#Factory-in-a-Day: EU FP7 invests â#7. 9m to make robotics affordable for SMES Factory-in-a-Day is an EU initiative to develop a robotic system that is inexpensive leasable
and can be set up and working in 24 hours. The goal is to make advanced robotic systems
because human workers are more efficient at adapting to the small production batches typical of most SMES
and state-of-the-art systems are not flexible enough to adapt to changing processes making large financial investments in these systems infeasible even
Factory-in-a-Day aims to develop a system that can be purposed easily re for new product lines  by reducing the system integration time to a single day the project hopes to minimize investment risk for SMES.
 To make a one-day deployment feasible project leaders envision that some of the work will need to be done ahead of time.
for greatest efficiency the robots would do the repetitive work and the humans would perform the hard-to-automate tasks that require flexibility and problem solving.
After the workflow has been designed customer-specific hardware components would be installed 3d printed and on the standardized robot grippers.
once on site the robot would be connected to the machinery software through a brand-independent software system
 A set of predefined skills similar to Apps for smart phones would help speed the process.
Coordinated by the University of Delft the project will involve 16 partners from academia and industry including Siemens Fraunhofer Universal Robots Philips and the Technische Universitã¤t Mà nchen (TUM).
The consortium aims to have the workflow process designed within the first year to have the software prototype tested for the first use case by the third year
and to have evaluated and tested all use-cases by the end of the four-year project e
#Rehabilitation support robot-cloudmakes muscle movement visible Associate professor Toshiaki Tsuji Laboratory at Saitama University has developed R-cloud a rehabilitation support robot that enables users to view how their own muscles
and training. his rehabilitation support robot is used for strengthening the arms. Its moving parts use pneumatic muscles
Another distinguishing feature is haptic signal processing a technique that estimates muscular force during training and makes this information visible.
and evaluates the effect of training. -cloud calculates subtle muscle movements and quantifies this into data
which enables physical therapists to provide accurate instruction on movement and patients to confirm their own movements. his robot has a force sensor
and a sensor to measure the arm angle. Based on data collected from these sensors calculations are made on the force of muscle contraction within the arm as well as on the amount of calories consumed by each muscle during training.
So the robot is equipped with technology that quantifies the degree of effectiveness of training. In addition we use augmented reality technology to make these results visible. y databasing measurement data collected during training the Tsuji Lab is constructing a rehabilitation cloud system
which will promote efficient rehabilitation. e would like to see these robots used for rehabilitation training in hospitals nursing homes and private homes after an injury or for use as a preventive measure prior to injury. i
#Google buys up robotics companies from DRC If youe recently wondered where all the roboticists were going the answer is to an unassuming complex in Palo alto. Google has backed Android developer Andy Rubin to acquire at least 7 major robotics
companies including Schaft Industrial Perception Inc Meka and Redwood Robotics. Other companies include Holomni makers of high tech wheels Bot&dolly and Autofuss the super cool robotics software companies behind the special effects in the film Gravity.
Unsurprisingly a number of the new acquisitions are involved also in the upcoming DARPA Robotics Challenge where robots take on human scale problems in the latest Grand Challenge.
According to John Markoff interview with Andy Rubin in the New york times the new research company has plans for the manufacturing
and logistics industry with particular focus on the consumer electronics industry where Rubin sees lear opportunitiesto combat the increasing complexity of the massively growing field..
â##I feel with robotics itâ#a green fieldâ#he said. â##Weâ##re building hardware weâ##re building software.
Weâ##re building systems so one team will be able to understand the whole stack. â#Google hasn announced yet
whether or not this new robotics research group is a subsidiary or separate. But Rubin talks about a 10 year runway and a vision.
The vision is clearly to capitalize on the DARPA Grand Challenges as Google has done so thoroughly with the automobile/self driving challenge.
Google has purchased a number of teams and people involved in the upcoming DARPA Robotics Challenge
With a 10 year runway this is still a bit of a playground. Like Willow only double l
#Amazon announces plans for drone delivery service, says safety will be key priority Amazon announced yesterday that it is developing a drone delivery service called Prime Air that will aim to get packages into customer hands within 30 minutes.
