Honda designing new ASIMO-style robot for disaster response

Many of us have the unfounded notion that Japan is swarming withrobots. Okay, well it might not becompletely unfounded, but most of them aren’t designed to take the lead in an unpredictable disaster situation. For all its expertise with robotics, Japan was unable to deploy robots during the Fukushima meltdown that could have saved lives or even made it possible to stop the meltdown in the first place. Now, Honda is designing a new version of ASIMO that could be useful in a dangerous setting to keep humans out of harm’s way.

ASIMO is arguably the most advanced humanoid robot in the world, so why didn’t Honda put its multi-million dollar investment on the line during Fukushima? It’s not the cost, it’s that ASIMO would have been essentially useless. Despite being able to walk, carry objects, and even break into a short sprint, it’s not capable of navigating the chaotic environment of a damaged nuclear reactor. Just one bit of rubble in the way and suddenly your multi-million dollar robot has fallen over and broken after accomplishing nothing of value.

This obvious shortcoming has led Honda engineers to begin work on prototype disaster response robots. With all the work that has been done on ASIMO over the years, Honda alreadyhas a working robot that’s able to negotiate obstacles and climb ladders. The robot’s design is described in two papers that were presented to the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. One explains the way the robot can shift from bipedal to quadrupedal when necessary to squeeze under something, and the other covered the make use of ladders and narrow walkways.

The thing that has always made ASIMO impressive is that it walks like a human, which is exceedingly difficult for robots. So why go to all the trouble of making the still-unnamed disaster response robot humanoid in the first place? A wheeled or treaded robot might be more stable and faster, but the world (and especially industrial sites like Fukushima) are designed for humans. There are ladders, stairs, doors, and walkways that a rolling robot would be unable to use. A humanoid robot is vastly more useful. Above is what Honda is shooting for.

Honda hasn’t provided full details on how the disaster response robot works, but it appears to have a sensor cluster on the head and a large battery package on the back. The sensors make continuous real-time measurements of the robot’s position and velocity, allowing the software to compensate for any errors when walking or climbing. The same sensors help it move to quadruped mode without maintaining a static center of gravity. The transformation only takes about two seconds, thanks to a pair of flywheels in the torso.

There’s no target for when the disaster robot will be ready for prime time, but I imagine that’ll happen some time after they give it a name. “Experimental humanoid robot” doesn’t have the same ring as ASIMO.

Open Bionics robotic hand for amputees wins Dyson Award

A prototype 3D-printed robotic hand that can be made faster and more cheaply than current alternatives is this year’s UK winner of the James Dyson Award.

The Bristol-raised creator of the Open Bionics project says he can 3D-scan an amputee and build them a custom-fitted socket and hand in less than two days.

It typically takes weeks or months to obtain existing products.

Joel Gibbard says he aims to start selling the prosthetics next year.

Image captionJoel Gibbard, seen on the right, began work on the Open Bionics robotic hand in his bedroom in Bristol

“We have a device at the lower-end of the pricing scale and the upper end of functionality,” he told the BBC.

“At the same time it is very lightweight and it can be customised for each person.

“The hand is basically a skeleton with a ‘skin’ on top. So, we can do different things to the skin – we can put patterns on it, we can change the styling and design. There’s quite a lot of flexibility there.”

The 25-year-old inventor intends to charge customers £2,000 for the device, including the cost of a fitting.

Although prosthetic arms fitted with hooks typically can be bought for similar prices, ones with controllable fingers are usually sold for between £20,000 and £60,000.

That cost can sometimes be prohibitive for children, who usually need to change their prosthetic once or twice a year to take account of their growth.

Egg clasp

Open Bionics’ hand relies on myoelectric signals, meaning it detects muscle movements via sensors stuck to the owner’s skin and uses them to control its grip.

Image captionIt has been estimated that there are more than 11 million hand amputees worldwide

A single flex of the wearer’s muscles opens and closes the fingers, while a double flex changes the shape to form a pinch grip.

Although the user cannot feel what the fingers are touching, sensors built into the digits can tell when they come into contact with an object to limit the pressure they exert.

This means owners can pick up objects as fragile as an egg without crushing them.

However, Mr Gibbard acknowledges there are still some limitations to his design.

“We’re using lower-cost motors than they have in high-end devices, so the overall strength is lower,” he said.

