavy snows. The cute little guy, about 5 feet long and 2 and a half feet high, simply plows into snowbanks, taking in the white stuff, compressing it and neatly stacking it in two-foot-long bricks on his rear bed. Created by a consortium of private companies, municipal governments and university researchers, Yuki-taro is equipped with two video cameras in his "eyes" as well as a...

Do robots deserve rights? The question is less ridiculous than it sounds. As scientists develop ever more sophisticated robots, we are faced with an ethical dilemma: When does artificial intelligence demand humane treatment? In the last month, Japanese scientists have unveiled robots capable of serving food and even playing the violin and trumpet. These aren't self-aware robots – many scientists deride the notion of ever creating a robot capable of self-awareness – but self-awareness isn't the sole qualifier for rights. Certain severely brain-damaged human beings and newborns lack general self-awareness, but there is little doubt that they have rights, no...