The expanding world of robots

The world of robots is always fascinating. We featured many robots, including humanoids, in our earlier issues. Today, we are featuring a few more to improve your knowledge about the latest and more fascinating robots. If you find information about any more robots, feel free to share it with us.

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Keepon, the dancing robot

Keepon is a small yellow robot designed to perform emotive (involving emotions) and attentive exchange with human interactions (especially children) in the simplest and most comprehensive way. This is one of the most popular robots to come out during the past year. Since it is not available for sale, the videos of Keepon are very popular among people.

Hideki Kozima of the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology in Kyoto, Japan developed Keepon. The robot has four motors, a rubber skin, two cameras for eyes and a microphone in its mouth. In appearance, it resembles a yellow snowman or a chick.

Keepon is used to study the underlying mechanisms of social communication. Its simple appearance and actions make it possible for infants and children as well as adults to interact with it.

The robot, usually under the control of a teleoperator, interacts with children in schools and remedial centres for developmental disorders.

The small robot was depicted dancing to the song 'I Turn My Camera On' by the band Spoon. More recently, Keepon has been featured in the official music video for Spoon's single 'Don't You Evah.'

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Stanley, the robot vehicle

Stanley is an autonomous (self-controlling) vehicle created by Stanford University's Stanford Racing Team in co-operation with the Volkswagen Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL). This is one of the best robots invented in the world so far.

It competed in, and won, the 2005 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge, earning the Stanford Racing Team the two million dollar prize, the largest prize money in robotic history.

Led by Associate Professor Sebastian Thrun, director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab, the Stanford Racing Team was developed solely for competing in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. Stanford did not participate in the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004. It was considered to have a 20:1 chance of winning the 2005 competition.

Stanley is currently located at a garage near the university. It was displayed at the 2006 New York International Auto Show at the Smithsonian Museum (USA), and will be spending two years at the Volkswagen Autostadt Museum (Germany) before returning indefinitely to the Smithsonian Museum.

The Stanford Racing Team has entered a new vehicle, a modified Volkswagen Passat wagon, dubbed 'Junior', in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. Other key contributors on the team include Michael Montemerlo (software lead), Sven Strohband (lead engineer) Cedric Dupont (vehicle lead), and Pamela Mahoney (communications lead).

Stanley's original frame was a standard European diesel model Volkswagen Touareg provided by Volkswagen's ERL for the competition. Stanley had sensors installed in a wheel to record a pattern imprinted on the tyre and to act as an odometer (a device built in a vehicle that records the distance travelled).

This is used in case of loss of signal (such as when driving through a tunnel); using this sensor and its data, the on-board computer can estimate how far it has travelled since the signal was lost.

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Aibo, the robot pet

AIBO (Artificial Intelligence roBOt, equal to 'companion' in Japanese) is one of several types of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony; there have been several different models since their introduction in 1999.

Able to walk, 'see' its environment via camera, and recognise spoken commands, they are considered autonomous robots, since they are able to learn and mature based on external incentives from their owner or environment, or from other AIBOs. Artist Hajime Sorayama created the initial designs for the AIBO.

The AIBO has been used as an inexpensive platform for artificial intelligence research, because it integrates a computer, vision system, and articulators in a package vastly cheaper than conventional research robots.

The Robocop autonomous soccer competition has a Robocop Four-Legged Robot Soccer League in which numerous institutions from around the world participate. Competitors programme a team of AIBO robots to play games of autonomous robot soccer against other competing teams.

The newest versions of AIBO are equipped with a Wi-Fi connection, allowing them to send the pictures they take via email. AIBO's sounds were programmed by Japanese DJ/futuristic composer Nobukazu Takemura, who is considered by many to be highly skilled at mixing mechanic and organic concepts, and the bodies of the '3x' series (Latte and Macaron, the round-headed AIBOs released in 2001) were designed by visual artist Katsura Moshino.

Compiled by Janani Amarasekara