While it’s no Nintendo R.O.B., National Instruments is showing off a robotic arm using its proprietary control system that can accept inputs from almost anything, including the Wiimote. Not much else to say but it is cool to say there is finally a robot add-on to the Wii, even if it can squeeze your eyeballs out of your head.

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Powercast exhibited their power transmission technologies by “shooting” LEDs with energy and making them light up. These guys make the CES rounds so we’ve seen them before but their plan here is to embed their technology into wireless robots and simply send the power along with the control commands as the robots traverse scary terrain.

So far they can replace a set of 4 AAA batteries, depending on the situation and implementation.

National Instruments makes the code inside Lego Mindstorms. Lego Mindstorms hurts me. Kill National Instruments. Kill!

This is a prototype of a wheel/track component that can change from wheel to track when the situation demands. The tracks have hooked treads that can pull the robot up a steep incline and it can right itself when it falls, something I discovered when it fell off of the ramp and I tried to catch it, almost cutting my poor, meaty hands.

Sadly, this odd platform wasn’t working today due to firmware problems. However, as you can see from the video, it’s basically a moving platform that can move in any direction without turning. You can basically turn at a 90 degree angle while moving forward and the thing runs as if it were on rails.

It’s a Segway prototype right now and can be embedded in almost any configuration, including this odd table thing that never falls over. The devices move so smoothly it’s eerie.

Got to see CMU’s Snake Robot up close and it’s really something. The bugger rolls around the floor and can climb up pipes and through holes with ease and, in a vaguely David Lynch-ian sense, scares me yet excites me at the same time. This is just a prototype but it’s definitely cool to see it working in real life. This model was wired but it had enough mobility to coil around and climb a cardboard tube. Just think what it can do to your colon.

I was at the show today talking to some folks about the current crop of military robots from people like Foster-Miller and even iRobot. These are robots deployed by the army to handle bomb detection, room clearing, and all the nasty stuff you don’t want to send humans in for. For years, politicians have been deriding these things as remote controlled toys rather than viable battlefield weapons.

Foster-Miller and the robot companies were upset at those claims, consistently stating that they were building battlefield robots, not glorified RC cars. These were intelligent machines with valuable skills. This back-and-forth went on for a few years. As the tactics changed in Iraq, however, politicians changed their tune and began clamoring for these beasts to be armed.

This brings out another problem: how to arm a semi-autonomous device? By arming a robot, you basically wade into some heady ethical territory. Who is responsible? Who is in control? Can these robots make decisions on the battlefield? The answer? Call it a remote controlled robot and say the operator is behind everything. So, from high-minded rhetoric comes a low-end solution: pull the ethics out of the equation by redefining your terms.

Just got to RoboBusiness 2008 in Pittsburgh, PA where I’ve seen more cool things in a 100 square foot space than I’ve ever seen at the South Hall 8AC57.9.B at CES. There are quite a few kit makers here for education and research along with some cool research projects by Carnegie Mellon and other local universities.