Clawar

Science fiction movies would have us believe that robotics will soon be dominating our lives. Recent movies like I, Robot and A.I. offer exciting glimpses into a potential future where humans and robots live, but we're still decades away from that. While giant strides in computers and miniaturization have rooted robotics into mainstream manufacturing and delivery of industrial products, there's still a lot to learn. We need at least another generation or two before robotic engineering can make robots as common as your PCs at home and in the office. Simply put, robotics is an allied application of computer science that is more involved in getting programmed instructions to make[..]

In robotics, three motors are generally used; the direct current (DC), stepper and radio controlled ('RC') servo motors. Servo motors are used in most robotic projects. Reasons include its high accuracy and degree of control with pulse width modulation ('PWM'). Compared with other common motors; DC and stepper motors, servo motors are the clear choice for projects requiring specific movements. Inside a stepper type, lie a series of coils. These coils create magnetic field that respond to permanent magnets, in turn creating rotations. To control the rotation, coils must be switched on (rotate forward) and off (reverse) constantly. Sequence of (or phase pattern) 'ons' and offs turn the[..]

Currently there are many different robotic options available to modern military. Robots can be run by wire from a distance, run by remote control, steered thru tele-robotics or semi or fully autonomously. There are plenty of "fire and forget" weapons, dumb weapons and smart munitions as well. The line between categories is often blurred with steerable big gun rounds, aircraft swarm UAV control and Tele-robotic machines which can fire thru human command or by way of software rules that include target identification and firing. How fast is this technology moving? Very fast as we noted the first fully autonomous vehicles made it thru a grueling course set up by DARPA. Contestants in the[..]

Since all Wal-Mart stores are set up like a giant warehouse it makes sense that soon there will be robotic Wal-Mart stockers loading shelves. Don't worry your young children are safe inside the cage of the steel or plastic webbing shopping cart. And even if not the robotic shelf loader will indeed sense human presence by way of infrared and body heat, motion detectors and optical flow sensors. Why is Wal-Mart going to be the first to use robotic shelf stockers? Well with unemployment so low in many parts of the country it makes sense. Also Wal-Mart has the case to fund the Research and Development and they are an obvious user with a much-needed application for such robotic systems. What[..]

We all realize now that the severe devastation, which can be brought to us via Mother Nature during these ever-increasing Atlantic Tropical Hurricane Seasons. FEMA can be over loaded and cannot always quickly respond when power, communication and all the roads leading in to the area are out. What can we do? Well one online think tank is very busy addressing this issue and ready to advise technology prototype experts of their plan. Can we use our latest innovations in robotics to assist us in winning the battle against time to help those in their time of need and get a head start on the clean up? What about using Robotic Swarms for Hurricane Clean Up could that be in our Future? Some[..]

The modern battlespace is going robotic faster than ever before and in the future human armies will not be used to any large degree as a means to attack one's enemies. Human armies take up too much space, are too easily injured or killed, as well as eat too much, complain too much and are too easily emotionally traumatized. We will have robotic unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, even underwater robotic vehicles which will be void of human life and fully autonomous or remotely controlled thru super bandwidth encrypted light communication via satellite, relays, AWACS, command centers and off shore aircraft carriers. As we move towards robotic warfare some scientists and researchers are[..]

Most car washes these days have robotic tunnel operated systems. These systems have an array of sensors, which tell the machine where the car is as it goes through. There are more robotics in the average carwash than the winner of the Grand DARPA Challenge, which drove an unmanned ground vehicle through the desert. Why are there so many robotic systems in the modern-day carwash? Well, it is simple a good tunnel carwash can clean a car every 45 seconds or less and two humans working at breakneck speed would take at least two to three minutes. Now let's flash forward to the present day and the unemployment of 4.7% in the United States of America. Car washes are now having trouble getting[..]

It looks like the Russians and the Americans are breaking new records under our seas as they go deeper and discover more and more unique things. While NASA studies other planets, asteroids meteors, suns and moons, we have yet to discover or document over 1/2 of the surface of our planet, which lies under our giant oceans. So what have we found? Several new species for one thing and we have erased previous thought to be known facts about underwater volcanoes. It appears much of those old research papers must now be re-written with new theories attached. We have discovered enormous formations underwater that we did not believe possible made of known elements of our periodic tables and[..]

The phrase life imitates art comes to mind when I am confronted with the latest in robotics. Although it is still a mighty leap to the popular apocalyptic Hollywood versions, we are a lot closer to that level of robot sophistication than most people know. Pop culture is fascinated by the possibility of creating technology that will eventually overpower us. Hal 9000, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the super-computer, even outsmarts the Protagonist, Dr. Floyd, until Hal's higher capabilities are disabled. In other words, they have to kill the computer. Will Smith's I Robot is another film that has a dark vision of the robot-centric world in mankind's future. Even Mike Myers is in on the theme[..]

