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Introduction In most robots, electricity is used for command, control, and at least one stage of actuation. Electronics are used to transport all of this electricity. Robot baby is a new high-tech bionic robot created by American researchers. There is a huge selection of pre-manufactured, standard commodity components available. Discrete components such as resistors, capacitors, and transistors; small-scale integrated circuits such as op-amps, timing chips, and motor controllers; and large-scale integrated circuits such as memory chips, digital RF receivers, and full-fledged microprocessors with billions of transistors on a chip are examples of these. Even entire computer systems are sometimes viewed as modular components. As a result, many different types of robots, including robot babies, were invented. Catalog Introduction I What is the Robot Baby? II The Robot Baby Related Video III Common Sensors Used in Robots  IV Composition Structure  V The Differences between General Robot and Robot Baby 5.1 General Robot 5.2 Robot Baby VI The Convenience of Baby Simulator VII The Development Goals of Robot Baby Ⅷ The Influence of Robot Baby Ⅸ FAQ   I What is the Robot Baby? Robot baby is a new high-tech bionic robot created by American researchers. It is named "Diego SAN" after a one-year-old baby. It was created by Hanson robotics professionals for the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego 's Institute for Neural Computing. The robot baby includes a high-resolution camera that can detect people's facial emotions. It, like a genuine infant, can make a range of facial expressions, such as smiles, mugs, and frowns. He even bites his lower lip like a child and tears well up in his eyes. Just by looking at the faces, it's difficult to distinguish the difference between this synthetic child and the actual thing. For example, joy, sadness, terror, and perplexity. It will not vomit food or wet clothes like a real baby, but the robot baby is clever enough to exhibit true infant facial expressions. II The Robot Baby Related Video Video: Engaged Couples Raise Robot Babies Robot Baby Description: Reality Works for providing the RealCare Baby Simulators and support. You will know how to take care of the real baby by the robot baby. III Common Sensors Used in Robots  Robotic sensors are used to estimate the status and environment of a robot. Sensors enable robots to comprehend and quantify the geometric and physical qualities of objects in their surroundings, such as location, orientation, velocity, acceleration, distance, size, force, moment, temperature, brightness, weight, and so on. 1 Light Sensor detect light and generate a difference in voltage. 2 Temperature Sensor Detect the surrounding temperature change. 3 proximity Sensor Create a technique for the robot to avoid collisions 4 Navigation and Positioning Sensors Approximate the position of a robot. 5 Sound Sensor A microphone that detects and returns the equivalent voltage of sound. 6 Tactile Sensor A device specifying an object’s contact. 7 Acceleration Sensor A gadget used to measure acceleration and tilt Figure1  Common Sensors Used in Robots IV Composition Structure Human beings are composed of five key components at the most fundamental level: A bodily structure;A muscle system for moving the body structure; and a sensory system for receiving information about the body and its surroundings.A source of power to stimulate the muscles and sensors;A brain system that interprets sensory data and instructs the muscles on what to perform. Furthermore, while humans have intangible qualities such as intelligence and morality, the list above pretty much covers it on a physical level. The configuration of the robot infant is odder. V The Differences between General Robot and Robot Baby 5.1 General Robot The great majority of robots do share some characteristics. To begin with,  almost all robots have a moving body. Some contain merely powered wheels, while others include dozens of movable parts composed of metal or plastic. Individual segments, like bones in your body, are joined together by joints. Figure 2  Fujitsu's HOAP-1 robot PHOTO COURTESY FUJITSU AND K&D TECHNOLOGY, INC. Robots use actuators to spin wheels and pivot jointed components. As actuators, some robots employ electric motors and solenoids, while others use a hydraulic system or a pneumatic system (a system driven by compressed gases). Robots can use any of these actuator types. All of the actuators are connected to an electrical circuit. The circuit provides direct power to electrical motors and solenoids, as well as activating the hydraulic system through the use of electrical valves. The course of the pressured fluid through the machine is determined by the valves. To move a hydraulic leg, for example, the controller of the robot would open the valve connecting the fluid pump to a piston cylinder attached to that leg. The compressed fluid would cause the piston to extend, causing the leg to swivel forward. To move their segments in two directions, robots often use pistons that can push in both directions. Figure 3  NASA's Urbie climbing stairs PHOTO COURTESY NASA JPL Everything connected to the circuit is controlled by the robot's computer. To move the robot, the computer activates all of the necessary motors and valves. Most robots can be reprogrammed, which means that you can change the robot's behavior by simply writing a new program to its computer. A typical design incorporates slotted wheels that are