This Kinect hack may well be the best yet: the Personal Robots Group at MIT have taken a battery-powered Kinect and grafted it on to an iRobot Create (the hackable platform from the makers of Roomba and PackRobot). The Kinect helps create a 3D map to help the robot navigate. They’re also planning on giving the Kinect iRobot the ability to identify humans using Kinect smarts. See after the break for the Kinect iRobot in action and more good Kinect robot news…
Tagged ‘irobot’
The iRobot Packbot is a military robot from the makers of the robot vacuum Roomba. It’s currently deployed in Afghanistan doing dirty and dangerous jobs that would previously needed human beings to put themselves in harm’s way. Electricpig got up close and personal with a Packbot at the iRobot Engineering Awesome event in New York and found out how and off-the-shelf Xbox 360 controller is part of a modern soldier’s tool kit…
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The latest robot vacuum cleaner from iRobot could soon become man’s best friend. Roomba is obedient, cleaning up whenever programmed to, has a glossy black coat, always finds his way back to his charging bay and in his 562 Pet Series edition, Roomba can clean up the hair shed by your other pets.
Designed with keeping human personnel out of danger in mind, iRobot have unveiled their latest device to tackle fragile situations with direct contact, but at more than an arms length away.
Introducing the worlds first gutter cleaning robot, removing debris high above your head and enabling the smooth flow of rain water around your abode, getting the job done whilst your feet are on terra-firma.
This should placate the paranoid who’ve bothered themselves with the notion that robots were taking over the world and that I, Robot was a docu-drama.
A grant has been given by the European Commission to the tune of £1m to the overjoyed (we imagine) recipients at Co-operative Human Robot Interaction Systems, based in the Bristol Robotics Lab, to see,whether or not a robot could be…..wait for it….used as an assistant in the kitchen to stir soup!
The iconic status of the Sonny NS-5 Android can’t be disputed, although ultimately defeated by Will Smith in their thousands they were obviously unaware of his previous credits in world saving matters. Read more