Russian Robotic Supply Ship Docks at Space Station

An unmanned Russian supply ship arrived at the International Space Station Sunday (April 22) carrying tons of fresh supplies in an Earth Day delivery for the orbiting lab's crew.

The robotic Progress 47 cargo ship docked with the space station at 10:39 a.m. EDT (1439 GMT), ending a two-day flight that began with an eye-catching launch. The two spacecraft were sailing 249 miles (400 kilometers) over northern China, just south of the Mongolia border, when Progress 47 parked itself at the orbiting lab.

"Congratulations on a successful automatic docking," flight controllers in Russia's Mission Control Center in Moscow radioed the station crew in Russian.

The Progress supply ship is filled with more than 2.8 tons of food, equipment and other gear for the six-man crew living aboard the space station. Its arrival, which occurred on Earth Day by coincidence, comes just days after the departure of its predecessor Progress 46 from the station, and a week before the much-anticipated launch the first private U.S. cargo ship to the orbiting lab — the robotic Dragon capsule built by California-based SpaceX. Dragon is slated to launch on April 30.

With the retirement of NASA's space shuttle fleet last year, the space agency is dependent on Russia's Progress vehicles and similar robotic space trucks launched by Japan and Europe to ferry its supplies to the station. The Dragon capsule will be the first of two private U.S. spacecraft to take on the job with it begins operational flights.

Russia's Progress space cargo trucks are similar in appearance to the three-module Soyuz vehicles used to ferry crews to and from the International Space Station. Both vehicles have a propulsion module and orbital module, but the progress carries a fuel-laden module for the station's thrusters in place of the central crew capsule used on Soyuz flights. [ How Russia's Progress Spaceships Work (Infographic) ]

Progress 47 is filled with vital supplies for the space station's Expedition 30 crew, which includes three Russians, two Americans and one Dutch astronaut. The supply ship is carrying about 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of oxygen and air, 926 (420 kg) pounds of water, 1,988 (901 kg) pounds of propellant and 2703 pounds (1,226 kg) of dry supplies such as food, spare parts and experiment gear.

The arrival of Progress 47 comes at a busy time for the International Space Station. On Friday (April 27), three station crewmembers will return to Earth to wrap up their months-long mission. NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank, the station's Expedition 30 commander, and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin are expected to return home aboard a Soyuz space capsule and land on the steppes of Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

Then comes the anticipated Dragon launch, which if all goes well, will occur on April 30 and be followed by a rendezvous at the space station a few days later. Astronauts aboard the station will use the outpost's robotic arm to grapple the Dragon capsule and attach to an empty port.

Three new space station crewmembers are slated to launch aboard a Soyuz spacecraft on May 17.


By : msnbc

Robotic Surgery Oversold on Hospital Websites, Study Contends

Many hospitals tout the benefits of robotic surgery on their websites without solid scientific evidence to back up those claims, Johns Hopkins researchers report.
In fact, four out of 10 hospitals in the study only used manufacturers' claims that robotic surgery is better than conventional surgery, an assertion that the researchers said is unproven and misleading.
The findings are especially troubling since consumers depend on hospital websites for reliable, trustworthy information, the study authors said.

"Hospital websites are a trusted source of medical information for the public," said lead researcher Dr. Marty Makary, an associate professor of surgery at Hopkins.
"This is the first time we've seen industry create content, with disclosures, and put it on the official hospital website to educate patients about treatment options," he said. "To me, that's a very scary trend."
Robotic surgery has grown more than 400 percent over the past four years, Makary pointed out. "It's one of the great modern crazes," he said. "And the public is driven by the idea that more technology means better care."

Robotic Truck Keeps Bin Cleaning a Safe Operation

FRESHBINS won a 2010 WorkSafe Award for its robotic bin cleaning trucks.

The company won the category for Best OHS Solution in Manufacturing, Logistics and Agriculture for its use of robotics to increase the safety of its workers who operate bin cleaning services.

The bin cleaning industry is relatively new and largely unregulated. Currently, many operations involve high-pressure washing, manual lifting, potential ingestion of vapours and liquids, traffic hazards, and exposure to UV.

Testing has found domestic bins are covered with high levels of disease-carrying bacteria, and garbage industry operators, landfill operators, councils and their workers risk breathing in these toxic vapors.

Mumbai University May Bring In Robotics In Engineering Courses

The University of Mumbai (MU) is functioning on an determined project to set up robotics as a subject in engineering courses. The project, called ‘E Yantra’, is being urbanized with the help of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay.

University Administration convened a conference of directors of the top 15 School of Engineering and the Faculty of Department of Information Processing May 13 to discuss how the project can be implemented in schools. IIT experts also present.

The MU project aims to create a robotic revolution in the educational domain by conducting workshops, hosting competitions, deploying homegrown low-cost educational robotic platform hardware at colleges with the aim of creating quality content for teaching robotics. The idea of the project is to reach the faculty at engineering colleges through a series of workshops.

