Internet page

Citation

Rigelsford, J. (2003), "Internet page", Industrial Robot, Vol. 30 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2003.04930bag.001

Internet page

Keywords: Robotics, Artificial intelligence, Internet, Localisation

http://www.evolution.com/Evolution Robotics, Inc.

Evolution Robotics develops and manufactures multi-functional personal robots for the home and workplace. Their robotics software platform ERSP™ can be utilized directly by OEMs.

http://www.k-team.com/K-Team SA

Founded in 1995 and located in Lausanne, Switzerland, K-Team designs and manufactures the Khepera and Hemisson Linecards. The Khepera Linecards are high-quality mobile mini robots for use in advanced education and research while the Hemisson Linecards are small robots for teachers and hobbyists. They aim to provide a link between academic research and industry, and become the world leader in the field of mobile robotics.

This is a well presented Web site for an interesting selection of robots.

http://www.aai.ca/index.htmApplied AI Systems, Inc.

Established in 1983, Applied AI Systems, Inc. develops artificial intelligence systems for real world applications. They have offices in Canada and Japan, and manufacture intelligent robots for educational and R&D institutions worldwide. They also distribute and support robots from iRobot and K-Team.

Their products include an autonomous rugged outdoor mobile platform LABO-1; a small size high payload autonomous platform LABO-4; an R&D platform for development of autonomous vehicles; and K-alice, one of the world’s smallest commercial wheeled autonomous robots.

http://www.activmedia.com/ActivMedia Robotics LLC

ActivMedia Robotics designs, integrates and manufactures intelligent mobile robots and their navigation, control, sensing and response systems. In 1995, collaboration with iRobot and Dr Kurt Konolige led to the launch of the Pioneer robot and Saphira API software. Their AmigoBotTM has been chosen as test platform for the new Intel low-power XScale board, designed specifically for portable and wearable applications, and their Pioneer robots are three-times winners of the World RoboCup Soccer Championship. Their product range include commercial, R&D and educational robots; AGVs and AGV control systems; and building and security tools.

http://world.honda.com/Honda Motor Co., Ltd

Established in 1948, the Honda Motor Company has since grown into a global giant with over 110 manufacturing facilities in 31 countries around the world. Their products range from small utility engines to scooters and sports cars and since 1986 their research has included ASIMO, Honda’s humanoid robot (http://www.honda.co.jp/ASIMO/ and http://www.honda.co.jp/robot/).

This is a well presented and informative site. The robot sites contain plenty of information and are a multimedia delight.

http://robotics.stanford.edu/Stanford Robotics Laboratory

This site presents the research activities of the Stanford Robotics Laboratory. Their goal is to make robots both autonomous and dexterous, and focuses on manipulation, machine learning, navigation, vision, tactile sensing, and reasoning. The laboratory also actively researches areas of artificial intelligence that will be of use to robotics. This includes multi-agent reasoning, reactive systems, spatial reasoning, and temporal reasoning.

This is a very good Web site from a busy research group. The site provides details of projects, plenty of pictures, research papers, computed examples, source code, MLC++ a machine learning library written in C++, and links to other sites.

http://www.robosoft.fr/Robosoft

Robosoft has been supplying advanced robotic solutions since 1985. They produce powerful and expandable robotic equipment that allows researchers to carry out their developments and experimentations without having to develop the hardware and software tools.

http://www-robotics.usc.edu/index.htmlRobotics Research Laboratory

The Robotics Research Laboratory at the University of Southern California is active in a wide range of subjects relating to robotics. This includes humanoid control and learning; primitives-based articulated motor control; modelling biological imitation; classification into perceptual-motor primitives; modelling of multi-agent/robot systems; mathematical modelling of large multi-agent systems; on-line modelling of robot interaction dynamics; and autonomous flying vehicles.

This site contains movies, software, research papers, JAVA applets and much more, but is quite difficult to navigate.

Hot sites

http://www.sandia.gov/Sandia National Laboratories

Sandia National Laboratories has developed science-based technologies to support American national security since 1948. They are primarily funded by the US Department of Energy and are managed by the Lockheed Martin Corp. Sandia is responsible for designing all of the non-nuclear parts of nuclear weapons and has developed the Hound™, a portable explosives-detection device; the PAN Disrupter, a device for disabling terrorist-type bombs without detonating them, and a smart wheeled robot which makes decisions on its own during bomb disablement. They have also developed a high definition 3D ultrasound imaging system; surveillance and reconnaissance ground equipment (SARGE); the Fire Ant, a teleoperated robot for anti-tank missions.

This is an immense Web site which contains a huge amount of information about their activities and robotic systems.

http://www.irobot.comiRobot

In 1990 iRobot was founded from the insect-based research being carried out at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. They aim to be a leading provider of robot products and to supply developers with an industry-standard platform for creating valuable robotic applications.

Past and present R&D programs include Bloodhound, DART, Ariel Underwater, Swarm, MUMS and MUMS II. Their products have been sold to government, industry and researchers, and as toys.

This is a great Web site that is well worth visiting. It contains corporate and product information, along with movie clips and pictures.

Jon Rigelsford