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Robo sapiens: Germany

24 images Created 16 Jan 2013

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  • The robotic hand developed at the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center), in the countryside outside Munich, Germany, demonstrates the power of a control technique called force-feedback. To pick up an object, Max Fischer (in control room), one of the hand's developers, uses the data-glove to transmit the motion of his hand to the robot. If he moves a finger, the robot moves the corresponding finger. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 135.
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  • Robotic articulated hand from the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center), in the countryside outside Munich, Germany. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 5.
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  • Delicately handling a pretzel, the robotic hand developed at the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (German Aerospace Center), in the countryside outside Munich, Germany, demonstrates the power of a control technique called force-feedback. To pick up an object, Max Fischer (in control room), one of the hand's developers, uses the data-glove to transmit the motion of his hand to the robot. If he moves a finger, the robot moves the corresponding finger. Early work on remote-controlled robots foundered when the machines unwittingly crushed the objects they were manipulating. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 134.
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  • Metal posts placed precisely using a robotic system provide a stable anchor for magnetic attachment of this artificial body part at the Virchow Campus Clinic, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Metal posts placed precisely using a robotic system provide a stable anchor for magnetic attachment of artificial body parts at the Virchow Campus Clinic, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
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  • A robotic apparatus that allows for precision surgical drilling, created by Jojumarie Intelligent Instruments Company GMBH, Berlin, Germany.
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  • Researcher Olaf Shermeier shows an oral implant that is guided and precisely placed by a dental robot at Virchow Campus Clinic, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany.
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  • Researcher Tim Leuth and surgeon Martin Klein with a medical robot called a "SurgiScope" at the Virchow Campus Clinic, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany. The SurgiScope is an image guided surgery support device comprised of a robotic tool holder, advanced image handling software and a position sensor. The robotic system can be used for surgical planning and interoperative guidance.
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  • German National Research Center robot scientists pose for a group portrait in the main hall of the center's Schloss Burlinghoven (administrative building of GMD). Left to Right: Bernhard Klaassen holding "Snake2", Rainer Worst, Jurgen Vollmer (with hand on KURT, a sewer inspection robot prototype), Frank Kirchner, holding "Sir Arthur" a first generation walking robot, Ina Kople, Herman Streich, and Jorg Wilburg. (Three people on right in back of robocup-playing middleweight robots and soccer ball.) Bonn, Germany
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  • Photographed at a baptismal font in the chapel of Schloss Burlinghoven, a nineteenth-century castle on the campus of the German National Center for Information Technology, the walking robot Sir Arthur stands with its creator, research scientist Frank Kirchner. Sir Arthur began as a relatively simple robot with sonarlike "vision" that prevented it from trapping itself in corners and snagging itself on obstacles. It was successful enough that Kirchner obtained funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to assemble a team of researchers from diverse disciplines: computer science, math, physics, and electronic and mechanical engineering, to build an enhanced, solar-powered version that can cross rough outdoor terrain. Germany. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 112
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  • Sewer inspection robot. Kurt I, a sewer inspection robot prototype. Here, the robot is moving through a simulated sewer at a German government-owned research and development centre. Unlike its predecessors, the Kurt I, and its successor, Kurt II, are cable-less, autonomous robots, which have their own power supply and piloting system. Kurt uses two low-powered lasers (upper centre) to beam a grid (red, lower centre) into its path. When the gridlines curve, indicating a bend or intersection in the pipe, the robot matches the curves against a digital map in its computer. It will then pilot itself to its destination. Photographed in Bonn, Germany.
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  • Kurt I, a 32-cm-long robot, crawls through a simulated sewer network on the grounds of the Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverabeitung-Forschungs-zentrum Informationstechnik GmbH (GMD), a government-owned R&D center outside Bonn, Germany. Every ten years, Germany's 400,000 kilometers of sewers must be inspected, at a cost of $9 per meter. Today, vehicles tethered to long data cables explore remote parts of the system. Because the cables restrict the vehicle's mobility and range, GMD engineers have built Kurt I, which crawls through sewers itself. To pilot itself, the robot?or, rather, its successor model, Kurt II?will use two low-power lasers to beam a checkerboardlike grid into its path. When the gridlines curve, indicating a bend or intersection in the pipe ahead, Kurt II will match the curves against a digital map in its "brain" and pilot itself to its destination. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 194
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  • Filling up a specially adapted Mercedes, the gas-bot at the Institut Produktionstechnik und Automatisierung (IPA), a government-industry research center in Stuttgart, Germany, is intended for a time in the future when automobiles run on hydrogen. Hydrogen is an environmentally sound fuel?its main effluent is water. But it is also so explosive that robots may end up topping off people's tanks. A somewhat similar system for dispensing ordinary gasoline is currently being test-marketed by Shell in the American Midwest. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 195.
