#This robotic prosthetic hand can be made for just $1000 Theâ Dextrus hand is a robotic hand that can be put together for well under £650 ($1000) and offers much of the functionality of a human hand.
 Existing prosthetic hands are magnificent devices capable of providing a large amount of dexterity using a simple control system.
The problem is that they cost somewhere between £7000-£70000 ($11000-$110000) far too much for most people to afford especially in developing countries.
 Through theâ Open Hand Project an open source project with the goal of making robotic prosthetic hands more accessible to amputees aâ fully-functional prototypeâ has already been developed.
In order to broaden the reach of prosthetic devicesâ I decided to create a low-cost prosthetic hand while inâ my final year at the University of Plymouth.
Usually they need to be fitted custom to the user remaining arm which can rack up medical bills with consultations and fittings.
The Dextrus hand connects directly to an NHS fitted passive prosthesis. This means no additional custom fitting and no extra cost.
The Dextrus hand works much like a human hand. It uses electric motors instead of muscles and steel cables instead of tendons. 3d printed plastic parts work like bones and a rubber coating acts as the skin.
All of these parts are controlled by electronics to give it a natural movement that can handle all sorts of different objects.
It uses stick-on electrodes to read signals from the users remaining muscles which can control the hand telling it to open or close.
Using 3d printing offers vast benefits to the project because the user can select any colour it easy to switch from a right hand to a left hand
and parts can be reprinted with ease should anything break. To take this project to the next level I need to design and prototype the rest of the electronics and build everything onto printed circuit boards.
The design of the hand needs to be refined and tested to make sure that it robust and functional as well as aesthetically pleasing.
This is why I using crowdfunding to raise the money to support the project and have launched a campaign onâ indiegogo.
 If the crowdfunding campaign is successful the money will go towards funding the project for an entire year.
This will include prototyping PCB designs materials for additional prototypes of the whole hand and equipment for assembling the electronics.
Since Il be working full time on this some of it will also go towards a modest salary to keep
#Researchers use single joystick to control swarm of RC robots What can you do with 12 RC robots all slaved to the same joystick remote control?
Common sense might say you need 11 more remotes but our video demonstrates you can steer all the robots to any desired final position by using an algorithm we designed.
The algorithm exploits rotational noise: each time the joystick tells the robots to turn every robot turns a slightly different amount due to random wheel slip.
We use these differences to slowly push the robots to goal positions. The current algorithm is slow
so wee designing new algorithms that are 200x faster. You can help by playing our online game:
www. swarmcontrol. net. The algorithm extends to any number of robots; this video shows a simulation with 120 robots and a more complicated goal pattern.
Our research is motivated by real-world challenges in microrobotics and nanorobotics where often all the robots are steered by the same control signal (IROS 2012 paper).
Our colleagues Yan Ou and Agung Julius at RPI and Paul Kim and Minjun Kim at Drexel use an external magnetic field to steer single-celled protozoa swimming in a Petri dish.
The same magnetic field is applied to every protozoa. We want controllers to steer them to do useful tasks such as targeted drug delivery and mobile sensing.
Other examples include bacteria that move toward a light source (phototaxis) single celled organisms attracted by a chemical source (chemotaxis) microrobots driven by an external magnetic field (magmites)
or capacitive charge (scratch-drive robots) or synthetic molecules with light-driven motors (nanocars). How it worksto emulate micro
or nanorobots our robots are programmed to behave as simple remote control cars and tuned to listen to the same frequency.
We can then either drive the robots around with a simple joystick or let a computer apply the control.
Regardless the commands are the same and consist merely of go forwards/backwards x seconds or turn left for 2 seconds.
The computer has an advantage over human players because it can precisely measure the position
and orientation of every robot and compute the position error using an overhead camera and printed April Tag barcode attached to each robot.
and are guided to form our university logo and beloved owl mascot. The mathour initial work with Tim Bretl at the University of Illinois investigated a parallel problem:
robust open-loop control of a robot with unknown parameters. We chose two classical robot platforms to demonstrate our approach the nonholonomic unicycle and the plate-ball manipulator.
and can model robots including roombas tanks and cars. It has two inputs: forward speed and turning rate.
