Vijay Kumar showing off palm-sized "agile aerial robots" at TED

In his lab at Penn, Vijay Kumar and his team build flying quadrotors, small, agile robots that swarm, sense each other, and form ad hoc teams -- for construction, surveying disasters and far more.

At the University of Pennsylvania, Vijay Kumar studies the control and coordination of multi-robot formations. Full bio »

Vega to fly ESA experimental reentry vehicle

Europe's ambition for a spacecraft to return autonomously from low orbit is a cornerstone for a wide range of space applications, including space transportation, exploration and robotic servicing of space infrastructure. 

Part of this goal will be achieved with IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle, planned for launch in 2014.

Launched into a suborbital trajectory on ESA's Vega rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, IXV will return to Earth as if from a low-orbit mission, to test and qualify new European critical reentry technologies such as advanced ceramic and ablative thermal protection. 

The 2 t IXV lifting body is about 5 m long, 2.2 m wide and 1.5 m high. Its hypersonic lift-to-drag ratio of 0.7 guarantees the required aerodynamic performance. Credits: ESA/J.Huart

The launch of ESA's IXV Intermediate eXperimental Vehicle on Europe's new Vega rocket is now in detailed planning, a major step towards the craft's flight in 2014.

Launched into a suborbital trajectory from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, IXV will return to Earth as if from a low-orbit mission, to test and qualify new critical technologies for future reentry vehicles.

It will attain an altitude of around 450 km, allowing it to reach a velocity of 7.5 km/s on entering the atmosphere. It will collect a large amount of data during its hypersonic and supersonic flight, while it is being controlled by thrusters and aerodynamic flaps.

IXV will then descend by parachute and land in the Pacific Ocean to await recovery and analysis.

ESA and the Arianespace launch provider signed a contract on 14 December to study the launch on Vega, as part of the VERTA - Vega Research and Technology Accompaniment - programme.

The rocket's qualification flight planned for liftoff at the end of January will pave the way for the next five VERTA missions that will demonstrate the system's flexibility.

At a planned rate of two launches per year, the programme will allow the smooth introduction of Vega for commercial exploitation.

Following development of critical technologies and completion of the design, the vehicle's manufacturing, assembly, integration and qualification is now under way for a flight window between January and September 2014.

Procurement of the ground network has begun, including the mission control centre, ground station telemetry kits, transportable antennas and communication network.

Vega is Europe's new, small launcher. Its performance perfectly complements that of the heavy Ariane 5 and medium Soyuz rockets launched from French Guiana.

It is designed to cope with a wide range of missions and payload configurations in order to respond to different market opportunities and provide great flexibility.

In particular, it offers configurations able to handle payloads ranging from a single satellite up to one main satellite plus six microsatellites.

Vega is compatible with payload masses ranging from 300 kg to 2500 kg, depending on the type and altitude of the orbit required by the customers. The benchmark is for 1500 kg into a 700 km-altitude polar orbit.

Quadrocopter Ball Juggling, ETH Zurich - YouTube

It seems like an ideal–and adventurous–match: innovative architectural firm Gramazio & Kohler, known for using robots to assemble buildings, team up with inventor Raffaello D’Andrea, whose autonomous robots help retailers like Walgreen’s and Staples stock their warehouses efficiently.
This is the idea behind an exhibition that opens on December 2 and is on view through February 19 at the FRAC Centre in Orleans, France, an art and design gallery.
The result promises to be an intriguing exercise in using advanced robots to construct a swirling structure. The flying robots D’Andrea will provide won’t be building an actual skyscraper outdoors, but will be carrying and assembling 1,200 polystyrene foam bricks into an undulating tower that will reach nearly 20 feet high in the FRAC Centre.

It could be considered either a beautiful sculpture or a large-scale architectural model.
D’Andrea, a co-founder and Chief Technical Advisor of Kiva Systems, which makes warehouse robots, also teaches at ETH Zurich (ETH is the acronym for the Swiss spelling of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, or Eidgenossiche Technische Hochschule). There, he researches and builds intricate flying robots that can perform complicated maneuvers. Check out the video to get a sense of what they can do:
Fabio Gramazio & Matthias Kohler, also professors at ETH Zurich, have regularly used robots to build walls and pavilions for around five years, including a 72-foot-long structure in New York consisting of 7,000-plus bricks.
Pairing the robotics pioneers should result in a show-stopping exhibition but this could be more than an art and design show. Taking the complex research that the collaborators have done over the years on the precision, flexibility, and speed of robots and applying their collective knowledge to the construction of buildings could be a step toward the future of both architecture and robotics.

Beyond the ideal match of the creative minds involved, this exhibition could prove to symbolize another excellent match of creative industries, too.

Sensor-laden dragonfly helps future robots soar

(Image: Duke University)

 
It's not a bird! It's not a plane! It's a dragonfly, and researchers are using a microchip attached to its belly to understand the complex mechanics of its flight.

Dragonflies capture their prey mid-flight, requiring precise control of horizontal and vertical movement to line up their meal with their mouths.

"Dragonfly wings almost swim through the air," says electrical engineer Matt Reynolds from Duke University. "They have many more degrees of freedom than an airplane's wing."

That's Reynolds in the picture above, holding an example of the microchip, which, at 38 milligrams, weighs just one-tenth what a dragonfly does, and doesn't interfere with its ability to fly and hunt.

It's so light because it's powered wirelessly and can transmit data at the rate of five megabits per second - about the speed of a typical home internet connection.

He is working with a team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to determine how dragonflies manoeuvre through the air, and what we can learn that may lead to advances in robotic flying vehicles of the future.

Electrodes connected to 16 neurons in the dragonfly's nerve cord will transmit information that travels from the dragonfly's eyes as they spy their prey to their motor control system.

High-speed video will be correlated with neural signals as the microchipped dragonflies capture fruit flies, giving researchers insight into flight-control laws that govern these winged wonders.

Air Force's X-37B Robot Space Plane: Secret Mission may go on longer

After nearly seven months of flight, the U.S. Air Force's latest X-37B robotic space plane is nearing a milestone in its supersonic super-secret mission in Earth orbit as it chalks up air mileage and operational experience.

As of last week, the re-usable X-37B space plane had been in orbit for more than 206 days, two months shy of its 270-day mission design lifetime.

The spacecraft, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, launched on its clandestine mission on March 5 from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The space plane is the second X-37B spacecraft built for the Air Force by Boeing's Phantom Works and carries the name Orbital Test Vehicle 2, or OTV-2.

NASA - Global Hawk

The Global Hawk is a robotic plane that can fly autonomously to altitudes above 60,000 feet -- twice as high as a commercial airliner -- and as far as 11,000 nautical miles -- half the circumference of Earth.

Operators pre-program a flight path, and then the plane flies itself for as long as 30 hours, staying in contact through satellite and line-of-site communications to the ground control station at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in California's Mojave Desert.

Image Credit: NASA/Tony Landis