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  • Roboticist Rodney Brooks of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory shares a slinky moment with his creation, Cog (short for cognitive), the robot he has been developing since 1993. Brooks is less concerned with making it mobile than with creating a system that will let the robot reliably tell the difference between static and social objects; for instance a rock and a person. In the resolution of such apparently simple distinctions, Brooks suggests, is a key to understanding at least one type of human learning. Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 62-63.
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  • Although MIT roboticist Rodney Brooks has worked in robotics since the late 1970s, he first attracted widespread attention when he began building robot insects, in the 1980s. (He was one of the subjects of Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, a documentary film.) From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 61.
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  • In a Kafkaesque scenario, an anesthetized female cockroach is pinned on its back in a petri dish coated with a rubbery goo. Guiding himself by peering through a microscope, James T. Watson, a staff researcher in Roy Ritzmann's lab at Case Western Reserve University, inserts the wires from thin pink electrodes into one of the insect's leg muscles. The electrodes will be used to take measurements of the insect's leg muscles when it moves-information that will be used by roboticist Roger Quinn in his roach-robot projects. Cleveland, OH. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 104.
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  • 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.
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  • As Mark Tilden's Spyder 1.0 approaches like a tiny but menacing arachnid, its circuits try to optimize actions, walking in this case, with minimal energy. Perturbed by the environment, its patented "nervous net" seeks the minimum state, its legs moving almost randomly until it succeeds. In 1990, Spyder 1.0 was the first walking robot to use Tilden's nervous net control system. When Tilden first achieved such complex behavior from such minimal components, the results astonished some roboticists. Los Alamos, NM. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 118-119.
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  • Industrial-robot designer Norio Kodaira of Mitsubishi smiles proudly behind his Melfa EN, a robot arm that moves with incredible speed and dexterity to assemble pieces, drill holes, make chips, or just about any repetitive task that needs to be done quickly and precisely. Like many Japanese roboticists, Kodaira was inspired as a child by Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), a popular Japanese cartoon about a futuristic robot boy who helps human beings (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 196.
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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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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • Looking at Cog's still unfinished head, MIT neuroscientist Brian Scassellati ponders where he should mount the microphones that will enable the robot to hear. As important as controlling how the robot responds to people, he believes, is having some control over how people respond to the robot. The project does not have the resources to create a mock human being. MIT, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 65.
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  • Designed to run freely on its own, untethered to any external wires, Troody is modeled after Troodon formosus, a carniverous dinosaur that was reputedly the most intelligent creature in the late Cretaceous era. Troody's designer, MIT Leg Lab staff researcher Peter Dilworth, wants to put such prehistoric creatures in museums. The idea has been embraced by Gregory S. Paul, a prominent paleontologist. This portrait was taken at the university boat dock on the Charles River in Cambridge, MA, Troody lapsed into immobility. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 115.
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  • "Squirt" is a robot that hides in the dark, M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab, Cambridge, MA
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  • 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
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  • Good-naturedly donning fishy swim goggles for the camera, Yuuzi Terada, an engineer at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, stands at company headquarters with a pair of the sleek robot fish he constructs. Gray's Paradox asks the question why fish, with their slim muscles and small fins, can accelerate so quickly. Researchers have long hoped that unraveling Gray's Paradox will allow them to build safer, faster nautical propulsion systems. The dream is shared by Terada and other researchers at Mitsubishi, who have long thought that fish fins might serve as a model for a new kind of propeller that would make underwater vehicles faster, more stable, and more maneuverable. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 106-107.
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  • Rod Brooks gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
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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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  • 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.
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  • A founder of artificial-intelligence research, Marvin Minsky of MIT now believes the field has taken a wrong turn. Rather than trying to build costly, clumsy physical robots, he says, researchers should concentrate their efforts entirely on computer simulations-that's the key to unraveling the nature of intelligence. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Pinky (chaperoned by graduate student Dan Paluska) is the prototype of the next walking robot from the MIT Leg Lab in Cambridge, MA. 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. Famously, Raibert even built a robot that could flip itself in an aerial somersault and land on its feet. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 182.
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  • 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.
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  • Intended to provide 360-degree images of its surroundings, Omniclops, the robot "omnicamera," is being developed by Hagen Schempf (holding Omniclops) of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. Schempf is now with the Robotics Engineering Consortium in Pittsburgh, PA. Founded in 1994 with seed money from NASA, the consortium is located off the Carnegie Mellon campus and operates with great autonomy in this enormous facility. Behind Schempf on the main floor are autonomous forklifts; out of sight, other rooms are chockablock with robotic harvesters and mine diggers. The forklift, which can understand commands like "unload the truck in bay 4," should be deployed in Ford factories by the end of 2000. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 144.
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  • Showing off its dexterity, DB slowly juggles three small round beanbags under the alert supervision of researcher Tomohiro Shibata. 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, Kowato began work by adapting a robot designed by SARCOS, a Utah robotics company. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 52-53.
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  • 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.
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  • Cynthia Ferrell soldering at the M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab, Cambridge, MA. 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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.
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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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  • 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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  • Joseph Ayers, head of Northeastern University's Marine Research Laboratory, has been researching lobster locomotion for more than twenty years. Based on Ayers's studies, staff researcher Jan Witting is building a robotic lobster that will capture in detail the behavior of a real lobster. The project has enough potential for sweeping mines that it is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Nahant, Massachusettes. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 110-111.
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  • Deep in the basement of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, Omead Amidi adjusts the wing of the robot helicopter he is designing with Takeo Kanade, a Carnegie Mellon researcher who specializes in robotic vision. Several smaller versions of the project sit in his workshop. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 160-161.
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  • AeroVironment engineers (left to right) Marty Spadaro, Paul Trist Jr., Tom DeMarino, and Carlos Miralles cluster around the working prototype of the Mars glider, Otto. NASA sees an airplane as an important tool for exploring Mars early in the 21st century, and AeroVironment is seeking the honor of building the plane. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 158 top.
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  • Leaning over the glass-topped workbench in the spare bedroom of his Los Alamos, NM condominium, where he builds most of his robot creatures, Mark Tilden shines a flashlight on what will become the head of Nito 1.0. Many of the components scattered over his desk are simple, cheap, and (by contemporary standards) primitive; many are ripped from junked tape decks, cameras, and VCRs. Nito will be Tilden's most ambitious creation yet. (The name stands for "Neural Implementation of a Torso Organism.") When complete, he says, this easily built machine should interact in a simianlike fashion in its world. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 121..
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  • The H7 robot walks without a safety harness at the Inoue-Inaba Robotics Lab. A joystick operating student, seated at right maneuvers the robot. Research Associate Satoshi Kagami (wearing a suit in the photo) walks with the robot, armed with its "kill switch" in case the robot malfunctions. Its predecessor, H6 hangs at left, near another student who is ready to step in, in the event that the robot falls. The researchers are fairly relaxed during the demonstration compared to those in other labs. University of Tokyo, Japan.
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  • 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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  • 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. Photographed at the Department of Ocean Engineering Testing Tank Facility at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The idea for the image of the RoboPike breaching came from Professor Triantafyllou, whose dream it is for a robotic fish to swim well enough to be able to jump out of the water. Published in Smithsonian Magazine, August 2000 issue, page 55.
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  • 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.
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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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  • A "smart" pallet that can move in any direction, OmniMate was designed by Johann Borenstein, a research scientists at the University of Michigan. Like the HelpMate hospital delivery robot, OmniMate sits on robotic platforms called LabMates. Although earlier robot pallets had to move along cables buried in the floor, OmniMate can track its own location by measuring its movements precisely. Borenstein is in the process of putting his robot on the market. At the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 189.
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  • Holding what will become a robot leg, Stanford graduate student Jonathan Clark demonstrates the structure's resilience. Using shape deposition molds like the one below Clark's hand, Cutkosky and his students are now embedding electronic parts into molded plastic to create structures with the flexibility of living tissue. Stanford, CA.  From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 99 bottom.
