Beautiful Robots

Here is a stunning slideshow of some of the world's best-known robots. Some of my favorites are Toyota's musical humanoids (#14), Kiva's pod carriers (#25), and welding stations (#29). Of course, very relevant to my work are the pictures of the DaVinci surgical system (#3 and #12). Big Dog (#19) is always fun to look at, especially in video. NASA's robots are neat too; one thing that is pretty amazing is the scale - the ATHLETE platforms (#10), although they don't look it, are gigantic, similar to the Mars Science Lab (#32) if I remember correctly.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/03/robots.html
A few other nice pictures of robots are at:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/photogalleries/oscars-wall-e-robots/photo6.html

Robotic devices, thinking big

What would you do with $71 million? DARPA decided it would develop better prosthetic arms for amputees. The neat thing is that they are actually doing a good job with taxpayers' money. Technologies from the project are already making it into real-life use. The scope of the undertaking is amazing, from neuroscience to mechatronics to battery design, and the list goes on. In a stroke of 21st-century genius, engineers at Johns Hopkins even created a version of (air) Guitar Hero to help users gain proficiency with their new prostheses.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan09/7105
Now students can think big too. WPI announced the new topic for the Robotics Innovation Competition and Conference, which is "Quality of Life." Instead of designing robots for the sake of designing robots (which I am sometimes guilty of), this is motivation for making useful robots. Maybe my students will come up with some ideas?
http://ricc.wpi.edu/events.html

Doc-Bots

Two areas in which medical robotics has been progressing for several years are rehabilitation and telepresence. I just learned about 2 systems which have demonstrated success in these types of applications. Manus is an arm rehab robot developed at MIT that interfaces with a VR-type game to prompt the patient to perform beneficial motions. It also incorporates adaptive constraint to help guide the patient's motion. I think this is a great use of robots doing what they do best - repetitive mechanical tasks.
The military has had a long-standing interest in medical telepresence. Apparently they are now using a robot called RP-7 to provide basic audio/video communication between patients and doctors. This allows specialists to provide their expertise (make rounds, etc.) even from a long distance away. Here's the thing though. The robot costs a quarter of a million dollars. Why don't they just put some fancy networking in all the hospital rooms and achieve the same thing rather than having a dumb robot wandering around the hospital? Now if the robot could do more than just facilitate communications, or if it were much less expensive, I might have a more positive opinion.
http://bmsmail3.ieee.org:80/u/13832/80596289
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/2008/12/robot_use_in_military_hospital.html

Monkey Brains and Virtual Photons

In a new demonstration of the plasticity of the human brain, researchers have now shown that monkeys can quickly learn to redirect their brain activity to drive paralyzed muscles through a brain-computer interface. Cool stuff. Apparently you can do quite a bit with a single brain cell.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6908
I also just learned the theory behind the stiction effect in microdevices. Apparently virtual photons are constantly being formed everywhere, but they can only form in spaces larger than their wavelength. So when two surfaces are very close together, fewer photons are able to form, and this results in a "negative pressure" of photons in the gap, and the surfaces get sucked together. This sounds like a good premise for a nerdy party game.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6799

Solar Smarts

I just read about a new solar power plant in Spain. They can run steam turbines through the night using stored energy in huge tanks of molten salts. This allows them to over-collect during the day (more energy than they can sell at a time) and then basically make tens of millions of dollars more each year by extending their operating hours. Nice.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct08/6851
One thing that jumped out at me was the difference in policy between Europe and the US. There seem to be much more consistent incentives in Europe to develop facilities that will truly meet people's needs. Rather than minimizing up-front investment, they are willing to build big if that is what will actually work the best. In the US, solar facilities with storage aren't as common. Mistake?

Plastic Digital Paper

Almost 10 years ago, I remember hearing about new organic polymer electronics, and I've been waiting for all the cool devices to appear. Finally now we are about to get digital paper (or plastic). I look forward to reading my e-books on a full-size page that I can fold or roll up or whatever.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep08/6765

Beijing Olympics

We have had the TV on nonstop ever since the olympic games started. It sure is something to watch. I've been impressed by the amount of technology poured into making the games a successful attraction. The structure of the stadium is just gorgeous, and the Chinese have certainly made a nice marriage of engineering and aesthetics. There has also been a lot of effort put into designing modularity into the venues to extend their useful lifetime indefinitely. I think this is great engineering, as far as I can see on the surface. One other thing that I enjoy seeing on TV is the "robotic systems" that are being employed. It's fun to watch the underwater cameras that shuttle along the bottom of the pool and follow the swimmers. And it was brought to my attention recently (which I should have given more consideration before) that the Skycams used in the large stadiums all around the world are nothing other than a cable-suspended robot with a sophisticated control system. Brilliant stuff!