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Droid guardians would take bullet for fleshy masters

US tech and aerospace firm Honeywell has submitted a patent proposal which would see airliners protected from shoulder-fired terrorist missiles by drone escorts.

Flight International reports that Honeywell lawyers filed the proposals last month. The idea would be that as an aircraft took off, the unmanned escort would fly automatically in formation with it. In the event of a missile attack, the drone would attempt to spoof or blind the incoming weapon's seeker head. If this failed, the robot aircraft would take the hit.

"This formation drone aircraft, which carries various missile detection and diversion equipment, is controlled by a wireless data link that is coupled directly into the airliner's flight control system," the Honeywell documents state.

"When the formation drone determines that a missile is being viewed by a missile sensor head, the formation drone lays down a predetermined pattern of exploding flares to divert the missile away from the airliner, attempts to spoof the missile using laser countermeasures or sacrifices itself to protect the airliner."

In the normal case where no attack took place, the drone would stay with the escorted airliner to an altitude of 18,000 feet, well above the service ceiling for shoulder-fired missiles. Then it would peel off and return to the airport to pick up its next charge, or land for refuelling and maintenance if required.

Homing anti-aircraft missiles, aka Man Portable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS) are much less commonly available than basic armour-piercing unguided rockets like the RPG. Nonetheless they are seen as a credible threat by security and counter-terrorism officials. Examples of such weapons include the Russian SA-14, said to have been supplied to Iran and thence onward to Iraqi insurgents. An SA-14 was used to shoot down a British military helicopter over Basra in 2006. Israeli airliners were also targeted (unsuccessfully) by MANPADS above Kenya in 2002.

The US Department of Homeland Security is currently trialling protective laser anti-MANPADS systems aboard commercial flights in America. The DHS goal is thought to be the widespread adoption of such systems, but the aviation industry belief is that this would be prohibitively expensive.

Honeywell's patent application argues that the approach of operating suitably equipped escort drones at airports makes more sense, as it is only during the takeoff and landing phases of flight that airliners are vulnerable to MANPADS.

The Flight report can be read here.

Citroen has revealed what its new C4 robot commercial will involve, taking the cult automaton onto the streets of New York.

The robot will visit Manhattan and strut its metal puffs to the strains of MC Lita's remix of the BeeGees' 'Staying Alive'.

Citroen says the new robot is "funked-up", completed with 'bling' accessories like jewelled teeth, disco lights and glitter-ball beret.

This will be the fourth advert to feature the dancing automaton, this time designed to showcase the remodelled 'New Look' C4 that goes on sale this month.

The vehicle has a restyled exterior, new equipment trim levels and a variety of new petrol engines co-developed with BMW, designed to produce lower CO2 emissions.

[Via www.totallymotor.co.uk]

A spaceship descends with a thunderous roar and deposits a futuristic probe before taking off again. The Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator (EVE) soon activates and begins flying around, scanning the barren surface for signs of life.

Scientists today can only dream of having a robotic explorer like EVE from the Disney/Pixar film "WALLE." But some researchers are working on autonomous spacecraft, airships and rovers that can cooperate intelligently while exploring distant worlds.

"The orbiter gives you global perspective, the aerial platform a more regional perspective, and that helps determine where to deploy ground assets in a targeted fashion," said Wolfgang Fink, a physicist at Caltech in Pasadena, California.

Fink's vision of "tier-scalable reconnaissance" starts with an orbiting spacecraft to make a global survey for interesting scientific targets, before deciding on its own where to deploy an airship such as a dirigible. The airship could look even closer at a region to find the best landing site, and finally drop a rover or some other surface explorer. That surface explorer could then move quickly to the target area.

A demonstration of how such a surface explorer might deploy will take place in the Mars Science Laboratory mission, slated for a 2009 launch. NASA's Sky Crane carrier will hover above the surface of Mars on retrorockets while lowering an SUV-sized rover using a winch and tether.

Some Mars missions have already demonstrated the advantage of coordinating orbiters with surface explorers. Scientists used data from three Mars orbiters to determine the landing site for NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, and also turned orbiter cameras on the lander as it descended to the surface. Of the three orbiters, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has even helped NASA's separate Spirit and Opportunity Rovers navigate around obstacles on the Martian surface.