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  • Utilizing the research results of University of California biologist Robert Full, Martin Buehler of McGill University and Daniel E. Koditschek of the University of Michigan seized upon when they created RHex (controlled by graduate student Uluç Saranli). Tested in a laboratory (at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor) dominated by an antique poster for Isaac Asimov's book, I, Robot, RHex could become a "companion robot," Buehler says, following its owner around like a friendly mechanical shadow. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 97.
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  • Alvaro Villa translated his boyhood love of electronics into AVG, an animatronics company he founded in the Los Angeles, California, area. Today he takes great pleasure in showing off animatronic figures like the Crypt Keeper or Little Man, the hip figure (with Villa) that "represents" the company at trade shows. Wearing a baseball cap and sneakers, it tirelessly delivers a humorous prerecorded spiel that is synchronized with a video on a screen behind it. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 208.
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  • In 1980, Marc Raibert established the MIT Leg Lab, home to the first robots that dynamically mimic human walking; swinging like an inverted pendulum from step to step. Famously, Raibert even built a robot that could flip itself in an aerial somersault and land on its feet. In 1993, he left the field to found Boston Dynamics Inc., in Cambridge, MA, which translates his discoveries about humans and animals in motion, into animation. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 142-143.
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  • Radio-controlled outdoor mobile platforms, Micro ATRV and ATRV-2, are produced by Real World Interface, part of iRobot of Somerville, MA. (ATRV stands for All-Terrain Robot Vehicle.) Their main purpose: to carry equipment in and out of areas difficult for human beings to navigate. Looking at the liquid-crystal display for the Micro ATRV, a Real World staffer directs it toward its larger cousin. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, pages 142-143.
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  • Not long before going to Antarctica, William L. "Red" Whittaker took a rare moment off from his busy schedule to accompany Nomad, his meteorite-hunting robot, on a practice run. The robot spent Antarctica's summer of 2000 on the ice, hunting for meteorites. With its onboard instruments, Nomad found and classified five. It was the first time that a machine autonomously made a scientific discovery. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 138-139.
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  • Student Yousuke Kato points to a female face robot created at the Science University of Tokyo, Japan, Fumio Hara Robotics Lab. The female face robot (secondgeneration) has shape-memory electric actuators that move beneath the robots' silicon skin to change the face into different facial expressions much as muscles do in the human face. The research robot undergoes a metamorphosis with each class of students assigned to work on it. The latest iteration allows the robot's face to mold into six different expressions: happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, and surprise. In some images, the computer monitor displays a graphical representation of the software creating the expression on the robot.
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  • Posing for a portrait at the Osaka  (Japan) University Department of Computer-Controlled Mechanical Systems, Junji Furusho (seated) and research associate Masamichi Sakaguchi show off Strut, their child-sized humanoid robot. At the time, the robot, a work in progress, could not walk at all?it could only stand. (It walked sometime later.) But simply getting the robot to stand properly was a major accomplishment. Like a human being, Strut has such complex, interreacting mechanical "musculature" that considerable processing power is needed simply to keep it erect. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 49.
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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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  • AeroVironment engineer Matt Keennon repairs an Ornothopter; a balsa wood model that flies by flapping its four wings with energy generated from the untwisting of a twisted rubber band. In the background hang a few of the numerous models found in the company's design center. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • UC Berkeley graduate student Eric Paulos calibrates his Personal Roving Presence (PRoP), which he describes as "a simple, inexpensive, Internet-controlled, untethered tele-robot that strives to provide the sensation of tele-embodiment in a remote real space." Berkeley, CA . From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 168.
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  • Working behind a plastic shroud that keeps dust out, NASA engineer Art Thompson of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, works with an early mock-up of what is called Nanorover, a lunchbox-sized space vehicle that will touch down on and explore a one-kilometer-wide asteroid. The small near-Earth asteroid 4660 Nereus is the target of a Japanese space mission that will launch in 2002. When its payload is full, it will return to the Japanese spaceship, which will in turn come back to Earth in 2006. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 127.
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  • Known as the founder of modern industrial robotics, 74-year-old Joseph Engelberger hitches a ride around his workplace on LabMate. A now-standard platform that companies use for a variety of autonomous robots, LabMate is manufactured by HelpMate, the Danbury, CT company Engelberger founded in 1984. (He sold the company in 1999 to Pyxis, a subsidiary of Cardinal Health, a health-maintenance organization in Ohio, but remains there as a consultant.) Engelberger's interest in robotics dates back to his days as a physics and engineering student. In the 1960s he founded Unimation, the first company that made large robots for automobile factories. Recently Engelberger has devoted more of his energies to making robots that can move about and interact with people, the focus of HelpMate. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 187.
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  • By flexing his data-gloved hand, robotics specialist Fredrik L. Rehnmark controls the NASA robonaut as it reaches for a battery-operated power drill on a test platform. Black goggles on Rehnmark's head give him the view from the twin digital cameras mounted in the robot's shiny carapace. Next to Rehnmark, engineer Hal A. Aldridge tracks the robot's test results. In a cavernous adjacent room in the Johnson Space Center  in Texas is a life-sized mock-up of the robonaut's future home: the NASA space shuttle. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 132-133.
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  • Reviewing the results of her work, Carnegie Mellon computer scientist Manuela Veloso (kneeling) watches the university soccer-robot team chase after the ball on a field on the floor of her lab. Every year, the Carnegie Mellon squad plays against other soccer-robot teams from around the world in an international competition known as RoboCup. Veloso's team, CMUnited, is highly regarded. Flanked by research engineer Sorin Achim, postdoctoral fellow Peter Stone, and graduate research assistant Michael Bowling (right to left), Veloso is running through the current year's strategy a month before the world championships in Stockholm. CMU's AIBO team members are Scott Lenser, Elly Winner, and James Bruce. Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 214.
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  • 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). Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 39.
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  • Maja Mataric works on her robot at the  M.I.T., Insect Robot 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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  • In a simulated bedroom complete with stuffed animals, tossed bedclothes, and a sleeping dummy victim, Robin R. Murphy of the University of South Florida keeps tabs on her marsupial robot; or, rather, robots. Developed to help search-and-rescue teams, the robots will work as a team. The larger "mother" is designed to roll into a disaster site. When it can go no farther, several "daughter" robots will emerge, marsupial fashion, from a cavity in its chest. The daughter robots will crawl on highly mobile tracks to look for survivors, feeding the mother robot images of what they see. Although the project is funded by the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Murphy's budget is hardly overwhelming. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 154-155.
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  • Being carried along the edge of a reservoir outside Boston, MA by iRobot technician Ed Williams, Ariel the crab-robot is able to move 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. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 101.
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  • 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.
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  • Metallic flakes wafting from his hand, Kris Pister of the University of California at Berkeley demonstrates one possible offshoot of robotics research: Smart Dust. Miniature machines, each the size of a dust mite, may eventually saturate the environment, invisibly performing countless tasks. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 26-27.
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  • MK 5, a compact robot that can walk dynamically, was designed by researcher Takayuki Furuta. At the Kitano Symbiotic Systems, Tokyo, Japan.
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  • 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.
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  • Chris Foley seen here with , Eddie, a wall climbing robot, M.I.T., Insect Robot Lab, Cambridge, MA
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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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  • 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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  • 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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  • Pattie Maes (and grad student Cecil). Maes is photographed with "ALIVE," a real-time virtual reality system.  She captioned the photo:  "A novel system developed at the MIT Media Lab makes it possible for a person to interact with artificial creatures such as this dog using natural gestures."
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  • A pioneer in aviation, Paul MacCready designed the first human-powered airplane, the first piloted, solar-powered airplane, the first life-size flying replica of a giant pterodactyl, and a pioneering solar-electric car. MacCready's firm, AeroVironment, is at work on the Black Widow (transparent model prototype in MacCready's hand), a remotely controlled plane capable of flying 40 mph for up to 20 minutes. Zipping along at treetop level, the 15-cm-long, 58-gram Black Widow could spot details missed by even the sharpest satellite cameras. AeroVironment  , Simi Valley, California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 158 top.