“So, we are testing it with users and household objects and trying to come to a compromise that means it is very affordable and still has enough power to do most of the stuff that people want.”

Image captionThe project users a 3D printer to construct the four separate parts its hands are made out of

The UK engineering prize includes a £2,220 reward and the chance to compete for an international title worth $45,000 (£28,600).

But, perhaps more valuably, it will also help the project gain wider recognition.

“Joel Gibbard is to be congratulated in advancing the availability of functioning prosthetic devices at affordable prices,” commented Miss Barbara Jemec, founding chair of the British Foundation for International Reconstructive Surgery and Training (BFirst), on learning of the prize.

“Amputees, especially in developing countries, such as Sierra Leone where the civil war left many upper limb amputees, need to have access to affordable and durable prosthetics that work.

“A working hand can make all the difference between hunger and being able to work and take care of yourself and your family. I shall be following the development with interest.”

Disney-backed hand

Open Bionics started as a bedroom-based crowdfunding project in 2013, which was supported by Bristol Robotics Laboratory.

Since then the design has been revised 10 times, and the number of separate parts radically reduced.

Mr Gibbard says he can now size up a user in a matter of minutes using a tablet equipped with a special sensor, 3D-print the parts in about 40 hours, and finally fit them together in a further two hours.

“The original design was primarily made of different plastic parts that were screwed and bolted together along with off-the-shelf components,” he recalls.

“It took a very long time to build, and because it was all made of plastic it was subject to a lot of weak points where it could break.

“The new design is made of thermoplastic elastomer, which is basically a flexible rubbery plastic.

“So, we’re able to print something in far fewer pieces and then have flexible joints.

“That means it’s much more robust to impact forces and it requires much less assembly, so there are savings in cost, time and improvements in performance.”

Image captionThe British robotics project is being supported by a Walt Disney business incubation scheme

While the current design only supports patients whose limb loss is limited to their forearms, the ultimate goal is to be able to help those with above-elbow amputations as well.

The roboticist is currently based in Los Angeles where his work is being supported by Walt Disney’s Techstars Accelerator mentorship and investment programme.

Although he intends to start a business by selling custom-made robotic hands in the second half of 2016, the project is also “open source” – meaning anyone can share and use its designs without charge so long as they in turn share any improvements they make.

This is not the first time a James Dyson Award has gone to a robotic appendage.

In 2013, the University of Pennsylvania’s Titan Arm – an exoskeleton for one arm designed to help people with back injuries – won the top prize.

Walk Like a Man: The DARPA Robotics Challenge

The humanoid Atlas robot made by Google company Boston Dynamics has gotten an overhaul to be stronger, lighter and more independent, and to be able to function for one hour of mixed-mission operations.

Designed by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), it stands six feet two inches tall.

Its weight was trimmed from 330 to 254 pounds through replacing everything but the lower legs and feet and using lighter materials — despite including an onboard 3.7 kWh Li-Ion battery pack and a variable-pressure pump.

The battery pack drives the pump for more efficient operation. Now, the robot not only can walk, stand, use tools and make other movements for a whole hour, but also do so unaided — it no longer is attached to cables for support.

Atlas Does More Than Shrug

Atlas’s shoulders and arms have been repositioned to give it more workspace in front and let it see its hands in motion for additional sensor feedback. It has new electrically actuated lower arms for greater strength and dexterity and improved force sensing. It also has more play in the wrist that lets it turn a door handle by rotating the wrist rather than moving its entire arm.

The robot has three on-board perception computers for perception and task planning, and a wireless router in the head; resized actuators in the hip, knee and back; and a wireless emergency stop for safety.

The DARPA Challenge

Atlas will be one of the robots entered into the DARPA Robotics Challenge, which will hold finals June 5-6 in Pomona, California.

The challenge aims at developing robots for use in disaster response, and participants will face conditions simulating a real disaster, such as degraded communications.

“It isn’t unusual to lose more lives after a disaster because of some problem with the rescue than were at risk in the first place,” said Rob Enderle, principal at theEnderle Group.

“This is on top of the long-term costs of ailments like cancer recovery workers can suffer from,” he told TechNewsWorld.

Robots aren’t subject to the same ills, and “you can put off repairing them if they get damaged.”

Variety Is the Spice of Robotics

Robots’ designs vary depending on their functions and how their designers want to achieve them. For example, NASA’s entry into the DARPA challenge is Robosimian, a headless robot based on — what else — simian design.

