Last Updated 11/7/09 7:36 AM
Air & Space
Earth & the Environment
Robotics
Health & Medicine
Extreme Machines
Research
Worst-Case Scenarios
Science
Earth & the Environment
Robotics
Health & Medicine
Extreme Machines
Research
Worst-Case Scenarios
Science
Science: Robotics Archive
|
67 records found. Displaying 1 to 30 Page 1 2 3 |
|
| 10 Most Brilliant Innovators of 2009: The Ball-Shaped Robot Greg Schroll's robot isn't your regular pendulum-powered spherical bot. With Schroll's unique design this ball bot can roll, dodge and even climb stairs. (Published in the November 2009 issue)
|
|
| 3 New Farm Bots Programmed to Pick, Plant and Drive Intelligent, manned machines aren’t just for warplanes and border guards—they can be found on the farm too. Increasingly, agro-bots are taking laborious tasks out of the farmer’s helper’s hands, and saving time and money in the process. (Published in the September 2009 issue)
|
|
| Autonomous Autos: New Kit Converts Any Vehicle Into a Robot (With Video) There are many ways that the unmanned vehicle revolution can reach beyond the frontlines. Why not retrofit existing vehicles? The Pronto4 Strap-On Autonomy System can transform any steered vehicle into an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle.
|
|
| 5 Useless Robots (And Why We Love Them) Robots are made to assist us. But in the history of robotic development there have been as many epic failures as incremental successes. Here, PM editorial adviser, author and roboticist Daniel H. Wilson corrals five of the most useless robots.
|
|
| Robots That Dress Like Animals for Science To better understand animal behavior, scientists are dressing up data-gathering robots in animal garb. By fitting in with their unsuspecting friends, robot bees, turkeys and lizards are recording intimate details of habitats that were never before seen. (Published in the July 2009 issue)
|
|
| Diving Robots Could Recover Air France 447's Black Box As more details of Air France 447's final minutes become known, deep-sea technology experts are saying that the recovery of the aircraft's black boxes will be difficult, but not impossible, with the help of deep-sea-diving robots.
|
|
| Robotic Task Force: A Two-Robot, Bomb-Defusing, Riot-Controlling, Firefighting Team (With Video!) Two robots can defuse dirty bombs, take on riots and fight fires—giving their controller a comfortable distance from dangerous situations. Here is an up-close look from the show floor of Robobusiness 2009.
|
|
| Safety Snake: The Construction Worker's New Best Friend? Inspecting high-rise construction sites is a dangerous job, but somebody—or some robot—has to do it. Engineers at Virginia Tech built the HyDRAS-Ascent II to climb by encircling a beam and twisting its 90-degree joints in sequence. (Published in the April 2009 issue)
|
|
| 5 Robots that Look, Act and Are Designed Like Animals Scientists studying animal behavior and movement have developed robotic birds and bugs capable of anything from surveillance to space exploration. Here are five of our favorite biologically inspired machines.
|
|
| Inside FIRST Robotics 2009: Robots are Now Ready to Rumble This week, high school robotics teams from around the country concluded the six-week build ahead of the regional FIRST 2009 Robotics Competitions. We dropped in on George Westinghouse High to unveil their design for this year's competition.
|
|
| Robots That Help The Disabled (With Video) Help for disabled people has increasingly been the domain for skilled dogs. But Georgia Tech’s Healthcare Robotics Lab has another solution. Their answer: The EI-E, a robot that can perform basic household tasks on command. (Published in the February 2009 issue)
|
|
| MIT Unveils Intelligent Robot Forklift for War Zones The new, U.S. Army–funded forklift robot recognizes voice commands, can learn the layout of a makeshift warehouse and operate out of doors. It may be able to save lives on the field and make warehouse work more efficient at home.
|
|
| Students Race for Lunar Cred in New FIRST Robotics Game (With Video!) This week, high school students around the country—and from 10 other nations—began the round-the-clock effort to build a robot fit for international competition before time runs out in mid-February.
|
|
| 5 Homemade Robots That Offer Hope for DIY Geeks (With Video) Ever wanted to build your own robot army, but didn't think you had the chops? Take heart in a middle-aged software engineer who's slapped together everything from automated furniture to a walking webcam—and even a Wii-mote to rule them all.
|
|
| MIT Submarine Is Most Autonomous Robot Ocean Researcher Yet The Odyssey IV can reach depths of more than 19,000 ft to explore the ocean's depths on its own, fight strong currents and gather crucial data. Our intrepid reporter uses it to run down a seagull.
|
|
| Without Winner, TechX Offers Gut Check for Worldwide War Bots Popular Mechanics was the only major media outlet onhand in Singapore for this weekend’s TechX Challenge with answers to those questions—and videos—from the next robo research frontier.
|
|
| TechX Contest Preps Non-Superpower Military Bots for Urban War From Singapore, PM gets a sneak peek at the latest new robot showdown. And these iRobot mods could lead the way for smaller countries to hand-build autonomous armies of their own.
