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  • Austin Richards of Santa Barbara, CA, is zapped by his homemade Tesla Coil. Richards wears a homemade robot outfit with a birdcage covering his head. The electrical "lightning" bolts his Tesla coil zaps him with do not do any harm because he is surrounded by metal that acts a Faraday cage, harmlessly channeling the charges to the ground and protecting his body from shocks. Richards performs these stunts for trade shows and parties. Here he is doing this for a block party near Santa Barbara. California, USA
    Usa_rs_433_120_xs.jpg
  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident. Here he is arm-wrestling with a neighbor in a local bar called the Sportsman's Club: showing off the strength of his electric arm motor. (Actually the arm has no lateral force, only frontal, but the hand does have more gripping power than a normal hand.)
    USA_SCI_MEARM_07_xs.jpg
  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident. Seen here cutting his meat while having lunch with his girlfriend at a café in Halfway, Oregon.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_393_xs.jpg
  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident. Here he is using a pitchfork to throw hay over the fence to his horses.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_03_xs.jpg
  • Group Leader Jamie Anderson, Mechanical Engineer Peter Kerrebrock, and Electrical Engineer Mark Little (L to R) are shown with the Draper Laboratory VCUUV?Vorticity Control Unmanned Undersea Vehicle. The craft, which cost nearly a million dollars to build, is modeled after a tuna and can swim freely without tethers at a maximum speed of 2.4 knots and can make rapid turns. The Draper Lab VCUUV is based on studies made at MIT by Professor Michael Triantafyllou.
    Usa_rs_601_xs.jpg
  • Anita Flynn with vintage robot prototype "Gnat" at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Flynn was an Insect Lab scientist who liked to dream up possible jobs for tiny, cheap, throwaway robots.  She suggested that a gnat could crawl along an underground electrical cable until it finds a break, bridge the gap, and stay there as a permanent repair. Robo sapiens Project.
    Usa_rs_19_01_xs.jpg
  • Bill Haeck of Rock Springs, Wyoming is an avid hunter who relies on his artificial myoelectric arm to continue his hobby after losing his arm in an accident.  Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Haeck can do most things as he did before his accident but he often forgets to charge the battery. Seen here target shooting behind his house.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_09_xs.jpg
  • Bill Haeck of Rock Springs, Wyoming is an avid hunter who relies on his artificial myoelectric arm to continue his hobby after losing his arm in an accident.  Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Haeck can do most things as he did before his accident but he often forgets to charge the battery. Seen here target shooting behind his house.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_08_xs.jpg
  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_05_xs.jpg
  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident. Here he is using a drill press in the workshop in his barn.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_04_xs.jpg
  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_02_xs.jpg
  • Bob Goodman, a rancher in Halfway, Oregon, lost his arm in a freak accident. Researchers at the University of Utah gave him a myoelectric arm, which he controls by flexing the muscles in his arm that are still intact. Sensors on the inside of the prosthetic arm socket pick up the faint electrical signals from the muscles and amplify them to control the robot arm. In this way, Goodman can do most things as he did before his accident. Here he is putting his arm on right after he wakes up and gets dressed in his bedroom.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_01_xs.jpg
  • Austin Richards of Santa Barbara, CA, is zapped by his homemade Tesla Coil. Richards wears a homemade robot outfit with a birdcage covering his head. The electrical "lightning" bolts his Tesla coil zaps him with do not do any harm because he is surrounded by metal that acts a Faraday cage, harmlessly channeling the charges to the ground and protecting his body from shocks. Richards performs these stunts for trade shows and parties. Here he is doing this for a block party near Santa Barbara. California, USA
    Usa_rs_585_xs.jpg
  • First generation face robot from the Hara-Kobayashi Lab in Tokyo. Lit from behind to reveal the machinery beneath the skin. The machinery will change the contours of the robot's skin to create facial expressions. It does this by using electric actuators, which change their shape when an electric current is passed through them. The devices will return to their original shape when the current stops. This robot face was developed at the Laboratory of Fumio Hara and Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Science University, Tokyo, Japan.
    Japan_Jap_rs_2A_120_xs.jpg
  • First generation face robot from the Hara-Kobayashi Lab in Tokyo. Lit from behind to reveal the machinery beneath the skin. The machinery will change the contours of the robot's skin to create facial expressions. It does this by using electric actuators, which change their shape when an electric current is passed through them. The devices will return to their original shape when the current stops. Unfortunately these actuators proved very slow at returning to their original shape, causing an expression to remain on the face for too long. This robot face was developed at the Laboratory of Fumio Hara and Hiroshi Kobayashi at the Science University, Tokyo, Japan. The robot head is lit from within by a pencil light strobe cloaked in a yellow gel.
    Japan_Jap_rs_1a_120_xs.jpg
  • Testing the "Utah myoelectric arm" over many hours, a worker at Iomed, Inc, in Salt Lake City, Utah reads a book as he opens and closes his own hand which in turn causes the electric arm to mimic his movements.
    USA_SCI_MEARM_06_xs.jpg
  • Professor Fumio Hara and Assistant Professor Hiroshi Kobayashi's female face robot (second-generation) at Science University of Tokyo, Japan, has shape-memory electric actuators that move beneath the robot's silicon skin to change the face into different facial expressions much as muscles do in the human face. The actuators are very slow to return to their original state and remedying this is one of the research projects facing the Hara and Kobayashi Lab. The robot head is lit from within by a pencil light strobe cloaked in a yellow gel. It was photographed in the neon bill-boarded area of Shinjuku, a section of Tokyo, on a rainy evening at rush hour. Robo sapiens cover image. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species.
    Japan_JAP_rs_1_qxxs.jpg
  • Lit from within to reveal the machinery beneath its skin, this second-generation face robot from the Hara-Kobayashi laboratory at the Science University of Tokyo, Japan, has shape-memory actuators that move like muscles creating facial expressions beneath the robot's silicon skin. Made of metal strips that change their shape when an electric current passes through them, the actuators return to their original form when the current stops. The robot head is lit from within by a pencil light strobe cloaked in a yellow gel.From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 77.
    Japan_JAP_rs_1B_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Flanked by the animatronic robots created in his workshops, Steve Jacobsen, an engineering professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, may be the world's most entrepreneurial roboticist-he's spun off four companies from his research and discoveries. Perhaps the most important product he makes is the Utah Artificial Arm (above Jacobsen's head), a high-tech prosthetic hand used by thousands of amputees around the world. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 216-217.
    USA_rs_427_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Old transformer turned into a suggestion and payments box for the power company on the U.S. Territory of Guam, an island in the Western Pacific Ocean, the largest of the Mariana Islands. Dead brown tree snakes are draped on it..There are no birds on the Pacific Island of Guam thanks to the Brown Tree Snake. Hungry egg-eating tree snakes have overrun the tropical island after arriving on a lumber freighter from New Guinea during World War II. Besides wiping out the bird population, Brown Tree Snakes cause frequent power outages: they commit short circuit suicide when climbing between power lines. These snakes were electrocuted causing a power outage from 1 to 7 AM on May 19.
    GUM_05_xs.jpg
  • Earl Cambell's brown tree snake research site in jungle area near Andersen Air Force Base. Snakes are trapped, tagged, sexed, measured, weighed and released..U.S. Territory of Guam, an island in the Western Pacific Ocean, the largest of the Mariana Islands..There are no birds on the Pacific Island of Guam thanks to the Brown Tree Snake. These hungry egg-eating snakes have overrun the tropical island after arriving on a lumber freighter from New Guinea during World War II. Besides wiping out the bird population, Brown Tree Snakes cause frequent power outages: they commit short circuit suicide when climbing between power lines.
    GUM_06_xs.jpg
  • he devastated desert landscape in the burning greater Al Burgan oil fields in Kuwait after the end of the Gulf War. More than 700 wells were set ablaze by retreating Iraqi troops creating the largest man-made environmental disaster in history.
    KUW_035_xs.jpg
  • Barstow, California telephone and power lines across the desert.
    USA_DSRT_08_xs.jpg
  • In Death Valley, California, the team responsible for a Russian Mars Rover 'Marsokhod' tests its vehicle to see how it will handle its maneuvering along the similar rocky terrain. The Planetary Society sponsored the test. Robo sapiens Project.
    Usa_rs_650_xs.jpg
  • MODEL RELEASED. Kismet robot interacting with a mirror held by researcher Cynthia Breazeal. Kismet is a robot that responds with facial expressions to her actions. It has been developed for the study of action recognition and learning, particularly in children. Kismet has several moods, which it displays as expressions on its face. It responds to visual stimuli like a baby. When there are no stimuli, it shows a sad expression. When paid attention to, as here, Kismet looks interested. Like a child, Kismet responds best to bright colours and moderate movements. Photographed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA.
