A research team led by Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and an adjunct faculty member in the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute, has enabled a woman with longstanding quadriplegia to control a human-like robot arm using two electrodes implanted in her brain.

Schwartz and his colleagues reported in The Lancet on the brain-computer interface (BCI) technology and the training programs that made it possible for Jan Scheuermann of Whitehall Borough, Pa., to move the arm, turn and bend a wrist and close a hand. Scheuermann was even able to feed herself a bit of chocolate.

The Robotics Institute’s Home Exploring Robot Butler, better known as HERB, is featured in a YouTube video that is part of Oreo’s ongoing “Cookie vs. Creme” campaign. The video, shot Feb. 12 in the Personal Robotics Lab in Newell-Simon Hall, debuted March 8.

Carnegie Mellon has produced a “behind the scenes” video regarding HERB’s video shoot for Oreo. And check out HERB’s new website.

HERB, a two-armed, mobile robot, twists an Oreo apart and scrapes off what it terms “the precious creme” in the video, the fourth and final “Oreo Separator” machine in the online series. Sidd Srinivasa, associate professor of robotics, and Pras Velagapudi, project scientist, play prominent roles as well.

A team from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center is building a new class of robot to compete in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Robotics Challenge — a human-size robot that moves, not by walking, but on rubberized tracks on the extremities of each of its four limbs.

Though the appearance of the CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform, or CHIMP, is vaguely simian, its normal mode of locomotion will be much like that of a tank, with the tracks of all four limbs on the ground. This configuration would offer a particular advantage when moving over debris and rough terrain. But CHIMP also can move on the treads of just two limbs when needed, such as when it must use one or more limbs to open a valve, or to operate power tools.

CHIMP will have to do that and more during the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), in which robots will have human-like capabilities to respond to calamities such as the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Climbing ladders and driving vehicles are among the obstacles robots will face in environments engineered for people.

Robots already vacuum our floors, help dispose of bombs and are exploring Mars. But in his new book, “Robot Futures” Illah Nourbakhsh, professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, argues that robots are not just wondrous machines, but a new species that bridges the material and digital worlds. The ramifications for society are both good and bad, he says, and people need to start thinking about that.

In the book, published by MIT Press, Nourbakhsh contemplates what might happen in the not-so-distant future as robots become both ubiquitous and highly capable. Some robots no doubt will display annoying behaviors — what he calls “robot smog.” Robots, in turn, will bring out the worst in some people, who will see robots as targets for bullying and other abuse. Robots will serve as physical avatars, enabling people to interact simultaneously with others in farflung locations and circumstances. They may even enable people to assume new and different forms. Robots may well change perceptions of what it means to be human.

A robot can struggle to discover objects in its surroundings when it relies on computer vision alone. But by taking advantage of all of the information available to it — an object’s location, size, shape and even whether it can be lifted — a robot can continually discover and refine its understanding of objects, say researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.

The Lifelong Robotic Object Discovery (LROD) process developed by the research team enabled a two-armed, mobile robot to use color video, a Kinect depth camera and non-visual information to discover more than 100 objects in a home-like laboratory, including items such as computer monitors, plants and food items.

A robotic paint-stripping system being developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center and Concurrent Technologies Corporation of Johnstown, Pa., was named a Gold winner in the materials science category of the 2013 Edison Awards, announced April 25 at an awards ceremony in Chicago.

The Advanced Robotic Laser Coating Removal System (ARLCRS) uses high-powered lasers mounted on mobile robotic platforms to remove paint and coatings from aircraft. NREC and CTC are developing the system for the U.S. Air Force. NREC is building six autonomous mobile robots, which will each be equipped with a high-power laser coating remover developed by CTC. As part of a two-year project, the robots will be deployed in teams to remove paint and other coatings from aircraft at Hill Air Force Base in northern Utah.

Carnegie Mellon University has joined Clemson University and five other university partners to launch the Institute for African-American Mentoring in Computing Science (iAAMCS), a U.S. resource for increasing African-American participation in computing.

The alliance is supported by a $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation and is directed by Juan Gilbert, chairman of the Human-Centered Computing Division at Clemson, and Shaundra Daily, assistant professor in Clemson’s School of Computing. It will extend the work of current NSF alliances and demonstration projects that seek to increase the number of African-Americans pursuing careers in computer science.

The autonomous, solar-powered Zoë, which became the first robot to map microbial life during a 2005 field expedition in Chile’s Atacama Desert, is heading back to the world’s driest desert this month on a NASA astrobiology mission led by Carnegie Mellon University and the SETI Institute. This time, Zoë is equipped with a one-meter drill to search for subsurface life.

As before, Zoë will be testing technologies and techniques that will be necessary for exploring life on Mars. NASA’s Curiosity rover is finding life-friendly areas on the Red Planet and the space agency now is deciding how best to equip a rover set to follow in Curiosity’s tracks in 2020.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) today announced that a team from Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) is one of six Track A teams chosen to compete this December in trials for the DARPA Robotics Challenge. The Track A teams, which are building their own robots for the competition, join seven previously announced Track B and C teams that will use humanoid robots supplied to them by DARPA. The NREC team is now assembling its four-limbed robot, called the CMU Highly Intelligent Mobile Platform, or CHIMP. The human-size robot is designed to perform tasks, such as climbing ladders, driving vehicles and closing valves that must be accomplished during the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC).