Robot innovation continued its relentless advances during 2008. In this post we would like to showcase some of our favorite robots and robot videos of the last year or so. This review is heavily slanted to consumer robots and research robots. Perhaps in the future we can do a review of industrial robots. Given the sheer number of robots that are out there we know there will be several excellent robots that we have overlooked in this review. If you know of any really awesome robots or robot videos that we have missed please let us know and we will consider adding them to this post. So without further delay, lets take a look at some of the best robots and robot videos of 2008 (maybe some are from 2007 too), broken down by category:
Soccer:
Check out this impressive video of the 12th Kondo Cup Robotic Soccer competition:
Humanoid:
Earlier we reviewed the nao robot from Aldebaran Robotics here at the hub and this robot is just totally awesome. The nao robot is the official robot for this year’s robocup in China:
The I-Sobot is an incredible humanoid robot. This is one of the smallest bipedal robots out there, with a height of only 6.5 inches and a weight of only 12 ounces. The I-Sobot is the winner of the Japan Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) “Robot of 2008″ award. Most amazing is that this robot costs less than $300. Such sophistication in a consumer robot at such a low price speaks volumes about the progress being made in robotics. The I-Sobot people needs to talk to the Nao robot people about how to make awesome marketing videos. It is really hard to find videos that do justice to this amazing robot. Anyway, here are the best videos we could find:
Self Assembly
The ISI Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory at USC has a fantastic robot called the Superbot that is capable of numerous modes of motion and is made of several autonomous units that can be manually assembled or sometimes automatically self assembled. Excellent videos below:
Below is a video of a self healing robotic chair. This robot isn’t very useful, but the concept of a robot that can be broken to pieces and then reassemble itself in this fashion has wide potential:
Rugged Terrain
Boston Dynamics makes some of the best robots in the world for traversing rugged terrain. Watch the video below and see how this amazing quadraped called “Big Dog” can go up hills with rocks and mud and anything else in its path. The best part is about 30 seconds into the video where someone kicks the walking robot as hard has possible. The robot is able to maitain balance and continue walking much better than a human could do. The robot is capable of carrying over 300 lbs of cargo and would seem to be useful for army missions, planetary exploration, and several other situations:
Ornithopters
An ornithopter is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Check out this awesome slow motion video of a butterfly ornithopter in action:
Also, check out what is one of the smallest ornithopters around. The Ifly Vamp in retail stores for less than $40:
I can’t read japanese, but these guys seem to have some pretty amazing stuff:
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/flappingwing
Music
Check out this robot playing the violin:
And this one playing the flute:
Exoskeleton:
Impressive exoskeleton suit called the HAL (Human Assisted Limbs) increases a human’s strength by 5 times:
Update: A worthy addition to this list is the anybot:
Update: Check out this recent post on humanoid robots
Comments
thanks yoıu admn
thanks yoıu admn
I like robot wars.
The big dog is by far the most mean machine made by man
Thank you for the list.
LMAO at the big dog beta!
Nice Experiment..
Have a nice day and keep spirit for you all…
Thanks & Regards
docxsz
Hello,
Thanks for sharing these amazing robots.
bye
Here’s a page of military robot videos, and links to other categories of robots: http://bit.ly/Qe4v from Author P.W Singer (Wired for War).
How about the top robots with regards to level of artificial intelligence displayed. Sure there are many impressive work being done on the mechanical side but the more difficult challenge has to do with intelligence.
That is, if we can more or less agree on what is meant by artificial intelligence. I understand almost everybody has a different opinion (the same phenomenon is found discussing the definition for “artificially alive”).
Personally, a robot controlled by a joystick has 0% intelligence.
This big dog is soo old, why dont you post the big dog beta?
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJZVZFRFJc
there are also very compelling good fully autonomus humanoid robots playing soccer at the robocup world championship 2008
Don’t miss this one!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMM_XQXJUUc
Hey, you left out the Trons robot band!!!
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=iytflNt77PU
It would be interesting to know if there are any diamond cutting robots out there. After all, cutting diamonds seems as if it were a much simpler task, and could eventually displace a well trained master. Uncut diamonds sell for 1/5 of the value of cut diamonds, so while as there is considerable effort spent making artificial diamonds, the area of focus needs to be the cutting stage.
A beer pouring robot should have got an honorable mention… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtUyzQBNT3k …LOL.
wooww cool i like robots, it’s fun.
Right’o
That Nao is one cute little bot. Doesn’t look good for robo-doomsayers, though.
Step 1: Robots throwing miniature rubber duckies into trash bins.
Step 2: Robots uniting to dominate the planet through brute force.
Some of these are quite impressive, such as the Big Dog. Its gait is inefficient, but its recovery from stumbles is very impressive indeed.
However, the very concept of “robot” is a machine that can perform tasks autonomously. In that sense, the iRobot Roomba is more of a real “robot” than many of these, most of which can best be described not as robots, but as humanoid remote-controlled toys.
Don’t forget swarm robots:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUHn0r_j5cE
What about ANYBOTS!!!
http://anybots.com/
The world’s first realistic walking robot. This should definitely have been included in the list above.
Here a link to another impressive robot, probably the best walking motion I’ve yet seen:
http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/research/wabian/index.htm