Several DARPA challenges, in the desert, and in an urban environment, have showcased autonomous vehicles which navigate harsh and complex terrain with zero human interaction. It appears that Google’s foray into this emerging field has produced a formidable opponent to the DARPA challenge’s winning teams.

The car might be able to run autonomously most of the time, but the times it cannot… That scares me!

Apparently the only accident so far was when someone rear ended the Google car while stopped at a stoplight! Robots will end up replacing us  .

Check out this infographic from NYT:

Google's Autonomous Toyota Prius

Kite Flying Robot

It is made by FESTO, a German company with specialty in automation.

Petman is shown walking at 3.2MPH and uses human-like, heal to toe walking motions. It also has some stability, just watch it recover from being pushed in the video below!

The goal is to recreate how a human walks, so chemical suits can be stress tested. Petman is “the first anthropomorphic robot that moves dynamically like a real person.”

Another amazing robot from Boston Dynamics, the same company who made the original land version of the sand robot we wrote about earlier, and BigDog.

PETMAN is an anthropomorphic robot for testing chemical protection clothing used by the US Army. Unlike previous suit testers, which had to be supported mechanically and had a limited repertoire of motion, PETMAN will balance itself and move freely; walking, crawling and doing a variety of suit-stressing calisthenics during exposure to chemical warfare agents. PETMAN will also simulate human physiology within the protective suit by controlling temperature, humidity and sweating when necessary, all to provide realistic test conditions.

And it wasn’t easy to build, either: it took 13 months to design and an additional 17 months to build! That’s two and a half years!
[Boston Dynamics]

Panasonic’s fledgling robotics department has created a dishwashing robot capable of grasping utensils and dishes with the appropriate force, and placing them into a dishwasher.

Panasonic hopes to develop their robotics line into a one billion dollar per year business by 2015, or about 1.5% of their current revenue. Also in the video, some of Panasonic’s other robots.

Other dishwashing robots:

This video shows STAIR (STanford Artificial Intelligent Robot) unloading items from a dishwasher autonomously. Using machine learning algorithms, the robot is able to understand the image, and pick up objects — even the ones that were not seen before. This video is 3-x speed. More details at: http://ai.stanford.edu/~asaxena/learninggrasp/

Cool, but a little slow!

The ARMAR Humanoid Robot putting a cup in the dishwasher:

Here is one of the better ones:
The Willow Garage’s PR1 mobile robot. Here it is doing the dishes.

And another video of it grabbing a beer.

This guy even cleans up a messy living room!

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There has been a lot of successful stairclimbing robot designs, but few are as simple and effective as this one by LMR user Arek ArunioSmo. Watch how easily it climbs up the stairs.

Among the crowd pleasers stood a rather beefy, industrial looking robotic arm with a nimble human hand that assumed the position of “sushi chef” and gracefully arranged faux-sushi on a platter. The 5-axis, 0.5mm precision M-430iA robot by FANUC specializes in high speed, ultra precision picking and food handling, according to the company’s website.

This robochef arranged delicate pieces of sushi on a platter.

One day, a robot like this will be making your dinner.

via TokyoMango