    Usa_rs_565_xxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_42_nxxs.jpg
  • Eric Hvinden puts sound onto a Dinamation International Triceratops at the company's factory near Los Angeles, California. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
    USA_SCI_DINO_14_xs.jpg
  • In a spanking new, richly-appointed research center above a busy shopping street in Tokyo's stylish Harajuku district, Hiroaki Kitano shows off his robot soccer team. In addition to Kitano's humanoid-robot work at Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project, a five-year, government-funded ERATO project, Kitano is the founder and chair of Robot World Cup Soccer (RoboCup), an annual soccer competition for robots. There are four classes of contestants: small, medium, simulated, and dog (using Sony's programmable robot dogs). Kitano's small-class RoboCup team consists of five autonomous robots, which kick a golf ball around a field about the size of a ping-pong table. An overhead video camera feeds information about the location of the players to remote computers, which use the data to control the robots' offensive and defensive moves. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 213 top.
    Japan_JAP_rs_31_qxxs.jpg
  • Sleek and elegant, the head of this unfinished robot was constructed by the Symbiotic Intelligence Group of the Kitano Symbiotic Systems Project. It is funded by an ERATO grant from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation, a branch of the Science and Technology Agency of the Japanese government. SIG, as this robot is named, has a white outside shell designed by a project artist, group leader Hiroaki Kitano is a firm believer in the importance of aesthetics. Tokyo, Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 80-81.
    Japan_JAP_rs_241_qxxs.jpg
  • Colin Angle gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
    Usa_sci_ir_9B_nxs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_723_120_xs.jpg
  • In the East Bay suburb of Walnut Creek, near San Francisco, Will Wright and family collectively in their garage preparing their creation for "Robot Wars"(daughter Cassidy 11, nephew Patrick 14, and Will). Later that week, in a battle pit ringed by six-foot sheets of bulletproof glass and a sellout crowd, radio-controlled gladiators battle their robots to the mechanical death. Will Wright developed the Sims software games.
    Usa_rs_713_xs.jpg
  • Harold Cohen, former director of the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA), is the author of the celebrated AARON program, an ongoing research effort in autonomous machine (art making) intelligence. Cohen is seen looking at his creation, a robot "artist" that painted the picture in the background. California, USA
    Usa_rs_700_120_xs.jpg
  • In Palo Alto, CA Gavin Miller and his wife Nancy test his robotic snake in the driveway of their home. Miller builds the snakes in his garage. Gavin's dog barks a the snake to the amusement of his wife, Nancy.
    Usa_rs_647_xs.jpg
  • In the same building as Robert Full at UC Berkeley is Michael Dickinson, whose email address "FlymanD" is revealing. Dickinson is a biologist specializing in the study of the aerodynamics of flapping flight. His bizarre studies of fruit fly flight are fascinating. In one small room sits a Plexiglas tank filled with two metric tons of mineral oil. Suspended in the oil are giant mechanical models of fruit fly wings, RoboFly. Because the tiny movements of the wings of a real fruit fly displace air on such a small scale that the air acts sticky, RoboFly enables Dickinson to study similar forces when the giant wings are flapping in oil.
    Usa_rs_635_xs.jpg
  • Here COG,(short for cognitive) is seen using a slinky toy. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Mass. Although some might be discouraged by the disparity between the enormous amount of thought and labor that went into it and the apparently meager results (simulating the intelligence of a six month old baby), Brooks draws a different conclusion. That so much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. Robo sapiens page 59
    Usa_rs_5D_120_nxs.jpg
  • Force-feedback is widely used in data gloves, which send hand movements to grasping machines. The robot hand, which was built by the students in Mark Cutkosky's Stanford lab, transmits the "feel" of the blocks between its pincers, giving operators a sense of how hard they are gripping. Stanford, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 137 bottom.
    USA_rs_474_qxxs.jpg
  • The product of a long quest, Robot III, an artificial cockroach built by mechanical engineer Roger Quinn (in blue shirt) and biologist Roy Ritzmann at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, required seven years to construct. (Quinn directs the Biorobotics Lab at the university.) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 102-103.
    USA_rs_426_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Painted pink to give competitors a false sense of its harmlessness, Mouser Catbot 2000 has two deadly sawblades in its nose and tail and a hidden flipper on its back for overturning enemy robots. Built by Californians Fon Davis and April Mousley (left to right), the machine deftly trounced Vlad the Impaler, a larger machine with a hydraulic spike that shot from its snout  at Robot Wars, a two-day festival of mechanical destruction at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center. California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 205.