They are planning to launch as soon as FAA regulations are lifted as early as 2015. Amazon states that safety will be their top priority.
when it comes to investing in novel delivery systems their $775 million investment last year in Kiva Systems brought large-scale automation to their warehouse floors in an effort to improve efficiency.
Check out this new video by Mark Mueller out of Raffaello Dndrea Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich
and note that Dndrea is the tech wizard behind Kiva robotic warehouse##the video shows a novel fail safe algorithm that allows an unmanned aerial vehicle to recover
According to Mueller the algorithm allows the vehicle to remain in flight despite the loss of one two or possibly even three propellers.
#Three new quadrotor videos demonstrate agile control and the power of machine learning The team at the ETH Flying Machine Arena has released three new videos demonstrating quadrotors building tensile structures tossing a ball back and forth
and refining a figure-eight trajectory using iterative learning. Worth the watch!!Building Tensile Structures with Flying Machinesfederico Augugliaro:
his video shows quadrocopters assembling prototypical tensile structures. Part of a body of research in aerial construction a field that addresses the construction of structures with the aid of flying machines theâ video demonstrates that flying machines are capable of autonomously spanning a rope between two support points.
They can also create surface structures by using already placed ropes as new support points.
and evaluating quadrocopter interception trajectories. Each trajectory goes from an arbitrary initial state (position velocity and acceleration) to an arbitrary final state.
The evaluation of the trajectory includes determining input feasibility and state feasibility (e g. that the position of the quadrocopter remains inside a box.
Per trajectory this requires less than two microseconds on a modern laptop computer. The trajectory generator is used here to generate trajectories to hit a ball towards a target and determines:
This allows the system to cope with sensor noise and deviations in the ball flight path. ee Mark research paper presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2013.
Iterative Learning for Periodic Quadrocopter Maneuversmarkus Hehn: his video demonstrates an iterative learning algorithm that allows accurate trajectory tracking for quadrocopters executing periodic maneuvers.
The algorithm uses measurements from past executions in order to find corrections that lead to better tracking performance.
In order to do this we measure the tracking error over two laps of the maneuver. The new correction is computed then and applied.
After waiting for one lap we begin measuring again and the next learning step follows. For particularly dynamic maneuvers we begin the learning process at lower execution speeds.
This allows us to initially improve performance under safer conditions and the algorithm provides a means to then transfer the learned corrections from the lower execution speed to higher speeds.
The experience gained at lower speeds thus helps us when flying at high speeds similar to how people learn skills such as martial arts or playing the piano.
The method is also applicable to more complex tasks shown here by the example of the quadrocopter balancing a pole
while following a trajectory. ee Markusresearch paper presented at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems 2013 R
#Play-i want to bring a robot to every child After receiving a $1million seed fund round from investors like Google Ventures many of us have been waiting for Play
Play-i are based a Silicon valley startup with a founding team from Amazon Google frog design and Apple;
Bo is a mobile multi ball robot whereas Yana is designed to be a storyteller. Both robots come with different skins
while also keeping our price down â#The Play -i robots utilize Scratch and Blockly and can be programmed wirelessly from a device like an ipad.
The robots are designed to be programmed by early readers and also to provide a rewarding environment for learning to code.
The Play-i team are parents who want to address the shortfall of computer scientists in an increasingly digital world. â##What makes Play-iâ#robots so unique and special is that they really connect with younger kids on an emotional level
and make programming such aâ seamless and playful experienceâ#said Mike Dooley the original Productâ Manager for LEGO Mindstorms
and now a VP of Product and Businessâ Development at irobot and adviser for Play-i. â##They are leveraging a legacy ofâ ideas from research on computing robotics
or 2nd grade can easily play with programming and in the process construct rich models for understanding the world.