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  • Wedged into her small, cluttered workspace in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, MA., researcher Cynthia Breazeal holds a mirror to Kismet, the robot head she has been working on for two years. The cameras behind Kismet's big blue eyes send data to its computer, which has software allowing the robot to detect people and bright toys visually. In addition, the software recognizes people by vocal affect. Then, following its programming, it reacts, twisting its features in a comically exaggerated display of emotion. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 66.
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  • At the time, the robot Strut, a work in progress, could not walk at all, it could only stand. (It walked sometime later.) But simply getting the robot to stand properly was a major accomplishment. Like a human being, Strut has such complex, interreacting mechanical "musculature" that considerable processing power is needed simply to keep it erect. Osaka (Japan) University Department of Computer-Controlled Mechanical Systems, built by Junji Furusho and research associate Masamichi Sakaguchi. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 48.
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  • Colin Angle gives life to Genghis at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
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  • Cambridge, Massachusetts United States.Gehghis in "Playpen" at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robo sapiens Project.
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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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  • 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.
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  • Kismet is a complex autonomous, stationary 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. Kismet's eyelids, eyebrows, ears, mouth, and lips are all able to move independently to generate different expressions of emotional states. In this photograph, Cynthia poses with Kismet and "King Louie", a toy often used to stimulate the robot.
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  • Robotic autonomous-control technology will become more and more useful to the disabled in the future, as Hugh Herr can testify. A double amputee, MIT Leg Lab researcher Herr is developing a robotic knee. Standard prosthetic joints cannot sense the forces acting on a human leg. But a robotic knee can sense and react to its environment, allowing amputees to walk through snow or on steep slopes now impassable for them. Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 181.
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  • 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.
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  • Under the control of NASA engineers (from left) Eric Baumgartner, Hrand Aghazarian, and Terry Huntsberger, the Mars Rover robot slowly carries its small payload of rock debris and dirt up the ramp to its mother ship. The rover was scheduled to be sent to Mars on two missions, in 2003 and 2005. Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 126.
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  • 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.
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  • 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.
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  • Case Western research biologist James Watson nudges a cockroach onto an insect-sized treadmill, intending to measure the actions of its leg muscles with minute electrodes. To ensure that the roach runs on its course, Watson coaxes it onward with a pair of big tweezers. In the experiment, the electrode readings from the insect's leg are matched to its movements, recorded by a high-speed video camera. Cleveland, OH. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 105.
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  • Hunched over a treadmill designed for arthropods, biologist Robert Full tests an Arizona centipede in his laboratory at UC Berkeley (California). Even though the centipede has forty legs, it runs much like an ordinary six-legged insect. Just as insects move on two alternating sets of three legs (two on one side, one on the other), the centipede gathers its legs into three alternating groups, with the tips of the feet in each group bunched together. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 94 top.
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  • Just below the surface of a reservoir outside Boston, MA,  robot Ariel, built by the Massachusetts firm iRobot, walks sideways like the crab it is patterned on. 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. Inspired by research on crabs at Robert Full's lab at Berkeley, Ariel takes advantage of the animal's stability and improves on it. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 84-85.
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  • Musing over the possible hierarchy of humans and humanoids, Takeo Kanade, the director of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA and an expert in vision systems, posits, "We are facing the fact that we may not be, any longer, the single entity that does a better job in all aspects. How we as human beings will react to it, I don't know. But we are surpassed by many artificial things already. We don't mind that we have turned computing numbers over to machines; humans are not afraid of that at all." From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 23.
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  • 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 (seated at left), to celebrity status. 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 (standing with arms crossed) 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.
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  • Looking into the eyes of Jack the robot, Gordon Cheng tests its response to the touch of his hand. Researchers at the Electrotechnical Lab at Tsukuba, an hour away from Tokyo, Japan, are part of a project funded by the Japanese Science and Technology Agency to develop a humanoid robot as a research vehicle into complex human interactions. With the nation's population rapidly aging, the Japanese government is increasingly funding efforts to create robots that will help the elderly. Project leader Yasuo Kuniyoshi wants to create robots that are friendly and quite literally soft, the machinery will be sheathed in thick padding. In contrast to a more traditional approach, Kuniyoshi wants to program his robot to make it learn by analyzing and fully exploiting its natural constraints. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 56-57.
