Basically, this experiment is to see how well they can service working satellites using robots via remote control. Many satellites are launched without the expectation of really extending their lives beyond whatever fuel they get initially, but salvaging and continuing their service could really help with NASA’s shrinking budget.

A series of special RRM tools are being developed for various functions related to the maintenance and repair of satellites. These include the ability to remove and replace caps, open and close valves, handle wiring, and transfer fluids (like fuel). In order to fuel up, the module needs to provide extra protective thermal blankets. It also needs to be able to manipulate wiring, valves, caps and so on in a reliable and precise manner.

Early tests look promising. Space may be the final frontier, but we need to know how to extend our trip too. The video below demonstrates some of this work. There’s no sound, but us Canadians (I see the Canadarm!) tend to be a quiet bunch.

[Source]

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My university career consisted mostly of reading textbooks and writing essays, but it looks like at least one group of students from Stanford have been able to do something a little more practical: develop a robot that will participate in a real-world lightsaber battle.

The Force is strong in this one. Dubbed the Jedibot, the robot doesn’t really have anything in terms of a body. Instead, it’s a mechanized arm with a foam lightsaber at the end of it. What’s cool is that it has several different articulated attack motions and when it detects contact with your foam lightsaber, it’ll recoil and prepare for the next attack. They say that it can unleash an attack every 2-3 seconds.

There’s also a defense mode where it is able to track the relative location of your lightsaber and protect itself accordingly. The 3D tracking is done, interestingly enough, with Microsoft’s Kinect sensor. Yes, the motions aren’t terribly fast, but the core concept is there and it’s totally operational. You’ll notice in the video, though, that Jedibot’s “lightsaber” is red. You know what that means. In addition to Jedibot, the three and a half week long Experimental Robotics course also produced robots that cook burgers and squirt ketchup, play golf, and draw doodles.

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Right now XBOX 360’s Kinect is easily one of the hottest consumer technologies on the market, but the Hoshino Biological Cybernetics Lab at Tsukuba University have managed to take it a step further with their concept at the 3D Expo. The system developed uses a series of cameras that sees and recognizes the shape and positioning of a person’s hands, and in turn manipulates a robotic arm to mimic the movements. But it does not just copy the movements, the system can estimate precise finger shapes at over 100 times per second so the movements are surgically precise and respond in nearly real-time. From here, the team at Hoshino Labs are planning to enhance the systems finger movement recognition and upgrade it for future 3D display devices which will demand gesture-based interactions for user input.

“This system uses two cameras, to recognize how the person’s hands and arms move and what shape they’ve taken. Based on the results, signals are output to the robot, and the robot moves in the same way as the person. There’s hardly any time-lag, and the movements are extremely accurate. Human hands vary greatly among individuals, and we’ve created a database that includes a huge number of different peoples hands. We’ve developed technology that can find the hands that most closely resemble those in front of the cameras, at high speed, with high precision. Most gesture recognition systems detect the position, orientation, and movement of hands. But our system can detect and recognize what shapes hands take as well.”

This is the start of things to come, and could robot fighting, or microscopic robotic doctors be really that far away?

[DigiInfo via Hoshino Cybernetics Lab]

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