attached to the joints of the robot. A light beam is transmitted through the slots by an LED on one side of the wheel to a light sensor on the other side. When the robot moves a specific joint, the slotted wheel rotates. The light beam is disrupted as the wheel turns. The light sensor detects the flashing light pattern and transmits it to the computer. Based on this pattern, the computer can determine how far the joint has swiveled. The same basic mechanism is employed in computer mice. 5.2 Robot Baby Unlike ordinary robots, robot babies are enhanced in a variety of ways. They not only have the same appearance as real babies, but they can also select the skin tone of other countries. Facial expressions play a vital role in how babies connect with the outside world, assisting them in developing relationships with others. The robot infant is an improvement above previous versions of the technology, which completely reassembles its jaw. figure 4  “Diego San”- a baby robot  confused (left),happy (middle) and crying (right) Hanson Diego-san was created in 2013 by the robotics businesses Hanson Robotics and Kokoro for UCSD. Experts are now using Diego to find out how babies get their mothers to smile at them so regularly. When the Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann proposed the concept of an autonomous robot capable of recreating itself using raw materials. Today, Neumann's vision is becoming a reality, with one notable exception: the self-replicating robot is not made of aluminum, plastics, spur gears, or sprockets. The parent robot and its offspring, a new lineage of organisms known as Xenobots, are totally biological. "It was fascinating to find that we could [create] this Von Neumann machine, but utilizing cells instead of robot parts," says co-author Sam Kriegm of Harvard and co-author of the Xenobots research published today in PNAS. Scientists construct the first 'living' devices that can reproduce. A Computer scientist at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering "People have philosophized about this for a long time," says Joshua Bongard, senior author and computer scientist at the University of Vermont. "However, you may now conduct experiments to develop biological machines or machines that create biology, which in turn creates machines." It's acceptable to be perplexed. Xenobots are referred to as "machines"  despite the fact that they lack any mechanical components. Science may be evolving faster than our paradigm for discussing and even imagining this new category of machine life. "I think it challenges us to recognize that there may not be a clear dividing line between machine and organism," Bongard adds. VI.  The Convenience of Baby Simulator RealCare Baby® 3 (formerly known as Baby Think It Over® or BTIO®) is the most advanced baby simulator on the market. What does RealCare Baby mean to the educators who use this learning aid in their classrooms? We asked teachers from across the country what RealCare Baby means to them. Watch this video to hear what they told us, and why they value RealCare Baby as a training tool and learning aid for life and career skills. What RealCare Baby Means to Educators The baby simulator successfully depicts how time-consuming and hard parenthood can be. These lifelike, newborn-size manikins are ideal for usage with teenagers since they have a number of program settings that imitate an infant's fluctuating requirements and require fast response. The unexpected nature of the programmed activities demonstrates that a baby's demands do not follow a defined schedule, but are easily monitored by the facilitator. Any prenatal education program will benefit from the baby simulator. Wriggling, squirming, Moro reflex-induced jump... Look no further than this automaton for proof that artificial intelligence is thriving. Cries, coos, and burp;Abuse of records, panic, and tampering;The regular control box comes with one pair of user keys and one set of teacher keys, as well as user response sheets, a teacher correction template, a diaper, a 9V battery, and instructions. VII The Development Goals of Robot Baby Artificial intelligence that replicates robot baby behavior could assist a baby in learning from everything it encounters, just like a child does. Facial expressions are a crucial aspect of baby communication because they help babies form bonds with those around them. It is critical to educate robots on empathy by teaching them to understand human behavior and have facial emotions. Dr. Hansen's goal is to build robots that are more intelligent and sympathetic toward humans, and he believes that such emotional expression is far more important than building combat robots. The ultimate goal is for machines to feel and, more significantly, to sympathize. Ⅷ The Influence of Robot Baby Educators all over the world utilize this one-of-a-kind learning tool to teach early childhood, parenting, baby health, and sex education. This smart baby provides meaning and accountability by tracking and reporting on caregiver behavior via wireless programming. Care events, mishandled acts, time in a vehicle seat, and outfit changes are all tracked behaviors. Robot baby includes four sets of curriculum and activities to help instructors create relevant and career-focused learning experiences. The development of the robot baby is critical for scientists studying the human nervous system and doing neural computing. Although researchers acknowledge that many people will be concerned about robot babies that can build more of themselves, they feel that understanding the technology will lead to numerous benefits in the long run.   