This steering algorithm is based on piecewise-constant inputs and Taylor series approximations. Taylor series approximations give us a clear method for increasing precision.
You can test this out by purchasing several RC cars tuned to the same radio frequency.
If you command the cars to go forward all will move forward. If you command them to turn all turnbut due to process noise all turn a slightly different amount.
The algorithm published in another 2012 IROS article shows that rotational noise improves control but translational noise impairs control.
Our algorithm allowed us to control the final position of n robots but we could not control the final orientation.
The video for our upcoming IROS 2013 paper illustrates this algorithm using robots equipped with laser turrets.
and to gather quantitative data about what mechanisms help people work with these swarms most effectively.
Secondarily wee created a simple platform for publishing these academic user experiments projects online why settle merely for a handful of undergrads to sample with?
and Universities David Willetts in his report Eight Great Technologies and the July 2013 announcement that the UK robotics industry would receive a £40 million funding boost.
what their potential impact might be on employment. Some issues prove to be particularly controversial such as the use of robots in warfare or for the care of children or the elderly.
Many of the reportskey findings come from the 2012 Eurobarometer 382 report Public Attitudes toward Robotics
military and security (64%)manufacturing (57%)space exploration (45%)search and rescue (36%)and healthcare (18%.
care of children elderly and disabled (61%)education (30%)healthcare (30%)leisure (12%)and domestic use (11%.
and education activities there is relatively little dialogue or understanding of the views of the public around the controversial issues present in robotics.
For example while most UK citizens seem to be comfortable with the concept of using robots in the workplace they frequently expressed that using RAS in industry should not be at the expense of workers losing their jobs.
Most puzzling is that the support for the use of RAS by the military is stronger in the UK than anywhere in Europe despite strong homegrown opposition by UK pressure groups and academics.
 Further research on the views of the public on the applications of RAS in a military
and security context may be useful to assess what UK citizens are comfortable with ranging from troop support in areas such as minesweeping to remote surveillance to fully armed drones.
RAS and the ageing population A gap that exists within the current social intelligence is the extent to
which publics might support RAS becoming part of the daily lives for an ageing population (for example measuring the support for homes
RAS and job securityas commented elsewhere there is a tension between fully exploiting RAS for the benefit of a growing economy (by boosting advanced manufacturing techniques with the addition of RAS) and the potential loss of jobs within the manufacturing service and maintenance sectors.
Dialogue activities may help to identify where the public are most comfortable with the concept of RAS entering the workplace.**
which provides co-funding and specialist advice and support to UK Government departments and agencies to develop
Nursing care robots are designed to fulfill functions which help patients live independently and reduce the burden on caretakers.
and (4) Monitoring dementia patients. Once standards are in place it will give a boost to full-scale production of nursing-care robots from all over the world but particularly from Japan n
Lighter than a feather these ultrathin film-like organic transistor integrated circuits are being developed by a research group led by Professor Takao Someya
and Associate professor Tsuyoshi Sekitani of the University of Tokyo who run an Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) program sponsored by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) in collaboration with Siegfried Bauer group at the Johannes Kepler
University (JKU) Linz Austria. This prototype device is a touch sensor featuring a 12×12 array of sensors on a 4. 8 cm x 4. 8 cm circuit.
It is made up of two layers an integrated circuit layer and a tactile sensor layer. he new flexible touch sensor is the world thinnest lightest
and people cannot feel the existence of this device. I believe this development will open up a wide range of new applications from health monitoring systems wearable medical instruments
and even robotic skins in the future. he circuits are extremely lightweight flexible durable and thin and conform to any surface.
They are just 2 microns thick just 1/5 that of kitchen wrap and weighing only 3g/m 2 are 30 times lighter than office paper.
They also feature a bend radius of 5 microns meaning they can be scrunched up into a ball without breaking.
Due to these properties the researchers have dubbed them mperceptible electronicswhich can be placed on any surface
and even worn without restricting the users movement. The integrated circuits are manufactured on rolls of one micron thick plastic film making them easily scalable and cheap to produce.