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  • In a photo-illustration depicting one way that roboticists are developing robots to take over routine tasks, the Electrolux Robotic Vacuum Cleaner sucks up hair at a Hamburg, Germany,  barbershop. Soon to be available from Electrolux, a Swedish appliance company, the machine will vacuum floors constantly with its small, quiet, battery-powered motor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 162-163.
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  • Readying for the RoboCup championship in Sweden, Jörg Wilberg (rear left) and his research team at the German National Research Center (GMD) outside Bonn, Germany review the prospects of their five-machine robot-soccer squad. The GMD team plays in the medium-sized division, which uses a real soccer ball on a field about a third as big as a basketball court. Each robot monitors the position of the ball with a video camera; special software lets the machine track its round shape. Kneeling on the floor, researcher Peter Schöll tests the software by observing the image of the ball in the monitor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 215
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  • Video control room of (closed-circuit) televised cardiac conference in Leipzig, Germany enabling surgeons to view the latest techniques during live parallel surgical procedures which are transmitted to a nearby hotel conference center for viewing on huge screens by doctors attending the conference.
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  • Monitor view of heart surgeons watching their progress while performing minimally invasive heard surgery during a cardiac conference at Herzzentrum: Heart Center in Leipzig, Germany.
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  • Visiting doctors watch surgeon Volkmar Falk perform a coronary artery bypass graft on a patient lying in the adjoining room, using a tele-manipulated surgical system (called a robotic system by some) designed by Intuitive Surgical Corporation of Mountainview, California, at the Herzzentrum, Leipzig, Germany. The assistant surgeon has incised small holes into the patient's chest wall through which the instruments, attached to sterile plastic covered manipulating arms, will pass and be telemanipulated by the surgeon in the next room. The room in which the surgeon is working is a less sterile work environment than that of the operating room where the patient lies.
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  • Robotic surgical implements used by the da Vinci robot surgeon during minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Da Vinci is a remotely controlled robot, which gives surgeons precise control over surgical tools through an incision just one centimeter wide. The surgeon, who views the surgical site through the robot's endoscope attachment, controls the robot's arms. Such remote control gives more precise manipulation of tools than in manual surgery. Intuitive Surgical Incorporated designed Da Vinci in California, USA.
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  • Operating room staff watch video monitors as surgeon Volkmar Falk performs a coronary artery bypass graft using Intuitive Surgical's tele-manipulated surgical manipulator system. Herzzentrum, Leipzig, Germany. Falk can hear his assistant surgeon in the operating room via a room speaker overhead. He speaks to him over the microphone taped to his surgical garb, which is in turn piped into the operating room. While Falk is sitting at the console, he is not sterile and therefore isn't in a surgical gown as are the assistants who are with the patients. Stefan Jakobs, the assistant surgeon, watches the monitor to follow Falk's progress in the operation.
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  • Dr. Volkmar Falk performs robotic surgery on a patient from controls in the next room at the Herzzentrum Heart Center in Leipzig, Germany. (Visiting doctors watch surgeon Volkmar Falk perform a coronary artery bypass graft on a patient lying in the adjoining room, using a tele-manipulated surgical system (called a robotic system by some) designed by Intuitive Surgical Corporation of Mountainview, California, at the Herzzentrum, Leipzig, Germany. The assistant surgeon has incised small holes into the patient's chest wall through which the instruments-attached to sterile plastic covered manipulating arms-will pass and be telemanipulated by the surgeon in the next room. The room in which the surgeon is working is a less sterile work environment than that of the operating room where the patient lies. It is much like an office; phones are ringing, there is heavy foot traffic and personal conversation-at times at crescendo level.
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  • Engineer Chris Julian of robotic surgical systems company, Intuitive Surgical of Mountainview, California, watches heart surgeons perform robotic cardiac surgery and sketches improvements and modifications to the system. Herzzentrum Heart Center, Leipzig, Germany
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  • At an early-morning procedure at Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh, Anthony M. DiGioia (center) uses HipNav, a computerized navigation system he developed in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon's Center for Medical Robotics and Computer-Assisted Surgery, to replace the hip of a 50-year-old Pittsburgh man. Aligning the new hip properly, DiGioia explains, is necessary to avoid surgical complications. Here DiGioia, a former robotics student, uses the intra-operative guidance system and a simple "aim and shoot" interface to emplace the new hip. Robo Sapiens page 177.
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  • Surgeon Anno Diegeler completes a cardiac surgery using traditional methods, after the decision is made to switch from the use of a minimally invasive robotic technique at the Herzzentrum Heart Center, Leipzig, Germany. Visiting doctors watch surgeon Volkmar Falk perform a coronary artery bypass graft on a patient lying in the adjoining room, using a tele-manipulated surgical system (called a robotic system by some) designed by Intuitive Surgical Corporation of Mountainview, California, at the Herzzentrum, Leipzig, Germany.
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Peter Menzel Photography

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