Ⅸ FAQ 1.How much does a robot Baby cost? The robots, which start at $749, are used in two-thirds of American school districts, according to the manufacturer, Realityworks. One of the benefits of the robots is meant to be the reduction of teen pregnancy, but there is little evidence that they work. 2.How does a real care Baby work? Easy operation: Baby is totally wireless. Users wear an electronic ID on a wristband that ensures RealCare® Baby 3 detects their presence. Rechareable, 6 hours charge will give 7 days operation. Realistic care: Baby requires feeding, burping, rocking and nappy changing. 3.Why do people use fake babies? Some consumers of reborn dolls use them to cope with their grief over a lost child (a memory reborn), or as a portrait doll of a grown child. Others collect reborns as they would regular dolls. These dolls are sometimes played with as if they are an infant. 4.What class gives you a fake baby? RealCare Baby® 3 (formerly known as Baby Think It Over® or BTIO®) is the world's most advanced infant simulator. Educators around the world use this unique learning aid to teach early childhood, parenting, infant health lessons, and sex education. 5.How much does an infant simulator cost? A proper response involved turning a key in its back and holding it for a while. Today, the RealCare Baby 3 infant simulator is a fantastically sophisticated, computer-programmed doll that costs up to $1,000 to replace if you lose it 6.What are the codes for baby simulator? Baby Simulator Codes (Available) PET - Redeem for reward (NEW)Coinsbaby - Redeem for 500 Coins.YAY - Redeem for 2,000 Happiness.Gems - Redeem for 250 Gems.Xmas - Redeem code for 200 Snowflakes.Snow - Redeem code for 50 Snowflakes.Snowing - Redeem code for 150 Snowflakes.Gem20 - Redeem code for 20 Gems. 7. Are the real care baby wristbands waterproof? The bracelets are also tamperproof, ensuring the designated student is completing the simulation.

Warm hints: The word in this article is about 2500 and  reading time is about 12 minutes.SummaryIndustrial robot is a multi joint manipulator or a multi degree of freedom machine tool for industrial field. It can automatically execute work, and is a machine that realizes various functions by its own power and control ability. It can accept human command or run in accordance with pre programmed programs. Modern industrial robots can also act according to the principles and guidelines formulated by AI technology.CoreIndustrial RobotsCategoryRobotKeywordsIndustrial robots;RobotContentA comprehensive analysis of industrial robotsCatalogs CatalogsI.What is industial robotsII.Composition structureIII.Types of industrial robotsIV.Industrial robot industrial chain analysisV.Data AnalysisVI.The development trend of robot in the next 10 yearsVII.Human-computer cooperation promotes the popularization of robots and the beginning of the integration of robotsVIII.Machine vision and deep learning make robots more Intelligent IntroductionI.What is industial robotsIndustrial robot is a multi joint manipulator or a multi degree of freedom machine tool for industrial field. It can automatically execute work, and is a machine that realizes various functions by its own power and control ability. It can accept human command or run in accordance with pre programmed programs. Modern industrial robots can also act according to the principles and guidelines formulated by AI technology.II.Composition structureThe industrial robot is composed of three basic parts: the main body, the driving system and the control system. The main body is the seat and the actuator, including the arm, wrist and hand, and some robots and a walking mechanism. Most industrial robots have 3~6 motion degrees of freedom, of which the wrist usually has 1~3 motion degrees of freedom. The driving system includes the power plant and the transmission mechanism to make the actuator produce the corresponding action. The control system sends out instructions to the driving system and the actuator according to the input program and controls it.III.Types of industrial robots1. Mobile Robot(AGV)A type of industrial robot, which is controlled by a computer, and has the functions of mobile, automatic navigation, multi sensor control, and network interaction.Widely used in machinery, electronics, textile, tobacco, medical, food, papermaking industries such as flexible handling, transmission and other functions, is also used in automated warehouse, flexible manufacturing system, flexible assembly system (with AGV as the assembly platform; at the same time activities) in the station, airports, post office sorting items as transport tool.2. Spot Welding RobotIt has the characteristics of stable performance, large workspace, fast speed and strong load capacity. The welding quality is obviously better than manual welding, which greatly improves the productivity of spot welding operation.It is mainly used for the welding of the vehicle, and the production process is completed by the major automobile main plant. Enterprise international industrial robot with long-term cooperation between the major automobile enterprises, provide all kinds of welding robot unit products to the large car production enterprises and the welding robot and vehicle production line matching form into Chinese, occupy the market leading position in the field.3. arc welding robotIt is mainly used in welding production of all kinds of automobile parts. In this field, the major