And if the circuit is placed on a rubber surface it becomes stretchable able to withstand up to 233%tensile strain
while retaining full functionality. his is a very convenient way of making electronics stretchable because you can fabricate high performance devices in a flat state
and then just transfer them over to a stretchable substrate and create something that is very compliant and stretchable just by a simple pick
and place process. ith the development of these plastic electronics the possibility for flexible thin large area electronics has been realized.
#Two small drones approved by FAA for civilian use in the US Two small drones Insitu Scan Eagle X200
and Aerovironment PUMA have become the first federally certified unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) for civilian use in the US.
the other will conduct commercial environmental monitoring in the Arctic circle assist emergency response teams in oil spill monitoring
Both drones have fixed wings weigh less than 55 pounds each and have wingspans of less than 10 feet
#IBIS pneumatic keyhole surgery robot potentially 1/10 the cost of Da vinci This is a robot system for keyhole surgery consisting of a master unit operated by the surgeon
The force on the tip of the robot is estimated from the air pressure data and that information is sent to the surgeon master robot.
So it can be fed back to the surgeon hand. Alternatively a large force can be produced by a very lightweight compact unit.
An advantage of this system is the robot overall can be made extremely compact.?Here the user is operating the master robot.
This demonstration enables you to experience for example how you can feel the reaction force when you pull the rubber band.?
So depending on the medical staff and the situation the parameters can be varied to make the system easier to use on the spot.?
Currently we aim to build this system for one-third to one-tenth the cost of the Da vinci surgical system.
Right now wee working with surgeons who are actually using this system and giving us feedback on how to improve it.
Labor saving devices like these new robotic devices are seen as helping fight an inability to secure workers. â##There arenâ##t enough workers to take the available jobs so the robots can come
#Tofu handling robot picks up soft, delicate food with ease Lands Work a manufacturer of tofu-making machinery has developed a robot that can pick up very soft foods such as tofu
The images are analyzed by a computer and the robot works out which way to orient the tofu.
In Cambodia where unexploded land mines from previous wars remain LIDAR mapping is particularly helpful. Interesting video g
a modular robotâ consisting of hexagonal-shaped single-rotor units that can take on just about any shape or form.
Although each unit is capable of generating enough thrust to lift itself off the ground on its own it is incapable of flight much like a helicopter cannot fly without its tail rotor.
However when joined together these units evolve into a sophisticated multi-rotor system capable of coordinated flight and much more.
In the beginningin the summer of 2008 Professor Raffaello Dndrea at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich envisioned an art installation consisting of single-rotor robotic units that would self-assemble on the ground
This modular flying vehicle would then break apart in the air and then repeat the process over again but in a new randomly-generated configuration.
and created a linear dynamics model of the vehicle in order to provide us with some intuition about its physical dynamics.
The class consisted of eight graduate-level students from mechanical electrical and software engineering as well as technical staff and instructors including myself.
Our task was to design and build a functional prototype that would demonstrate three key abilities of the system:(
Our initial hope was to demonstrate each of the key abilities using a single set of vehicles
in order to make the vehicle lighter for flight. Its primary limitation however was its inability to demonstrate coordinated mobility for randomly assembled configurations.
One additional revision of the vehicle was created prior to arriving at the current design. In designing Revision 1 one of our major goals was to integrate both driving and flying capabilities.
Although lightweight and mechanically robust the ethyl polypropylene foam chassis we used in the proof-of-concept vehicle was difficult to manufacture
We opted instead for constructing the chassis out of laser-cut acetal plastic a higher-powered flight motor and a new propeller.
which was easy to fabricate in-house and it provided sufficient thrust for the purposes of lift
however was the stiffness of the chassis and manufacturing variability of the rotors. Only after completing the design of Revision 1
and producing several units did we discover that the vibrating modes in the chassis caused by aerodynamic turbulence from the propellers saturated the onboard rate-gyroscope sensors
We successfully accomplished this using infrared transceivers mounted to each connection interface. However we later discovered interference issues
when conducting experiments with our vehicle within the environment of a 3d motion capture system (needed for ground truth measurements)
On top of this was need the to shrink the size of the electronics such that it would fit within the protected volume of the chassis. We were motivated by recent manufacturing possibilities in creating flexible printed circuit boards
We therefore had to redo parts of the design for a standard printed circuit board. There was also the suggestion to first fly the system using a 3d motion capture system for measurement feedback.
and (2) measurement information (or control information) needed to be transmitted to the vehicle wirelessly for control purposes which at the time of development (using Wifi) generally incurred a lot of latency and packet loss.