However, Fink and his collaborators want to take humans out of the loop and develop robots which can decide independently when and where to go. That becomes crucial for future missions to distant places such as the moons of Saturn or Jupiter, where a command signal from Earth can take over an hour to reach robotic explorers.

The key rests with software algorithms that help robots make command decisions on their own. Fink's group has begun testing such algorithms by using three small rovers and a camera that looks down on a simulated indoor landscape. The camera identifies both targets and obstacles, which allows the rovers to deploy and drive around obstacles to reach their targets — all without human intervention.

"Integration is the biggest challenge," Fink noted. "At Caltech, we are now at the point where we're implementing a test-bed outdoors to develop the software to demonstrate this in action."

The outdoors test would involve a miniature airship taking the place of the camera. Researchers from around the world would be able to give commands to the airship via Internet and watch it move and deploy the rovers on its own.

The field tests may pave the way for using similar command software on the proposed NASA and European mission to Titan or Europa. Fink and other researchers involved with the planning have begun discussing how such a mission might shape up by the 2017 launch date.

"A Titan mission would have the orbiter deploying a balloon, and we're already thinking about having a lander," Fink explained. "There you have a three-tier mission."

The tiered approach may eventually take the form of a robot that "does its own reconnaissance, goes out and looks for anomalies, finds something interesting and makes contact with the sender," Fink said, pointing to the Imperial probe from "The Empire Strikes Back" which lands on the ice planet Hoth.

Perhaps best of all, intelligent robots could react quickly to surprises and investigate anomalies — such as a geyser on Saturn's moon Enceladus, or a landslide on Mars.

"Curiosity in itself is not present in any of our machine systems," Fink said, remarking upon WALLE's childlike tendencies which appear to distract EVE but eventually help her mission. "That curiosity drives action."

Via yahoo news

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David Hanson, the artist-engineer who builds life-like artificial faces, has now created a 17-inch-tall robot with a cartoon version of a child's face. Popular Science profiled Hanson when he was first starting out, and had created an expressive robotic head modeled after his girlfriend.

This latest marvel, Zeno, has the same name as his 18-month-old son, and can also communicate a range of emotions by twisting its mouth, eyes and various facial features. Hanson has built a range of very real-looking robots in the past, including dead ringers for Einstein and Philip K. Dick. His ultimate goal is to cross the so-called Uncanny Valley, and create robotic faces that draw people in rather than freaking them out.

The coolest part? He hopes to be selling Zenos for $200 to $300 within a few years.—Gregory Mone

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Are you ready for some football? Robot football, that is. Well, let these bots do the gridiron game for you. Join the Robotic Football League (RFL). Founded in Westminister, Colorado by Active Innovations, this new sport brings teams of robots to a competitive field for some football. These aren’t just any kludged together robots, either. The players in this league are derived from the AI-O1 robot built by Active Innovations. Featuring wireless communications, a PIC microcontroller, and built-in voice, the AI-01 can be configured as a passer, receiver, and blocker. The $119 robot can also be hacked into a “dream player” with a $19.95 RFL USB to AI Adapter from SparkFun Electronics. Designed for 2-bot, 3-bot, and 6-bot rosters, the RFL could be coming to an open 8-x16-foot floor or HobbyTown USA near you.—Dave Prochnow

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MAASTRICHT, Netherlands (AFP) - Romantic human-robot relationships are no longer the stuff of science fiction -- researchers expect them to become reality within four decades.

And they do not mean simply, mechanical sex.

"I am talking about loving relationships about 40 years from now," David Levy, author of the book "Love + sex with robots", told AFP at an international conference held last week at the University of Maastricht in the south-east of the country.

"... when there are robots that have also emotions, personality, consciousness. They can talk to you, they can make you laugh. They can ... say they love you just like a human would say 'I love you', and say it as though they mean it ..."

Robots as sex toys should already be on the market within five years, predicted Levy, "a sort of an upgrade of the sex dolls on sale now".

