Short synopsis: The non-verbal documentary ROBOT WORLD depicts the evolution of robots from a
mechanical somnambulist to an autonomous sensorium. The neoclassical violinist Matt Howden
emphasizes the film’s message: these artificial people are our alternate doubles.
ROBOT WORLD is a compilation. The source material for this one-hour film comes from robot laboratories
at universities, from private footage at industrial fairs, military archives and corporate videos from the robot
industry. Motion pictures of old 16 mm films from the 1930’s were added. This non-verbal documentary
was recycled from far in excess of one hundred hours of raw material. ROBOT WORLD is the second film in
the “Technology & Mind & Evolution” series of Munich filmmaker Martin Hans Schmitt.

63 minutes, 2010, director Martin Hans Schmitt, music Matt Howden
Available as 24p/DVD (PAL + NTSC compatible)

http://www.robot-world-film.de/

http://dafilms.com/film/8061-robot-world-a-meeting-with-your-alternate-double/

Also included with the robot is a compact control box, and the entire system can be easily moved from place to place within the production environment.  The robot, which can be operated by non-technical personnel, is controlled from a touch screen with an advanced, user-friendly graphical interface.

The device was invented by Kristian Kassow, Kasper Støy and Esben Østergaard, who is currently the company’s CTO.

Since its founding in 2005, Universal Robotics has grown by more than 300% and has 75 working partners spread across 32 countries in Europe, South America, Africa, Oceania, and Asia.

RELATED:

YouTube Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6G1zU65dn4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oE0qBOIjQI0&list=PL8063ACE3B84A3DB3&index=1&feature=plpp_video

Contact Information

Company’s Name:                   Universal Robots ApS

Company’s website:                www.universal-robots.com

(See video of some of the applications our robots have performed)

Contact Person:                       Mr Enrico Krog Iversen

Designation:                            CEO of Universal Robots

Contact Number:                    0045 2066 2300

Email Address:                        eki@universal-robots.com

Company’s Location:               Svendborgvej 102, 5260 Odense S, Fyn Denmark

Company’s Telephone Number:         0045 8993 8989

Company’s Fax Number:                     0045 3879 8989

Here are some figures and a chart provided to us by Robo-Stox™ of Therobotreport.com :

• Robotic industrials are still down 28% from their 2007 highs and did poorer than the Dow Jones Industrial Average which is also still down 8.5%.

• Service robotic stocks are down 15% from 2007 while the NASDAQ is down just 2.5%.

• Industrials took a big fall from their 2007 highs with the doubly whamy of the collapse of auto sales and bankrupcies of auto companies. A small rise in the latter part of 2010 was blown away with the Japanese disasters, Thailand floods and EU economic turmoil.

• Publicly-traded service robotics companies fall into three main sectors: medical, defense/security and a mixture of academic and consumer niche products. Medical robotic stocks are booming; defense/security stocks are holding steady; and the remainder are all over the place.

• Industrial robot companies represent 62% of the $9.3 billion industry revenue; service is 38% of which 75% was for military/defense.**

See the graph below (click on it to see it bigger):

We would like to thank to Robo-Stox™ by The Robot Report for providing us the information and the chart above.

It is interesting to see according to this chart that the service robots industry has been affected to a lesser degree than the industrial robots, and especially more recently, it looks like may be starting to recover, even if the industrial robotics is still showing no positive signs. This may suggest that consumers are starting to realize the real life uses of the robots as they become more and more available and pay for them no matter what the current economic situation suggests.

and Catherine Simon, General Secretary, French Federation of Robotics

Today’s devices are becoming smarter and connected. They sense their environment, process the data collected and act upon their decisions autonomously or semi-autonomously.  The transformation is beyond productivity and enters our daily life in health, safety, transportation, communication, entertainment, chores and more. This trend is a real opportunity for disruptive innovations.

InnoRobo – 14^th to 16^th of March 2012, in Lyon, France – is gathering the thinkers and doers to their innovation summit to accelerate the emergence of such innovations.

InnoRobo promises to gather top range exhibitors from Asia, North America and Europe and will demonstrate more than 100 different robots, with 30+ displayed for the first time in Europe.  The whole emerging robotic ecosystem (creators, technologies, component suppliers, distributors, high end research labs and educational institutions) will be participating in an energetic, open-minded atmosphere, sharing and exchanging with entrepreneurs, investors, reporters and researchers.

Of course there will be some uniquely French things that you won’t experience elsewhere:

In addition to the exhibition hall, there will be conference sessions with five major themes:

Synergies and convergence between Industrial and Service robotics:

Industrial robotics is known for its applications in welding, soldering, handling, painting and assembling, for the automotive, electronics, metal, plastic and chemical industries. But industrial robotics is evolving towards new industries as well as smaller firms. It needs to reinvent itself and produce more flexible, mobile, easily trainable robots to work hand in hand with human workers. The human robot interactions (HRI) in factories and Co-botics are hot topics demonstrating the synergies and convergence that are likely to happen between industrial and service robotics technologies and solutions.

