The term "nanotechnology" has evolved over the years via terminology drift to mean "anything smaller than microtechnology," such as nano powders, and other things that are nanoscale in size, but not referring to mechanisms that have been purposefully built from nanoscale components. See our "Current Uses" page for examples. This evolved version of the term is more properly labeled "nanoscale bulk technology," while the original meaning is now more properly labeled "molecular nanotechnology" (MNT), or "nanoscale engineering," or "molecular mechanics," or "molecular machine systems," or "molecular manufacturing." Recently, the Foresight Institute has suggested an alternate term to represent the original meaning of nanotechnology: zettatechnology.
At the most basic technical level, MNT is building, with intent and design, and molecule by molecule, these two things: 1) incredibly advanced and extremely capable nano-scale and micro-scale machines and computers, and 2) ordinary size objects, using other incredibly small machines called assemblers or fabricators (found inside nanofactories). In a nutshell, by taking advantage of quantum-level properties, MNT allows for unprecedented control of the material world, at the nanoscale, providing the means by which systems and materials can be built with exacting specifications and characteristics. Or, as Dr. K. Eric Drexler puts it "large-scale mechanosynthesis based on positional control of chemically reactive molecules."
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Wednesday, 11 March 2009
The Robot That Refuels Itself
In all the futuristic visions of robotic technology, there’s always one buzzkill that brings them back to reality: the power source. How do you keep robots rolling smoothly? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is funding the development of a robot that may have the answer to this.
According to company president Dr. Robert Finkelstein, Robotic Technology, Inc. of Potomac, Md., is developing the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR), an unmanned vehicle robot designed to collect biomass — leaves, wood, grass, anything combustible — and use it through burning to fuel itself.
“The idea is to have a robotic ground vehicle that can go out on long-range, long-endurance missions without human intervention,” says Finkelstein, describing it as the ground equivalent of long-range unmanned air vehicles. The EATR will be able to retrieve items of interest as well, or act as a weapons platform.
“In order to avoid refueling, it will forage, like an animal, obtaining its own energy from the environment by finding and ingesting biomass from the environment,” he adds. “It might have a satellite link back to a control center where it can make reports, but it doesn’t need to be continuously controlled.”
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Software search on NGneering.com
Software Search allows you to search over 17,000 software products in our database, and to purchase any of them. High quality search engine provides fast search results and quick browsing...
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Human Thoughts Control New Robot (!?)
By generating the proper brainwaves—picked up by a cap with electrodes that sense the signals and reflect a person's instructions—scientists can instruct a humanoid robot to move to specific locations and pick up certain objects .
The commands are limited to moving forward, picking up one of two objects and bringing it to one of two locations. The researchers have achieved 94 percent accuracy between the thought commands and the robot's movements.
"This is really a proof-of-concept demonstration," said Rajesh Rao, a researcher from the University of Washington who leads the project. "It suggests that one day we might be able to use semi-autonomous robots for such jobs as helping disabled people or performing routine tasks in a person's home."
The person wearing the electrode cap watches the robot's movement on a computer screen through two cameras installed on and above the robot.
When the robot's camera sees the objects that are to be picked up it passes on the information to the user's computer screen. Each object lights up randomly on the computer screen. When a person wants something picked up and it happens to light up, the brain registers surprise and sends this brain activity to the computer and then to the robot as the choice object. The robot then proceeds to pick up the object.
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Free web templates
From yesterday, you can find and download free psd web templates from ngneering.com. All templates are very simple, and I recommend them to beginners in web design world, for creating simple web sites.... There will be more free templates soon...
Humans and autonomous machines....today and tomorrow!
It seems like a simple task. A robot crawling along a floor comes upon an obstacle. It stops, turns, and moves in a different direction.
Or is it so simple? Perhaps a robot with a more complex thought process would, instead of turning around, climb over the obstacle. Or push it out of the way. And what if the environment changes and it too becomes more complex? What if the obstacle was trash that needed to be picked up? Or a pet? Or a baby? What then would the robot do?
The kind of interactions we as humans take for granted are a constant challenge for today's roboticists. It's questions like these they need to ask and try to answer when designing and building an autonomous robot capable of sensing and interacting with its environment.
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