international industrial robot manufacturing enterprises are mainly to provide unit products to complete equipment suppliers.4.Laser processing robotLaser processing robot is the application of robot technology to laser processing, and a more flexible laser processing operation is realized through high precision industrial robot.5. Vacuum robotA robot working in a vacuum environment is mainly used in the semiconductor industry to realize the transmission of the wafer in the vacuum chamber. Vacuum manipulator is difficult to import, restricted, large consumption and versatility. It has become a key component that restricts the R & D Progress of the semiconductor equipment and the competitiveness of the whole product. Moreover, the overseas scrutiny of Chinese buyers is part of the catalogue of banned products. Vacuum manipulator has become a serious problem that restricts the manufacturing of semiconductor equipment in China. The technology of direct drive vacuum robot belongs to the original innovation technology.6. Clean RobotAn industrial robot used in a clean environment. With the continuous improvement of production technology level, its production environment is increasingly demanding. Many modern industrial products are required to carry out in a clean environment. Clean robots are the key equipments for production under clean environment.  DetailIV.Industrial robot industrial chain analysisThe industrial robot industry upstream core components, the main reducer and control system, which is equivalent to the robot's "brain", is in the middle reaches of the robot, the robot is the "body", downstream systems integrator, domestic enterprises are concentrated in this link.Industrial chain analysis of industrial robots in ChinaThe upstream parts industry of China's industrial robots is mainly reducer, servo motor, frequency converter and controller. Among them, the proportion of reducer, servo motor and servo system in industrial robot cost is larger, which is 39% and 28% respectively, and the proportion of noumenal manufacturing is 22%.Although the speed reducer, servo system for industrial robots in a large proportion of the cost, but the domestic reducer, servo motor and other key parts of the development relative lag, low level of technology, poor product stability, compared with foreign products, there are many gaps, resulting in domestic industrial robot speed reducer, servo motor and other components mainly rely on imports, domestic industrial enterprises the robot production cost is high, less competitive. The imported gear reducer mainly ABB, Harmonic, Sumitomo nabok, and other brands, the main servo motor Yaskawa, KUKA, Matsushita, MITSUBISHI and other brands.The sales of industrial robots are mostly done through direct marketing channels, with the majority of the system integrators. At the same time, industrial robots can also be sold by distributors, agents, traders, engineering providers and other non direct sales, and foreign brands enter the Chinese market generally through the form of agents. The core components are generally purchased by traders and agents.The industrial robot industry is mainly downstream users of electronic and electrical, automotive, plastics and rubber, chemical and other fields, mainly used for handling, packing, palletizing, welding, cutting, spraying, and with labor costs increased gradually, and constantly improve the level of industrial automation, industrial robot application areas gradually expand, use gradually increased.V.Data AnalysisThe list of RBR50 in 2016 covers 11 countries. The distribution is as follows: Canada (3), China (3), Denmark (1), Germany (3), India (1), Israel (1), Japan (9), South Korea (1), Switzerland (1), Britain (1), and the United States.The list of RBR50 in 2015 covers a total of 11 countries. The national distribution is as follows: Canada (3), Denmark (1), France (1), Germany (8), Japan (9), South Korea (1), Holland (1), Switzerland (3), Taiwan, China (1), Britain (1), and the United States.By comparison, the United States in 2016 the new list of 5 companies, 5 companies failed in Germany, Switzerland retained only 1 companies in France and Holland is completely failed. At the same time, there are some new faces, Israel, India and China.It can be seen from the RBR50 list that the European robot industry has a serious downward trend and needs to be revival. The GreyOrange company in India is catching up with the trend of the rapid development of the logistics and transportation industry. Its flagship mobile robot will have great potential in the Asian market. Britain's Delphi, SoilMachineDynamics, OpenBionics three companies listed, surprisingly, OpenBionics small company has been on the list for two consecutive years; Canada continues to rely on Clearpath, Robotiq and new TitanMedical three companies to maintain strength.2015 global 30% industrial robots are sold to the Chinese marketWhether it's made in China or raised in 4, the 4 concept indicates that China's manufacturing industry is moving towards the direction of intellectualization and mechanization. The rapid development of industrial robots is one of the most representative industries.Strong sales growthIn 2015, the sales of China's market exceeded 75000 units, up 36.6% from the same period, and 3 robots were sold in the world, and 1 were sold to China. China Industrial Robot MarketIn 2015, the sales of industrial robots in the Chinese market accounted for about 30% of the world  AnalysisVI.The development trend of robot in the next 10 yearsThe robot