In biology, quorum sensing is the ability to detect and to respond to cell population density by gene regulation. As one example, quorum sensing (QS) enables bacteria to restrict the expression of specific genes to the high cell densities at which the resulting phenotypes will be most beneficial. Many species of bacteria use quorum sensing to coordinate gene expression according to the density of their local population. In similar fashion, some social insects use quorum sensing to determine where to nest.
The s-bot is a small (15 cm) differential wheeled mobile robot developed at the LIS at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland between 2001 and 2004. Targeted to swarm robotics, a field of artificial intelligence, it was developed within the Swarm-bots project, a Future and Emerging Technologies project coordinated by Prof. Marco Dorigo. Built by a small team of engineers of the group of Prof. Dario Floreano and with the help of student projects, it is considered at the time of completion as one of the most complex and featured robots ever for its size. The s-bot was ranked on position 39 in the list of “The 50 Best Robots Ever” by the Wired magazine in 2006.
Insbot is a robotic cockroach developed in 2002 by scientists of the European project LEURRE. It is designed to trick real cockroaches into following its lead, with the goal of finding ways of adapting their behavior as a means of natural pest control. At first, Insbot's predecessor, Alice robot, faced some setbacks due to its size and its inability to properly recognize the cockroaches. But after a series of tests, this newer model was developed. It contains more sensors and computational power, which allows it to interact with the cockroaches more efficiently.
Modular self-reconfiguring robotic systems or self-reconfigurable modular robots are autonomous kinematic machines with variable morphology. Beyond conventional actuation, sensing and control typically found in fixed-morphology robots, self-reconfiguring robots are also able to deliberately change their own shape by rearranging the connectivity of their parts, in order to adapt to new circumstances, perform new tasks, or recover from damage.
A proximity sensor is a sensor able to detect the presence of nearby objects without any physical contact.
A robotics simulator is used to create application for a physical robot without depending on the actual machine, thus saving cost and time. In some case, these applications can be transferred onto the physical robot without modifications.
Symbrion is a project funded by the European Commission between 2008 - 2013 to develop a framework in which a homogeneous swarm of miniature interdependent robots can co-assemble into a larger robotic organism to gain problem-solving momentum.
In home automation systems and robotics, a flower robot is a simple electromechanical device with the appearance of a common flower, with components such as stem and leaves. First developed by Berufsbildende Schule 1 Kaiserslautern in 2006 and later by Carnegie Mellon University in 2007, flower robots are used as intelligent home appliances, with capabilities such as sensing, simple actuation for movements, and effectors such as lights or humidifier.
Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation, structural disposition, manufacture and application of robots. Robotics is related to the sciences of electronics, engineering, mechanics, and software.
A tactile sensor is a device that measures information arising from physical interaction with its environment. Tactile sensors are generally modeled after the biological sense of cutaneous touch which is capable of detecting stimuli resulting from mechanical stimulation, temperature, and pain. Tactile sensors are used in robotics, computer hardware and security systems. A common application of tactile sensors is in touchscreen devices on mobile phones and computing.
Dexter Industries is a company that designs robots for education, researchers, and hobbyists. The company makes several products that expand the LEGO Mindstorms system, Raspberry Pi, and Arduino prototyping system. The products range from sensors to switches and may be used for projects outside the scope of Lego Mindstorms.
PrimeSense was an Israeli 3D sensing company based in Tel-Aviv. PrimeSense had offices in Israel, North America, Japan, Singapore, Korea, China and Taiwan (China). PrimeSense was bought by Apple Inc. for $360 million on November 24, 2013.
Minibloq is a graphical development environment for Arduino and other platforms. Its main objective is to help in teaching programming. It is specially used in robotics at elementary, middle and high schools. It's widely used in Argentina, where just in the San Luis province, more than 60000 children has been trained with this software in public schools.
ArduPilot is an open source, unmanned vehicle Autopilot Software Suite, capable of controlling autonomous:
Intel Galileo is the first in a line of Arduino-certified development boards based on Intel x86 architecture and is designed for the maker and education communities. Intel released two versions of Galileo, referred to as Gen 1 and Gen 2. These development boards are sometimes called "Breakout boards".
Salvius is the first open source humanoid robot to be built in the United States. Introduced in 2008, Salvius, whose name is derived from the word 'salvaged', has been constructed with an emphasis on using recycled components and materials to reduce the costs of designing and construction. The robot is designed to be able to perform a wide range of tasks by having a body structure that is similar to that of a human. The primary goal for Salvius is to create a robot that can function dynamically in a domestic environment.
Open Roberta is the name of a project within the German education initiative "Roberta—Learning with robots", initiated by Fraunhofer IAIS, which is an institute belonging to the Fraunhofer Society. With Open Roberta Fraunhofer IAIS is looking to encourage kids to code by using robots e.g. Lego Mindstorms, and other programmable hardware systems e.g. Arduino, BBC micro:bit, Calliope mini. The Cloud-approach of the Open Roberta Lab makes programming easier and minimizes the hurdles for teachers and schools to teach how to code. Open Roberta is free and does not require any installation. The project was initially founded with €1Mio by Google.org