A robotic arm is a type of robot that can be manipulated to function in similar ways that a human arm does. Some robotic arms are used for tasks in the home but they find their use mostly in industrial activities. Robotic Arm Favorites There are several types of robotic arms but the most widely used are the SCARA and Cartesian robots. Cartesian robotic arms are also called gantry or rectilinear robots and they are popular with manufacturing companies because they are able to move in many linear directions. Cartesian robot arms are effective in tasks that require pick and place, assembly work and welding among others. Cartesian robots are also highly effective in sealing work such as the[..]

All automaker factories are going to robotics, some say that Japan is leading the field in these endeavors, of course most all of the technology started here in the States. With American Automakers hurting and Delphi filing bankruptcy, some of these robotic auto plants will go dark for a while and probably lay off some Union Workers, which can save the companies millions is health care costs and problems associated with over production and the need to discount or over extend credit to consumers, which would have a whole other problem. Large auto factory plants like the German auto maker Daimler Chrysler often go dark to work on equipment, upgrade computers, install new components along[..]

When you say robotics, people usually think large scale production lines as in the manufacture of cars, complicated construction machinery and technology for space explorations. What a lot of people don't know is that robotics is utilized in so many other "smaller" aspects of our lives. Consumer products are so commonplace that it is easy for people to think of them as simple creations. What you might not know is that the production of these goods more often than not, involves some sort of robotics system. While processes are complicated, robotics helps simplify them. Industries Utilizing Robotics Robotics systems are an integral component of the mobile phone industry. The roles that[..]

Understanding and Using Robots.txt Files! We all get a bit excited when the search engines visits our web site frequently and indexes our content. However, there are certain things that we don't want the search engines to spider because of private information that we don't want the world to see. Another scenario would be that we may have more than one version of a page on our site. We can tell the search engines in our robot.txt file which page to crawl and which ones to ignore. We definitely don't want both of these pages to be crawled and end up with the search engine nailing you for spam because of the duplicate content in the two similar versions of one page. Another reason you may[..]

Progressive Systems selects new ERP software system by Encompix Progressive Systems is an industrial robot integrator of Panasonic, Motoman, and Fanuc robots for robotic arc welding systems, resistance welding and a wide array of material handling robot solutions. Progressive supplies robotic automation systems and services to customers throughout North America in industries such as automotive & truck manufacturing, construction, agricultural, fabricated metals, consumer products, electronic & telecommunications products, and furniture. Located in Berea, Kentucky, Progressive Systems has aggressive growth plans. It became clear that running a company on Quickbooks and[..]

Why is research and development in artificial intelligence and robotics so very important in the present period? Well because we are about to hit the end of an era as all these Baby Boomers retire and leave the work force. Many will be living well into their 100 year birthdays and beyond. These folks will be needing things, services and have demands and desires and yet they will not be producing. To make the issues worse industry predicts a job shortage of 10-million people by 2015. Do you doubt these figures? Well you should not as there are already severe shortages in trucking, air traffic controllers, auto mechanics and so many other industries and their sub-sectors. It is going to[..]

Robots have long been used in industrial applications, performing jobs with a higher level of reliability and more cheaply than humans. But truly autonomous robotic vehicles, capable of building a map of an unknown area while maintaining accurate position information, remain the subject of research. SLAM or Simultaneous localisation and mapping, is a technique used by robots to map an unknown environment while keeping track of their current position. This is a complex area of robotics research which has already found applications in unmanned aircraft, underwater vehicles and planetary rovers. An experimental car, built by Michael Milford and Gordon Wyeth of the University of Queensland[..]

Back in 1985, long before the dinosaurs of Jurassic showed how much carnage dinosaurs would cause if they were around today, there was a movie that was much kinder, softer, and a starred a baby dinosaur. Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend presented a cute 10 foot tall baby dinosaur moving around and getting into trouble while humans fought to protect her and keep her safe. Watch the movie today, and you can't but help think how fake the dinosaur looks. However, whenever you watch the movie one thought will always pop into your head at least once - how cool would it be to actually have a baby dinosaur as a pet? Well it took a few decades, but now is your chance. With the Ugobe Pleo Robotic[..]

The term "robot" refers to appliances and machines that are monitored and controlled by a computer. They are used extensively to ease human workload. Robots are designed to perform repetitive chores quickly and efficiently as compared to human beings. Robots are used in various types of industries, as they help save on labor costs. Industrial robots find application in tasks such as repairing, welding, painting, grouping, allocating, product inspection and testing. Vehicle and manufacturing industries use these appliances to design auto parts, gather equipment and scrutinize manufactured parts. Industrial robots are substituted for manpower in perilous jobs, which require carrying out[..]

