A Robot That Can Run 50 mph?

DARPA, in association with the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) and partner MIT’s Robot Locomotion Group, have just created a ground breaking robotic leg design while developing the robot, FastRunner.  FastRunner may be capable of reaching speeds as high as 50 mph based on the design.  The robot stands at 4 foot and 66 pounds and the leg design will make the bird more agile and capable of running on different types of terrain.  There is still a lot of work to be done before the bird can be deployed but designers are making significant strides, pun intended, with the FastRunner development and are very hopeful of success.

Opportunities for the FastRunner could be obviously used for the military theatre and natural disaster areas to recover victims as well as finding lost hikers in the vast wilderness.  What if the robot could carry other robots such as snakes which are already developed to swim through debris and inspect the inside of pipes.  These snakes could be teamed with FastRunner for search and rescue missions and deployed into areas where maneuvering is dangerous for humans.  Snakes would have their own cameras and could be called back remotely to the bird when their task was completed.

Imagine the possibilities for practical application.

FastRunner

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/this-is-what-darpas-robot-ostrich-will-look-like

http://www.gizmag.com/darpa-fastrunner-robotic-ostrich/20494/

State of Consciousness

Scientists have long debated what constitutes consciousness in people thought to be in persistent vegetative states (PVS).   Now, a cheap and mobile EEG device has been developed that has detected signs of consciousness in three people thought to be in PVS.   The device uses electrodes placed on the scalp to sense electrical activity in the brain.

Researchers tested the device out on 16 patients and out of those 16, three patients showed activity when given a command.  When told to wiggle their toes, activity showed in the region that controlled that action.  It clearly showed that they understood and could respond accordingly.

What a break-through in being able to communicate with patients and have them actively involved in their own therapies.   From there, a brain-computer interface might even give patients even greater ability to communicate skills via a computer with a brain controlled cursor.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-11/new-portable-eeg-method-can-detect-consciousness-those-thought-be-vegetative

Let Your Feet Keep You Talking

Who knew a brisk walk could extend the battery life of your Smartphone?

With the InStep NanoPower, you can get in shape and power your portable devices.  A special electricity-producing cushion positioned inside the soles of a pair of shoes can convert some footstep power into several watts of electricity.  

Throughout a single day, energy produced by walking around gets stored in a small battery in the sole and provides enough electricity for a pedestrian to extend their smartphone’s battery life, for a soldier to extend his portable power needs in the field, or for someone in a developing nation without electricity to power a night’s worth of LED home light use.

This sounds good but I wonder if your feet will ever get hot from the battery.  It could bring new meaning to "blazing a trail."

http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/footfalls-for-phone-calls

Standing Out in the Crowd

In the face of budget cuts throughout the government, many agencies are scrambling to become more efficient and innovative in their pursuit of solving problems.  The Air Force has an innovative strategy called “crowdsourcing” to find solutions to some of the biggest problems.  In this particular case, two winning solutions identified for the crowdsourcing challenges were “Vehicle Stopper” and “Humanitarian Air Drop”.  The solutions came from engineers in Peru, Indonesia and the Netherlands.  By going traditional ways to find solutions would have prevented such innovative ideas.

The Vehicle Stopper challenge was to identify ways to stop a fleeing vehicle without causing severe damage or injuring its occupants. The award winning solution came from Dante Barbis, a retired 66-year-old mechanical engineer from Lima, Peru, who suggested an electric, remote-controlled robotic vehicle capable of accelerating to 130 mph within three seconds to catch up to a fleeing vehicle, deploying an airbag underneath to lift the car off the ground, and then slowing to a stop.

The second challenge, Humanitarian Air Drop, needed a way to drop huge amounts of food and water packages from an aircraft without injuring anyone on the ground. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) ended up choosing two winners: Agung Nuswantoro, a self-employed engineer from Tangerang City in the Republic of Indonesia, and Siepko Bekkering, an engineer working for an international engineering consulting firm in the Netherlands.

Both engineers provided pieces to the problem which when combined were just what AFRL was looking for.

Way to think differently!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44994706/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/air-force-innovation-prizes-make-cents-budget-era/

Monkey See, Monkey Do...

It never ceases to amaze me at the scientific innovations being created which will improve or enhance our existence.  Recent breakthroughs in brain-machine interface technology have made it possible for monkeys as well as some humans the ability to control prosthetic limbs with their thoughts.  Subjects are implanted with microwire arrays in the motor cortex.  Not only does the brain control the movement of the limbs, but bidirectional signals allow touch feedback and pressure sensitivity.   During the Duke University research, monkeys were trained through the use of a virtual “avatar” to identify object textures on a screen and were rewarded for proper responses.

What next? 

The combination of brain-machine interface and touch sensory is the next step in aiding wounded veterans and people with restricted movement to have better life experiences.  Future advancements in microwire arrays simulating the motor cortex worn externally to the brain, would potentially make the technology ideal for many other uses.

Courtesy of Duke University

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/38792/?mod=chfeatured

New, Inexpensive and Long-Lasting Battery Technologies for the Grid and Beyond

The growing demand for energy and the movement towards green and sustainable energies has spawned research into new battery technologies for energy storage that will be more cost effective and environmentally friendly.  Some of the new technologies tout low fabrication costs, scalability and longer lasting battery life.  I selected two articles which represent two different but interesting solutions.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110929074021.htm

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/38689/?p1=A4

One such solution was from the September 28, 2011 posting on Technology Review titled “New Battery Could Be Just What the Grid Ordered” using sodium and manganese based technology and the other solution came from the September 29, 2011 posting on ScienceDaily titled “World’s First Energy-Stored Membrane Devised” using a synthetic polymer membrane.

Surprisingly both solutions are responding to the same issue---cost effective and environmentally friendly energy storage capabilities for the power grid revolutionizing energy storage.   Applications these batteries could be used for include: hybrid vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and storage of excess energy produced by power plants.  Other applications using the membrane might be for use with dynamic prosthetic limbs, other medical devices and beyond.

Polymer membrane                                                                      

Scalable Sodium Ion

Internet Traffic Cops Battle Seriously Clogged Web

The following article was published on July 18, 2011 by Yang-Yi Goh, an InnovationNewsDaily Contributor.  The entire write-up can be viewed at:
http://www.innovationnewsdaily.com/internet-traffic-cops-clogged-web-2126/

Princeton researchers are working to ensure the Internet does not grind to a halt.  Everyday entertainment and software companies are adding more and larger content to the World Wide Web such as Netflix’s streaming videos and the growth of Google’s and Office360’s networks, just to name a few.  While consumption is ever increasing, the infrastructure has not kept up with the growth.  Princeton’s Chiang has led a team to research and solve the data flow issue. 

Chiang’s team partnered with AT&T to strategize and implement a solution.  Rather than throwing more servers and hardware into the mix which would just be a temporary solution, Chiang’s team created an application called TUBE (Time-dependent Usage-based Broadband price Engineering) which will alert customers on their current usage and pricing.   Just like with today’s mobile devices that use peak and off-peak pricing plans, customers would be cognizant of their usage and could better determine if their actions during peak times were worth the high cost or do they want to save money by using off-peak hours.  This would be a win-win respectively for both the customer and the provider through cost reduction and higher profits.

The outcome was a great success in the clinical trial and a disaster was averted.  Creative thinking, collaboration and a simple mobile application enabled a better business solution.