Today's Top Story

The Robot Report’s database now has over 1,200 robotics links in the following directories:

... Industrial robot manufacturers
... Service robots for gov & corp use
... Service robots for personal use
... Ancillary businesses
... Start-up companies
... Educational & research facilities

China and Iran Make News With Humanoid Robots

... Iran displays, but gives no further information about, new humanoid robot Surena 2 developed at Tehran University.
... China concludes First International Humanoid Robotics Olympics at Harbin University of Technology. Robots performed gymnastics, track and field and also domestic chores and medical care. Teams from China, America, South Korea, Germany and Japan participated.

Robots in healthcare proliferating

... Each week there are stories about the application of robotics in healthcare or of a hospital bringing onboard robotic processes.  Here are the most recent stories:
... Robots will be used to transport clinical waste and dirty linen, deliver food and dispense drugs at the new Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Ireland.
... Robots will improve safety and efficiency by dispensing pills and dosages into plastic bags and affixing them with barcodes at the Bumrungrad International Hospital in Bangkok.
... New robotic tugs move locked medicine trays around Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.

1 million years of independent living this decade is goal of iRobot’s new eldercare unit

... In a just-released TEDMED video, iRobot CEO Colin Angle describes “informal caregiving” and their new eldercare business unit.
... Goal is to add 1 million years of independent living in next decade by providing robots that assist with medical compliance, provide monitoring and enable physical interactions.

Adept Technology Acquires MobileRobots

... Adept Technology, with $50 million in sales of SCARA, parallel and other fixed-position robots, adds a complete line of AGV and autonomous mobile bases with the acquisition of MobileRobots.
... “Our companies are very compatible,” Jeanne Dietsch, CEO of $5 million in sales MobileRobots, said. “This is definitely a ‘more than a sum of its parts’ sort of merger.”

Upcoming Robotic Events

... TAROS 2010 Conference Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems, August 31-September 2, Plymouth, UK
... Ro-Man 2010 Symposium in Robot and Human Interaction, September 12-15, Viareggio, IT
... Robotic Industries Assoc. offering three Webinars: Food Robotics; Career Opportunities in Robotics; and How Robots Help American Companies Compete in a Global Economy.

It Had To Happen: Tokyo Couple Married by Robot

... Japanese couple decided to use the robot as they are both connected with the robot business.
... Kokoro’s i-Fairy receptionist robot was used.

Robotics Highlight of Hannover Messe Trade Fair

... Smart boxes, meters and grids, laser technologies, digital factories, energy efficiencies and future application areas for industrial automation were the focus of the trade show.
... In spite of flight delays from volcanic ash, over 150,000 bussed and trained to attend.
... Highlight of show: Festo’s elephant trunk robotic arm designed to be an agile and delicate bionic handling assistant.

20,000 attend 19th Annual F.I.R.S.T. Competition in Atlanta

... Big crowds, intense competitors at F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Championship in Atlanta.  Click for photo enlargement.
... High School teams from Redondo Beach, CA, Milford, MI and South Windsor, CT formed the winning alliance from over 340 teams competing.

Colbert Shows DEKA Prosthetic; Ferguson Adds Robotic Sidekick

... Late-Late Night Show host Craig Ferguson’s new robotic sidekick has a limited set of preprogrammed responses.  Funny but ridiculous.
... Dean Kamen showed DEKA’s wonderful but not-yet-ready arm and hand prosthetic and plugged F.I.R.S.T. on The Colbert Report.
... Wounded Americans are still receiving hook-type prosthetics (CBS News) even though TouchBionics, a UK company, has working and available very hi-tech prosthetics.

Telepresence robots are gaining favor

... UPDATE: Click to read latest info and Willow Garage’s plans for their newly built 25 Texas telepresence robots.
... Willow Garage, a privately-funded research enterprise known for their PR2 and COS hardware and software open-source platforms, is venturing into telepresence robots.  After having tested a single device at a remote location, they’ve built 25 for further testing.
... InTouch Health recently announced that it had surpassed 100,000 clinical sessions performed through its remote telepresence robots.
... MIT is showing their advanced new MeBot which adds head movement and gesticulating arms to allow the teleoperator to be more engaged.

