The six teams are competing in the Multi-autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge -- MAGIC 2010 -- set up last summer by the Australian and United States defense departments.

MAGIC 2010 aims to develop next-generation unmanned ground vehicle systems for deployment in extreme military operations where there is a high threat to soldiers' lives.

To complete the MAGIC challenge the unarmed robots must accurately and completely explore and map the challenge area, locate, classify and recognize all simulated threats, within 3 1/2 hours.

The U.S. teams are RASR, Team Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. The other teams are Cappadocia from Turkey, Chiba from Tokyo and Magician from Australia.

RASR -- Reconnaissance and Autonomy for Small Robots Team -- is led by Robotics Research with industry partners General Dynamics Robotic Systems, Qinetiq-NA, Del Services, Cedar Creek Defense University, Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of Michigan.

The separate Team Michigan entry comprises SoarTech with research support from the University of Michigan.

The University of Pennsylvania entry is in conjunction with BAE Systems.

American input is also present in Team Cappadocia headed by the Turkish military electronics company ASELSAN. The team includes Bilkent University, Bogazici University, Middle East Technical University -- all from Turkey - and Ohio State University through its Control & Intelligent Transportation Research Lab.

The home Australian team of MAGICIAN comprises University of Western Australia with its Robotics and Automation Laboratory, Flinders University through its Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems Laboratories, Edith Cowan University's Artificial Intelligence and Software Engineering Cluster, Thales Australia's Naval Division and ILLIARC.

Japan's entry of CHIBA is led by Chiba University and Japanese firm Analytical Software.

The final showdown will be Nov. 8-13 at the Royal Showground in Adelaide, South Australia.

"These teams are at the forefront of robotics technology," Australia's Acting Chief Defense Scientist Warren Harch said. "They have survived a rigorous assessment and elimination process against six other semifinalist teams."

U.S. Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center Director Grace Bochenek said the competition fosters international cooperation.

"We hope to inspire the next generation of researchers," she said. "We are always seeking good ideas and fresh perspectives. This challenge is a win-win. We are investing in solutions that will make our soldiers stronger through technology."

Each team must field at least three robots and accomplish a complex task involving mapping and identification of threats while demonstrating a high level of autonomy between the robots.

"We want to move from the current paradigm of one man-one robot to one man and many robots," Harch said.

The robot missions will be more surveillance than combat and they will seek to detect dangers such as mines, chemical weapons, human movement and also perform complete visual scanning of battle areas.

They will be the land equivalent of the increasingly popular remotely piloted and unmanned airplanes, such as the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk now used in combat zones. Less sophisticated versions of the so-called drone planes have civilian applications such as for reconnaissance within extensive forest fire areas.

Each of the six teams will be given around $46,000 to help them complete their final preparations.

But the really big money will come from design patents and sales to military, civilian emergency organizations and large industrial groups. It also is likely that all the finalists will benefit from this financially, a U.S. defense department official said last summer at the launch of MAGIC.

Robot Birds: Designing Micro Spy Vehicles [VIDEO]
Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:45:17 -0500

Dr. John Ohab is a new technology strategist at the Department of Defense Public Web Program.

From his upturned palm, aeronautical engineer Ryan Carr launches then expertly flies what appears to be a remote-controlled bird. Scientist Joseph McDermott works at the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) in Dayton, Ohio, with materials so tiny the width of a human hair is huge by comparison.

Welcome to the world of micro air vehicles (MAVs) at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Here, hobby-store aircraft are helping scientists design a futuristic line of miniature flying spy vehicles.

“We take the technology that we have and we try to design something that does the same thing as a hummingbird or dragonfly does,” explains Carr.

(watch the video...)

First robot with 'emotions' unveiled

disclaimer: image is for illustration purposes only

by Staff Writers
London (UPI) Aug 9, 2010
European researchers have developed a robot they say is the first able to display and detect emotions and react to being treated kindly.

The humanoid robot, called Nao, can detect human emotions through non-verbal clues such as body-language and facial expressions and gets better at reading a person's mood through prolonged interaction, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

With a "brain" designed to mirror the neural network of the human mind, it can remember its interactions with different people and memorize faces.

