“The Hybrid Insect Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems project aims to create literal shutterbugs — camera-toting insects whose nerves have grown into their internal silicon chip so that wranglers can control their activities. DARPA researchers are also raising cyborg beetles with power for various instruments to be generated by their muscles.”

Source: Washington Post

1. iRobot Corp. of Burlington
   Maker of Packbot; $56,000 to $120,000 per unit
2. Foster-Miller Inc., Waltham
   Talon robots.
3. Black-I Robotics Inc., Tyngsborough
4. LandShark $25,000 per unit
5. Hydroid LLC, Bourne
   Hydroid submarine robots
6. Bluefin Robotics Corp., Cambridge
   Nautical robots
7. Caliper Life Sciences Inc., Hopkinton
   Robotic equipment for pharmaceutical drug testing

Current markets: military; manufacturing automation;  low cost cleaning devices

Future markets:  automobile

Source: Boston Globe

The 2007 Darpa Urban Challenge results are in. Eleven teams entered the competition with only 6 completing the race. Each robotic car had to “think like human drivers and continually make split-second decisions to avoid moving vehicles, including robotic vehicles without drivers, and operate safely on the course. The urban setting add[ed] considerable complexity to the challenge faced by the robotic vehicles, and replicat[ed] the environments where many of today’s military missions are conducted.”

Unfortunately, they find Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics,” while “elegant in their simplicity ……serve no useful practical purpose beyond their fictional roots,” and therefore must begin from scratch the discussion of utilizing autonomous robotic system architecture on the battlefield in a lethal but ethical manner that complies with the International Laws of War.

Source: Mobile Robot Laboratory, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology

Release the new IRobot Looj at one end of the gutter and it burrows its way through leaves and other debris, knocking it out and to the ground. Sounds like and interesting, practical device for an annoying task.

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