Abstract:

SRI researchers have a rich tradition of pushing the boundaries of robotics. Our heritage includes Shakey, the first intelligent mobile robot, the foundational telepresence technology used in Intuitive Surgical's DaVinci surgical system, and electroactive polymer "artificial muscle" for bio-inspired robots. SRI has continued to innovate in several areas of robotics ranging from intelligent system to new components and materials. This talk will highlight our recent work in electroactive materials for soft robotics, massively parallel manufacturing using diamagnetically-levitated microrobots, electroadhesive gripping, next-generation telepresence manipulation, wearable robotics, and breakthrough work in more efficient and infinitely variable mechanical transmissions. We will also show the successors to Shakey: Motobot - a robot that can race a stock motor cycle, Proxy - a biologically-inspired robot that walks efficiently, and an apple-picking robot now being commercialized by Abundant robotics.

Presenters:

The presentation will be given by the researchers in SRI's Robotics Laboratory who have led the efforts described above. These presenters include: Roy Kornbluh, Annjoe Wong-Foy, Allen Hsu, Thomas Low, Alexander Kernbaum and Gordon Kirkwood.