NASA SPACE TELEROBOTICS PROGRAMS ~ future technology

Cool Robot Of The Week

The honor of being listed as "Cool Robot Of The Week" is bestowed upon those robotics-related web sites which portray highly innovative solutions to robotics problems, describe unique approaches to implementing robotics system, or present exciting interfaces for the dissemination of robotics-related information or promoting robotics technology. This award carries absolutely no monetary value, official recognition, assumed support, or tangible benefit, other than swamping your web site with a few dozen extra hits for a week. But everyone else was putting up their "Cool Site Of The Millenia" lists, so we figured it was our turn too...

This week's selection:

Nov 10

RCS - Real-time Control Systems architecture, developed by NIST, complete with a library of free C++ and Java code, scripts, tools, makefiles, and documentation for use in real-time control systems.

Previous Cool

	Nov 03		Player Stage - open source software devleopment tools for robot and sensor applications.
	Oct 27		Person Tracker - the design and construction of a multi-person tracking system using a network of stereo cameras, part of the MIT AI Lab Vision Interfaces Project.
	Oct 20		Millibots - a distributed team of robots for coordinated activities such as extended reconnaissance and surveillance.
	Oct 13		Macaco - the development of an biologically inspired animal (first a dog, and later a monkey) from the MIT Humanoid Robotics Group.
	Oct 06		Scanning Radar - developing a solid state, narrow beam, radar imaging sensor for robotic applications - developed by the National Robotics Engineering Consortium.
	Sep 29		Yogi Cub - design and implement a LEGO mechanical subsystem like those found on a NASA Sojourner rover.
	Sep 22		Mission Mars - introducing the 2003 FIRST Lego League challenge - middle -school students build Lego mars rovers! .
	Sep 15		Carmen - the Carnegie-Mellon Robot Navigation Toolkit, an open-source collection of software for mobile robot control.
	Sep 08		Tumbleweed - a unique design for a robotic vehicle, using wind power for locomotion, is tested at Summit Camp, Greenland.
	Sep 01		Scorpion - biomimetic multi-pod invertebrate robot being developed to complete 25-mile autonomous traverses across the desert.
	Aug 25		Smile Project - Neil the Robotic Sculpture attempts to simulate feelings in and between robots.
	Aug 18		Groundhog - robotic platform for mine exploration, part of the robotic mine mapping project.
	Aug 11		Souryu-I - a "connected crawler vehicle for inspection" segmented robot, another product of Hirose's and Yoneda's's lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology
	Aug 04		Monte Carlo Localization - investigations of particle filters for state estimation in the context of mobile robotics - work from the University of Washington Mobile Robotics Lab.
	Jul 28		Elastic Strip Framework - an approach to real-time replanning and motion execution in dynamic environments for robots with many degrees of freedom.
	Jul 21		People Tracking - visual tracking of moving people by mobile robots, part of the U. Washington and CMU NurseBot project.
	Jul 14		Opportunity - launched last week, the second of the two Mars Exploration Rovers will explore the surface of Mars for signs of the water history of the planet. See the Opportunity launch webcast.
	Jul 07		RoboCup 2003 - Robot World Cup Soccer Games and Conferences, taking place this week in Padua, Italy.
	Jun 30		KiRo - table soccer-playing robot, just in time for the upcoming RoboCup robotic soccer games!.
	Jun 23		BotBall Championships - BotBall national tournament, being held this week in Norman, Oklahoma.
	Hey! We've been Slashdotted!
	Jun 16		Spirit - launched last week, the first of the two Mars Exploration Rovers will explore the surface of Mars for signs of the water history of the planet. Spirit will be joined in flight by her sister rover, Opportunity, around June 26.
	Jun 09		Beagle II - launched last week, Mars lander that includes a robotic "PAW" for analyzing surface samples to search for signs of ancient life, all as part of the European Space Agency Mars Express project.
	We've been picked by Scientific American for a 2003 Sci-tech Web Award as one of the 10 top engineering and technology sites!
	Jun 02		EL BO - an autonomous phototaxic robot arm, and a great example of a home scratch-built robot.
	May 26		Uni-Rover - modular robotic rover system for planetary exploration, from Hirose's and Yoneda's's lab at Tokyo Institute of Technology
	May 19		nBot - David Anderson's two-wheel balancing robot goes the Segway one better by getting rid of the pesky human!
	May 12		Personal Satellite Assistant - a robotic assistant for astronauts working aboard the International Space Station.
	May 05		Limits Of Life In The Atacama - a three year project to develop technologies and techniques to enable robotic astrobiology while also conducting scientific investigation of life in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
	Apr 28		Hybrots - the first robotic device whose movements are controlled by a network of cultured neuron cells, developed at the Georgia TechLaboratory for Neuroengineering.
	Apr 21		Microassembly Cell - workcell consisting of a micromanipulator operated under multiple stereo-microscopic vision with the support of intelligent user interface provides a tool that can be used to visualize and manipulate micro-sized 3D objects in a controlled manner
	Apr 14		Cybersonics - Chairman's Award winners at the 2003 FIRST Robotics Competition Championships held last weekend in Houston. They are joined by the winners of the field competition, Las Guerillas, Wildstang, and GM Powertrain & Pontiac Northern High School.
	Apr 07		ERA - Extra-Vehicular Activity Robotic Assistant (ERA) is a wheeled robot used as a test bed for research into collaboration between suited astronauts and autonomous robots for planetary exploration. They are currently conducting field experiments with the Mars Desert Research Station - read the daily logs here!
	Mar 31		SpikeForce - real-time spiking networks for robot neural-network controllers.
	Mar 24		MICRoN - miniaturized robotic platform reserach, sponsored by the Future and Emergeing Technologies branch of the European Commission.
	Mar 17		ANSER - UAV platform for SLAM navigation validation and testing, from the Australian Centre for Field Robotics.
	Mar 10		DART - a baseline teleoperation testbed developed by NASA Johnson Space Center for telepresence research.
	Mar 03		RobotSwarms - Jim Mclurkin has won the 2003 Lemelson MIT Prize for his work in developing autonomous micro-robotic swarms, based on his early work with the MIT Ants project and the iRobot Swarm Project.
	Feb 24		Robot Skin - polymer tactile sensor skin with embedded contact sensors for robotic applications, developed by Jonathan Engel at the University of Illinois, published in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering.
	Feb 17		GraspIt! - robotic grasping simulator for arbitrary hand and robot designs, with automatic grasp planning, from Andrew Miller at the Columbia University Robotics Group.
	Feb 10		Automated Spraying Vehicles - automating vehicles so that one worker can remotely oversee four spraying vehicles running at night, part of aNational Robotics Engineering Consortium project.
	Feb 03		CanadaArm2 - the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) is a new generation Canadarm, the first component of the Mobile Servicing System (MSS) for the International Space Station.
	Jan 27		Grand Challenge - Announcing the DARPA Grand Challenge contest, witha $1,000,000 prize to the tam that develops the first autnomous rover to complete the Los Angeles to Las Vegas course. The rules are out!
	Jan 20		Slocum Glider - robotic "gliders" that move through water instead of air, powered by changes in their own buoyancy and temperature differentials. From the Applied Physics Lab at the University of Washington, and the project partner sites at Webb Research Corporation.
	Jan 13		Robotic mitral valve repair - abstract of clinical evaluations on the use of robotic systems in coronary mitral valve repair, as reported in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery (subscription required for full article) and Heart Center Online.
	Jan 06		Intelligent Machining - overview of composite materials machining research being conducted at Berkeley.