New Medical Classifications Suggested for Service Robotic Companies

... Recent FDA Workshop on Medical Care Robots attempts to standardize and classify emerging robotic medical care devices and products.
... Emerging technologies included micro surgery, surgery assistance, personal care and therapy robots, telepresence robots, smart devices such as an artificial pancreas, NOTES and single port surgery (which uses natural orifices and internal incisions to navigate to spots needing attention), and image and robot guided placement of instruments.
... Details on Everything-Robotic blog.

Japanese-owned Yaskawa Motoman to build new facility in Ohio

... Japanese-owned Yaskawa America, the Motoman robot manufacturer, working with the State of Ohio, is building a new 300,000 sq ft office and production facility which will hire 250-300 new people. Wasn’t America the first robot manufacturer? Oh, that company moved to Japan. Now we have off-shore-owned sales, assembly and integration facilities.

AUTOMATICA 2010, Munich, Germany, June 8-11

... Read a controversial review of the events and activities at AUTOMATICA 2010.
... Slide and video show of AUTOMATICA 2010.
... Alexander Verl, an inventor, entrepreneur, and researcher at Fraunhofer IPA, won this year’s IEEE/IFR Invention and Entrepreneurship Award (IERA) for outstanding achievement.  His invention transformed the QC, measurement and inspection process from a room full of cameras to flexible inline scanning measurement robots.
... Heinz-Dieter Schunk, CEO, Schunk GmbH, and Scott Deming, Director of the Advanced Machine Systems Group with Corning Inc., received this year’s Robotic Industries Association Engleberger Robotics Awards for their 25+ years of leadership and application respectively. 
... Both awards were presented Tuesday evening at the ISR-Robotik banquet in Munich.

Telepresence robots entering market

... Anybot finalizes their telepresence robot and announces shipping date and price: this fall at $15,000.
... Willow Garage builds 25 for experimentation prior to commercialization.
... InTouch Health already in 300 hospitals making rounds.

Update on Gulf Oil Spill: Progress Report

... 24/7, 10 work heros of Gulf Oil Spill are, amongst others, Oceaneering‘s impressive ROVs.
... Philadelphia Inquirer has in-depth story on high-tech underwater activity.
... Interesting Gulf Oil Spill FAQ by Andrea Thompson at LiveScience.
... FUTURE: Energid and Seabed Rig have a prototype for exploration-seeking drilling areas, which was what BP was doing when the disaster occurred.  The rig is operated by sophisticated, intelligent robots that are controlled using software provided by Cambridge, MA Energid.  “The software was originally developed for NASA and the NSF for controlling complex robotic systems,” says Neil Tardella, COO of Energid, “We are leveraging this software to build the most intelligent rig of its kind.”  They will be demonstrating at ONS 2010 in Stavanger, Norway, August 24-27.

Hand-me-down Global Hawks put to use

... Air Force hand-me-down Global Hawks spruced up by NASA to perform scientific tasks not available from satellites and manned aircraft.
... Can fly 30 hours at 65,000 feet economically and completely autonomously.
... As Americans pull out of Iraq, more and more UAVs will be converted to scientific and commercial use.
... Click photo to see details.
... UPDATE: Big money still in Global Hawks: Northrop Grumman/Ratheon SAS awarded $50 million for sensor suite repair capability.

Kiplinger’s 8 robots that will change your life

... Kiplinger Report suggests the following eight areas of robotics that will become commonplace in the very near future:
  (1) Search and rescue; (2) food processing and handling; (3) guides and receptionists; (4) quality control; (5) exoskeletons; (6) couriers; (7) laundry processing; (8) mobile telepresence workstations.
... See article about Willow Garage and their telepresence robots.
... Also very likely to happen near-term are agricultural robots for monitoring, pruning, thinning and even picking produce.  CMU and the USDA are at the forefront of American activity, as is immigration policy, but it is a worldwide happening with breakthroughs in France, Australia, NZ and Israel frequently in the news.

Plethora of Military UAV Roadmaps but none for civilians

... All these roadmaps refer to civilian uses for UAVs—but they’re really talking about homeland security rather than commercial uses.
... The real civilian UAV roadmap is part of the robotics roadmap floundering in Congress and at the FAA.
... Here are links to some of the roadmaps: Air Force, Navy, Army, DoD, and Robotics Roadmap.
... And here’s a link to a colorful worldwide roundup of UAV proliferation.
... Barron Associates has small R&D project to develop collision avoidance methodologies.