These would have electronic speech and sensors that make them utter "nice sounds" when a human caresses their "erogenous zones".

But to build robots as real partners would take a bit longer, with conversation skills being the main obstacle for developers.

Scientists were working on artificial personality, emotion and consciousness, said Levy, and some robots already appear lifelike.

"But for loving relationships -- that is something completely different. In loving relationships there are many more things that are important. And the most difficult of all is conversation.

"You want your robot to be able to talk to you about what is interesting to you. You want a partner who has some similar interest to you, who talks to you in a manner that pleases you, who has a similar sense of humour to you."

The field of human-computer conversation is crucial to building robots with whom humans could fall in love, but is lagging behind other areas of development, said the author.

"I am sure it will (happen.) In 40 years ... perhaps sooner. You will find robots, conversation partners, that will talk to you and you will get as much pleasure from it as talking to another human. I am sure of it."

Levy's bombshell thesis, whose publication has had a ripple-effect way beyond the scientific community, gives rise to a number of complicated ethical and relationship questions.

British scholar Dylan Evans pointed out the paradox inherent to any relationship with a robot.

"What is absolutely crucial to the sentiment of love, is the belief that the love is neither unconditional nor eternal.

"Robots cannot choose you, they cannot reject you. That could become very boring, and one can imagine the human becoming cruel against his defenseless partner", said Evans.

A robot could conceivably be programmed with a will of its own and the ability to reject his human partner, he said, "but that would be a very difficult robot to sell".

Some warn against being overhasty.

"Let us not exaggerate the possibilities!" said Dutch researcher Vincent Wiegel of the Technological University of the eastern town of Delft.

"Today, the artificial intelligence we are able to create is that of a child of one year of age."

But Levy is unyielding. He is convinced it will happen, and predicts many societal benefits.

"There are many millions of people in the world who have nobody. They might be shy or they might have some psychological hang-ups or psycho-sexual hang-ups, they might have personality problems, they might be ugly ...

"There will always be many millions of people who cannot make normal satisfactory relationships with humans, and for them the choice is not: 'would I prefer a relationship with a human or would I prefer a relationship with a robot?' -- the choice is no relationship at all or a relationship with a robot."

They might even become human-to-human relationship savers, he predicted.

"Certainly there will be some existing human-human relationships where one partner might say to the other partner: 'if you have sex with a robot I'm leaving you'.

"There will be others who say: 'when you go on your business trip please take your robot because I happen to worry about the red light district'."

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LiveScience.com

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The robotic 'hands' of NeuroArm are rock-steady, and can move in much smaller increments than a human being's hands.

Earlier this month, NeuroArm was used to remove a brain tumor from the patient Paige Nickason - a first.

The human hand can steady itself and move in increments of one or two millimeters. NeuroArm can move in increments of just fifty microns. A micron is one millionth of a meter. Also, NeuroArm's robotic 'hands' can operate in the brain in a way that is less invasive and more delicate than a surgeon's hands.

NeuroArm is not an autonomous robot; it operates under the direction of physicians using remote controls and an imaging screen for close work.

I think science fiction writer Raymond Z. Gallun called this one in his 1939 story Masson's Secret:

"There was a long steel arm or standard that could be clamped on the end of an operating table. At the end of the arm was a binocular microscope. Beneath the latter were hundreds of screw buttons. And gathered right where the microscope was focused - where a needle-point beam of intense light could be projected for illumination - there was a ring of tiny metal prongs. You turned the screws below and the prongs moved - any or all of them - in any plane or direction you could mention, and with caliper slowness, minuteness and precision. At the end of each prong was a surgical tool - blades, tweezers, probes - so fine you could just see them with the naked eye.

"Micro-surgery!..."

Robert Heinlein came close on this one; he thought about "ultramicrominiature waldoes" that could be used to perform microsurgery just a few years later.

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TUCSON, Ariz. - Scientists began releasing the robotic arm on NASA's new Mars spacecraft on Wednesday, one day late because of a radio problem. The Phoenix lander, which arrived on Mars on Sunday, is in excellent shape, said project manager Barry Goldstein. He said the communications glitch was only a blip in the robot's three-month exploration of the planet's northern arctic region.

