all you need to know about robots

legged-walking robots

yambo III

one of the moving and task performing robots,the legged-walking type, which has high terrain adaptability,is yambo III. generally walking robots need so many degreesof freedom (DOF) that robots become heavy and its mechanismbecome more complicated. one of the effective solutions tothese problems is developing the robot with bipedal configuration.---

morph

3officials and researchers in japan, home to almost halfthe world's 756,000 industrial robots, hope a new robotindustry will give the stagnant economy a boost.japanese researchers want to advance the technologyby improving mobility or making robots more autonomous.morph 3, a 38-cm-tall humanoid robot, tries to standafter being laid on its back during an experiment at thechiba institute of technology in narashino, chiba prefecture.the project is a joint project between kitano symbiotic systemproject and leading edge design corp.athletic properties of the robot become the highest amongthe same size robots in the world.the robot appeared on the stage of robocup 2002 held infukuoka, japan.---

cyclopsis

an interactive human-shaped machine. the machine isequipped with a single camera eye and a spinal columnstructure. this work was developed for 'robot meme exhibition'at the national museum of innovative technology andemerging science, tokyo, in 2001. cyclops was shown inseptember 2002at ars electronica center in linz, austria as apart of its permanent exhibition.---

DB

an expert in brain science, kawato developed the DB,a humanoid robot that can imitate human action, based on hisknowledge that the cerebellum plays a key role in learningand memory. however, the robot has managed to learn only24 kinds of human action over three years.---

atom

japanese researchers are advocating a grand project,under which the government would spend 50 billionyen a year over three decades to develop a humanoidrobot with the mental, physical and emotional capacityof a 5-year-old human - the atom project.'most of today's robots operate with a program written byhumans. in order to develop a robot that can think andmove like a 5-year-old, we have to first understand themechanism of how human brains work,' mitsuo kawato,chief of the computational neuroscience laboratoriesat the kyoto-based advanced telecommunicationsresearch institute internationa said, admitting the difficultyof his project. 'that will be equal to understandinghuman beings.'tthe project was inspired by the popular robot animation series'tetsuwan atom' by the late cartoonist osamu tezuka(unlike cartoonist tezuka's 'atom' character, known as'astro boy' overseas, based on an image of a 9-year-oldboy, the atom project aims to create a humanoid robotwith the physical, intellectual and emotional capacity ofa 5-year-old that would be able to think and move on itsown). the researchers say it would help promote scientificand technological advances in japan, just like the u.s.apollo project, which not only succeeded in landing menon the moon but contributed to a broad range of technologicalbreakthroughs - a project of this magnitude would injectmuch-needed vigor into a nation depressed from years ofeconomic slump.

spider-like robots

comet III

was designed by chiba university professor kenzo nonami, andis part of a state-funded project to develop de-mining technologiesfor afghanistan. four metres long and weighing one tonne,the comet III walks on six sturdy metal legs.an additional limb in front is equipped with a metaldetector and radar to find mines, while a second sprayspaint on the ground to mark the spot.

snake-like robots

souryu

snake robots are also known as serpentine robots.as the name suggests, these robots possess multiple actuatedjoints thus mulitple degrees of freedom.this gives them superior ability to flex, reach, and approach ahuge volume in its workspace with infinte number of configurations.this redundance in configurations gives them the technical name:hyper redundant robots. ideally, the future snake design willconsist of three degree of freedom stages - roll, pitch, and extension.souryu or blue dragon, is a remote-controlled robot designed bytokyo institute of technology's professor shigeo hirose.the snake-like souryu crawls using six tracks, two on eachside of its three-part body. it is equipped with a cameraand microphone to search for victims, and can bend atthe joints or roll over on its side to maneuver through rubble.