Nanorobotics

  Nanorobotics

Nanorobotics is the emerging technology field creating machines or robots whose components are at or close to the scale of ananometre (10⁻⁹ meters).^[1][2][3] More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the nanotechnology engineering discipline of designing and building nanorobots, with devices ranging in size from 0.1–10 micrometres and constructed of nanoscale or molecularcomponents.^[4][5] The names nanobots, nanoids, nanites, nanomachines, or nanomites have also been used to describe t

hese devices currently under research and development.^[6][7]

Nanomachines are l

argely in the research and development phase,^[8] but some primitive molecular machines and nanomotors have been tested. An example is a sensor having a switch approximately 1.5 nanometers across, capable of counting specific molecules in a chemical sample. The first useful applications of nanomachines might be in nanomedicine. For example,^[9] biological machinescould be used to identify and destroy cancer cells.^[10][11] Another potential application is the detection of toxic chemicals, and the measurement of their concentrations, in the environment. Rice University has demonstrated a single-molecule car developed by a chemical process and including buckyballs for wheels. It is actuated by controlling the environmental temperature and by positioning a scanning tunneling microscope tip.

Another definition is a robot that 

allows precision interactions with nanoscale objects, or can manipulate with nanoscale resolution. Such devices are more related to microscopy or scanning probe microscopy, instead of the description of nanorobots as molecular machine. Following the microscopy definition even a large apparatus such as an atomic force microscope can be considered a nanorobotic instrument when configured to perform nanomanipulation. For this perspective, macroscale robots or microrobots that can move with nanoscale precision can also be considered nanorobots.

A practical approach with advanced computer aided manufacturing analysis is presented for the problem of nanorobot assembly automation and instrumentation. The prototyping development concentrates its main focus on practical experimental nanorobot hardware manufacturing design and control system for intelligent pathological sensing and manipulation. Medical nanodevices provide a suitable way to enable the clinical treatment of patients with chronic diseases. Hence, the detailed projects use inside body 3D real time visualization and hardware verification techniques, addressing key aspects required to achieve successful integrated nanoelectronics product implementation.

RoboBee

RoboBee is a tiny robot capable of tethered flight, developed by a research robotics team at Harvard University. The culmination of twelve years of research, RoboBee solved two key technical challenges of micro-robotics. Engineers invented a process inspired by pop-up books that allowed them to build on a sub-millimeter scale precisely and efficiently. To achieve flight, they created artificial muscles capable of beating the wings 120 times per second.

The goal of the RoboBee project is to make a fully autonomous swarm of flying robots for applications such as search and rescue and artificial pollination. To make this feasible, researchers need to figure out how to get power supply and decision making functions, which are currently supplied to the robot via a tiny tether, on board.

rvard scientists have introduced what may be the cutest flying robots ever: a bio-inspired insect-sized aircraft dubbed RoboBee that pushes flight-worthy craft into their smallest wings yet.

“To our knowledge this is the smallest flying robot so far,” said Pakpong Chirarattananon, co-lead of the paper in Science describing the 80-milligram robot with a 3-centimeter wingspan that’s hardly bigger than a penny.

Building such a tiny flying robot required marshaling an enormous amount of ingenuity -- and several engineering breakthroughs -- to overcome the challenges of working on the sub-millimeter level. Nuts and bolts prove unmanageable, and turbulence becomes a much bigger issue on such a small scale.

The researchers came up with a way to build the robots by tracing out patterns in flat sheets and then folding them into the desired shape. This approach allowed them to use different materials in sheets that they could glue together with relative ease.

The method is “a bit like the approach you use with origami,” Chirarattananon said. “And that enables us to create something that’s small and precise.”

The researchers had to build their own "muscles" for the tiny robotic bug. They came up with a tiny piezoelectric actuator -- thin ceramic strips that squeeze when a current is run through them, allowing the aircraft to flap its wings at 120 times per second.

The robots still don’t have their own brains -- even cellphone-sized microchips are too big for them -- and they don’t have their own power source. The tiny bugs had to be tethered with tiny power cords and they lasted about 10 to 15 minutes before the hinges on their wings gave out. 