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  • Anita Flynn with "Gnat" at the M.I.T. Insect Robot Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
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  • Intended for surveillance, Urbie is a low-profile, remotely operated machine that crawls over obstacles on bulldozer-like tracks, beaming images of what it sees to its operators. The robot is intended to be exceptionally durable, capable of flipping over and surviving shocks that would destroy most other robots. In a simulated rapid-deployment mission from the comfort of a car, iRobot researcher Tom Frost guides Urbie up a flight of steps in Somerville, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 147.
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  • Rodney Brooks of MIT (with the latest incarnation of Cog, his humanoid robot) believes it likely that robots can achieve humanlike intelligence and consciousness. But when that happens, he says, it will be unethical to have them work for us; we shouldn't treat our creations as our slaves. I think we're a long way from having to face it, but the landscape is going to be so unimaginable that it's hard to say sensible things." MIT, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 25.
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  • One of Rodney Brook's team's first subsumptive robots was the insectoid Attila (in photo from 1991), here being worked on by graduate student Cynthia Breazeal. The other pairs of hands belong to then-undergraduate student Mike Binnard, and former graduate student Colin Angle, who is now chief executive officer of the robotics firm iRobot. MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 60.
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  • On a test run on Telegraph Avenue, a busy retail street near the UC Berkeley campus, Paulos controls the ProP (Personal Roving Presence) from a short distance away, via a remote link. One amused man in a wheelchair even stops and asks it for a light. Berkeley graduate student Eric Paulos describes his (PRoP) as "a simple, inexpensive, Internet-controlled, untethered tele-robot that strives to provide the sensation of tele-embodiment in a remote real space." Berkeley, CA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 169.
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  • Dismissing the fears that robots will come to dominate their creators, Hans Moravec of Carnegie Mellon argues that humans will literally become robots, "uploading" their consciousness and memories into their computers. Photographed at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 33.
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  • Aerospace engineer Scott Newbern programs the flight computer in the Gryphon, one of the prototypes in the fleet of small robot jets under development at AeroVironment, a company founded in 1971 by inventor Paul MacCready. AeroVironment  , Simi Valley, California. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 156-157.
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  • Sidling along the edge of a reservoir outside Boston, MA., 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. Inspired by research on crabs at Robert Full's lab at Berkeley, Ariel takes advantage of the animal's stability and improves on it. But despite its abilities, the technician in charge of the machine, Ed Williams, supervises Ariel's excursions with great anxiety. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 100.
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  • In the water, pike can accelerate at a rate of eight to twelve g's, as fast as a NASA rocket. To scientists, the speed is inexplicable. In an attempt to understand how the flap of a thin fish tail can push a fish faster than any propeller, John Kumph, then an MIT graduate student, built a robotic version of a chain-pickerel?a species of pike?with a spring-wound fiberglass exoskeleton and a skin made of silicone rubber. Now under further development by iRobot, an MIT-linked company just outside Boston in Somerville, MA, the robo-fish can't yet swim nearly as fast as a real pike, suggesting how much remains to be learned. Photographed at the MIT tow tank, Cambridge, MA. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 108-109.
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  • Leaning back in his chair, graduate student Jerry Pratt controls Spring Flamingo, a walking robot at the MIT Leg Lab in Cambridge, MA. A branch of MIT's renowned Artificial Intelligence Lab, the Leg Lab is home to researchers whose subjects run the gamut from improved artificial legs to robots that help scientists understand the complex dynamics of the human stride. Tethered to a slightly counterweighted boom that rotates around a pivot, the robot always walks in a circle in the lab.From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 8-9..
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  • 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; a10 joint spine (each with 3 degrees of freedom); and fast-moving stereo vision that can track a flesh color 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.
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  • Sometimes described as the grand old man of Japanese robotics, Hirochika Inoue of the University of Tokyo is one of the directors of the nation's massive effort to develop a humanoid robot. Japan. From the book Robo sapiens: Evolution of a New Species, page 22.
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