Robotics Teams Ready to Share the Knowledge

Robots took a immerse in the pool Saturday at Coronado High School in western Colorado Springs.

About the dimension of a shoebox, with plastic pipe frames, the machines used dip noodle foam to keep afloat.

No, they weren’t looking for unsuspecting victims as part of an alien plot. These robots churned through the water, passing through submerged rings as part of an obstacle course to test the savvy of five area high school robotics teams.

About 70 students from five school district worked in teams of three to build the submersible robots Saturday. They will eventually share their knowledge with younger kids.

Each team was given a robot kit, containing the half-inch pipe, foam, three small motors, a battery and several other technical gizmos. The scattered tools and debris in the school’s cafeteria showed they worked hard all morning.

Symposium to Take Defence Robotics to Next Step

PUNE: Research and development organisations, academia and industries will gather under one roof in Pune for a two-day symposium on robotics and autonomous vehicles starting from April 28.

According to defence officials, the aim of the symposium is to take robotics to the next level in view of improvement of defence robotics technology. The symposium, titled 'Robotics and Unmanned Vehicles', will take place at Research and Development Establishment (Engineers) [R&DE (E) ], an establishment of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). This two-day long event will conclude on Friday.

The symposium will bring together users such as Army, Airforce, paramilitary and police forces, research and development organizations including DRDO, ISRO, BARC along academia like IIT-Kanpur, IISc-Bengalore, BITS-Pilani and Industry in order to synergize the efforts and accelerate robotic development process.

Roomba-Maker iRobot Clears Path For Robotics

Top scientists around the world are trying to improve upon robots, which can already detect bombs, perform surgery and even go into battle.

At iRobot Corp., they're trying to make a better vacuum.

Of course, iRobot's scientists do other things too. The company, best known for its Roomba floor vacuum, recently sent machines to Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster to help detect radiation, to the war zone in Afghanistan to find bombs, and to the Gulf of Mexico to locate spilled oil in the water.

But home robots — dominated by vacuums — make up 55 percent of the company's revenue and are part of the reason iRobot is on a tear. Shares are up 43 percent since the start of the year, and the company earned a profit of $26 million on sales of $401 million last year, up from $3 million on $299 million in revenue the year before.

Robotics Team Wins Praise at National Contest

MANIPAL: The eight-member robotics team of Manipal Insitute of Technology (MIT), RoboManipal, which took part in ROBOCON 2011 held in Pune recently, has a success story to tell despite failing at making it to the top slot.

The national event was organized under the auspices of Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU) at Belawadi stadium in Pune. The experience, though their first, came as a boost for the team and they are hopeful of a bigger opportunity in the future. They also hope to win the top slot in the next international event in 2012. This year, Robomanipal competed with teams that included those from IITs and other renowned institutes.

Robotic Surgery Gains Prominence in India

Currently in Chennai in India, major heart surgeries are being performed by a surgeon sitting on a console and manipulating a joy stick. In actuality, he is performing a surgery with the help of an extremely efficient electronic robot with arms.

Robotics News Blog

The robot’s arms could be maneuvered to perform some very minute and subtle movements to wield the instruments for the operation. The patients, instead of the normally high recovery time are up and about in no time at all. The surgeon in question was Dr Ravi Kumar R from the Chettinad Health City CHC, and the patient was an auto driver on whom a double valve replacement operation was performed with robotics for the first ever time.

Formerly, either the aortal or the mitral valve had been substituted with the help of robots, but simultaneous replacement of both the valves was a new occurrence. From the year 2000, robotics has been utilized in cardiac procedures and it usage has also spread over to other medical fields such as gynecology, urology and oncology. Despite being found in many hospitals in the US, in India it is available in just 4-6 hospitals such as CHC in Chennai, CARE in Pune, AIIMS in Delhi and Fortis-Escorts in Delhi.

National Robotics Week Will Be April 9-17

The second annual National Robotics Week will be held from April 9-17, 2011, with a weeklong series of events in a dozen U.S. locations aimed at increasing public awareness of the growing importance of “robo-technology” and the social and cultural impact that it will have on how people live, work, and play.

Robotics News

National Robotics Week recognizes robotics technology as a pillar of 21st century American innovation and seeks to inspire students while building their interest in technology and innovation. Events include panel discussions, robotics competitions, introductory courses on robotics for kids, educational workshops for businesses, demos, and tours of innovative labs.

National Robotics Week is a product of an effort by leading universities and companies to create a “national roadmap” for robotics technology, which was initially unveiled at a May 2009 briefing by academic and industry leaders to the Congressional Caucus on Robotics. U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (PA-14), co-chair of the caucus, and other members submitted a formal resolution (H.Res. 1055) that Congress passed on March 9, 2010 to support the designation of the second full week in April as National Robotics Week.

Staples High Robotics Team Engineers State Tourney Victory

Robotics

The Staples High School Robotics Team, called The Wreckers 577, dominated the Connecticut Tournament of the First Tech Challenge on March 5.

