Yen-Wen Lu and Chang-Jin Kim at UCLA have created the World's Smallest robotic hand . The hand, which is capable of grasping an object 1mm across, has four fingers made of silicone and polymer joints. The hand operates pneumatically when the balloon joints are inflated. The hand is seen in th top right of the image. There's a movie of the hand in operation after the jump. You can find more about Lu and Kim's work on their website .

The HAL-5 exoskeleton suit is nearing "mass" production. Engadget reports that professor Yoshiyuki Sankai at Tsukuba University is hoping to have the suit ready for 400-500 units by 2008, with a mere 20 units produced in 2007. The suite allows its user to double his lifting abilities.



You can read more about the HAL suit, and the 10 years of work that's gone into it, in this New Scientist article. There's also more information about HAL on it's website. A HAL suit of your own will set you back about $40,000 USD or $600 a month to rent.



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VeraTech Aero, a Minnesota USA based company, has invented an aircraft that is nearly invisible to the naked eye. The secret to this technology is the concept of persistance of vision, or the lack thereof. The aircraft is uniquely created so that as it spins, its center of mass is in open space. This means that once the vehicle takes off, it spins in such a way that none of the body stays in the same spot, and it turns into just a blur of vision. This makes the aircraft especially hard to spot from the ground.

To do this, the vehicle is shaped like a 'Y' with the center of mass positioned between the two forks of the 'Y'. On either end there is a propellar, with the 'Y's tail functioning as a wing. The wing provides lift and the two propellers control the aircraft. Due to the fast spinning motion, the vehicle is also very stable and is able to hover and maneuver in many different weather types.

Using vision processing, an onboard camera on the aircraft, is able to transmit panoramic pictures of the landscape. These can then be sent to a headset that the driver can wear. The Phantom is also able to be launched from a throw, weights only 4lbs, and can be packed in a 12" x 4" x 6" space.

You can find more information and video of the Phantom Sentinel on VeraTech Aero's website.



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iRobot issued a press release this morning detailing some of their new products . Of special interest is the new 250lb Warrior robot. Warrior, which is about six times the size of the packbot, can move at over 12mph over rough terrain and can carry a payload of up to 100 lbs.

This annoucement coincides with an Army Future Combat Systems conference. Our friends at Robot Stock News have more details.



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The British government is helping to fund a new startup company with $3.5 million USD. The companies stated goal is to develop a robotic system to treat baldness .

Biosciences firm Intercytex aims to perfect a treatment that involves taking hair follicles from the back of the neck, multiplying them and replanting them where they are needed.

Apparently the robot will somehow speed up the difficult process of multiplying hair folicles once they've been removed from the neck. Once the folicles are succesfully multiplied they are then implanted into the scalp.

The company is in Phase II testing, where they will try their technology on a larger pool of test patients. The systems has been tested on a few volunteers with apparent success.

The article isn't clear whether the robot is physically doing the removing and implanting of hair cells or whether it's just involved in the cell multiplying process. I, for one, don't like the thought of a robot pushing new hairs into my scalp.





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