â#â##Play-i gets how a developmentally appropriate introduction to programming can pave the way towards a lifelong interest and aptitude in computer scienceâ#saidâ Vibha Sazawal Lecturer and Visiting Research Scientist at the University
ofâ Maryland and adviser for Play-i. Play -i have a lot of design skills in their team already
 Mike Dooley the original product lead for Lego Mindstorm Robotics Steve Cooper Professor of CS & Ed at Stanford university Chairman of CSTA Andrea Thomaz Professor
of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech Kiki Prottsman Educator and Executive director of Thinkersmith Vibha Sazawal Scientist at the University of Maryland and Prashant Kanhere who led led development of the ipod at Apple.
However Play-i may be funded the best company with a focus on programming robots at the moment s
#Honda automatic driverless valet parking system Honda has developed a low-cost automatic valet parking system that uses parking lot surveillance cameras to help park cars automatically.
In this demonstration when a car is left in the drop-off area of a parking lot it receives information about
This system can automatically park multiple cars efficiently. Honda sees a lot of potential in a system such as this especially
if it is implemented in the large parking lots of suburban shopping centers. f a store introduces this system customers can drop their car off in front of the store
and the car will go to a parking space automatically in cooperation with the parking lot. Then when customers come out with all their shopping they can just wait in front of the store
and the car will come to them. That the situation wee demonstrating here.?As the number of cars increases itl become essential to move them around efficiently.
So we think this kind of system will become increasingly necessary. s cars equipped with rear cameras only are the most common type in Japan Honda decided to use them in this first prototype.
Vision from the rear camera is supplemented with that from surveillance cameras to create a system that can see more around the car. he information that used to move the cars such as white lines is sent to the cars as maps.
Here wee demonstrating that kind of concept and showing that it could actually be implemented as easily as this. onda plan to create a specification
which combines car cameras and parking lot management systems and develop ways to operate them smoothly.
Honda believe that this system could be practical by or before 2020 y
#Is drone delivery really a robot startup? Australian startup Zookal is making news today with their claims to be the worldâ#first drone delivery company.
 Itâ#an exciting headline and I wish them well. But while you can quibble over who is really the first commercial drone delivery company
I think itâ#more interesting that weâ##re hitting an inflection point where you have to ask â##is a company that uses robots a robot companyâ#?
#Zookal is a textbook and student services startup. They use drones for delivery and marketing.
They are not a drone or robot company. And thatâ#good! Zookal is a textbook rental startup that also provides a digital note platform and internships for international students.
Zookal are using drones developed by the University of Sydney engineering students and technically Flirtey is the actual drone startup.
Or possibly Vimbra who are managing the logistics partnerships ie between Zookal and Flirtey. However they all have cofounder Ahmed Haider in common.
Haider hopes to close the gap between the rapid developments in ecommerce and logistics which has remained largely unchanged.
Textbooks are a great test bed for drone logistics as they are robust reasonably expensive and in demand unlike tacos
which may be in demand but are fragile and offer little margin for a startup. â##Textbooks are an excellent way to test the market as they allow for varying weightsâ#he says. â##With the concentration of students in universities in Australia we will have proof of concept that shows
if you can deliver a textbook then things such as urgent medical deliveries clothes shoes fast food
and other e-commerce will be much more viable. â#Drones are the first robots to become an off the shelf technology that is wide open for diverse uses with drone delivery
and aerial photography leading the way as consumer and small business verticals. What next? Drones are the gateway for consumer robotics where the robot is a tool that anyone can use.
Increasingly there will be more and more separation between companies that simply use robots and companies that make or deploy or augment robots.
 This inflexion point has occurred many times in various industries most notably the automotive industry in the 70s and 80s.
While Australia is friendlier towards commercial UAV operation than the US this is still a fledgeling industry with many standards
Flirtey are working in partnership with The Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering a nonprofit research institute to develop a set of guidelines for the use of commercial drones. â##We hope to use this guide as a way to work through safety privacy and community concerns locally
which will increase the funding opportunities for more robot startups i
#Sharp futuristic Health care Support Chair a proactive health care solution Sharp has developed a health care support chair that combines a range of sensors for checking the user health.
It can simultaneously record your blood pressure temperature body motion and pulse waveform storing the data in the cloud. hen we talked to people they often said that measuring each health indicator separately is time-consuming and bothersome.