Some box store chains, such as Lowe’s, are using robots to serve customers, and researchers in Japan are working on robots to take care of the elderly and ailing.

However, researchers focus on certain specific areas as a rule. Among the most common fields of robot research, according to Dan Kara, practice director for robotics at ABI Research, are the following: intuitive, multimodal human-robot interaction; dexterous grasping and fine manipulation; safe robot behavior; and adaptation and skill acquisition.

Others are sensor technology and sensing systems, perception and sensor integration, and actuators and actuation.

The DARPA Challenge is among the attempts to augment primary research into robotics and other technologies that “begin with primary research either funded by government entities or initiatives, or by their commercial equivalents, and conducted in public or private research laboratories,” Kara told TechNewsWorld, adding that this model has “proven very effective for generations.”

Think Like a Worm

Much has been made of getting robots to think like humans.

“Attempts to recreate the workings of the human brain in silicon are ongoing, but they have a long way to go,” Kara remarked. These include neuromorphic chips like IBM’s TrueNorth and Qualcomm’s Zeroth processors, and neurocomputational hardware technologies.

The open source OpenWorm project aims to create robots that would be able to think like a nematode — basically a roundworm — and seek to simulate “a very primitive brain” rather than a human one, Kara said.

“You don’t really need a human-like intelligence, and I doubt you’d want one,” Enderle pointed out. “You need something that can quickly identify obstacles, develop a path through them, and then execute a series of generally tightly defined tasks. Human emotions likely would get in the way.”

If the paths of the Atlas researchers and the OpenWorm project intersect, Enderle surmised, “you’d get something closer to the mechanical alien in the movie Edge of Tomorrow than a Cylon.”

Heads up, Intel: TI chips bring ARM to Arduino gadget market

A Texas Instruments ARM-based chip means hardware hackers who like Arduino will have another choice besides Intel’s Quark for computing projects.

Watch out, Intel, because Texas Instruments wants to get its ARM-based processors into Arduino market aimed at tinkerers, experimentalists, and hardware hackers.

At the Maker Faire in Rome on Saturday, Arduino movement co-founder Massimo Banzi, along with Texas Instruments’ Jason Kridner and Gerald Coley, described a new Arduino electronics board called the Arduino Tre that increases the computing power of the diminutive devices a hundredfold. Their presentation comes shortly after Intel announced its Arduino-compatible Galileo boards. 

The Arduino Tre speed boost comes from its Texas Instruments Sitara AM335x processor, which is based on the Cortex-A8 design from ARM Holdings. Because ARM chips are nearly universal in the smartphone market that Intel has been struggling to penetrate, they’re a top competitive concern for Intel, and TI’s move means it might not be Intel’s Pentium-derived Quark chips that hobbyists end up with when looking for their next widget.

Arduino devices historically used 8-bit Atmega microcontroller chips from Atmel, processors that are very limited by today’s standards and that run low-level software for AVR-architecture chips. The 32-bit TI chip, though, opens the door to a heavier-duty operating system: Linux.

“Thanks to the 1-GHz Sitara AM335x processor, Arduino developers get up to 100 times more performance with the Sitara-processor-based TRE than they do on the Arduino Leonardo or Uno,” said Zoe Romano, who handles marketing work for the Arduino project, in a blog post. “This performance opens the doors to more advanced Linux-powered applications. The Sitara-processor-based Linux Arduino can run high-performance desktop applications, processing-intensive algorithms or high-speed communications.”

The approach means the Arduino movement is shifting in the direction of another small, inexpensive electronics board, the Raspberry Pi, which uses an ARM processor.

The Arduino Tre is actually two computer systems in one, though. It also includes an AVR microcontroller for compatibility with existing Arduino projects and hardware.

Arduino systems can be used for a wide variety of hardware projects — among them toilet paper printer, tactile weather-forecast device, gesture-controlled lamp, and a robotic beer-pouring system. They’re a good learning tool for electronics students, which is why Google, ever eager to appeal to the tech set, has embraced Arduino, too.

So far, Arduino boards process electronic input signals and issue output signals, a fairly primitive but programmable operation. They can be hooked up to any number of sensors, motors, displays, and other widgets. People write programs on a regular computer and transfer them to the Arduino device.

Running Linux on them opens Arduino up to a much broader range of software possibilities and programming options.