Automaton

Perhaps one day we'll be able to shop online for bionic body devices like soccer-programmed prosthetic legs or Google search neural interfaces, but in the meantime check out Spectrum's Bionic Body Shop below to see the medical devices that are already out there (or almost).

The Bionic Body Shop

Advanced medical devices are the tools that enable humans and robots to merge, perhaps signaling the dawn of a technological singularity. How close are we now? Take a tour and shop around.

The "shop" is part of our special report on the Singularity, the positive-feedback techno-explosion that will spring smarter-than-human intelligence into existence and make us invincible, or kill us. But here's the big question: Is the digital Apollo below wearing a Speedo or what?

Note: Costs are estimates and can vary widely from patient to patient; images are representative and may differ from actual devices. Sources: Cyberdyne; Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems; Cyberonics; Deka Research & Development Corp.; Digital Angel; Given Imaging; Let Them Hear Foundation; Mark Kroll; Medtronic; National Pain Foundation; Otologics; Otto Bock; Ossur; Paul Holtzheimer; Second Sight Medical Products; Scott Shikora; Synapse Biomedical; Thoratec; Touch Bionics.
Animation: Bryan Christie Design

PS: Can't read the text in the Flash animation? A larger version is here.

The website mentorsearch.us has put together a comprehensive map of robotics competition events around the world. It's still very US-centric, but includes a number of events in the UK, Europe, and Asia, as well as a few other countries. Each flag on the map links to the site for the event with information on how to get involved helping these students become the next generation of robotics geeks.

At the moment it's focused on the various FIRST competitions, the VEX competition, and BEST Robotics, though hopefully they'll grow to include other options like Botball and the NURC ROV competition.

John Blau writes in this month's issue of Spectrum:

The team behind the iCub robot believes that robots, like children, learn best from experience. Like a toddler who progressively learns about his own motor skills and how to interact with the world, the iCubâ''the size of a 3-year-old child, with sensor-equipped hands, eyes, and earsâ''has touch, sight, and hearing to explore its surroundings and develop its cognitive abilities.

The iCub is the baby of RobotCub, the European Unionâ''funded project that aims to advance research on the use of humanoid robots to understand human learning. Scientists in Europe and beyond believe humanoids can be essential tools in the study of human intelligence, which many of them argue is linked to the structure of the human body and the way it can interact with its surroundings. Their argument: because the physical body and its actions together play as much of a role in cognition as does the brain, mimicking human actions is essential to understanding the components of intelligence, like reasoning or memory.

Read the rest of the story, "Open-Source Baby," here.

PHOTO: ROBOTCUB

Illustration: Bryan Christie Design

Spectrum's June issue has a 50-page special report on the technological singularity. The report is in part an attempt to see how the singularity measures up against real-world science and engineering. Or as stated in the cover: "The Rapture of the Geeks: Separating science from fiction in the technological singularity."

All articles from the print issue and a bunch of web extras here:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/singularity

Spectrum's Josh Romero talked with R2-D2 builder Steve Simmons at Maker Faire to find out how this screen-accurate, home-built, VEX-brained replica works.

For more on how to build your own droid, check out http://www.artoo-detoo.net/.

"Engineers are finally putting some practical exoskeletons through their paces outside of laboratories," Spectrum declared in 2005. Well, it was a slow but steady pace. Now it seems the bionic body suits are really ready to hit the market.

Sarcos/Raytheon have showed off their XOS full-body exo. And Japan's Cyberdyne has announced it will begin "mass-production" of its HAL powered suit.

Now Berkeley Bionics says it is "accepting orders for prototype HULC systems," one of its advanced lower-extremity exoskeletons.

The company, founded by researchers from the UC Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory, has recently released a video of its ExoHiker system, which lets a user carry loads of up to 200 lb, shadowing the wearer's maneuvers -- you can crawl, run, kick, climb stairs and the powered legs follow your moves.

We at Spectrum would love to borrow one of these ExoHiker legs to test them on the streets of New York as we, um, climb stairs of subway stations and fight off muggers.

UPDATE: After the jump, watch videos of Sarcos/Raytheon's XOS and Cyberdyne's HAL so you can compare all three exos ... and put in your order.

Stanford's Stickybot, a wall-climbing robot that uses gecko-inspired directional adhesives on its feet. Photo: Stanford University

Spectrum correspondent Prachi Patel-Predd reports that engineers at the 2008 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA 2008), in Pasadena, Calif., are presenting "the latest takes on how to tackle a new frontier: vertical surfaces."

Read Patel-Predd's report or check out all the presentations at today's Climbing Robots track of the conference.

Spectrum reports that Caltech researchers are developing a MEMS robotic device to insert and position electrodes in the brain. The system could enhance the performance of neural prosthetics, which have proved hard to implant accurately. The researchers haven't built the device yet, but they've devised control algorithms to guide the miniature robots to make good neural connections. From the article:

The Caltech team has designed a system that would make the procedure more predictable by attaching a tiny MEMS-based motor to each electrode on a multichannel electrode array and using an algorithm to direct the electrodes to individual neurons.

[...]

As the electrodes are driven into the tissue, the software starts taking sample recordings to detect spikes of electrical activity at the electrode tip. When the software detects spikes, it moves forward in small increments and tracks how the signals change. After determining whether the signal has improved or gotten worse, the algorithm moves the electrode to a new position and does more recording and comparing, driving the electrode in further if necessary until it finds the best signal. If the signal wanes, the algorithm will automatically adjust the electrode position to improve the signal.

Spectrum associate editor Sally Adee on how researchers are looking for a way to connect prosthetics directly to the brain. [Click on the image below to go to the video player.]

In the US, the three big robotics centers are Boston, Pittsburgh, and Silicon Valley, all in large part thanks to the great universities in those areas that have spun their research out into industry (for that reason, Georgia Tech is growing the industry in Georgia). Yesterday Boston business news site Xconomy took a look at the Boston industry and gave an overview of all the robotics companies in the greater Boston area.

From the article:

Whatâ''s more, the greater Boston area has clearly established itself as one of the worldâ''s leading centers for robotics. There are more than 150 companies, institutions, and research labs that deal in robots or robot components here. That adds up to more than 1,500 workers, $150 million in government contracts, and $250 million in annual sales[...]

Looking at the list, a few things leaped out at us. The majority of firms (at least 13 out of 24) get substantial support from defense contracts, while most others serve niche markets. Local companies are strong in mobile robots and vehicles, growing in medical robots, and not as strong in industrial applications.

That company list is a great resource and the industry overview is really interesting. I wonder if this kind of analysis and overview exists for the other major cities?

Thanks, Janet!