Category Archives: Robotics

CHIMP Wins Third Place at DARPA Robotics Challenge

CHIMP, a four-limbed robot designed and built by Carnegie Mellon University’s Tartan Rescue Team, finished third and won $500,000 June 6 at the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), a two-day event that pitted 24 of the world’s most advanced robots against each other in a test of their ability to respond to disasters.

During its best run, the robot engaged the enthusiastic audience as it overcame several mishaps and missteps to complete all eight of the possible tasks in 55 minutes, 15 seconds — good enough to put the team in first place on the first day of competition.

CHIMP was the only robot of the many that fell during the competition that was able to get back on its feet unassisted.

“Our team operating the robot kept their cool,” said Tony Stentz, team leader and research professor. “They managed to get CHIMP to recover and complete all of the tasks. It says a lot about the robot and a lot about the people. It means there’s great promise for this technology.”

 

Robot Snakes Learn Turns By Following The Lead of Real Sidewinders

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University who develop snake-like robots have picked up a few tricks from real sidewinder rattlesnakes on how to make rapid and even sharp turns with their undulating, modular device.

Working with colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Zoo Atlanta, they have analyzed the motions of sidewinders and tested their observations on CMU’s snake robots. They showed how the complex motion of a sidewinder can be described in terms of two wave motions – vertical and horizontal body waves – and how changing the phase and amplitude of the waves enables snakes to achieve exceptional maneuverability.

“We’ve been programming snake robots for years and have figured out how to get these robots to crawl amidst rubble and through or around pipes,” said Howie Choset, professor at CMU’s Robotics Institute. “By learning from real sidewinders, however, we can make these maneuvers much more efficient and simplify user control. This makes our modular robots much more valuable as tools for urban search-and-rescue tasks, power plant inspections and even archaeological exploration.”

Students Will Flight Test Sensor Package Designed To Model Surface Pits on Moon

A team of Carnegie Mellon University undergraduates is heading to California’s Mojave Desert this spring to flight test a sensor package they developed for analyzing large pits in the surface of the moon or Mars.

The flight tests will be conducted aboard a reusable vertical-takeoff, vertical-landing XA-0.1-B rocket, called “Xombie,” built and operated by Masten Space Systems. The three flights – two tethered and one free flight – will take place at the Mojave Air and Space Port and are funded through the Undergraduate Student Instrument Program (USIP) of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and the Flight Opportunities Program of NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

The hardware and software package developed by the students would be used for a robotic lunar mission to the Lacus Mortis region of the moon planned by Astrobotic Technology and Carnegie Mellon. Orbital imaging suggests this region contains a pit – also known as a skylight – that may serve as an entrance to a cave.

As the landing craft flies over the pit, the sensor package would use computer vision to build a 3-D model of the depression. Upon landing, a CMU-developed robot, called Andy, would then explore the pit.

The team includes Neal Bhasin, a senior computer science student; Kerry Snyder, a senior computer science and robotics major; Oliver Daids, a sophomore computer science major; Rick Shanor, a senior in mechanical engineering and robotics; Ashrith Balakumar, a sophomore mechanical engineering major; and Edward Nolan and Brent Strysko, both seniors majoring in electrical and computer engineering.

International Competitors Join CMU Teams in DARPA Robotics Challenge

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has qualified 14 additional teams, including competitors from Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, China and South Korea, to join teams from Carnegie Mellon University and elsewhere in the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) Finals, June 5-6 in Pomona, Calif.

Tartan Rescue, a team fielded by CMU’s National Robotics Engineering Center, and Team WPI-CMU, a team based at Worcester Polytechnic Institute that includes CMU Robotics Professor Chris Atkeson, were among 11 teams that previously qualified for the DRC Finals based on their performance at the DRC Trials in December 2013.

The teams will be competing for one of three cash prizes, totaling $3.5 million, based on how their robots perform in response to a simulated natural or man-made disaster. Robots will have one hour to perform a series of tasks, such as driving a vehicle, climbing stairs and using power tools. DARPA also will include a “surprise” task.

Unlike the earlier Trials, all of the robots will operate only on battery power, will communicate wirelessly with their operators and will operate without a safety harness, placing them in danger of falls.

Autonomous Firefighting Drone Flies in Dark, Tight Quarters

In a demonstration aboard a former U.S. Navy ship, a small quadrotor developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and spin-off company Sensible Machines flew autonomously through dark, smoke-filled compartments to map fires and locate victims.