|
|
| Inside a Student-Built FIRST Robot: Interactive How It Works You don’t need an expensive lab to engineer a sophisticated robot—just the vision of a maverick inventor, the spur of competition and a bunch of high school students armed with power tools. (Published in the September 2008 issue)
|
|
| Top 4 Military Robot Teams From Britain's Grand Challenge Following the lead of DARPA's Urban Challenge, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence has held its own robotics competition. PM profiles the winning team and three others that took innovative approaches to the challenge.
|
|
| New Military Robots to Face Off in Two Summer Contests Following the lead of DARPA's high-profile contests, both Singapore and the United Kingdom are staging robotics competitions this August to develop their own autonomous war machines. (Published in the August 2008 issue)
|
|
| 4 Real-Life WALL*E Robots Cleaning Up After Nuke Waste Much like the fictional cleaning robot currently packing movie theaters, robots are being used to clean humanity’s worst messes. Here are a few doing some of the dirtiest jobs imaginable.
|
|
| The 5 Most Underappreciated Robots in Hollywood History With WALL*E, Pixar appears to have done it again, creating a character that’s painfully cute, but not so precious that you want to step on his animated neck. Here are some other lovable lame-os from the big and small screens.
|
|
| The Problem With Asimo: Tabloid Humanoid Is Holding Back Bots Sure, the superstar Honda robot can conduct orchestras and run around Disneyland. But at $1 million and without specific research goals in sight, can Asimo actually lead the consumer robotics revolution—or just the hype machine? PM's resident geek offers his report card.
|
|
| Autonomous 3D Robot Doc Gets X-Ray Powers With DIY A.I. Looks like the robotic uprising could be headed for the OR after all, as a new feasibility study from Duke University portends to usher in a new era of unmanned surgery.
|
|
| FIRST Robotics Revs Up Science Ed in the Bot Cage (With Video!) Imagine robotics as a varsity sport. Sixty-two teams from mostly tri-state schools convened to celebrate geeky prowess with all the enthusiasm of the Final Four—right down to the cheerleaders. Their goal: Advance to the national competition in Atlanta.
|
|
| Next-Gen Inventions, CIA Gadget Building, Baseball Science and More: Podcast America’s patent office might stand on the brink of an open-source revolution, but whatever happened to turning heady science into practical new gadgets? PM resident roboticist Daniel H. Wilson joins us to dream up inventions we might have in our 22nd-century households.
|
|
| BattleBots Returns, but Will 'Science Fair Gone Mad' Grab Geeks? The robot death match show switches from Comedy Central to ESPN, and brings a competitive engineering spirit along for the ride. But will new rules, a modified arena and a brains-over-babes attitude make it a hit?
|
|
| Students Dig in to FIRST Robotics Race With Next-Gen Builds Every year teams have a different set of obstacles to maneuver with their robots, which they build mostly from a standard kit of parts. As fans of anything that culminates in a botfest, PM editors decided to pop in on a couple of New York City teams (with video).
|
|
| The Toughest, Smartest, Best Terminators of All Time In honor of Fox's Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, our favorite new sci-fi TV show, PM’s resident geek offers a thorough evaluation—from intimidation to design and intelligence to destruction—on the franchise's robotic evolution.
|
|
| Robot Paradox: Automated Gizmos Are Ready for Home—Are We? The far-flung consumer robotics industry became more crowded at CES. Will household bots live on as kids’ entertainment, their babysitters or simple the family maid? With an identity in reach, the robot market fights to keep up with its own pace of innovation.
|
|
|
67 records found. Displaying 1 to 30 Page 1 2 3 |
|
Upgrade
Motorola's New Droid
Of course Droid will be a hit. The real question is does it represent a seismic shift for Motorola, or is it merely a stay of execution?ADVERTISEMENT
2009 PM Car Makeover
Almost everyone agrees that hybrid cars are the next big step on our way to an all-electric future. But what if we use two parallel powertrains, gas and electric, to drive a full size car? That way, we can offer the muscular V8 performance that buyers crave, yet still produce zero emissions around town.
Current Issue
Out Now: Best of '09
In November, PM awards the breakthrough products and peoples of the year. This issue celebrates the innovators and inventions that have and will change the world. Also look for DIY stone work, Jay Leno and more. 
It's solar's new dawn. Now new innovations are exiting the lab and plugging into the grid - turning sunlight into serious energy.
Automotive
Fisker's GM Plant
Startup Fisker Automotive announced that it will build its hybrid sedan with a $528 million loan from the DOE. Is this the first step to a new and improved U.S. auto industry?Mythbusters
Mythbusters Central
Jamie and Adam break down today's tech conundrums, from the moon landing to the state of science in the classroom and more!
My Popular Mechanics
Join PM's User-Powered Motorcycle Community!
Rev up with myBike to upload rides from your garage, rate others, make biker buddies and chat on message boards! Join myBike Now!PM Ad Partner Links
