Robotics Trends

Virginia Tech Team to Build Battlefield Robots for 2010 Competition The roving, walking robotic soldiers of the “Terminator” films are becoming less sci-fi and more certain future every day. Now, a team of robotics researchers from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering will build a team of fully autonomous cooperative battle-ready robots as part of a 2010 international war games challenge that could spur real-life battle bots. The roving, walking robotic soldiers of the “Terminator” films are becoming less sci-fi and more certain future every day. Now, a team of robotics researchers from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering will build a team of fully autonomous cooperative battle-ready robots as part of a 2010 international war games challenge that could spur real-life battle bots. The 2010 Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (MAGIC) tasks teams with building squads… View this post
Filed in: Academics and Research • Feature • Robotics Features
Tagged: Autonomy, Robotics, Virginia tech, Robots, Multi-autonomous ground-robotic international challenge, Ground robots

Virginia Tech College of Engineering’s Improved Robotic Hand Captures Top Award Virginia Tech students develop a robotic hand, the RAPHaEL (Robotic Air Powered Hand with Elastic Ligaments), powered by compressed air that does not require the use of motors or other expensive and bulky actuators. The Virginia Tech College of Engineering’s Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa) has captured another top award for its updated innovative robotic hand that can automatically change its grasping force using compressed air. A team of five undergraduate students recently won First Place in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition at the International Design Engineering Technical Conference. The winning entry was RAPHaEL 2, a second-generation version of a robotic hand that previously won an award from the Compressed Air and Gas Institute (http://www.eng.vt.edu/news/article.php?niid=1686). Held in San… View this post
Filed in: Academics and Research • Feature
Tagged: Virginia tech, Prosthetics, Hand, Robotic hand, Air powered, Asme