Health and Medical robotics:

The growth of medical robots and surgeon/doctor augmentation devices since the mid-80s has been overwhelming, both as a field of innovation and research but also as a market for new products and services. Medical robotics is considered one of the success-stories of service robotics. It is a prominent segment of growth driven by demographic shifts, rising prosperity in developing countries and advances in medical technology.

Urban robots for citizens:

One vision for the future features a generation of robots designed to play various roles in urban society. Some robots will be guides, others will help the elderly, some will make sure megacities are safe and others will collect our rubbish and do various daily chores. Beyond this we envision intelligent robotics to solve our major societal challenges: mobility with an overwhelming urbanization, and sustainable development for our planet to survive our demanding energy consumption.

Cloud robotics:

Every file, document, database and digital information is now going through the “Cloud”. What does it mean for our future, with machine to machine communication, connectivity for each and every of our daily life object? The imaginary world of Matrix is not so far away: your personal robot can learn with a simple download from the Cloud how to fly a helicopter or cook the perfect dinner.

Human-Robot interactions

User-centered design is a must for robots to truly become a mass market. Although technologies progress rapidly, and despite the impressive demonstrations of humanoid robots from Japan or elsewhere, we are not there yet.  Hence the shape of robots has to be driven both by its functions and by our human expectations.  A robotic dog which doesn’t sense my approach remains a gadget, a humanoid robot which cannot engage in a natural conversation will be a disappointment.  What is the correct level of interactions with a robot? What is the ideal form factor associated to the functions it performs? What kind of robots are we ready to accept and cooperate with in our daily life? These major questions will be dealt with by researchers, ergonomists, anthropologists and roboticists at InnoRobo.

In short, InnoRobo is all about the emerging business of service robotics, where growth is projected to be a major economic driver of the 21^st century’s economy. Robotics will change our life, so it might be worth getting to know when and how. InnoRobo is a way to participate in that process.

For further information: www.innorobo.com

Aldebaran Robotics, has released its latest version of the NAO robot — NAO Next Gen. The power of NAO Next Gen, the new fully programmable humanoid robot that has the most extensive worldwide use, is opening up new perspectives and fields of application for its users.

(December 9, 2011 – Paris, France) “The inception of this new generation of NAO robots means a lot to our company. We are proud to be in a position to provide our customers with endless options, whatever their sector. With NAO Next Gen coming of age, we shall be able to make it serve organisations that care for autistic children and those losing their autonomy. I created Aldebaran Robotics in 2005 with this aim: to contribute to humankind‟s well-being,” states Bruno Maisonnier, Founder and Chairman of Aldebaran Robotics. See pictures:http://www.aldebaran-robotics.com/en/Pressroom/Photography/nao.html

Three years after it started selling its first NAO models, the company has sold 2,000 robots worldwide. Aldebaran Robotics has now released the latest generation of its programmable humanoid robots, which is intended for research, teaching and, more generally, for exploring the new area of service robotics.

Stemming from six years of research and dialogue with its community of researchers and users, NAO Next Gen is capable of a higher level of interaction, thanks to increased computing power, improved stability and higher accuracy. Therefore, the latest version of the NAO robot widens considerably the range of research, teaching and application possibilities made available to specific user groups.
One of the NAO Next Gen‟s novel and most remarkable features is the fact that it is fitted with a new on-board computer, based on the powerful 1.6GHz Intel® AtomTM processor, which is suitable for multi-tasking calculations. It also has two HD cameras that are attached to a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). This set-up allows the simultaneous reception of two video streams, significantly increasing speed and performance in face-and-object recognition, even under poor-lighting conditions.

As well as its innovative features with respect to hardware, NAO Next Gen boasts a new, faster and more reliable vocal-recognition programme called Nuance. This programme is coupled with a new functionality known as „word spotting‟, which is capable of isolating and recognizing a specific word within a sentence or a conversation.

“On top of this new hardware version, we shall be delivering new software functionalities like smart torque control, a system to prevent limb/body collisions, an improved walking algorithm, and more. We have capitalised upon our experience and customer feedback in order to deliver the most suitable and efficient platform. In terms of applications especially at high-school level, we are focused on educational content, while, when it comes to improvements in personal well-being, we are working on developing specialized applications,” explains Bruno Maisonnier.

“We are also pursuing our goal to provide a NAO intended for individuals through the Developer Program — a community of programmers who are working with us today to invent tomorrow‟s personal robotics,” adds the chairman of Aldebaran Robotics.

