Video Friday: Guitar Bot - IEEE Spectrum

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):

ICRA 2022: 23–27 May 2022, Philadelphia

ERF 2022: 28–30 June 2022, Rotterdam, Germany

CLAWAR 2022: 12–14 September 2022, Açores, Portugal

Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.

Robotics. It’s a wicked game.

[ GA Tech ]

This experiment demonstrated the latest progress of the flying humanoid robot Jet-HR2. The new control strategy allows the robot to hover with position feedback from the motion-capture system. Video demonstrates the robot’s ability to remain stable hovering in midair for more than 20 seconds.

[ YouTube ]

Thanks, Zhifeng!

This super cool soft robotic finger from TU Berlin is able to read Braille with astonishing accuracy by using sound as a sensor.

[ TU Berlin ]

Cassie Blue navigates around furniture used as obstacles in the Ford Robotics Building at the University of Michigan. All the clips in this video are magnified 1x on purpose to show Cassie’s motion.

[ Michigan Robotics ]

Thanks, Bruce!

Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee received a National Science Foundation (NSF) National Robotics Initiative (NBI) collaborative grant for a project that aims to address—and ameliorate—the way people with mobility issues are given a chance for improved control and independence over their environments, especially in how they are fed—or better, how they can feed themselves with robotic assistance.

[ Cornell ]

A novel quadcopter capable of changing shape midflight is presented, allowing for operation in four configurations with the capability of sustained hover in three.

[ HiPeR Lab ]

Two EPFL research groups teamed up to develop a machine-learning program that can be connected to a human brain and used to command a robot. The program adjusts the robot’s movements based on electrical signals from the brain. The hope is that with this invention, tetraplegic patients will be able to carry out more day-to-day activities on their own.

[ EPFL ]

The MRV is SpaceLogistics’ next-generation on-orbit servicing vehicle, incorporating a robotic arm payload developed and integrated by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and provided by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In this test of Flight Robotic Arm System 1, the robotic arm is executing an exercise called the Gauntlet, which moves the arm through a series of poses that exercise the full motion of all seven degrees of freedom.

[ Northrop Grumman ]

You almost certainly can’t afford it, but the Shadow Robot Co. would like to remind you that the Shadow Hand is for sale.

[ Shadow ]

Join ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer inside Kibo, the Japanese laboratory module of the International Space Station in 360°, setting up Astrobee free-flying robots for the ReSWARM (RElative Satellite sWArming and Robotic Maneuvering) experiment. This robotics demonstration tests autonomous microgravity motion planning and control for on-orbit assembly and coordinated motion.

[ NASA ]

Boeing’s MQ-25 autonomous aerial tanker continues its U.S. Navy carrier testing.

[ Boeing ]

Sphero Sports is built for sports foundations, schools, and CSR-driven organizations to teach STEM subjects. Sphero Sports gets students excited about STEM education and proactively supports educators and soccer foundation staff to become comfortable in learning and teaching these critical skills.

[ Sphero ]

Adibot-A is Ubtech Robotics’ fully loaded autonomous disinfection solution, which can be programmed and mapped to independently navigate one or multiple floor plans.

[ UBTECH ]

Survice Engineering Co. was proud to support the successful completion of the Unmanned Logistics System–Air (ULS-A) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) program as the lead system integrator. We worked with the U.S. government, leaders in autonomous unmanned systems, and our warfighters to develop, test, and evaluate the latest multirotor VTOL platforms and technologies for assured logistics resupply at the forward edge of the battlefield.

[ SURVICE ] via [ Malloy Aeronautics ]

Thanks, Chris!

Yaqing Wang from JHU’s Terradynamics Lab gives a talk on trying to make a robot that is anywhere near as talented as a cockroach.

[ Terradynamics Lab ]

In episode one of season two of the Robot Brains podcast, host Pieter Abbeel is joined by guest (and close collaborator) Sergey Levine, professor at UC Berkeley, EECS. Sergey discusses the early years of his career, how Andrew Ng influenced his interest in machine learning, his current projects, and his lab’s recent accomplishments.

[ The Robot Brains ]

Thanks, Alice!