Weekly Robotics #178

If you are reading this newsletter by e-mail then, depending on your e-mail client, you might have received a less-than-ideal experience last week due to some formatting issues. I’ve made the mistake of not sufficiently testing the new template. Apologies for that and for now I’ll revert to the previous format until I have more time to fix all the small issues and test everything works well in most clients. As usual, the publication of the week section is manned by Rodrigo. The most clicked link last week was Rodney Brooks predictions scorecard update with 14.2% opens.

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Sponsored

Huge thanks to all of the Weekly Robotics supporters helping this project through Patreon and the following business partners:

• M. Sadowski Consulting

TurtleBot3, a Powerful Little Robot for Learning ROS

emanual.robotis.com The TurtleBot3 is a modular ROS-based mobile robot for education and research. It is built with a Raspberry Pi, 32-bit ARM Cortex, 360 Lidar sensor, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, and most importantly, is powered by DYNAMIXEL smart robot actuators. Do SLAM, Navigation and Manipulation with the TurtleBot3, and do not miss the Tutorial Videos on YouTube!

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Introduction to Autonomous Robots

GitHub

Introduction to Autonomous Robots is a book by a team from the University of Colorado Boulder, with the book’s source freely available online under Creative Commons 4.0 licence. According to the project page the book extensively uses Webots for exercises. To download the compiled version of the book you can visit the releases page on GitHub.

ROS-Industrial is buzzing

ROS-Industrial

This article is a short write up on the ROS-Industrial conference that took place in December and it showcases what some of the consortium members are up to with regards to implementing or extending ROS by working on some new features or packages.

Fail Of The Week: 3D Printed Parts That Burn Like NASA’s Rocket Fuel

Hackaday

I thoroughly enjoyed this video by Intgeza, who was trying to 3D print a solid-fuel rocket with varying success. The author makes the process look so easy you might start wondering if it’s rocket science (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun).

Engine Cooling – Why Rocket Engines Don’t Melt

Everyday Astronaut

If you found the previous feature interesting, then this is a great follow up about various methods of cooling rocket engines. The article features some very detailed graphics that nicely show all the presented methods.

Jet-HR2: Hovering Flight of a Flying Humanoid Robot based on Thrust Vector Control

YouTube

Back in August, we’ve shared this the first video of Jet-HR2 hovering bipedal robot. Recently, the team from the Guangdong University of Technology had showcased a more stable flight using a motion capture system in the loop.

Robo-dogs and therapy bots: Artificial intelligence goes cuddly

CBS News

In this CBS News story, we can learn about various robots that are being used in Japan for therapy purposes, some even working out quite well in Kindergartens. Presumably due to the pandemic, some manufacturers of these types of robots report that sales increased 11-fold over the last year. Personally, I can see why these kinds of robots would work.

Publication of the Week - Creation of a Modular Soft Robotic Fish Testing Platform (2022)

arXiv

Soft robots are mainly inspired by nature’s living organisms. This is possible due to the use of compliance materials that mimic soft tissues, muscles, and more. This paper presents a soft robotic fish developed on a pipeline that offers an improved design iteration increasing the research progression. The robot uses modular mold-sets that vary in size and shape to produce a higher number of combinations. These combinations made it easy to compare results between each design iteration and refine the models.

Business

Local Motors, the company behind Olli, closes its doors

The Robot Report

Due to the lack of funding, Local Motors had closed down last week. According to the article, the company had closed due to lack of funding, and not due to the accident in December where the shuttle collided with a tree while being operated manually by the driver who was critically injured (if you are curious this article from 2019 shows the crash tests of these buses).