cafecuriosity

Automating Distruction

There's nothing like seemingly endless insurgency wars to stimulate human ingenuity. Iraq and Afghanistan are re-imagining robotics in labs such as Washington University in St Louis, where the computer science and engineering faculty are designing the US Military's next generation of robots. Early battlefield robots required a clumsy and heavy laptop and joystick for control - bringing a whole new meaning to 'Road Warrior'. The new toys use nothing more exotic than a Wii controller. Much easier to work with when people are shooting at you, as well as being cheaper and lighter to hump around! As well as changing the physical nature of the machines, imagination is being applied to how these metal servants are deployed. Robots now perform battlefield reconnaissance, making UAVs almost ubiquitous in the skies over the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They already detect explosives and act as weapons carriers. Tomorrow will see the advent of self-driving trucks (being a truck driver is now one of the more hazardous occupations in a war zone). Unlike R2D2, these buckets of bolts are more autonomous systems than the intelligent decision making weapons wrought on the silver screen in 'Terminator' and by 2020 could make up 30% of the US Army. Imagine that, an army of Obi-won worshipping geeks, just the thing to put the frighteners into the Taliban!   http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/12080.html   Image: 1. Soldier humping a Packbot, iRobot, 2. iRobot stair climbing Packbot, Washington University in St Louis

High Lift, Low Drag Flippers (and tails)

Global warming and the search for alternative energy sources is driving the development of a new generation of wind turbine design. Engineers have traditionally plumped for simple, rigid lifting structures to deliver continuous, stable flow patterns. Nature however confounds conventional engineering theory by opting for bumpy flexible surfaces for whale flippers and dolphin tails. The bumpy leading edges of a humpback's flippers create vortices generating additional lift and improving the whale's maneuverability - useful in rounding up clouds of krill when feeding. For its part, the vertical motion of a dolphin's tail produces vortices, creating a jet in the dolphin's wake, and providing enormous thrust and swimming efficiency. Biomimetics is inspiring a new engineering approach to wind turbine designs that increase lift, reduce drag and delay stall.

Fish, F. E., Howle, L. E. and Murray, M. M. 2008. Hydrodynamic flow control in marine mammals;
Integrative and Comparative Biology 211: 1859-1867.   Image: 1. Dolphin, E. Paterson, 2. Large vortices forming behind leading edge, E. Paterson

Ties that Bind Our Bones

Engineers today display a truly dazzling array of technical virtuosity. Take the pioneering engineers at Georgia Tech who recently unveiled their technique to create artificial bones mimicking the body's natural ability to blend into tissues of very different composition such as tendons or ligaments. The art apparently lies with the ability to create a gradual transition between the different tissue compositions. The technique involves coating a 3-D polymer scaffold with a graduated covering of a Runx2 a gene delivery vehicle. they then seed skin fibroblasts onto the scaffold. The end with lots of Runx2 turns into bone, the other end into soft tissue. The end result is an artificial bone that gradually turns into soft tissue - cool eh? Ironically, the only aspect of this medical feat of engineering more astonishing than its technology is the mundane nature of its core application - repairing torn knee ligament injuries, particularly anterior cruciate ligament injuries so common in football! Either the Yellow Jackets have had a really, really bad a run of injuries or the coach is really thinking ahead!   http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=2067  Image: Microscopic image of a 10mm collagen scaffold (blue) on top of a 3-D gradient (green), Georgia Institute of Technology

DelFly Micro Causes a Buzz

Last time I caught up with the engineers at Delft U, they had just received funding for their RoboSwift. TU Delft has continued their engineering obsession with ever smaller micro air vehicles with the unveiling of their DelFly Micro. The Micro stretches 10 cm from wingtip to wingtip and at 3 grams barely troubles the scales. Based on the flapping motion of the dragonfly, the Micro carries a tiny camera and runs image recognition software for its 3 minute flights at 5 meters per second. It is an evolutionary step between the DelFly II (which could fly horizontally, hover and fly backwards) and the projected DelFly NaNo which will have a wingspan of just 5 cms, weigh 1 gram and be capable of independent flight when it eventually debuts. Naturally, the military and police are keen observers of TU Delft's advances in miniaturisation. http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=43c2fd1b-f4e3-4a12-91a9-adfd518c2c88&lang=en  Image: DelFly micro air vehicle, TU Delft