With video cameras to see how close a person comes and sensors to detect out how tactile they are, Nao uses a programmed set of rules about what is "good" and "bad" for it and can indicate whether it is "sad" or "happy" by shrugging its shoulders or raising its arms for a hug.

The actions used to display each emotion are programmed, the scientists say, but Nao decides which feeling to display, and when.

"We're modeling the first years of life," Lola Canamero of the University of Hertfordshire said.

"We are working on non-verbal cues and the emotions are revealed through physical postures, gestures and movements of the body rather than facial or verbal expression.

"If people can behave naturally around their robot companions, robots will be better-accepted as they become more common in our lives," she said.

The joint working group formed because of a signed memorandum of agreement between the chief of staff of the Air Force and the chief of naval operations to better utilized joint efficiencies in the RQ-4 and BAMS remotely piloted aircraft programs.

"We are out here to see how you do business and figure out how we can best fit our program alongside yours to save the tax payer some money," said Navy Cmdr. Wes Naylor from the BAMS program office at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.

Navy officials observed how the 1st Reconnaissance Squadron trains future Global Hawk pilots and how the 12th RQS employs the RQ-4 in combat theaters.

"It's amazing how much similarity there is between the ways the Air Force and we (Navy) train, and it does not make any sense for us to start over and develop a completely separate program," Commander Naylor said.

"The Air Force already has a proven training system in place. We have a few different requirements with the different payloads and that requires a little bit different training."

Even though the Joint Charter has not yet been signed, the JCWG will be meeting frequently to build joint training and operational programs, Lt. Col. Steven Edgar, with the 1st RQS, said

"All of system similarities will be capitalized upon and those small areas of differences that remain will be accepted as unique mission employment requirements," said Colonel Edgar.

"It should be transparent to a pilot flying the aircraft, whether they are from the U.S. Navy or the U.S. Air Force, there should be no difference between an RQ-4 or a BAMS cockpit. They should be able to fly either aircraft at any moment."

Another objective of the program is to come up with a common work environment for both Air Force and Navy aviators.

"Having commonality solves problems for operators across the spectrum because no matter where you go, when you sit down you know exactly what to expect and what you are going to be looking at," Colonel Edgar said.

The ultimate goal of the working group is for each branch of service to fly each other's aircraft and also the possible formation of joint Air Force and Navy RQ-4 Global Hawk and BAMS squadrons.

"We envision a time when the pilots fly each other's aircraft for takeoffs and landing and en route," Commander Naylor said. "We fly different combat missions, and we would not fly each other's combat missions, however a good portion of the flying can be done jointly."

The research reveals how building robots to play football is driving the development of artificial intelligence and robotic technology which can be used for roles including search and rescue and home help.

The author, Claude Sammut, from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems in Sydney, reviewed the technology demonstrated at the RoboCup international robot soccer competition which this year took place in Singapore.

Competitions have become a popular way for motivating innovations in robotics and provide teams of scientists with a way of comparing and testing new methods of programming artificial intelligence (AI).

"Football is a useful task for scientists developing robotic artificial intelligence because it requires the robot to perceive its environment, to use its sensors to build a model of that environment and then use that data to reason and take appropriate actions," said Sammut.

"On a football pitch that environment is rapidly changing and unpredictable requiring a robot to swiftly perceive, reason, act and interact accordingly."

As with human players football also demands communication and cooperation between robotic players and crucially requires the ability to learn, as teams adjust their tactics to better take on their opponents.

Aside from football the competition also includes leagues for urban search and rescue and robotic home helpers which take place in areas simulating collapsed buildings and residential homes, revealing the multiple use of this technology.

While a football pitch layout is structured and known in advance, a search and rescue environment is highly unstructured and so the competition's rescue arena presents developers with a new set of challenges.

On the football pitch the robots are able to localize and orientate themselves by recognising landmarks such as the goal post, yet in a rescue situation such localization is extremely difficult, meaning that the robot has to simultaneously map its environment while reacting and interacting to the surroundings.

In the home help competitions the robot is programmed to recognise appliances and landmarks which will be common in most homes, but in addition to orientating themselves they must react and interact with humans.