    USA_rs_397_qxxs.jpg
  • Eyes sweeping the room with what seems to be hopeful curiosity, Kismet the robot sits like an animated bust on Cynthia Breazeal's desk at MIT in Cambridge, MA. When it spots visitors, the robot's expression changes to an almost uncannily convincing expression of interest and delight. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species. One of a series of Kismet images.
    USA_rs_38_qxxs.jpg
  • The ghoulish host for Secrets of the Crypt Keeper's Haunted House, a Saturday-morning television show for kids, is an animatronic; that is, lifelike electronic-robot. Built by AVG, of Chatsworth, California, the Crypt Keeper can show almost every human expression, although it must first be programmed to do so. Larger gestures of head and hand are created not by programming, but by electronically linking the robotic figure to an actor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 207.
    USA_rs_376_qxxs.jpg
  • Surrounded by the robots used in his Georgia Institute of Technology laboratory, computer scientist Ronald C. Arkin specializes in behavior-based robots, he's written a textbook with that name. Concerned more with software than hardware, he buys robots from companies and modifies their behavior, increasing their capacities. But outside such places, what Arkin calls "the physical situatedness" of the robot is "absolutely crucial" to its ability to act and react appropriately. Like many of his colleagues, he has been inspired by the way insects and other nonhuman life forms have adapted to their environment. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 153.
    USA_rs_331_qxxs.jpg
  • When the Three Mile Island reactor failed catastrophically in 1979, the intense radioactivity in the plant prevented its owners from surveying and repairing the damage. Four years later, with conditions still unknown, Carnegie Mellon engineer William L. "Red" Whittaker designed several remote-controlled robots that were able to venture into the radioactive plant. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 141.
    USA_rs_24A_120_qxxs.jpg
  • The most sophisticated machines don't necessarily triumph in the violent gladiatorial battles at San Francisco's Robot Wars, as shown when Tazbot (with turret), a simple, remote-controlled vehicle, forces a much more sophisticated, autonomously moving opponent to self-destruct. San Francisco, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 204 bottom.
    USA_rs_138_qxxs.jpg
  • At the Science Museum in Dallas, Texas, school children listen to a docent while watching the animated robot dinosaurs Tyrannosaurus Rex and Allosaurus (made by Dinamation International). Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
    USA_SCI_DINO_13_xs.jpg
  • Snarling at the rush-hour traffic, this new animatronic; that is, lifelike and electronic replica of an Allosaurus is returning from the paint shop to the Dinamation factory in Orange County, California. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
    USA_SCI_DINO_08_xs.jpg
  • Workers paint the head and foot of robotic Allosaurus, part of a collection of robotic dinosaurs made by the California-based company Dinamation International. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
    USA_SCI_DINO_05_xs.jpg
  • A dinamation robotic model of an Apatosaurus (with the skin removed showing the metal skeleton) at the Dallas Science museum. A time exposure shows how the neck and head respond to joystick commands. Dinamation International, a California-based company, makes a collection of robotic dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are sent out in traveling displays to museums around the world. The dinosaur's robotic metal skeleton is covered by rigid fiberglass plates, over which is laid a flexible skin of urethane foam. The plates and skin are sculpted and painted to make the dinosaurs appear as realistic as possible. The creature's joints are operated by compressed air and the movements controlled by computer.
    USA_SCI_DINO_01_xs.jpg
  • Fans invited off a street in Tokyo's Harajuku area to meet Pino pose with the popular robot. Pino, short for Pinocchio (after the fabled wooden puppet that becomes a human boy), is a full-bodied, child-sized, humanoid robot. Even before it demonstrates the ability of a wide range of bipedal movements it already has a national following in Japan after the release of a music video called "Can You Keep a Secret" in which the robot stars alongside one of Japan's most popular recording artists, Hikaru Utada. It has elevated Tatsuya Matsui, the artist who created the robot design, to celebrity status and provoked murmurs of dissent by some in the robotics community who see the robot as a commercial entity rather than a serious research project. Interestingly, the robot project is part of a large ERATO grant from the Japan Science and Technology Corporation, a branch of the Science and Technology Agency of the Japanese government. Project creator Hiraoki Kitano  believes that the aesthetics of a robot are important in order for it to be accepted by humans into their living space. At the Kitano Symbiotic Systems, Tokyo, Japan.