itself in the overall change, to a more secure and easy to use, more conducive to popularization, more intelligent direction. The next three trends in the next ten years can solve the industry pain points, promote the real popularity of robots, and also contain huge investment opportunities.The general software platform reduces the threshold of the robot industryThe main internal power of the rapid popularization of computers and smart phones is the common operating system and application software, and robots are the same. The operating system, middleware, and programming language used by different robot vendors are different, which increases the cost of use and the scope of robot application. The general software platform (operating system) is a solution to this problem, making use of robots as convenient as smartphones.A common development platform for robot softwareThe general software platform greatly reduces the development threshold of robots. The mature software in the community can be directly brushed into the robot's use. In the future, with 3D printing technology, small businesses and even individuals will have the chance to become robot developers. The opportunity is that there may be two development or excellent applications for a ROS system, a "burst" like a smart phone APP.VII.Human-computer cooperation promotes the popularization of robots and the beginning of the integration of robotsHuman-machine cooperation is a new form of industrial robot development. It combines human intelligence and robot efficiency together to complete operations. In a word, human is directly manipulating robots with "hands". Human-computer collaboration is an inevitable choice for robot evolution. It is characterized by safety, ease of use and low cost. Ordinary workers can operate it like electrical appliances.According to the US ABIResearch report, from 2015 to 2020, the market share of cooperative robots is expected to increase by 10 times, from close to 95 million US dollars to over 1 billion US dollars. It will be driven by the following three main markets: electronic manufacturing and electronic intelligence, small and medium enterprises and enterprises seeking robot optimization solutions.The structure of the cooperative robot is simple, and the function is realized mainly through the integration of software. The main components of the hardware are spherical joint, reverse driving motor, force sensing / visual sensor and lighter material. The core components of the traditional reducer will not be the key in the future. At present, the cooperation robot is in the market introduction stage, the cost is still high, the efficiency is low, and the utilization is not satisfactory. The main robot manufacturers have launched various kinds of cooperative robots to seize the entry, and the domestic enterprises have the opportunity to run together with foreign capital. SIASUN, AIFUTE, Ao Bo in 2015 have launched a collaborative robot intelligent.VIII.Machine vision and deep learning make robots more IntelligentArtificial intelligence is first applied to the field of industrial robots, mainly machine vision and deep learning.Machine vision is a key factor in the transformation of an existing robot from an automatic device to an intelligent machine. The first is used as an auxiliary tool for the robot, improve the flexibility and feedback of the work environment, mainly used for guiding and positioning, detection and recognition, with the development of industrial data and deep learning, the future will enable the machine vision to become the leading intelligent production system, make a decision and pre judgment.In 2014, the scale of the global machine vision continued to rise to up to $3 billion 670 million. Mainly in North America, Germany, Britain, Japan, China and other regions and countries, China accounts for 8.1%, and the global market is expected to reach US $5 billion by 2018. 2007-2018 year global machine vision market scale ConclusionThis is an era of "made in China" to the transformation of "China's intellectual creation". Robots replace human beings to do repetitive things, so that we can advance technological progress, and talents will enter new industries, and everyone's production value will be improved.Not long ago, Foxconn, the world's largest producer, has rounded the horn of "machine replacement" to many enterprises on the road of automation. We can boldly predict that in the next ten years, the industrial robot market will be broader. "Machine replacing human" will go deep into all walks of life. Automation transformation will also become the goal of many enterprises.  Book RecommendationRise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future Paperback – July 12, 2016What are the jobs of the future? How many will there be? And who will have them? As technology continues to accelerate and machines begin taking care of themselves, fewer people will be necessary. Artificial intelligence is already well on its way to making "good jobs" obsolete: many paralegals, journalists, office workers, and even computer programmers are poised to be replaced by robots and smart software. As progress continues, blue and white collar jobs alike will evaporate, squeezing working- and middle-class families ever further. At the same time, households are under assault from exploding costs, especially from the two major industries-education and health care-that, so far, have not been transformed by information technology. The result could well be massive unemployment and inequality as well as the implosion of the consumer economy itself.The past solutions to technological disruption, especially more training and education, aren't going to work. We must decide, now, whether the future will see boad-based prosperity or catastrophic levels of inequality and economic insecurity. Rise of the Robots is essential reading to understand what accelerating technology means for our economic prospects-not to mention those of our children-as well as for society as a whole.