This laid the ground work for Revision 2. In Revision 2 we redesigned the chassis
but kept most of the power and control electronics the same. Using some of the most recent advances in manufacturing technology the chassis was 3d printed this time around enabling us to design with very little fabrication constraints
which we tested using the rate-gyroscope sensors from Revision 1. Using two units and electronics from Revision 1 we tested the closed-loop behaviour around a single axis of rotation by mounting the two units on a horizontal pivot.
This alone required a few iterations of the chassis which in the end we managed to get right.
and utilized an electrical bus to clean up the mess of communication lines we had in Revision 1. A detailed description is given in the next section.
Designed from the ground upeach unit uses a single 32-bit 72 MHZ microcontroller to interface with all of the onboard sensors actuators and communication peripherals.
The same microcontroller is used also for performing all of the computation necessary for estimation and control there is no computation that is performed offboard.
An interchangeable wireless module (either Wifi or proprietary frequency hopping spread spectrum) allows us to communicate with each unit e g. telemetry and user commands;
in the case where external sensors are used (e g. 3d motion capture system) the data can be sent to the units over this wireless link.
Standard on most aerial vehicles is a 3-axis rate-gyroscope which is used for measuring body angular velocities as well as estimating the attitude of the vehicle in flight.
An infrared distance measurement sensor is used for measuring the distance of a unit to the ground.
Not only is used this for estimating the altitude of the vehicle but if units share their distance measurements with one another they can also estimate the vehicle tilt
when flying over a flat surface. We have designed each unit with magnetic interfaces located along each of its six sides.
This allows a unit to passively self-align with its connected peers. The connection strength however is in fact not very strong.
This was intentional as it clearly demonstrates the need for cooperation between individual units in order to achieve flight â##without it the vehicle would simple rip itself apart before takeoff.
To successfully accomplish this the flight control strategy must minimize the shear forces occuring between interconnected units during flight.
Also located on each of its six sides are three gold pushpins. Together with the magnets this interface behaves similarly to the Apple Magsafe power connector except that this interface is used to provide a means for hardwire communication between neighbouring peers.
With this we developed our own network layer to handle inter-unit communication as well as algorithms for routing packets time synchronization information fusion etc. on a resource limited embedded system.
Units are also able to communicate with one another in plane at a distance using infrared wireless transceivers
which is employed primarily for self-assembly purposes. Each unit is equipped with three omnidirectional wheels allowing it to move on the ground with a high degree of maneuverability
Finally a high energy density Lithium-Ion Polymer battery is used to power all the electronics and actuators contained onboard.
Thus each unit is generating the appropriate control effort necessary to keep the vehicle in flight
The only information that a unit needs for flight is its local sensor data and its position with respect to the vehicle centre of mass.
if each unit knows the physical configuration of the vehicle. In order for a unit to determine this on its own each unit can work out its relation to neighbouring units by sharing appropriate information.
By forwarding this information around the network each unit can arrive at the physical configuration of the vehicle much like how one might establish his/her family tree.
Assuming a rigid body for the vehicle which was taken into account when designing the chassis local sensor information provides a unit with a rough estimate of the vehicle tilt and altitude.
And knowing its position with respect to the centre of mass it straightforward to work out the appropriate control effort needed to counteract any disturbances.
We instead developed a means for automatically computing the tuning parameters for any flight-feasible configuration of the vehicle that would result in best flight performance.
In carefullly analyzing the parameters obtained for a variety of configurations we then developed a scalable method for mapping the configuration of a vehicle to its approximated optimal control tuning parameters.