Ventmobile Breezes Past

Competitors in the Aeolus Race in Den Helder (Netherlands) will be looking over the shoulders after Stuttgart University's Team InVentus unveiled their latest wind powered prototype - the 'Ventmobile'. Five teams from European universities and research institutes will be challenging for glory on the three kilometer track. Designed as a renewable energy demonstrator, the three wheeled 'Ventmobile' (which looks it should be sailing down a beach somewhere) relies solely on the wind for locomotion, directed via its two meter diameter two bladed rotor. Somehow I can't seeing it blasting down Shaik Z Road in Dubai!  http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/presse/2008/70.html   Image: Ventmobile prototype, Tobias Klaus

Robot Life

That mechanical shark in Jaws had better be looking over its shoulder - Robofish is not far behind. The term 'robot' paints a wide canvass these days. Underwater robots have rarely been truly independent. They're usually tied to a parent ship or satellite communication system in order to receive their constant stream of directions. Not anymore. A University of Washington researcher inspired by the way schooling fish behave has built three ocean going robot fish able to communicate with each other. Roughly the size of a good salmon, Robofish use fins rather propellers and communicate with each other underwater using wireless. Now sending information underwater over long distances requires a lot of power - more than Robofish's batteries pack. Instead, Robofish swap instructions using sonar pulses - pressure waves. Even though the surrounding water interferes with the transmissions, Robofish's biomimicery based programming enables them to perform basic maneuvers based in concert with each other.

As anyone who has seen me walking home from a long, long Dubai brunch can attest, human walking is basically a controlled forward fall (or in my case, not-so-controlled!) forwards. Earlier this year I featured a snippet on Cornell's walking robot. Their robot set a long-distance walking record, marching resolutely around an indoor track. Across the other side of the world, Delft University of Technology has been doing some interesting work on walking robots for years. Now one of their researchers has received his PhD for his work in creating a way to measure the stability factor in how people work. Not content with a theoretical model, he demonstrated his model by building the world's most advanced walking robot 'Flame'. Flame is different to industrial robots in that it mimics the fluid, energy-efficient motion of a human walk. Flame achieves this thanks to seven motors, a balancing organ, some high spec algorithms and a pair of neat robotic ankles, making Flame the most advanced 'walking' robot in the world.

PS. The University of Washington's 'Seaglider' will be manufactured commercially after the University signed a production agreement with iRobot. 'Seaglider' is an ocean going sub-sea robot with an operating depth of 3,300 feet that currently holds the world record for autonomous underwater operation. 

http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=42371   http://www.tudelft.nl/live/pagina.jsp?id=f58fa261-f359-4d83-81ce-78bc182750ea&lang=en   http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=42437   Image: Fin-propelled Robofish, University of Washington, 2. Kristi Morgansen using a remote controller to direct Robofish, University of Washington, 3. Flame, Delft University of Technology, 4. Seaglider performing in the pool, University of Washington, 5. Seaglider, University of Washington

Bio Inspired Engineering #4

The future of computing lies with ultra high speed optical computers running on light in the form of photons. At the heart of these futuristic devices to function lies an exotic material able to manipulate visible light. Conventional science has failed miserably to develop photonic crystals.  Where to look? Nature came to the rescue in the form of the iridescent green scales of the Lamprocyphus augustus, an inch long Brazilian weevil. The weevil's chitin scales enjoy unique properties. Each scale is comprised of 200 individual chitin elements each with a diamond crystalline structure oriented in a different direction reflecting an individual wavelength of green light. The end result is a composite image our eye interprets as a very fetching iridescent green. Another example of where science fails nature triumphs! Now the only thing left to do is establish why a weevil needs such a distinctive colouration.

While medical science typically sees muscles as simply electric motors, there is a growing belief that muscles actually operate more like springs, storing energy and rapidly releasing it to generate force. Inspired by a toad's ability to snatch insects on the fly with its rapid action tongue, Northern Arizona researcher Kiisa Nishikawa is pioneering a new neuromuscular model. When it catches that juicy fly, a toad actually shortens the muscles in its lower jaw, then opens its jaws to unload the force stored in its tingue. In the process, the toad's jaw muscles produces loads greater than 700 times its own weight while an electric motor struggles to generate one-third of its weight! Figuring out how nature designed the toad and chameleon has implications for anything that moves and will contribute to new designs for electric motors and treatments for neuromuscular diseases such as Parkinson's.   