--Martin Ford  (Author)  Relevant information about "A Comprehensive Analysis of Industrial Robots"About the article "A Comprehensive Analysis of Industrial Robots", If you have better ideas, don't hesitate to  write your thoughts in the following comment area. You also can find more articles about electronic semiconductor through Google search engine, or refer to the following related articles. Living Insect-Machine Hybrid Robot--Swarming Search and RescueMake Robots Walk NaturallyThe Future Market of Industrial Robots in China will Be Far Beyond ImaginationEngineers from MIT Developed A Tiny, Affordable Robotic Device That Can Detect Water LeakThree Fingers Robotic Hand with Specialized Sensors can Estimate Size and Shape of ObjectsA New, Electronic Skin Microsystem Enables People Tracks Their Heart Rate And Other Health Index   

SummarySingaporean researchers,led by by professor Hirotaka Sato,describe their work about designing robots--It's possible to use a living insect as a platform to develop a living insect-machine hybrid robot.Such a hybrid retains the complex structure of the insect's rigid exokeleton,complaint joints,and soft actuators, as well as the insect’s locomotion capability, and it does so while enabling high controllability and low power consumption. Such an insect-machine hybrid robot is made of a living insect platform with a miniaturized electronic device attached on it to control it.   By using the insect itself as the robot, researchers bypass the complex processes of designing and fabricating the robot body, using the insect’s muscular system as the soft actuators and flexible joints and its nervous system as part of the control system. About BeetleThis kind of particular beetle is a a darkling beetle. It’s small (2 to 2.5 centimeters), lightweight (about 0.5 gram), and lives for three months or so, which is a long time for a little bug. A backpack of electronics interfaces with the beetle’s antennae, and when the antennae are stimulated with an electric pulse, it activates the beetle’s built-in escape mechanism, fooling it into thinking it’s running into something and causing it to turn. The picture is from Nanyang Technological University AdvantageThe advantage of doing things this way (as opposed to direct nerve or muscle stimulation, something that the researchers also experimented with) is that the beetle’s brain is still in charge of controlling its limbs such that it’ll respond to high-level controls with adaptive gaits and such, making locomotion a much simpler problem to solve. With just two coin cell batteries, the cybeetle can be controlled for 8 hours, which is long enough for it to travel over a kilometer at an average speed of 4 cm/s. The following picture is from  Cyborg Insect: Ultralightweight Living Legged Robot The key to effectively controlling an insect using these methods is that the response to the antenna stimulation can’t be binary, since you’d end up with a level of control that would often be too coarse to be useful. By changing the frequency of the stimulation, the researchers were able to modulate how sharp of a turn the insect took: Increasing the stimulation frequency also increased the insect’s turning rate, with a success rate of over 85 percent. Stimulating both antennae at once causes the insect to back up, and it moves forward by default, giving you just about as much control as you can hope for. Living Robots' DifferencesElectrical stimulation is commonly used for neuromuscular stimulation in cyborg insects such as cockroaches, giant beetles, and moths. There are other groups working on antenna stimulation but they were not able to grade the response of the insect, which is very important for developing a precise closed-loop control system to make the cyborg insect work autonomously. The giant cyborg beetle mainly relies on neuromuscular stimulation of direct flight muscles for flight control and leg muscles of the fore legs for walking control. Ideally, stimulating the muscle would be more precise as we can perfectly control the individual legs, but it costs more in implantation and computing to plan and stimulate all the individual muscles for walking. Antenna stimulation is simpler and easier than stimulating all the individual muscles thus it helps us to simplify the hardware and control system a lot. Hopefully, in the near future, we can control the cyborg beetle as precisely as any other artificial motor. The zophobas beetle were used to develop this cyborg insect because its small size (2-2.5 cm) would help it to access the small rubbles system easily at disaster sites, where the cockroach and giant beetle can not get in. Moreover, a swarming of flying and walking cyborg insects of various sizes would increase the coverage and reduce the searching time, thus enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of search and rescue operations. Control IssueFor walking cyborg insects, researchers are able to integrate external sensors into the backpack as the insect is able to carry loads up to double its weight. We are developing a new