    Japan_Jap_rs_451_xs.jpg
  • The robot, called Kenta, (Ken means tendon in Japanese) has a flexible spinal column that resembles that of the human body; 96 motors; a five-joint neck; a 10 joint spine (each with 3 degrees of freedom); and fast-moving stereo vision that can track a flesh colored object. The neck and torso are coordinated to respond in concert with the eye's movement. Student researchers create movements for the robot in simulation and then feed the simulations back to the robot. Professor Hirochika Inoue thinks that developing robots with this structure of incredibly decreased weight and fewer parts will reduce the cost and the complexity of robots in the future for more widespread application. Inoue-Inaba Robotic Lab, University of Tokyo, Japan.
    Japan_Jap_rs_366_xs.jpg
  • The inner workings of the first generation face robot from the Hara-Kobayashi Lab in Tokyo, Japan. The first of several face robots made in Fumio Hara's lab, it has a CCD camera in its left eye that sends images to neural-network software that recognizes faces and their expressions. Calling upon its repertoire of programmed reactions, it activates the motors and pulleys beneath its flexible skin to produce facial expressions of its own. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 4.
    Japan_JAP_rs_5A_120_qxxs.jpg
  • Atsuo Takanishi of the Humanoid Research Laboratory, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, conversing with writer Faith D'Aluisio at his university laboratory. One of the leading researchers at Japan's Waseda University's long-term robotics project, mechanical engineer Atsuo Takanishi studied under the late Ichiro Kato, a robotics pioneer, and superb fundraiser, who made the school into the epicenter of the field. Continuing Kato's emphasis on "biomechatronics", replicating the functions of animals with machines, Takanishi now supervises the research group that produced WABIAN-RII (behind him in photograph). From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 18.
    Japan_JAP_rs_287_qxxs.jpg
  • Sitting on a mobile motorized cushion he calls a "vuton," Shigeo Hirose of the Tokyo Institute of Technology surrounds himself with some of the robots he has built in the last two decades. Beside him is the snake-bot ACM R-1, one of his earliest projects. It is made of modules, any number of which can be hooked together to produce a mechanical snake that slowly, jerkily undulates down its path. Hirose, who is primarily funded by industry, hopes to develop commercially useful robots; the snake, he thinks, could be useful for inspecting underground pipes. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 88.
    Japan_JAP_rs_25_qxxs.jpg
  • Many Japanese roboticists were inspired as a child by Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), a popular Japanese cartoon about a futuristic robot boy who helps human beings (here, it is a 15-centimeter Astro Boy action figure). Astro Boy, drawn in the 1950's, will soon be the star of a major motion picture. In the story line, his birthdate is in April of 2003. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 197.
    Japan_JAP_rs_244_qxxs.jpg
  • Exemplifying the attempts by Japanese researchers to put a friendly face on their robots, DB's creators are teaching it the Kacha-shi, an Okinawan folk dance. Unlike most robots, DB did not acquire the dance by being programmed. Instead, it observed human dancers?project researchers, actually, and repeatedly attempted to mimic their behavior until it was successful. Project member Stefan Schaal, a neurophysicist at the University of Southern California (in red shirt), believes that by means of this learning process robots will ultimately develop a more flexible intelligence. It will also lead, he hopes, to a better understanding of the human brain. The DB project is funded by the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) Humanoid Project and led by independent researcher Mitsuo Kawato. Based at a research facility 30 miles outside of Kyoto, Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 51.
    Japan_JAP_rs_234_qxxs.jpg
  • By creating a simulacrum of the human eye, the DB project leader and biophysicist Mitsuo Kawato hopes to learn more about human vision. The DB project is funded by the Exploratory Research for Advanced Technology (ERATO) Humanoid Project and led by independent researcher Mitsuo Kawato. Based at a research facility 30 miles outside of Kyoto, Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 55.
    Japan_JAP_rs_227_qxxs.jpg
  • Shinkansen bullet trains in the train station in Tokyo, Japan.
    Japan_JAP_31_xs.jpg
  • Physics: Geneva, Switzerland. CERN: L-3 Experiment. A technician (K. Reismann) works inside the L3 detector at CERN, the European centre for particle physics near Geneva. The L-3 experiment is part of CERN's Large Electron- Positron Collider (LEP), inaugurated on 13 November 1989. L3 is one of 4 giant particle detectors at the LEP Collider. LEP collides electrons & positrons accelerated to an energy of 50 GeV in a circular tunnel 100m underground & 27km in circumference. L3 is a cylindrical assembly of many types of apparatus - hadron & electromagnetic calorimeters, drift chambers, & a time projection chamber - which fit together, like layers of an onion around the point where the particles collide. L3 is a collaboration of 460 physicists from institutions in 13 countries. Aachen Group. MODEL RELEASED [1988].