As the robotic technology continues to develop the rules of the competitions are altered and made harder to encourage innovation, it is the organisers' aim that this will drive the technology to a level where the football playing robots could challenge a human team.

"In 1968 John McCarthy and Donald Michie made a bet with chess champion David Levy that within 10 years a computer program could beat him," concluded Sammut.

"It took a bit longer but eventually such programs came into being. It is in that same spirit of a great challenge that RoboCup aims, by the year 2050, to develop a team of fully autonomous robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team."

So while, for the moment, football players can focus on beating each other to lift silverware, tomorrow they may be facing a very different challenge.

New Artificial Skin Could Make Prosthetic Limbs And Robots More Sensitive

The sensor is sensitive enough to easily detect this Peruvian butterfly (Chorinea faunus) with transparent wings and red-tipped tails, positioned on a sheet of the sensors. Credit: Linda Cicero, Stanford University News Service

by Staff Writers
Stanford CA (SPX) Sep 15, 2010
The light, tickling tread of a pesky fly landing on your face may strike most of us as one of the most aggravating of life's small annoyances. But for scientists working to develop pressure sensors for artificial skin for use on prosthetic limbs or robots, skin sensitive enough to feel the tickle of fly feet would be a huge advance. Now Stanford researchers have built such a sensor.

By sandwiching a precisely molded, highly elastic rubber layer between two parallel electrodes, the team created an electronic sensor that can detect the slightest touch.

"It detects pressures well below the pressure exerted by a 20 milligram bluebottle fly carcass we experimented with, and does so with unprecedented speed," said Zhenan Bao, an associate professor of chemical engineering who led the research.

The key innovation in the new sensor is the use of a thin film of rubber molded into a grid of tiny pyramids, Bao said. She is the senior author of a paper published Sept. 12 online by Nature Materials.

Previous attempts at building a sensor of this type using a smooth film encountered problems.

"We found that with a very thin continuous film, when you press on it, the material does not have room to expand," said Stefan Mannsfeld, a former postdoctoral researcher in chemical engineering and a coauthor. "So the molecules in the continuous rubber film are forced closer together and become entangled. When pressure is released, they cannot go back to the original arrangement, so the sensor doesn't work as well."

"The microstructuring we developed makes the rubber behave more like an ideal spring," Mannsfeld said. The total thickness of the artificial skin, including the rubber layer and both electrodes, is less than one millimeter.

The speed of compression and rebound of the rubber is critical for the sensor to be able to detect - and distinguish between - separate touches in quick succession.

The thin rubber film between the two electrodes stores electrical charges, much like a battery. When pressure is exerted on the sensor, the rubber film compresses, which changes the amount of electrical charges the film can store. That change is detected by the electrodes and is what enables the sensor to transmit what it is "feeling."

The largest sheet of sensors that Bao's group has produced to date measures about seven centimeters on a side. The sheet exhibited a great deal of flexibility, indicating it should perform well when wrapped around a surface mimicking the curvature of something such as a human hand or the sharp angles of a robotic arm.

Bao said that molding the rubber in different shapes yields sensors that are responsive to different ranges of pressure. "It's the same as for human skin, which has a whole range of sensitivities," she said. "Fingertips are the most sensitive, while the elbow is quite insensitive."

The sensors have from several hundred thousand up to 25 million pyramids per square centimeter. Under magnification, the array of tiny structures looks like the product of an ancient Egyptian micro-civilization obsessed with order and gone mad with productivity.

But that density allows the sensors to perceive pressures "in the range of a very, very gentle touch," Bao said. By altering the configuration of the microstructure or the density of the sensors, she thinks the sensor can be refined to detect subtleties in the shape of an object.

"If we can make this in higher resolution, then potentially we should be able to have the image on a coin read by the sensor," she said. A robotic hand covered with the electronic skin could feel a surface and know rough from smooth.

That degree of sensitivity could make the sensors useful in a broad range of medical applications, including robotic surgery, Bao said. In addition, using bandages equipped with the sensors could aid in healing of wounds and incisions. Doctors could use data from the sensors to be sure the bandages were not too tight.