The success of this project would not have been made possible without support from The swiss National Science Foundation as well as the countless number of hours spent by students
and technical staff â##they all deserve as much credit. The Distributed Flight Array is currently being used at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich as a modular robotics platform for investigating algorithms in distributed estimation and control.
Updates regarding the project status and a list of those involved with the project can be found on its home page.
Raffaello Dndrea Maximilian Kriegleder Igor Thommen and Marc A. Corzilliusphoto credit: Raymond Oungnote: This post is part of our Swiss Robots Series.
Raffaello Dndrea and team demo amazing quadrotor thleteswith reporting and photos by Dario Brescianini and Mark Mueller and timelapse video by  James Duncan Davidson.
A quadrocopter swoops through the air to serve a glass of water without spilling a drop.
Another gets two of its propellers cut off yet still easily flies across the arena. Â t looks like magic!
but it took a lot of research hard work and planning to bring this agic tricktoâ TED Global.
Part  of a session called hose Flying Things (which also features the work of drone ecologist Lian Pin Koh airborne logistics activist Andreas Raptopoulos
these models are leveraged then by a branch of mathematics called Control theory to synthesize algorithms for controlling them.
He goes on to show a series of pretty amazing quadrotor feats that would be sophisticated impossible without automatic feedback.
TED just posted an update on their blog about the demo here and we will link to the video of the talk as soon as it goes online.
Clearly a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to get Dndrea and his team to TED.
and a whole crew of Phd and Master students to develop the infrastructure and algorithms that make this demonstration possible
and that was just to get to the point where they could do the demos in-house.
Dndrea and his team usually research and demo their quadrotor tricks at the ETH Flying Machine Arenaâ a 10x10x10m airspace dedicated to the study of control algorithms
and featuring aâ high-precision motion capture system a wireless communication network and custom software for executing estimation and control.
Though the FMA normally lives at its home base at The swiss Federal Institute of technology (ETH) in Zurich it was designed from the outset to be portable
and at Google annual flagship conference Google IO in San francisco. Still it takes a lot of time
and careful planning to recreate the set up at a new site and on this occasion they were planning a video shoot as well as a live audience.
and started setting up almost right away inâ a dedicated room where the talk was filmed and where all their demonstrations will take place throughout the week.
-and-a-half hours to get the first quadrotor hovering. On Sunday they rehearsed the talk and especially the transitions between each demo in preparation for the video shoot
Despite a few hiccups (two quads were damaged during setup and some repairs had to be done on the fly) Monday shoot went pretty smoothly. t tookâ about two
and one flying Gopro attached to a quad) to document Dndrea TED talk. An additional camera shot a aking ofvideo as well. tâ#pretty busy
Check out the pages of ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena team and more Robohub articles on how quadrocopters learn acrobatic maneuvers cooperate to throw
and catch balls perfect air racing and throw and catch an inverted pendulum. Full disclosure:
Markus Waibel works with Raff Dndrea and the Flying Machine Arena team at ETH Zurich Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control.
and a two-component thermosetting polymer to build up objects on any working surface that the polymer can adhere to including floors walls and ceilings without the need for additional support structures.
a script takes 3d models designed by the user in CAD software converts them into 3d curves
what allows flies to navigate takeoff land and avoid obstacles while using very little processing power.
As shown in the video below you could use these sensors to control small robots navigating an environment even in the dark
Other applications include home automation surveillance medical instruments prosthetic devices and smart clothing. The artificial compound eye features a panoramic hemispherical field of view with a resolution identical to that of the fruitfly in less than 1 mm thickness.
and includes neuromorphic photoreceptors that allow motion perception in a wide range of environments from a sunny day to moon light.
To build the sensors the researchers align an array of microlenses an array of photodetectors
The panoramic field of view is provided by dicing the rigid parts of the ommatidia thereby allowing the mechanical bending of the sensor.
The necessary components for signal readout and processing are embedded in the curvature of the sensor.
Curvace is a European project bringing together the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems in EPFL (Switzerland) the Laboratory of Biorobotics in the University of Aix-Marseille (France) the Fraunhofer Institute of Applied Optics and Precision Engineering (Germany
) and the Laboratory of Cognitive sciences in the University of TÃ bingen (Germany) e
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