Stanford Medical Innovation Conference Focuses on Robotics

... Changing roles for the surgeon; black boxes, automated scrub nurses - these and other ideas were presented at the Stanford Medical Innovation Conference on Medical Robotics Saturday, at Stanford University.
... Presenters from business, research labs and venture capital firms.
... Other medical information making the news:
... Steadily improving medical software developed by IBM to help Mayo Clinic improve detection of aneurysms, Fortune Magazine.
... Cellular carriers are jumping into the remote-healthcare marketplace where body parts make phone calls, BusinessWeek Magazine.

FYI: DARPA’s Minds Eye and EU FP7’s HUMAVIPS projects

... Persistent Stare Surveillance Platforms.  That’s DARPA-speak for a fixed-position surveillance system (either land-based or unmanned in the air).  What DARPA is actually seeking in their Mind’s Eye Announcement, is research to provide human-like visual intelligence (e.g.: a deep learning smart camera which condenses raw data into meaningful data) from surveillance systems.
... HUMAVIPS is a 3-year EU FP7 project to develop social skills in robots, particularly to mimic the cocktail party effect - to focus on just one person in the midst of other people, voices and background noises.

Unmanned 29’ Mini Space Shuttle?

... US Air Force is quietly launching Boeing’s X-40A (merged with X-37) unmanned spaceplane April 19th.  It will autonomously reenter the atmosphere and land at Vandenberg AFB sometime later.

Further indications of a boom in service robotics

... Ex-NASA astronaut Dan Barry, lecturing at Singularity University, offers a vision of robotic progress in 3-5 years and also 5-10 years.  Read a review and watch an interview.
... NSF grants three-year funding to expand CMU’s Quality of Life Technology Foundry technology transfer to the commercial sector.
... CyPhy Works receives $1.75M first round of venture capital from same VC firm that invested $20M in iWalk, the robotic ankle and foot prosthetic company.
... Last month’s International Expert Days conference confirmed growth expectations but added an international perspective about the emerging service robotics sector.  See Everything-Robotic for details of the two-day workshop.

Personal Robots in the News

... Fifteen personal robots on the horizon are detailed in Everything-Robotic - important because they are all well-funded and intend to be commercialized and adapted into worldwide service before 2020.

Worldwide Stocks Slump - and So Do Robo-Stox™

... After a strong 2-1/2 month rally, stocks have been slumping worldwide since mid-May. Bottom line is that the recovery is going slower than anticipated.
... Robotic stocks are suffering as well (click to enlarge chart) except in the BRIC countries. Even service robotic stocks are taking hits year-to-date.
... Korea is a big exception.  ABC News has been featuring Korea and Seoul recently and showed their level of technological achievement in robotics in a piece entitled “Seoul: The World’s Most Wired City.”

Rescue Robots in the News

... American start-up Hydronalix introduces E.M.I.L.Y., a robot lifeguard, to Malibu beaches.  It uses sonar to shoot out to struggling victims (at up to 28 mph) and then utilizes telepresence to coach the victim onto the raft which then zooms back to shore and a waiting lifeguard.
... 27 teams from 12 countries took part in the RoboCup 2010 Rescue Robot competition last week in Singapore. Three Thailand teams won 1st and tied for 2nd place; Australia won 4th and Japan 5th in the annual contest to increase awareness of the challenges involved in search and rescue applications and sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
... NIST also sponsored (along with FEMA and Texas A&M) Disaster City’s annual Response Robot Evaluation Exercises earlier this year. These exercises enable search and rescue robotic providers to be able to test their equipment in simulated disaster situations and environments.

IBM Ready for Jeopardy! TV Challenge

... Watson-level AI deftly handles semantics and is ready for Jeopardy! NY Times story includes videos and provides in-depth explanations. Must read!
... A.I. Question Answering (QA) technologies are critical in human-robot interaction and are, at present, a serious cog in robot development. Is this a generic A.I. breakthrough or…?

Robo-Stox™ Results thru May

... Mark Twain once said about market panics (such as the one we had this month): A lie can run around the world six times while the truth is still putting on its pants.
... New financial regulations passed Senate and Goldman Sachs’ alleged greedy transactions having effect on American stocks.
... Spain’s bond rating lowered and complexities of Greek budgeting and cutbacks pushing down European stocks.
... Nevertheless, service robotics stocks still outperforming NASDAQ. Read 10 reasons why this is so.