About Aldebaran Robotics

Founded in 2005 by Bruno Maisonnier and with offices in France, China, Japan and the United States, ALDEBARAN Robotics designs, produces and commercialises autonomous humanoid robots with the aim of contributing to the well-being of humans. Today over 2,000 NAOs are in use throughout the world as research and educational tools in 45 countries. ALDEBARAN Robotics brings together more than 150 staff, including 60 engineers and PhDs, who are involved in the development and production of the robots.

For further information, visit: www.aldebaran-robotics.com

Press contact : Oana DORITA
odorita@aldebaran-robotics.com
0033 177 371 797

The robots will be used to detect unusual behaviour and ease the workload on their human counterparts.

See story here: http://www.mysinchew.com/node/66869

“This next generation simulator uses its oversized robot arm to spin users at high speeds in any direction,” explained Professor Saeid Nahavandi, the Director of Deakin’s Centre for Intelligent Systems Research (CISR).

“No other simulator can provide the full experience of flying a military jet with all the gut wrenching G-forces while only seven metres off the ground.

“While suited for training pilots, the UMS is also the perfect platform for simulating land based vehicles including tanks and other armoured vehicles, trucks, race cars and motorbikes. Its training capabilities are endless.”

With the UMS, Professor Nahavandi and his team have taken motion simulators to a whole new level.

“Standard simulators replicate the flying or driving experience by merely tilting from side-to-side and providing the ‘real life’ sensation through visual cues,” Professor Nahavandi said.

“What sets the UMS apart from standard simulators is the integration of haptics technology, which provides a sense of touch and feel to virtual or remote objects, and its ability move at high speed and in any direction.

“Combined with a high resolution 3D display mounted inside a headset, the user is totally immersed in the set training environment and has a ‘real’ experience – both visually and physically.”

Professor Nahavandi thanked Minister Carr for launching the UMS.

“The Federal Government has supported the development of the UMS through Australian Research Council funding,” he said.  “Without this funding, the facility would not be up and running today.”

The University has received $1.8million in ARC/CRC grants towards the establishment of the facility that houses the UMS, including a $ 285,000 ARC Linkage-Infrastructure and Equipment Facilities Program grant in 2008.

ARC Linkage funding of $210,000 was recently announced for a flight simulation project starting at the CISR in 2012 and an additional $3.9million has been received from the Commonwealth to undertake security-related projects.

More about the Universal Motion Simulator

Robotic experts in Deakin’s Centre for Intelligent Systems Research have integrated the latest in haptics technology to a specially constructed robotic system.  It is essentially a giant industrial robot arm with a reach of seven metres, has a seat attached to the end of it and the capability to exert up to 6 Gs of force – ideal for flight simulation.

Haptics adds a sense of touch and feel to virtual or remote objects. The technology generates forces and vibrations that simulate a realistic sense of touch and feel to the user through devices such as a joystick or steering wheel. Combined with a high resolution 3D display mounted inside a headset, the user is totally immersed in the set training environment and has a “real” experience – both visually and physically.

Future pilots of Australia’s fighter jets will be able to learn intricate manoeuvres just seven metres from the ground using this next generation flight simulator. It can also be configured to simulate the space shuttle, helicopters as well as land based vehicles including tanks and other armoured vehicles, trucks, race cars and motor bikes.

Using this simulator reduces training liability with less reliance on physical equipment therefore reducing cost and risks to trainees.

With pilot training, the UMS can simulate the intricate movement required by military pilots for disaster recovery such engine failure; take them through fast jet training by totally immersing them in continuous aileron rolls (the fancy aerobatic manoeuvre in which the aircraft does a 360 degree spin while staying on course); and provide the full experience of flying a military jet with all the gut wrenching G-forces while only seven metres off the ground.

There is also the capability of simulating dog fights and other joint flying experiences with pilots who are based in other parts of the world, such as the United States. This level of remote collaboration also allows for pilot instructor training to take place where the trainer, for example, is in Australia and the trainee in the US.

Through all these experiences haptics allows the pilot to feel the aircraft stick move realistically in their hands and the headset provides the real-life visual cues.

The UMS can also determine the pilot’s physical and mental responses through EEG (electroencephalogram usually reserved for hospitals) that monitors the brain, as well as an ECG (electrocardiogram) pulse and blood pressure.

For more information, please contact:

Mandi O’Garretty | Media Coordinator| Deakin University

Geelong Waurn Ponds Campus

75 Pigdons Road, Waurn Ponds, Victoria 3216 Australia

Tel (+61 3) 5227 2776| Mobile 0418 361 890

mandi.ogarretty@deakin.edu.au | www.deakin.edu.au |

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