backpack with integrated sensors for human detection and navigation. It would help us to detect victims when using cyborg insects at disaster sites, and enable the cyborg insects to work autonomously. On the other hand,research could release hundreds of flying and crawling cyborg insects to the sites as the price for one cyborg insect would be negligible once mass produced for a disaster scenario.The insects can move freely themselves into the collapsed structures and send back maps of their positions and environmental conditions so that the rescue team can plan for their action efficiently on how and where they should access. Once an insect detects a victim, it will send an alarm to the rescue team and switch to autonomous control mode to move around the victim for confirmation and build a clearer map of surrounding environment. At the end of the rescue operation, all the insects will autonomously return to the control base. I know that it sounds like science fiction, but we are in fact working to realize it. Researcher's GoalNow,researchers are working on a feedback control system to precisely control the insect locomotion with high reliability. We are also developing a new backpack with a navigation system and environmental sensors designed to promote fully autonomous and practical cyborg insects. For real applications, we need to maintain the power supply for the cyborg insect (mainly for the electronics backpack), which is currently a huge challenge if we just rely on the battery. So we are developing a biofuel cell, which is able to convert biofuel inside the insect to electric current for running the control backpack. It will help to maintain the backpack power for long-term use. Article resources: journal Soft RoboticsAtticle edited by kynix 

Eight years ago, Ted Adelson’s research group at MIT’s CSAIL unveiled a new sensor technology, called GelSight, that uses physical contact with an object to provide a remarkably detailed 3D map of its surface. Now, by mounting GelSight sensors on the grippers of robotic arms, two MIT teams have given robots greater sensitivity and dexterity. The researchers presented their work in two papers at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation.In one paper, Adelson’s group uses the data from the GelSight sensor to enable a robot to judge the hardness of surfaces it touches — a crucial ability if household robots are to handle everyday objects.In the other, Russ Tedrake’s Robot Locomotion Group at CSAIL uses GelSight sensors to enable a robot to manipulate smaller objects than was previously possible.The GelSight sensor is, in some ways, a low-tech solution to a difficult problem. It consists of a block of transparent rubber — the “gel” of its name — one face of which is coated with metallic paint. When the paint-coated face is pressed against an object, it conforms to the object’s shape.The metallic paint makes the object’s surface reflective, so its geometry becomes much easier for computer vision algorithms to infer. Mounted on the sensor opposite the paint-coated face of the rubber block are three colored lights and a single camera.“[The system] has colored lights at different angles, and then it has this reflective material, and by looking at the colors, the computer … can figure out the 3D shape of what that thing is,” explains Adelson, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Vision Science in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.In both sets of experiments, a GelSight sensor was mounted on one side of a robotic gripper, a device somewhat like the head of a pincer, but with flat gripping surfaces rather than pointed tips.For an autonomous robot, gauging objects’ softness or hardness is essential to deciding not only where and how hard to grasp them but how they will behave when moved, stacked, or laid on different surfaces. Tactile sensing could also aid robots in distinguishing objects that look similar.In previous work, robots have attempted to assess objects’ hardness by laying them on a flat surface and gently poking them to see how much they give. But this is not the chief way in which humans gauge hardness.Rather, our judgments seem to be based on the degree to which the contact area between the object and our fingers changes as we press on it. Softer objects tend to flatten more, increasing the contact area.The MIT researchers adopted the same approach. Wenzhen Yuan, a graduate student in mechanical engineering and first author on the paper from Adelson’s group, used confectionary molds to create 400 groups of silicone objects, with 16 objects per group. In each group, the objects had the same shapes but different degrees of hardness, which Yuan measured using a standard industrial scale.Then she pressed a GelSight sensor against each object manually and recorded how the contact pattern changed over time, essentially producing a short movie for each object. To both standardise the data format and keep the size of the data manageable, she extracted five frames from each movie, evenly spaced in time, which described the deformation of the object that was pressed.Finally, she fed the data to a neural network, which automatically looked for correlations between changes in contact patterns and hardness measurements. The resulting system takes frames of video as inputs and produces hardness scores with very high accuracy.Yuan also conducted a series of informal experiments in which human subjects palpated fruits and vegetables and ranked them according to hardness. In every instance, the GelSight-equipped robot arrived at the same rankings. Ref:KY45-AT42QT1110-AUKY45-STMPE1208SQTRKY45-MPR032EPR2