These are the days of remote-controlled-state-of-the-art toys. This case is especially true with toy robots. The Robosapien is a good example of how complex toy robots have become. The Robosapien can walk, talk, navigate obstacles and pick up objects all at the touch of a button or even by voice commands. It runs on batteries and has potential for a lot of fun. A long time ago, toy robots were made of tin. Complexity was way simpler but the fun factor is still the same. After all, a toy needs to provide you with hours of fun - be it a tin toy or an electronic toy. Tin toy robots were generally built with squarish parts. They normally come with a square tin head with some robotic[..]

Custom designed cables are flexible, high strength, small durable military cables used for automated applications. For ultra miniature cables with extreme flexibility, long life and smaller conductors, Calmont manufacturers robotic cable from high strand, high strength alloy conductors and thin walled Teflon wires. Silicone rubber adds superior chemical resistance, and polyurethane jacketing protects against abrasion, oil, notching, microbes and hydrolysis. Smooth surfaces prevent adhesion to adjacent cables. Additional insulating and jacketing compounds include: TPE, PVC, PE, PPE, ETFE, TPR, Nylon, PVA, Fluorosilicone and Noryl. Over the years, our cables have been successfully used on[..]

WowWee Wrex the Dawg Robotic Dog is WowWee's follow-up to the Robopet and it's the junkyard version! This dog looks like he's been made from left over parts. Someone definitely had a crazy imagination to come up with a dog this crazy and this cute. He has two regular looking front legs but he's got two wheels on the back ones. He zips all around your home if he's in the autonomous mode. But he can also obey you through the use of the remote control. The Wild Side of WowWee Wrex the Dawg Robotic Dog With three levels of behavior, you'll find you have a pretty emotional dog in Wrex. He has three levels of behavior and is sometimes happy, sometimes angry and other times just all out crazy.[..]

The days of the Lawn Mower tasks on Sunday are long gone, no more family arguments about chores and duties and work in the hot sun... the robotic lawn mower operating rights is something your kids will have fights on for some time. This futuristic invention was something you could only dream about twenty years ago, when lawn mower designs were constantly trying to impress the public, when you will have one of those circular disks that shoot across your yard, gently humming and leaving grass clippings in its wake you will feel like your in a robotic dream. Did you think you were dreaming? Well, you are not. Welcome to the twenty-first century and the advent of the robotic lawn mower. This[..]

Every year, firefighters die fighting fires to save lives, but what if firefighters didn't have to die to save others? What if we had robotic firefighting equipment that used unmanned ground vehicle technologies - what if we used unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs to put out wildfires to save our trees? We have these technologies now, and it is just a matter of allocating some research and development dollars and making it available. In a burning building, a robot can go and find people who are trapped or in burning rooms and open up like a pod and the people can get in. The pod would protect him as the building burned around them. If the building collapsed they would be safe inside with[..]

Partial nephrectomy removes the cancer while preserving the normal and unaffected portion of the kidney,thus preventing the loss of the entire kidney. Today, most kidney cancer patients have tumors that can be treated with a kidney-sparing approach. Our surgeons are among a select group of physicians in the world who regularly perform this specialized and complicated operation, using advanced robotic surgical technology through robotics. At Henry Ford, patients often can have a minimally-invasive and kidney-sparing approach. In most instances, the entire kidney does not need to be removed to treat the kidney cancer. This treatment option does not increase the chance of recurrence (the[..]

Robotic grass mowers aren't the devices perhaps you believe they are. The robot garden mowers that you can buy at present are really serious mowing machines. Not only do they accomplish a great job mowing, they maintain garden mowed. Why You Need a Robot Mower Do you care about the natural world? In case you care in the slightest, you are currently using a mulching garden mower and bagging your grass clippings. In spite of this, since you don't have enough time to mow, the length of the grass overwhelms the mower. Long clippings plus large clumps survive on the grass. It begins to go dark brown and kill the grass underneath. Can it be doable to be environmental yet still have a healthy[..]

Robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles have come a long way ion the last five years and they are rapidly advancing. What if we could leverage all this technology to assist us in first response to Natural Disasters? How so you ask? Well, what if we set the entire disaster area up as a grid and then allow robotic teams or swarms working together to do surveillance and look for those who need rescuing? Recently this subject came up in an online think tank and one team thinker; Swift from Las Vegas stated: "Maybe the robot teams could encircle the area and work towards the middle and other robot teams could be dropped into the center of the area to work from the inside out to the outer edge.[..]

The most popular prostate cancer surgery is robotic keyhole surgery, also called a laparoscopic surgery. This surgery has been performed on thousands of men. It has become popular because it is minimally invasive - not requiring large incisions and uses the da Vinci robotics system. Doctors use robotic arms and special instruments while performing the surgery. In fact, keyhole surgery uses a small incision and that's why it's called a keyhole surgery. There are other types of keyhole surgeries on other parts of the body as well. It has become the prostate cancer surgery of choice for many because of the smaller incision meaning a day less in the hospital and a shorter recovery time. Now[..]