If possible people want to obtain all their health data in one go. The equipment needed to do that is still large but wee made it as compact as possible.
Our idea is that people could check their health data regularly in places they often visit
and consult a physician promptly if there any change.?Wee considering a system that enables people to videoconference with a physician
if theye detected anything abnormal. Because the data is saved all the physician can give suitable advice
while looking at the information the user has obtained so far.?Rather than people who are ill going to the doctor our idea is for healthy people to think about how to stay healthy prepare for any emergencies
and improve their day-to-day lifestyle. a
#Synched gears interlock at 4, 500 rpm on state-of-the-art servo system These three gears rotating at 4500 rpm are completely in sync
and are running on an AC servo system developed by Mitsubishi electric. ere wee demonstrating how
even if three gears overlap like this they can be prevented completely from interfering by moving them with exactly the same timing.
This can be done because the motors are controlled with micron-level accuracy. So there no interference even when theye running at such high speed.?
Nowadays theye used for applications that require extremely high precision such as mounting smartphone components and coating the glass panels in LCD TVS.?
if the timing is correct the braking energy of one axis can be used as energy for another in the same way as a regenerative braking system reducing energy usage. his system is used currently in the automotive chip-making printing and food industries.
From now on we think it will be extended to purposes apart from factory automation such as healthcare. c
#Students hope their ship inspection robot will significantly reduce dry-dock time for maritime transport industry,
improve safety for inspectors A team of students from ETH Zurich and ZHDK have developed a prototype for a robotic ship inspection unit that is capable of conducting visual inspections of ship ballasts.
Ballast inspection#which involves navigating hard-to-reach spots with no line of sight often in the presence of intense heat humidity
and hazardous gases##is done normally by human inspectors and represents a significant cost to shipowners who must pay for drydocking
and who face lost income when they cannot operate their ships during the inspection period.
The Ship Inspection Robot (SIR) which was developed in conjunction with Alstom Inspection Robotics and which uses magnetic wheels to navigate the I-beams
and other awkward obstacles found inside ship ballast is relatively compact and does not require any cables for power or communication and thus offers significant mobility improvements over other robotic ship inspection prototypes.
The robot was developed as part of a Bachelor-level project that aims to give students practical experience
The mechanical stress of loading and unloading and the corrosive properties of seawater all take their toll on a vessel#structure.
This is especially true for a ship#s ballast tanks which are filled with seawater to compensate for weight changes as cargo is loaded and unloaded.
and stiffeners separated by bulkheads ballast tanks form much of a ship#s supporting structure. The surface of ballast tanks is subject to saltwater exposure
and algae accumulation and as a result must be inspected for damage every five years. A standard visual inspection which can only be conducted with the ship in dry-dock after about a two-day venting period serves as a kind of triage for determining
what repairs are needed and where. During inspection and repair time is of the essence. Ship owners must pay for every day in dry-dock (16k to 25k per day)
Ballast inspection is therefore an ideal task for robots but the inside of the ballast
The projectsir was developed as part of an industrial-academic collaboration between Alstom Inspection Robotics ETH Zurich and ZHDK.
Alstom Inspection Robotics proposed a project that would result in a lightweight low-cost robot for inspecting ships
a team of ten undergraduate students (six mechanical engineers and two electrical engineers from ETH Zurich and two industrial designers from ZHDK) completed the project from concept to functional prototype as part of a nine-month
and maintenance workers and to explore the inside of bulk carriers SIR eventual workplace. This visit helped us to understand everyone priorities how an inspection robot might be used to address them
and allowed us to develop together with Alstom Inspection Robotics a realistic potential inspection scenario that would serve as a guide for SI#eventual design.
As part of a round-the-year continuous inspection the ship owner decides to use a four-day cruise to inspect part of the ballast tank.
Calculations done on power consumption suggest a run time of about three hours; with an assumed average speed of 4. 5 cm/s (calculated as a weighted mix of maximum
and obstacle speed) ten of these sections could be inspected on a single battery charge. Once inspection is complete the data is analysed
and suspicious areas are marked. Available data from earlier inspections is used to detect changes and the damage map is updated.