Last fall’s demonstration, part of an Office of Naval Research (ONR) project called Damage Control Technologies for the 21st Century (DC-21), showed that a small drone can operate in the confined spaces inside a ship to rapidly gather situational information to guide firefighting and rescue efforts.

“With the micro-flyer, we wanted to show that it could autonomously navigate through the narrow hallways and doors – even in dense fire smoke – and locate fires,” said Thomas McKenna, ONR’s DC-21 program manager. “It succeeded at all those tasks.”

As part of the DC-21 concept, information gathered by the micro-flyer would be relayed to a large humanoid robot, the Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot (SAFFiR), that would work with human firefighters to suppress fires and evacuate casualties.

Snake Monster Is First of New Breed of Reconfigurable Robots

Carnegie Mellon University’s latest robot is called Snake Monster, but with six articulated legs, it looks more like an insect than a snake. It really doesn’t matter what you call it, says its inventor, Howie Choset, because the whole point of the project is to make modular robots that can easily be reconfigured to meet a user’s needs.

The walking robot, developed in just six months, is only one example of the robots that eventually can be built using this modular system, said Choset, a professor in CMU’s Robotics Institute. His team already is working on modules such as force-sensing feet, wheels and tank-like treads that will enable the assembly of totally different robots.

“By creating a system that can be readily reconfigured and that also is as easy to program, we believe we can build robots that are not only robust and flexible, but also inexpensive,” Choset said. “Modularity has the potential to rapidly accelerate the development of traditional industrial robots, as well as all kinds of new robots.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency sponsored this work through its Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program, which focuses on ways to design and build robots more rapidly and enhance their ability to manipulate objects and move in natural environments.

New Product Could Revolutionize Musculoskeletal Tissue Repair

Treating patients with their own blood, modified to increase the concentration of heal-inducing platelets, has been touted as the “cure-all” for bone, muscle, and tissue repair for athletes, weekend warriors or those with traumatic injuries.

But the outcomes of this therapy, called platelet-rich plasma, or PRP, have been unpredictable. So researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Allegheny General Hospital (AGH) have devised what they believe is a better way to deliver the therapy—as a putty—and the initial results have been encouraging.

CMU Lunar Rover Wins GLXP Milestone Prize

The Google Lunar XPRIZE has awarded Andy, a four-wheeled lunar rover designed and built by Carnegie Mellon University, with a Milestone Prize for mobility. It is one of three Milestone Prizes awarded to CMU and Pittsburgh’s Astrobotic Technology, which have partnered in pursuit of the XPrize.

Milestone Prizes were awarded in three categories: mobility, lander and imaging, with Astrobotic winning for its Griffin lander and its imaging technology. A total of nine Milestone Prizes were awarded in the three categories; the Astrobotic/CMU teams was the only one to win prizes in each category.

“Andy has proven to be a tough, smart, sure-footed machine,” said William “Red” Whittaker, professor of robotics, who led a team of about 50 students, faculty and staff members from across the CMU campus to create the rover. “We’ve shaken it to simulate launch forces, driven it through moon dirt and exposed it to the extremes of lunar temperatures among many, many tests. Our team and our machine faced a rigorous evaluation by world-class judges and came out on top.”

CMU’s mobility prize included a $500,000 cash award. Astrobotic received $1 million for its lander win and $250,000 for the imaging category, for a total of $1.75 million in winnings.

 

Breathe Cam Provides People With Tool To Study The Air We Breathe

A system of four cameras, called Breathe Cam, now keeps a constant watch on air quality over Pittsburgh, providing citizens with a new interactive tool for monitoring and documenting visual pollution in the air they breathe and even tracing it back to its sources.

Funded by The Heinz Endowments as part of its Breathe Project, the camera system was developed and deployed by the CREATE Lab in Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. Anyone can access the cameras online at http://breatheproject.org/learn/breathe-cam, where images of the Downtown, East End and Mon Valley skylines are updated around the clock.

Using the interactive controls, people can zoom in on items of interest, whether it’s a hovering brown cloud or individual smokestacks or coke plants. They can scan back in time to observe changes in visibility or to try to find the sources of dirty air. They also can skip back to particular dates and times that have been catalogued since the cameras were installed.

The researchers also have developed a computer vision tool to help people identify and quantify events of interest, such as releases from a smokestack. Users can correlate the visual conditions with hourly reports of fine particulate matter, ozone and other pollutant levels recorded by Allegheny County Health Department air monitoring stations.