The Staples team members are Haris Durrani, Timothy Yang, Alec Solder, Erin Gandelman, Dylan Roncati, Mrinal Kumar, and John Solder, with Joshua Schwartz providing supervision.

The tourney included 22 schools from New England, New York and Pennsylvania, part of the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition In Science and Technology) program.

The Wreckers 577 robot dominated the state tourney from the outset. The performance challenge consisted of five rounds of four teams randomly paired up so that two team's robots formed an alliance and competed against the other alliance. The Wreckers 577 defeated all the other teams in its division through all five challenges.

Rival Robot Squads Share Work Space

In its first year in the First Robotics competition, students from Sauk Rapids-Rice had almost completed their robot and were ready to prepare it for shipping.

Then, just days before the entry deadline, the students and adviser Eric Leblanc, a tech education teacher at the high school, discovered two key parts that make the robot run were gone.

Apollo coach Mark Weimer had extra parts and offered them to Sauk Rapids-Rice, along with the opportunity to share work space and advice in a shop at the St. Cloud high school.

“Everybody competes, but everybody helps each other out,” Weimer said.

The robots should be ready to compete in the First Robotics regional competitions next month. Sauk Rapids-Rice is competing March 10-12 in Duluth, and Apollo will compete March 31-April 2 at Williams Arena in Minneapolis.

Are We Ready To Have Robots Fighting Our Battles

Leslea Mair got a new floor sweeper - a puppy-like robot that happily cleans up crumbs before returning to its corner to recharge. But then she wondered about its cousins - the ones with machine guns strapped to their backs.

When the U.S. and their allies entered Iraq in 2003, they had no robotics fleet. Today, they have 7,000 unmanned vehicles in the air and another 12,000 on the ground.Another 43 countries, including Canada, now have dogs in the global robotic fight.

Mair, a Regina-based documentary film producer for Zoot Pictures, believes people just accept the growing use of drones and self-guiding vehicles without understanding the ethical burden they carry.

"If we wait too long, there won't be (room) for debate," says Mair, whose documentary Remote Control War airs on CBC's Doc Zone on Thursday night.

"There's something a little cold-blooded about targeting someone from the other side of the planet. You actually toss a bomb and someone dies - then you take your kids to soccer. "Some people think it's a really good thing, while "¦ others see there are problems."

Area 53- The ERHS Robotics Team

Area 53, The Eleanor Roosevelt High School Robotics team has entered the build season for their first competition of the year, hoping to improve upon the results they received last year.

Going from only a few members in the past to almost fifty this year, this club is hoping the increase in numbers will help their chances of winning at the competition this year. The main competition called F.I.R.S.T. (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) for robotics is held in March and students work diligently for a one month period to design and build a robot that fits the criteria of the challenge. This year, Area 53 has to build a robot that can climb a pole to put inner tubes on a wall. The number of inner tubes put on the wall is the number of points the team receives depending on how high up the robot is able to put the inner tubes.

Members of the club joined at various times during the beginning of the year. Enrollment is open until January, when the build season begins. “We’re always happy to get new members and train them in various aspects of the robotics team, not just the robots and programming,” said captain of the robotics team and ERHS junior Patrick Healey.

Robotics is also about graphic design and has a very heavy business aspect to it as well. The team made T-shirts and buttons as well with their team name on them. Healey admitted as far as the business aspect it was something the team often forgot to focus on. Healey said it is difficult “getting funding, because building these robots are really expensive, it goes up to $10,000 so we generally get grants from various engineering companies around the area.” Luckily, Roosevelt is in an area where there are a lot of engineering firms because of NASA Goddard. “What we do is put up proposals and explain what we want to do, what we want to teach people, what we want to show them and then we use that to get grant money,” Healey explained. The grant money the team recieved would then be used to build better robots.

The increase in enrollment this year was surprising to some of the senior members who remembered having only a dozen or less people on the team the year before. “last year I was the only freshman and I kind of liked it all by myself but this year there's 20 to 30 [freshmen],” said sophomore Jacky Cheng. Others were glad to see a rise in enrollment because this would hopefully give them a chance to do well at the competitions this year. Although there are so many new freshman on the team, that does not mean they are deprived of responsibility. “It can be difficult sometimes being a freshman on the robotics team because the older members, they kind of expect you to know what to do. It's not like they don't help if you don't know it, though,” said freshman Selena Healey.

Advantages Of Robotics

Robotics is a modern technology and today most of the things are being automated with the help of robots. Thanks to the advance technology that the dependence on human beings has been cut to a large extent. Robotics has many advantages and a few limitations.

One of the biggest advantages of automating procedures is the accuracy of results. The chances of a robot going wrong are very minimal and as a process, the whole thing may fail or get executed to perfection. Robotics is being used across several industries like automobiles, medicine, household appliances and several more. The most complicated of machines can be assembled using robotics.

Robotics is also playing fairly an important role in the medicine industry. From preparing drugs to performing simple tasks in surgery. However, the process of actual medicine which involves surgery and others cannot be left to robots and human interference becomes inevitable there.