The outage occurred Tuesday in one of two NASA satellites circling Mars when a radio shut off before it could relay commands to the lander to get the 8-foot arm moving, Goldstein said.

The robotic arm was folded on the lander's science deck to protect it from the vibrations of the launch and landing. Before Phoenix can flex its arm, it must rotate its wrist to release the latches on its forearm and elbow and "move it out in a staircase fashion" to remove its protective sleeve, said robotic arm manager Bob Bonitz of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Controllers sent the instructions on Wednesday to begin the two-day process. Goldstein said he hoped photos of the partially unfurled arm would be available Thursday.

Phoenix's arm will eventually dig into the soil surrounding it, seeking ice believed to be within inches to a foot below the surface. It's part of the effort to study whether the site could have supported primitive life.

The robotic arm has four joints in all — two at the shoulder to allow it to move side to side as well as up and down, an elbow and a wrist, which allows it to move its crucial scoop and digging device.

Phoenix has delighted scientists with the first-ever peek of the planet's northern arctic region since its landing Sunday onto relatively flat terrain containing few rocks. Twin rovers have been operating near the Martian equator since 2004.

Texas A&M University's Mark Lemmon, who is in charge of the lander's camera, said scientists are still investigating geometric patterns in the surface likely caused by the expansion and contraction of underground ice. Some areas immediately surrounding the lander would be designated a no-digging "natural preserve," Lemmon said.

A few features on nearby terrain have been given such nicknames as Humpty Dumpty and Sleepy Hollow, he said.

The $420 million mission is led by University of Arizona, Tucson, and managed by JPL.


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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Using only its brainpower, a monkey can direct a robotic arm to pluck a marshmallow from a skewer and stuff it into its mouth, researchers said on Wednesday.

"They are using a motorized prosthetic arm to reach out, grab and bring the food back to their face," said Andrew Schwartz of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, whose study will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Nature.

Schwartz said the technology behind this feat may lead to brain-powered prosthetic limbs for people with spinal cord injuries or disabling diseases that make such simple tasks impossible.

Until now, such brain-machine interfaces have been used to control cursor movements on a computer screen. Schwartz and colleagues wanted to apply the technology to real-world tasks.

The monkey guides the robot arm the same way it does its natural limbs, through brain signals.

Schwartz' team picks up those signals through an array of microelectrodes half the size of a thumbtack that has been implanted in the monkey's brain. These signals are amplified and relayed to a computer that operates the robotic arm.

Schwartz said his team has learned that certain motor neurons fire rapidly when the monkey wants to move a certain way. "What is important is each neuron seems to have a preferred direction," Schwartz said in a telephone interview.

"One cell will fire a lot if you move upward. Another cell will fire a lot if you move to the right. All you really need to do is listen to these neurons at the same time to determine which direction the animal wants to move in," he said.

COMPUTER CONTROL

"We record those patterns of action potential, interpret them with a computer and extract the monkey's intention to move. That serves as a control signal to the robot."

Schwartz said it takes about three days for a monkey to learn to operate the arm, and they continuously improve.

So far, they have trained two monkeys to feed themselves with the robotic arm. The monkeys sit in a chair with their arms gently restrained in sleeves that keep them from simply grabbing the food on their own. "These animals will just relax their arms as they control these devices," Schwartz said.

The monkeys appear to enjoy the task. "They sure like eating their marshmallows." Sometimes the team will use pieces of apple, orange or zucchini. "Just about anything we can that doesn't make too big of a mess," Schwartz said.

The ultimate goal is to develop a brain-powered prosthesis that can restore near-natural function to an amputee or person with a spinal cord injury.

But first, they want to refine the system. The next step is to develop an operating wrist and jointed fingers to add dexterity to the device.

"If you look at what these patients really need, they need to be able to use their fingers to increase their quality of life. They need to button shirts and pull zippers and things like that," Schwartz said.

The researchers must overcome several engineering challenges, including developing more durable electrodes that do not lose their signal over time, but Schwartz believes such devices are feasible.

"We're learning more and more about brain function as we do this," he said.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Eric Beech)

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