http://unews.utah.edu/p/?r=050908-7   http://www.onlinepressroom.net/nau/   Image: 1. Brazil's Lamprocyphus augustus weevil, Jeremy Galusha, University of Utah, 2. Professor Kiisa Nishikawa with cane toad from Suriname, Danielle Borth

Bio Inspired Engineering #3

In developing robotic systems, biology is inspiring unusual approaches to the problem of locomotion over uneven terrain. Engineers from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne have unveiled a microrobot weighing just 7 grams. Modeled on fleas and grasshoppers, the jumper can leap an impressive 27 times its body length. The principal behind the jumping mechanism is an ability to slowly accumulate high levels of energy which are discharged rapidly, resulting in high acceleration levels and powerful jumps for a given size.

http://actualites.epfl.ch/presseinfo-com?id=596&newlang=fra&newlang=eng   Image: Jumping Microrobot, Alain Herzog, EPFL

Engineering Our Future

Size of often the engineers enemy, particularly in the emerging 'wireless body area network' biosensor technology sector. Too big and the sensors are uncomfortable to wear, too small and the sensors lack adequate battery life or signal strength. Engineers at Queen's University Belfast have developed a new antenna that skirts these obstacles. The technology exploits the 'creeping wave' effect. When a signal is broadcast from an on-body sensor, most of the signal strength is either absorbed by the body or radiated outwards. The remainder (the creeping wave) hugs the surface of the skin. The novel antenna is 50 times more efficient than its predecessors, allowing its thickness to drop from 34mm to under 5mm. The signal is simply transmitted to a control unit on the body, where it can be accessed by doctors over the internet or by mobile phone!

Serendipity made it into space in April when a Finnish design for a solar wind sail went from design to prototype. Born from the Finnish Meteorological Institute's research into how the solar wind interacts with the planets and their atmosphere, the design might just revolutionize space exploration. The solar sail traps the continuous gentle pressure of the solar wind to provide thrust. The design features long metallic tethers and a solar powered electron gun to maintain the tethers positive charged, maintaining the sail's shape. Prototyping the new solar sail hinged on successfully developing a new technique for ultrasonic welding to bond the thin metal wire comprising micrometeoroid-resistant tethers.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/eaps-iam051408.php   http://www.fmi.fi/news/index.html?Id=1208243495.html   Image: 1. Wearable antennas being tested, Engineering and Physical Sciences research Council, 2. Electric sail design, Antonin Halas, Finnish Meteorological Institute

Bio Inspired Engineering #2

I've dived with squid and I've eaten squid but I've never really thought about how they are put together. Engineering however has turned to the robust Humboldt squid to better understand how you combine a very hard cutting tool with a soft squishy body. Joining things of different constituency is trickier than we tend to think - particularly if you want to avoid rivets, bolts and adhesives! In a mechanical environment, attaching a scalpel to a bowl of jelly would produce a very messy outcome!  Nature however has come up with one of the hardest and stiffest organic materials in the world and one of the softest bodies, creating a beak with an extremely stiff tip with cascading graduations of stiffness, allowing it to attach to the squid's body without tearing it to pieces. Its situation specific however, when the squid beak dries out, it loses its graduation rendering the base of the beak just as rigid as the tip.

NASA's return to manned exploration is stimulating a fascinating search for inspiration. NASA and other agencies are looking for climbing robots, highly maneuverable unmanned aerial vehicles, a new generation of spacecraft and its astronauts are looking to improve their maneuverability in space. One of the sources of new design philosophy is the humble house gecko. Geckos rely on their tails for stability to avoid falling from vertical surfaces, propping themselves up with their tail which acts as a fifth leg. If they do succumb to gravity, they use their tails to course correct in mid air, like a skydiver gliding in for a soft landing. Subjecting the poor little buggers to wind tunnel tests, researchers discovered the gecko could hover in the air stream before using their tail to steer to a safe perch. The gecko's active tail it seems is pivotal to navigating slippery surfaces. Geckos are yet another example of how basic research delivers unexpected applications.

http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=1745   http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/03/17_gecko.shtml   Image: 1. Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas, NOAA/MBARI 2006 2. Flat-tailed house gecko skydiving in a wind tunnel, Robert Full/UC Berkeley, PNAS/NAS