Doctors can remotely interact with patients through a person-size, mobile robotic platform made by InTouch Technologies, Inc. InTouch’s robots, the RP-7 and RP-7i allow doctors to communicate via video and audio from anywhere in the world.
The platform can even link directly to medical devices, allowing the doctor to remotely view real time patient data.
Both the RP-7 and RP-7i are the first and only FDA-cleared Remote Presence devices, which allow direct connection to Class II medical devices. Devices such as electronic stethoscopes, otoscopes and ultrasound can be connected to the Expansion Bay of the Robot, to transmit medical data to the remote physician.
The RP-7i also includes enhanced audio capabilities, which allow the user to focus in on a specific conversation, similar to using a person’s own two ears.
According to a study published in Pediatrics, using robots for surgery is safe, but provides no better outcomes for child patients.
Robotic surgery systems, such as the da Vinci allow surgeons to more easily do less invasive surgeries, as well as reduce human error like shaking hands. A major hurdle for the da Vinci to overcome is the several million dollar price tag which accompanies it. News that child patient outcomes from robot assisted surgery may not be greater than outcomes from conventional surgery could mean less hospitals will choose to purchase such expensive equipment.
da Vinci Robot Performs Mock Surgery Image:Flickr/karmalaundry
Robotic surgery systems are commonly praised for reducing hospital stays for patients undergoing hysterectomies and prostate procedures. It is unlikely these procedures were the ones used in the medical studies, since such surgeries are generally only needed with older patients.
To illustrate the power and accuracy of robotic surgery systems, take a look at this video of a Japanese surgeon folding origami which is smaller than a penny.
Roombas and humans play real life Pac-Man! The Pac-Man is controlled remotely while the ghosts are autonomous. Positioning systems tell the robots whether where they are on the map and determine whether they are allowed to turn and where the pills are located.
This bipedal, walking robot is Boston Dynamics latest creation. It’s closely related to their BigDog robot, but only has two legs so it walks like a human.
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]
RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification. RFID is a way to read data from a small chip using RF. The most common type of RFID is passive RFID. Passive means that the chip itself does not require a battery, and uses the small amounts of energy present from a RFID reader’s signal to transmit. Passive RFID is inexpensive and the most common type of RFID.
Another type of RFID is active RFID. Active means that the RFID chip has an active power source and can do much more than passive RFID can. Active RFID might be used in an application where the RFID chip needs to transmit signals by itself, or use encryption. Active RFID costs much more than passive RFID, so for this intro, our focus will be only on passive RFID.
What frequencies does RFID run on?
Most RFID uses one of several frequencies. The two most common frequencies for RFID are the 125kHz frequency, and the 13.56MHz frequency. It is important to know which frequency your tags or readers are. In general, most tags only work for one frequency, and most readers only support one frequency.
What are the differences between using the 125kHz and 13.56 MHz frequencies?
The different frequencies have their advantages and disadvantages. The 125kHz frequency tags are often less durable, but also generally provides better coverage when a reader is not in line of site, such as if there is thin door between the reader and the tag. 125kHz requires that the tag have an antenna made of a thicker copper. These thicker antenna are less durable than the antenna needed to transmit with 13.56 MHz tags.
The antenna required to transmit a 13.56MHz signal needs not the thick copper that the 125kHz antenna does. This allows the 13.56 MHz tags to be more flexible, rugged, and less breakable. The downside to the 13.56Mhz frequency is that this frequency is much more susceptible to interference. While all RFID does poorly with interference, the 13.56MHz tags have a much higher frequency than 125kHz tags and have much more trouble with signal interference than the 125kHz tags do. You must weigh the relative strengths and differences of the tag frequencies and choose for yourself which is best for your design.
Part II of this post discusses setting up an ID-20 RFID reader using an Arduino microcontroller. In this coming post I will explain exactly how to setup your own RFID Reader and read the chip’s data over a serial connection. This series culminates in a RFID based servo door unlocking system! Stay Tuned!
This mechanical skiing robot is shown racing downhill on the ski slopes. It’s programmed to ski slalom-style or straight downhill racing.
The robot is autonomous, and contains a complex sensory control system. An on-board camera identifies gates on the slope while a GPS system tracks position and velocity.
Here’s a nice video explaining how it works and showing the robot skiing down the mountain..
Robots are already used all over medicine. For example, medical teaching robots. Why not let them do autopsies too? The idea is that robots can be more precise than humans can, so they will be better at completing an accurate autopsy report. Humans miss things, robots don’t.
Another plus for robots is that they will automatically generate all the data in digital form, which will be around forever.
Robots May Perform Autopsies in the Future (Image: University of Bern)
Watch this awesome video of NASA’s Ares 1-X rocket doing a test launch from Kennedy Space Center, Florida on October 28th, 2009.
NASA’s Ares I-X test rocket lifted off at 11:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for a two-minute powered flight. The flight test lasted about six minutes from its launch from the newly modified Launch Pad 39B until splashdown of the rocket’s booster stage nearly 150 miles downrange.
Interesting. This robotic hand connects to nerve endings via electronic sensors. This allows the robotic hand and human to actually have some ability to feel what it is grasping. The hook in the beginning looks a little primitive. The new and improved hand appears to work much better. Mapping the nerves down to specific fingers looks like it needs more work, though. Still a great improvement over the original hook! Perhaps in the future a better brain implant will able better to relay the correct instructions from the brain to a fully functional robotic hand. This one has already been in the works for ten years! Maybe in another ten it will be perfect?
A team of scientists from Italy and Sweden has developed what is believed to be the first artificial hand that has feeling. It has been attached to the arm of a 22-year-old man who lost his own hand through cancer. Researchers say it works by connecting human nerve endings with tiny electronic sensors.
First up, Panasonic’s dishwashing robot. Then, other cool robot videos!
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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