Lattice Semiconductor has introduced its first embedded vision development kit for mobile designs that require low power image processing.  The low power processing comes from the firm’s ECP5 FPGA, which is combined with an HDMI chip and CrossLink pASSP mobile bridging device.According to Lattice product marketing director, Deepak Boppana, the low power  mobile applications include machine vision, smart surveillance cameras, robotics, AR/VR, drones and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).The CrossLink input board includes dual-camera HD image sensors supporting the MIPI CSI-2 interface, eliminating the need for external video sources.The ECP5 base board enables low-power pre/post processing and includes support for HD image signal processing IP from Helion Vision.Also included is a NanoVesta connector to support external image sensor video inputs. The HDMI output board based on the Sil1136 non-HDCP version enables connectivity to standard HDMI displays.Ref:KY32-LFSCM3GA25EP1-6F900CKY32-ICE65L04F-TCS63I

Inside a secretive AI nonprofit backed by Elon Musk and other Silicon Valley figures, a handful of robots designed to help out in warehouses are gradually learning how to do useful household chores.OpenAI, which was created to do basic AI research, is reprogramming robots developed by Fetch Robotics, a company that supplies warehouse automation hardware. Researchers at OpenAI are equipping the robots with software that lets them train themselves through trial and error.The effort reflects a bet that innovations in software and machine learning, rather than breakthroughs in hardware, are the way to give robotics remarkable new capabilities. Fetch makes a range of robots for warehouses, including systems that follow workers around a building, carrying items dropped into a basket. OpenAI is using a system that features a mobile base but also 3-D depth sensors, a 2-D laser scanner, and a robotic arm with seven degrees of freedom.In April, OpenAI recruited Pieter Abbeel, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leading expert on robot learning. Abbeel has shown how robots can use a machine-learning approach called deep reinforcement learning to acquire completely new skills that would be hard to program by hand, such as folding towels or retrieving items from a refrigerator. Google DeepMind, an AI subsidiary based in the U.K., uses this technique to get computers to play computer games at a superhuman level (see “Google’s AI Masters Space Invaders”).Abbeel’s robots learn tasks from scratch, using a neural network that receives sensor input and controls physical movement. The network adjusts its parameters automatically as it inches closer to its goal. A robot might try thousands of grips, for instance, in the process of learning how to hold a certain object.“If this goal can be achieved, then there will be economic and industrial benefits,” says Marc Deisenroth, an expert on reinforcement learning at Imperial College London. “Imagine a Roomba not only cleaning your floor but also doing the dishes, ironing the shirts, cleaning the windows, preparing breakfast.”Deisenroth says using off-the-shelf robots could drive costs down. “Currently, the software seems to be the bottleneck,” he adds. “However, independent of this, better hardware could also lead to substantial improvements.” Soft manipulators and elastic feet similar to a monkey’s feet are concepts that researchers have started working on, he says.Some manufacturers, including the Japanese company Fanuc, are testing reinforcement learning as a way to train industrial robots quickly in new tasks such as learning to grasp unfamiliar objects. When many robots work in parallel, the training time required is reduced accordingly. Robot researchers at Google are testing similar learning techniques.“Moving away from having to program robots by hand by endowing robots to learn autonomously is a key element for the future of robotics,” says Jens Kober, an expert on robot learning at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Kober says having robots share the information they have learned will be crucial.While robots such as those made by Fetch are finding their way into many factories and warehouses, domestic robot helpers remain the stuff of science fiction. Performing seemingly simple tasks like washing dishes or folding laundry in a messy home setting is incredibly hard for a machine. A robot programmed the conventional way can easily be thrown off by an unfamiliar object or a slight variation in lighting.OpenAI confirmed that it is working with the robots from Fetch, but it declined to comment further. Melonee Wise, the company’s founder, couldn’t be reached for comment (see “Innovators Under 35: Melonee Wise”).OpenAI was created by Musk and a handful of well-known (and well-heeled) Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, including investor Peter Thiel, Y Combinator president Sam Altman, and the incubator’s cofounder Jessica Livingston. The nonprofit’s backers have committed $1 billion in funding to the project, and it is being led by Ilya Sutskever, a prominent AI researcher who left Google to join the project, and Greg Brockman, an early employee at the high-profile digital payment company Stripe.While OpenAI has committed to making the technology it develops publicly available, it could certainly benefit companies backed by Musk and Thiel, as well as those emerging from Y Combinator.