Automobile safety could also be enhanced. "If a driver is tired, or drunk, or falls asleep at the wheel, their hands might loosen or fall off the wheel," said Benjamin Tee, graduate student in electrical engineering and a coauthor.

"If there are pressure sensors that can sense that no hands are holding the steering wheel, the car could be equipped with some automatic safety device that could sound an alarm or kick in to slow the car down. This could be simpler and cost less than other methods of detecting driver fatigue."

The team also invented a new type of transistor in which they used the structured, flexible rubber film to replace a component that is normally rigid in a typical transistor. When pressure is applied to their new transistor, the pressure causes a change in the amount of current that the transistor puts out. The new, flexible transistors could also be used in making artificial skin, Bao said.

As Bao's team continues its research, the members may find applications not yet considered as well as other ways to demonstrate the sensitivity of their sensors. They have already expanded their stable of insects beyond the bluebottle fly to include some beautiful, delicate looking - albeit slightly heavier - butterflies.

But if the researchers wanted an even more ethereal demonstration, could the sensors detect the bubbles rising in a glass of champagne?

"If the bubbles coming out from the champagne impinge onto the pressure sensor, that might be possible," Bao said. "That would be an interesting experiment to do in the lab."

 

The latest addition will allow Britain's 39 Squadron to fly multiple Reaper aircraft at any one time over Afghanistan. The Reaper is manufactured by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of San Diego.

In London, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement that 36 hours of video surveillance can now be delivered in support of troops every day, an 80 percent increase from 12 months ago.

"I have never felt more connected to the heart of the battle on the ground than when I'm flying the Reaper," said one pilot quoted by the Defense Management Web site.

"When you're speaking to a soldier on the ground for hours at a time, night after night -- looking around every corner for him, scanning every tree line and reacting every time his guys take fire -- you feel like you really are fighting alongside him."

Reaper has been supporting ground forces in Afghanistan since 2007 and has flown more than 13,000 hours in direct support of operations. With an operational ceiling of 50,000 feet and a maximum internal payload of 800 pounds, the Reaper provides commanders with a constant "eye in the sky" that can "seek out and track insurgent activity around patrols, search for potential explosives and provide an armed response if required," said a Defense Management report.

British Defense Secretary Liam Fox said the Reaper was crucial to the air force's operation in combat zones.

"The arrival of this new aircraft demonstrates out ongoing commitment to ensuring that our troops on the front line get all the equipment that they need," he said. "The Reaper continues to play a vital part in our air power capability in Afghanistan and there is no doubt that this cutting-edge technology is saving lives."

The aircraft, which has a combat function, is able to launch Hellfire missiles and laser guided bombs.

The United Kingdom requested the sale of an additional 10 Reapers in January 2008. In August the same year Italy requested a batch of four with ground stations.

The Reaper's delivery comes amid growing concerns that stiff regulations should be applied for the use of drones.

Research is under way to enable unmanned vehicles to work in collaborative swarms, ensuring each machine selects a different target. This though has fanned fears that such strikes along the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan could spike already alarming death tolls.

The late science fiction author Isaac Asimov's famous First Law of Robotics -- "A robot may not injure a human being" -- appears to be taking a hammering, but the scientist behind it says it's all in a good cause, NewScientist.com reported Wednesday.

Borut Povse, who has ethical approval for the work from the University of Ljubljana where he's conducting the research, says the experiment is to help future robots adhere to the rule.

"Even robots designed to Asimov's laws can collide with people. We are trying to make sure that when they do, the collision is not too powerful," Povse says.

"We are taking the first steps to defining the limits of the speed and acceleration of robots, and the ideal size and shape of the tools they use, so they can safely interact with humans," he says.

Using a borrowed industrial robot, Povse and his colleagues programmed the robot arm to move towards a volunteer's outstretched forearm.

Each volunteer was punched 18 times at different impact energies by the robot arm fitted with one of two tools, one blunt and round and one sharper.

Volunteers were asked whether each collision was painless, or engendered mild, moderate, horrible or unbearable pain.

Povse, who tried the system before asking for volunteers, says most felt the pain was in the mild to moderate range.

The aim of the research, Povse says, is to limit the speed a robot should move at when it senses a nearby human, to avoid hurting them.