Personal robots can make people more productive at home and at work. Robots like the PR2 from Willow Garage, (pictured above) combine the mobility to navigate human environments and the dexterity to grasp and manipulate objects in those environments. The PR2 is designed to be durable so that you can experiment with new ideas and applications directly on the robot.
In the work environment, from services to manufacturing, people are always doing repetitive tasks. Personal robots make work more productive and enjoyable by performing these tasks. At home, there are robots that can clean your house or work in the yard. Soon robots will help those with reduced mobility to live more independently.
Special purpose robots are available which only do one thing, but do it efficiently and inexpensively. There are robots that can:
Quadcopters
The Hubsan X4 H107L is a small, inexpensive quadcopter with big performance. It has no camera or video transmitter to weigh it down so the H107L can maneuver as well or better than some of the more expensive models. (It weights just 29 grams!) The light weight allows it to use smaller, energy-saving motors which yield longer flights with smaller batteries. This model is ready-to-fly with a 2.4Ghz spread-spectrum controller, a 280mAh battey, charger, and extra propellers.
Drones
Drones can be used for many recreational purposes: photography, inspecting wildlife, as a learning platform or fun flying.
Drones are relatively easy to fly. The AR.Drone 2 (pictured), can be controlled with your mobile device as the controller using an ordinary wifi connection to the drone. You can also configure it to use a 4-axis joystick, or even program it to fly autonomously.
A robot for research and education
Nao, an autonomous, programmable humanoid robot provides a platform for development and reseach as well as a learning tool for students. The 57-cm tall robot is one of the most sophisticated humanoid robots in production today.
Its body has 25 degrrees of freedom (DOF) (points controled by electric motors or actuators). These allow Nao to act and move very much like a human can. To find its way in the world, the robot includes two cameras, four microphones, a sonar rangefinder, two IR transivers, an inertal senor board, nine tactile senors and eight pressure sensors. To communicate, it uses it's voice synthesizer and LED lights. Nao's brain is an Intel ATOM 1.6 Ghz processor running a Linux kernel with a second CPU located in the torso. The system uses the proprietary NAOqi software platform. The robot is powered by a 27.6 Wh battery that provides at least 1.5 hours of usage.
Nao has been selected as the stardard platform for the RoboCup competition. The goal of the international robotics competition is to promote the research and development of multi-robot and multi-agent systems with the ultimate goal of producing a soccer-playing robot team capable of winning against human players sometime in the mid-21st century.
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