The next time a ship is due for inspection the damage map is checked and necessary equipment and material are ordered before the ship even enters the dry dock.
since the inspectors already have access to the data they can identify critical problems in advance
The prototype uses magnetic wheels to crawl along the metal ballast surface; SIR is controlled by a human inspector via wireless transmitter
and a powerful battery allows for approximately three hours of run time on a single charge.
We envision that future prototypes will be able to map damaged areas. Below are some of SIR#most important features:
How it works SIR features four overlapping magnetic wheels which allow the unit to maintain continual contact with the ship#surface even as it navigates sharp angles vertical surfaces and overhangs.
and control tasks (with the exception of a microcontroller for bundling sensor data) are executed on a base station that runs the Robot Operating system.
The robot uses four Sharp infrared distance sensors for edge and obstacle detection and an Invensense MPU 6050 IMU provides the operator with orientation data.
These sensors are used currently only for user feedback. The camera used on the robot is a Gopro Hero 3 where it serves as a demonstrator for a visual sensor.
It is assisted by three lights one pointing in the viewing direction while the other two illuminate the ground in a flat angle
so as to make bumps and small edges more visible thanks to the longer shadow they cast on the ground.
The second system is a wireless video transmitter for the Gopro camera that is often used in model airplanes.
Overcoming obstacles still needs some work in terms of reliability and smoothness however the robot never detached from the surface during a test
So far tests have shown that many of the other desired tasks can also be fulfilled by the current prototype such as the ability to carry a variety of sensors.
The ability to climb all these additional obstacles is not only beneficial for ship inspection but also useful for many other robot applications such as power plant inspections.
Further development of SIR lies in Alstom Inspection Roboticsâ#hands
#SEDASYS a robotic anesthesiologist The FDA recently approved a new robotic device which can automate the sedation of healthy patients having colonoscopies.
Ethicon Endo-Surgery a Johnson & johnson subsidiary created SEDASYS a computer-assisted device that administers the prescription drug propofol into the blood stream via intravenous IV infusion.
The device can detect signs associated with oversedation and can automatically modify or stop infusion.
 â##The technology will empower health care facilities to more effectively use their limited resources to deliver greater value in the increasingly resource-constrained U s. health care environment. â#SEDASYS will cost about $150 per procedure on a fee-peruse plan from J&j
where anesthesiologists generally cost between $600 to $2000. Actively lobbied against for years by the anesthesiologists association the FDA finally approved the device in May.
J&j will begin marketing SEDASYS early next year e
#Ankle assist walking device helps stroke survivors walk more easily Yaskawa Electric has developed an ankle assist walking device to help people whoe had a stroke to walk more easily by encouraging a longer
There a sensor in the shoe to detect when the wearer is treading and by raising the ankle in time with that movement this enables the wearer to take bigger steps.?
Next they will run formal clinical trials to confirm the therapeutic effects with the release of a commercial version slated for around 2015
#OAK, a Kinect-based active support system for the severely disabled OAK which stands for bservation and Access with Kinectis a software application for use by people with severe disabilities.
It has been developed by RCAST at the University of Tokyo in collaboration with Microsoft Japan and is available from assist
For example if a person has a cervical injury and can only move from the neck up you can put a switch next to their head.
Air Switch works by detecting how far away an object is. The system also has a Motion History capability
So for people whoe been thought of as totally immobile until now this system could open up a lot more possibilities based on scientific data such as shoulder movements for example. nother option is called Face Switch
#Medical robotic systems market to reach $13. 6 billion by 2018 The global medical robotic systems market was worth $5. 48 billion in 2011
Surgical robots are expected to enjoy the largest revenue share. The global market for medical robotic systems is driven by factors such as technological advancement in the automation of the healthcare industry increase in elderly population noninvasive surgical techniques and high prevalence of motion
-restricting medical conditions. Medical robotic systems include: surgical robots noninvasive radiosurgery robotic systems prosthetics and exoskeletons assistive and rehabilitation robots non-medical robotics in hospitals and emergency response robotic systems and hold
high growth potential in the global market. Source: Transparency Market research h
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