Technology Review - Published By MIT
Advertisement

TR Editors' blog

Insights, opinions, and our editors' analysis of the latest in emerging technologies.

Blog Topics

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

  • masal : korgrolandyamahamd altyapidemoketron
  • ... : Just sayin'. Related: News outlets use the same technique to create value-free "content" to match...
  • Phineas : your advice is that I put up a blog claiming the outcome of Charles B Rangel's ethics hearing and...
  • mattgroom : While we may not be able to transport the extra energy in our current wiring...why bother...  Use...
  • wctopp : You can now legally "jailbreak" an iPhone and use it on another network.  You cannot, however,...
Advertisement
Sunday, December 06, 2009

Robotic Arms Avoid Collision

Videos show a new program that lets robotic arms in a factory gracefully avoid each other.

Experimental software developed by Harris Corporation, an international communication equipment company, could help make robots less clumsy and dangerous.

The software allows a factory robot to sense and avoid objects while still moving quickly.

Harris Corporation engineer Paul Bosscher described the technology at last month's 2009 IEEE's Technologies for Practical Robot Applications conference in Woburn, MA.

The software creates a virtual "shell" around the robot's arm, allowing it to avoid obstacles in combination with machine vision. Bosscher says the company has applied for a patent and may try to market the collision avoidance program to businesses.

The video below shows using the software to automatically avoid another robot:



In another clip, the robot avoids a red ball:


Comments

  • [no subject]
    Hahah! it looks just like my cat when he doesn't want to be petted!
    Rate this comment: 12345

    ECF
    12/08/2009
    Posts:7
    Avg Rating:
    4/5
  • impressive indeed
    This is impressive and practical indeed!
    Collision avoidance with humans and other dynamic objects has always been a topic in industrial robotics area.
    I wonder how many cameras are used, how are they mounted, and how much "standardization" (enough light,no shadow,etc.) of the environment has to be made in order to make the vision system work.
    Rate this comment: 12345

    wljiang
    12/19/2009
    Posts:2
    Avg Rating:
    5/5
    • Re: impressive indeed
      This particular vision system is just a single camera mounted at the end of the table (the view is shown in the second video).  Here we take advantage of the known object features (shape, size, color) to recognize the ball and determine its 3D location.  For arbitrary objects you would just need a stereo vision system or something similar to extract 3D locations of objects.
      Rate this comment: 12345

      paulbossch...
      01/18/2010
      Posts:1
Advertisement

Log In

Forgot your password?     Register »
Advertisement
Technology Review July/August 2010

Current Issue

Can AIDS Be Cured?
Researchers are pursuing radical new strategies to eliminate HIV from the body.
•  Subscribe
Save 36%
•  Table of Contents
•  MIT News
» Gift Subscription
» Digital Subscription
» Reprints, Back Issues
» Subscribe
» Table of Contents
» MIT News

More Technology News from Forbes

Advertisement
MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology © 2010 Technology Review. All Rights Reserved.