    SWI_SCI_PHY_05_xs.jpg
  • Rod Brooks gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
    Usa_sci_ir_9c_nxs.jpg
  • Cynthia Ferrell soldering at the M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab, Cambridge, MA. Robo sapiens Project.
    Usa_sci_ir_35_nxs.jpg
  • Maja Mataric works on her robot at the  M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab,  Cambridge, MA
    Usa_sci_ir_33_nxs.jpg
  • Ian Horswill and Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
    Usa_sci_ir_32_nxs.jpg
  • Chris Foley seen here with , Eddie, a wall climbing robot, M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab, Cambridge, MA
    Usa_sci_ir_26_nxs.jpg
  • "Squirt" is a robot that hides in the dark, M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab, Cambridge, MA
    Usa_sci_ir_25_nxs.jpg
  • Chris Foley seen here with, Herbert, a robot that picks up empty soda cans, Insect Robot Lab, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA
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  • Person gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction stands with his girlfriend, Jessica, at MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
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  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
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  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
    Usa_rszz_704_120_xs.jpg
  • Dan Paluska, the mechanical engineering grad student leading M2's hardware design and construction, is seen here in a double exposure that melds him with his machine for a photo illustration. The lower torso and extremity robot, called M2, took its first tentative steps last year here in the basement of MIT's Leg Laboratory. Established in 1980 by Marc Raibert, the Leg Lab was home to the first robots that mimicked human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Similar to image published on the cover of Wired Magazine, September 2000. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
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  • MODEL RELEASED. Entertainer android robot. View of Sarcos, an android (human-like) entertainment robot, playing seven-card-stud poker with a group of robot engineers. Sarcos was developed at SARCOS Research Corporation in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Robot surgery. Surgeon (lower left) performing minimally invasive surgery (MIS) on a patient's heart using da Vinci, a remotely-controlled robot surgeon (centre right). The surgeon views a three- dimensional image of the operation site in the black box at left. The robot arms are controlled using instruments under the box. An endoscopic view of the area from the robot is seen at upper right. Another surgeon is examining chest X-rays at upper left. The da Vinci system allows precise control of surgical tools through an incision just 1cm wide, with greater control than manual MIS procedures. Da Vinci was designed by Intuitive Surgical Incorporated, based in California, USA.
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  • Cynthia Ferrell (Breazeal) seemingly gives life to the robot Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA USA.
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  • Kismet is a complex autonomous robot developed by Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, at the time of this image a doctoral studies student at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab under the direction of Rod Brooks. Breazeal's immediate goal for Kismet is to replicate and possibly recognize human emotional states as exhibited in facial expressions. Breazeal has located the most important variables in human facial expressions and has mechanically transferred these points of expression to a robotic face. Kismet's eyelids, eyebrows, ears, mouth, and lips are all able to move independently to generate different expressions of emotional states.
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  • For a photo-illustration, graduate student Josh Davis (underwater, in a wet-suit) helps the RoboPike breach out of the water in order to show how well the robotic fish might be able to swim one day. The idea for the image of the RoboPike breaching came from the head of Ocean Engineering, Professor Triantafyllou, whose dream it is for a robotic fish to swim well enough to be able to jump out of the water Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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  • Shelves stacked with My Real Baby in the development labs at the Somerville, Massachusetts firm iRobot. The doll is a collaboration between iRobot and toy giant Hasbro. My Real Baby has a complex innerworkings benteath its soft skin including gears, servos, and an 8-bit processor, all to give the robotic doll a host of expressions and movement.
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  • Robot baby doll. Robot baby doll with part of its "skin" removed to show its inner workings. This toy, known as BIT (Baby IT), is a prototype of the My Real Baby interactive baby doll developed by IRobot Corporation and Hasbro Corporation. The BIT doll mimics the facial expression of a human baby by changing the contours on its lifelike rubber face. The BIT baby doll was developed by IS Robotics, Somerville, Massachusetts, USA. 
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  • Professor Robert J. Full's Poly-PEDAL Lab at UC Berkeley has been working with roboticists for years, supplying them with information on small animal locomotion that is used to conStruct innovative robots. Recently, the Lab has been working with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), testing and evaluating artificial muscles. Dr. Kenneth Meijer (from Holland) compares and measures a Stanford Artificial Muscle with a natural one from the leg of the Death Head Cockroach. After cooling the cockroach and exposing leg extensor muscle number 179, an electrode is suctioned into the muscle to simulate the nerve-to-muscle connection. Published in Stern Magazine, February 11th, 2000.
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  • In Palo Alto, CA Gavin Miller and his wife Nancy test his robotic snake in the driveway of their home. Miller builds the snakes in his garage.
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  • Professor Ron Fearing and his students at the University of California at Berkeley are using Dickinson's information to build a micromechanical fly. In the photo a 30% larger than final size scale mockup of the Micromechanical Flying Insect (MFI) is compared with its inspiration, the blow fly Calliphora erythrocephala. Researchers expect the stainless steel MFI to be flying in the lab by 2003. The main problem to be overcome in such a small device is an adequate power supply.
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  • Flames shoot from the jaws of Robosaurus, the human-piloted car-crushing entertainment robot. Robosaurus stands 12 meters high (36 feet), weighs 26 tons and its jaws have a crushing force of nine tons. It uses this force to crush and tear cars to bits for entertainment. Robosaurus was created by American inventor Doug Malewicki. Generally machines are considered robots if they are at least semi-autonomous or remotely controlled. Robosaurus is not. Nevada, USA
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  • To study the flight control behavior of fruit flies, a tiny fly is glued to a probe positioned in an electronic arena of hundreds of flashing LEDs that can also measure its wing motion and flight forces. By altering its wing motion, the fly itself can change the display of the moving electronic panorama, tricking the fly into "thinking" it is really flying through the air. The amplified humming of the fruit fly as it buzzes through its imaginary flight surrounded by computers in the darkened lab is quite bizarre. UC Berkeley, CA, USA.
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  • To study the flight control behavior of fruit flies, Dickinson and his researchers have come up with something even more bizarre than RoboFly. They have built a virtual reality flight simulator for fruit flies in an upstairs lab. A tiny fly is glued to a probe positioned in an electronic arena of hundreds of flashing LEDs that can also measure its wing motion and flight forces. By altering its wing motion, the fly itself can change the display of the moving electronic panorama, tricking the fly into "thinking" it is really flying through the air. The amplified humming of the fruit fly as it buzzes through its imaginary flight surrounded by computers in the darkened lab is quite bizarre.
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  • Michael Dickinson of the University of California at Berkeley's email address is revealing: FlymanD. Dickinson is a biologist specializing in the study of the aerodynamics of flapping flight. His studies of fruit fly flight are fascinating. In one small room sits a Plexiglas tank filled with two metric tons of mineral oil. Suspended in the oil are giant mechanical models of fruit fly wings: RoboFly.  RoboFly enables Dickinson to study similar forces when the giant wings are flapping in oil. Thousands of tiny bubbles that act as visual tracers are forced into the oil from an air compressor making all the swirling turbulence visible. The device has been used to identify the unusual aerodynamic mechanisms that insects use to fly and maneuver. UC Berkeley, CA, USA.
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  • David Barrett, who constructed the original RoboTuna at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, looks down at his creation, which now is displayed in an exhibit case at the Hart Nautical Museum at MIT, Cambridge, MA.
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  • In this photo-illustration, graduate student Josh Davis (underwater, in a wet-suit) helps the RoboPike breach out of the water in order to show how well the robotic fish might be able to swim one day. The idea for the image of the RoboPike breaching came from the head of Ocean Engineering, Professor Triantafyllou, whose dream it is for a robotic fish to swim well enough to be able to jump out of the water.
    Usa_rs_596_120_xs.jpg
  • A protoype of the iRobot, a multi-purpose, web-controllable home robot built by the iRobot company. Following in the footsteps of other home robots like Sony's Aibo, iRobot Corporation of Somerville, Massachusetts has included more advanced features in the iRobot such as programmability, wireless Internet connectivity, and higher mobility. The robot is intended to bring tele-presence into the home with its cameras, microphones, mobility, Internet connection, and control-ability.
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  • Graduate student Dan Paluska adjusts mechanisms of the lower torso and extremity robot, called M2. The robot is funded by a DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) program called Tactile Mobile Robotics. DARPA's goal is to replace soldiers and rescue workers in dangerous situations. MIT Leg Lab, Cambridge, MA.