Robotic surgery and robot-assisted surgeries are being performed throughout the world to improve surgical outcomes and patient recovery time, as well as to reduce scarring and loss of blood.  Advanced software collects data for the physician to review, including imagery of the interior organs.  At some point, not too far in the future, these advancements should replace the need for exploratory surgery. For the hospital, the idea of implementing the latest technological advancements may seem expensive.  But, in the long run, the use of robotic surgery and imaging software saves the hospital money, if only because a smaller surgical team is needed.   The latest equipment provides[..]

If you are worried about entering the forex trading industry due to the complexity involved but nevertheless want a share of the pie, then you must consider the option of using forex robotics to help enter in the right manner. Forex robotic has been around a while but only now is gaining ground with the massive improvement in technology as well as the use of complex algorithm to formulate a solution to your forex problems. The main selling point of a forex robotic is their simple and easy to use interface. They remove the complexity by showing you only the absolute necessary things that are required to deal while using the forex industry. A forex robotic also help you understand aspects[..]

Robotic nurses hold the promise of becoming more of a reality now than science fiction. Imagine having a robot around the house to do all your chores, administer medicine, and do all your checkups without you having to step out of your house at all. This is what robotic nurses or nurse bots are programmed to do, and the rate at which research is underway on this project, robotic nurses may soon become a common household feature for all those who can afford it. Role of robotic nurses Though the name suggests otherwise, robotic nurses are not meant to be a substitute for professional nurses, but are simply meant to add to the number of caregivers available. This technology is developed[..]

There are a variety of different methods you can use to clean out the vents within your home or office. One of the most effective of which is robotic duct cleaning. This technique cleans out even the smallest sections of vents to reduce dust and get rid of air pollution that could cause allergies. Needless to say, there are a vast amount of benefits that such devices have over other cleaning technologies. It is crucial to understand each one in order to determine whether you should invest in one. As for the consumer, it again is important to understand the benefits associated with these devices. If you do not, you could end up with a lot of wasted time and money. First and foremost, the[..]

When you think of "robot," what do you envision? Does your robot walk upright like "C3PO" or roll like "R2D2?" Does your robot have a rigid mechanical face or an expressionistic soft face? Does it pick up objects or does it function as a robotic vacuum? Perhaps your intelligent system works in the medical field or in robotic welding. Since there are a number of different uses for robotics and automation, it's reasonable to assume there are many, many robot design options. To begin thinking about how these complex machines move, we need to look to physics, science, math and engineering. One of the primary components used in robotic automation is the actuator, which converts stored energy[..]

The importance of automation and robots in all manufacturing industries is growing. Industrial robots have replaced human beings in a wide variety of industries. Robots out perform humans in jobs that require precision, speed, endurance and reliability. Robots safely perform dirty and dangerous jobs. Traditional manufacturing robotic applications include material handling (pick and place), assembling, painting, welding, packaging, palletizing, product inspection and testing. Industrial robots are used in a diverse range of industries including automotive, electronics, medical, food production, biotech, pharmaceutical and machinery. The ISO definition of a manipulating industrial robot[..]

The goal of Stanford University Media X is to foster collaborations between industry and academia. The 5th Annual Media X Conference on Research, Collaboration, Innovation and Productivity, which I was fortunate to attend, served its purpose well. Let me share the 10 Key Trends that every business executive and innovator should be paying attention to: 1) Personal Robotics is poised to explode soon (predicted by Paul Saffo). It usually takes 20 years science basic science exists until applications reach inflection point and take the world by storm-and we are about to see that happen. Some indicators: DARPA sponsored first robotics attempts in mid-80s, and now we have applications such as[..]

The United States is completely dropping the ball in the funding of robotics research to the point of endangering the future of our nation. Whereas we lead the field in some things we are very far behind in others and it is at the point that if we do not play catch up, we will put our nation's national security at severe risk. This is coupled with the fact that we do not have enough children entering the math and science arenas. Although recently with the DARPA Grand Challenge and robotics competitions in High Schools and Colleges we have made some headway, but lack of funding is undermining our future needs as a sovereign country. The National Science Foundation, which has funded[..]

There is a huge problem in the truck washing industry right now and that is the labor shortage. Truck washes cannot afford to hire illegal aliens because they might be caught and shut down. And truck drivers tend to not like illegal aliens because they are upset that Mexican truck drivers are taking their business away and costing truckers their jobs, therefore will immediately turn them in. Nevertheless the real truth is that there is a shortage of 185,000 truck drivers expected by the end of 2008. The labor shortage in the United States for quality labor to work in truck washes is also very hard to get considering the unemployment rate currently in the United States of America is[..]