But once scientists come up with a way to give the bugs their own brains and energy source, such robo-flies could become very useful as tiny search-and-rescue vehicles inside buildings, Chirarattananon said, and perhaps even handy to help pollinate plants as colony collapse disorder continues to plague honeybee hives.

Robotic Arm

http://www.mechatronicsengineering.info/320-trainable-robot…

Trainable Robotic Arm

Inspired by the Baxter robot, this arm can be trained to move with your own hands. Once the train button is pressed, you move the arm and gripper as needed while the Arduino stores the positions in EEPROM. After that the arm will replay the motio...

DOMESTIC ROBOT

ROBOTS FOR HOME USES

Roomba

iRobot's Roomba is one of the most popular automatic vacuuming devices on the market. They clean by sizing up a room, and then traveling over floors in zig-zag pattern. Newer Roombas can be scheduled to vacuum during certain days and times.

Intelligent AGVs (i-AGVs)

Such as SmartLoader,^[91] SpeciMinder,^[92] ADAM,^[93] Tug^[94] Eskorta,^[95] and MT 400 with Motivity^[96] are designed for people-friendly workspaces. They navigate by recognizing natural features. 3D scanners or other means of sensing the environment in two or three dimensions help to eliminate cumulative errors in dead-reckoning calculations of the AGV's current position. Some AGVs can create maps of their environment using scanning lasers withsimultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) and use those maps to navigate in real time with other path planning and obstacle avoidance algorithms. They are able to operate in c

omplex environments and perform non-repetitive and non-sequential tasks such as transporting photomasks in a semiconductor lab, specimens in hospitals and goods in warehouses. For dynamic areas, such as warehouses full of pallets, AGVs require additional strategies using three-dimensional sensors such as time-of-flight or stereovision cameras.

Dirty, dangerous, dull or inaccessible tasks

There are many jobs which humans would rather leave to robots. The job may be boring, such as domestic cleaning, or dangerous, such as exploring inside a volcano.^[97] Other jobs are physically inaccessible, such as exploring another planet,^[98] cleaning the inside of a long pipe, or performing laparoscopic surgery.^[99]


Space probes

Almost every unmanned space probe ever launched was a robot.^[100][101] Some were launched in the 1960s with very limited abilities, but their ability to fly and land (in the case ofLuna 9) is an indication of their status as a robot. This includes the Voyager probes and the Galileo probes, and others.

Telerobots


Teleoperated robots, or telerobots, are devices remotely operated from a distance by a human operator rather than following a predetermined sequence of movements, but which has semi-autonomous behaviour. They are used when a human cannot be present on site to perform a job because it is dangerous, far away, or inaccessible. The robot may be in another room or another country, or may be on a very different scale to the operator. For instance, a laparoscopic surgery robot allows the surgeon to work inside a human patient on a relatively small scale compared to open surgery, significantly shortening recovery time.^[99] They can also be used to avoid exposing workers to the hazardous and tight spaces such as in duct cleaning. When disabling a bomb, the operator sends a
 small robot to disable it. Several authors have been using a device called the Longpen to sign books remotely.^[102] Teleoperated robot aircraft, like the PredatorUnmanned Aerial Vehicle, are increasingly being used by the military. These pilotless drones can search terrain and fire on targets.^[103][104] Hundreds of robots such as iRobot's Packbot and the Foster-Miller TALON are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan by theU.S. military to defuse roadside bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in an activity known as explosive ordnance disposal(EOD).^[105]A xplosive devicenear Camp Fallujah, Iraq

Automated fruit harvesting machines

Robots are used to automate picking fruit on orchards at a cost lower than that of human pickers.

Domestic robots



The Roomba domestic vacuum cleaner robot does a sing
le, menial job
Domestic robots are simple robots dedicated to a single task work in home use. They are used in simple but unwanted jobs, such asvacuum cleaning, floor washing, and lawn mowing. An example of a domestic robot is a Roomba.