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  • Researcher John Kumph monitors the free-swimming robot pike he has designed. The robot is used in research into the swimming efficiency of fish. The robot is powered by motors, which pull on its skeleton, producing a realistic swimming stroke. It is steered by its fins. A human operator using a radio controls the battery-powered robot. Photographed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA,  USA.
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  • U.C. Berkeley graduate student Eric Paulos describes his Personal Roving Presence (PRoP) as "a simple, inexpensive, Internet-controlled, untethered tele-robot that strives to provide the sensation of tele-embodiment in a remote real space." In other words, Paulos is trying to build a kind of avatar people could dispatch it to distant places to represent themselves in, say, business meetings. California, USA
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  • Ringed by six-foot sheets of bulletproof glass and a sellout crowd, radio-controlled gladiators battle to the mechanical death. At Robot Wars, a two-day-long competition in San Francisco, the crowd roars to the near-constant shriek of metal, the crash of flying parts, and the thunderous beat of techno music. After a series of one-on-one matches, losers and winners alike duke it out in a final death-match called a Melee. California, USA
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  • Here COG,(short for cognitive) is seen using a slinky toy. Cog's designer is Rodney Brooks, head of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, in Cambridge, Mass. Although some might be discouraged by the disparity between the enormous amount of thought and labor that went into it and the apparently meager results (simulating the intelligence of a six month old baby), Brooks draws a different conclusion. That so much is required to come close to simulating a baby's mind, he believes, only shows the fantastic complexity inherent in the task of producing an artificially intelligent humanoid robot. Robo sapiens page 59
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  • Burying his face in a 3-D viewing system, Volkmar Falk of the Leipzig Herzzentrum (Germany's most important cardiac center) explores the chest cavity of a cadaver with the da Vinci robotic surgical system. Thomas Krummel (standing), chief of surgery at Stanford University's teaching hospital, observes the procedure on a monitor displaying images from a pair of tiny cameras in one of the three "ports" Falk has cut into the cadaver. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 176.
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  • Little Man, created at AVG, an animatronics company founded by Alvaro Villa in Los Angeles, California. This animatronic figure is seen here wearing a baseball cap and sneakers. Little Man "represents" the company at trade shows, as well as tirelessly delivers a humorous prerecorded spiel that is synchronized with a video on a screen behind it.
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  • Little Man's legs and feet, created at AVG, an animatronics company founded by Alvaro Villa in Los Angeles, California. This animatronic figure wears a baseball cap and sneakers. Little Man "represents" the company at trade shows, as well as tirelessly delivers a humorous prerecorded spiel that is synchronized with a video on a screen behind it.
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  • Robonaut, with an acrylic head, holds a drill with socket attachment at the Johnson Space Center, Houston. That NASA's teleoperated humanoid-type robot, called Robonaut, has no legs is by design, because in space, says project leader Robert Ambrose, an astronaut's legs can be a big impediment to fulfilling the mission of a spacewalk. The latest version of Robonaut has two arms, a Kevlar and nylon suit, updated stereo eyes, and is getting heat sensing capability. Possibly the most significant change is the move from total teleoperation to some level of autonomy.
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  • Ariel the crab-robot moves with a slow, steady, sideways gait. A machine with a serious purpose, it is designed to scuttle from the shore through the surf to search for mines on the ocean floor. Ariel was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and built by iRobot, a company founded by MIT robot guru Rodney Brooks. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Dr. Paul MacCready, inventor and chairman of AeroVironment Inc., Simi Valley, California, with members of his staff in one of the company's cramped workrooms. Wing sections of the Centurion project aircraft hang from the ceiling. They are raised to save space when not being worked on. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Walking robot. Blur-flash image of Pinky, a walking robot prototype, being physically supported by researcher Dan Paluska at the Leg Lab. at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Pinky is a next generation walking robot that, unlike previous generations, can walk untethered and unsupported at normal human pace. Pinky was built to help understand the dynamics of the human stride. Photographed in Cambridge, USA
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  • Dr. Paul MacCready, inventor and chairman of AeroVironment Inc. holds a see-through model of Black Widow: an MAV (Micro Air Vehicle) developed by AeroVironment for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). MacCready and his team of designers and engineers were able to accomplish the government's objective for an MAV. The Black Widow would likely serve surveillance purposes for the military, but there are other applications as well such as air quality testing and police assistance. Robo sapiens Project.
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