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ROBOTS
Initially science fiction, now fact. Here are a few robotic links of various persuasions...
Especially of note is the work by the scientist Doctor Laurence Tyler, who wrote a masters thesis on Robot Football, and a PhD thesis on experimental methods for autonomous robot groups. His site was linked to by means of http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~lgt1/
Also see the research of Karon McBride (http://www.cbl.leeds.ac.uk/~karon/research.htm) whose work on Topcat has been recommended.
And, see Robot Wars which is more of a cross between Rollerball and It's A Knockout rather than being to do with autonomous machine intelligences thinking for themselves. But, impressive hardware.
There are some robots for sale at some of the links on the GADGETS PAGE, so HAVE FUN looking for them!
Cute'n'cuddly + robots, not a good combination, but attempts at this include the AIBO, the FURBY, and some of the script of the presenters of Robot Wars.
Serious robotics include JESUS the bomb disposal robot, and devices which were landed on the planet Mars (the point being that it's not possible to radio-control a machine 20 light-minutes away sensibly, so the machine has to do some thinking for itself).
Distributed intelligences (quite frightening things in a Star Trek sense) are to be seen in the experimental work on Beowulf Clusters. Nanotechnology is micro-robotics, a science in the early stages of development.
When talking to people working on distributed artificial intelligence robots in space, the telling of jokes about The Borg is not recommended. There's a high probability they've heard most of the wittiest Borg jokes already, and they may even have a numbered List of Borg Jokes.
Robots are often assumed to be anthropomorphic metal humans, but this is only one of the many types. Some are more like spiders, some are little wheeled vehicles that scurry about, some are airships, and some have no physical manifestation at all but live entirely inside computers.
I have heard it speculated that one of the most convincing examples of an anthropomorphic robot ever made was called the "Kevin Warwick" and was so convincing that its constructors had it giving the Royal Institution Lectures one year in the early 21st Century, but that computer analysis of the footage clearly shows operating methods which give it away.
Add more stuff to this! Please e-mail me with constructive suggestions, links to interesting sites, and contributions, e-mail
Robot parts available from: www.totalrobots.com (pity it's not an affiliate link!). AND, what about this: www.active-robots.com - UK based robotics catalogue! And, http://www.used-robots.com/information.htm which may be helpful. Robot enthusiasts may also be interested in the secondhand stepper motors and other useful stuff from old gambling machines at Zyra's Bazaar on the page of amusement machine bits
Also see Robots at NASA and Robot Vision
Also see NEURINFO
Honda ASIMO - looks like an astronaut, but there's no body inside!
Now, we are fortunate to have assimilated the Xarob Collection of useful and interesting robot links...
Robotics Internet Resources Page( was http://www-robotics.cs.umass.edu/robotics.html)
Field Robotics Center Home Page
Tucker Balch's Homepage - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~trb/
CMU CIL Home Page - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cil
Advanced Mechatronics Lab, Carnegie Mellon University - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/chimera/www/aml.html
STORM Project Home Page - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/br/mosaic/Storm/STORM.html
A Reactive System for Off-Road Autonomous Driving (was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/vision/www/samplers/xc.html)
The Computer Vision Homepage - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/cil/www/vision.html
Robot Learning Laboratory Home Page - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rll/
Behavioral Diversity in Learning Robot Teams - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~trb/papers/thesis/
Catadioptric Camera Calibration (was http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~cgeyer/calib/)
Mutli-robot Coordination and Collaboration Media Bytes - was http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stepligh/media.html
Multi-robot Coordination and Collaboration for Communication, Manipulation, Surveillance, and Tracking - was http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~stepligh/index.html
The Interaction Lab [USC] - was http://www-robotics.usc.edu/~agents/
Aude Billard - was http://www-clmc.usc.edu/~billard/
A robust tactical mobile robot system with distributed intelligence - was http://robotics.usc.edu/~monica/DARPA_WEBPage/main.html
The Cog Shop [MIT] Humanoid Robotics Group
Cynthia Ferrell - was http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/cynthia/cynthia.html
UC Berkeley Robotics and Intelligent Machines Lab Home Page (was http://robotics.eecs.berkeley.edu/ )
UC Berkeley Computer Vision Group (was http://HTTP.CS.Berkeley.EDU/projects/vision/ )
DARS2000 [Website] (with or without frames - your vote counts!) (was http://saturn.epm.ornl.gov/DARS2000/)
Lynne Parker's Home Page (was http://saturn.epm.ornl.gov/~parkerle/ )
Swarm (was http://www.sandia.gov/isrc/Swarm/swarm.html)
Perimeter Detection (was http://www.sandia.gov/isrc/Capabilities/Sensors/Perimeter_Detection/perimeter_detection.html)
Neurobotics Home Page (was http://neurobotics.bu.edu/)
Jun Tani (was http://www.csl.sony.co.jp/person/tani.html)
ECSE Individual Staff Page (was http://www.ecse.monash.edu.au/staff/jarvis.html)
Intelligent Robotics Research Centre, Monash University (was http://calvin.eng.monash.edu.au/IRRC/IRRCHomePage.html)
Australian Centre for Field Robotics (was http://mecharea.mech.eng.usyd.edu.au/)
The ANU Robotic Systems Lab Homepage
Dr. Julio Rosenblatt (was http://mecharea.mech.eng.usyd.edu.au/people/academic/jrosenblatt/)
Kube's Research: Collective Robotics
Research of D.O. Gorodnichy - World Exploration (was http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~dmitri/WorldModeling/)
AI Lab Zurich : Links : Robotics
Robohoo! - World's Largest Index of Robotics Resources
Robotics Web Servers (was http://bsing.ing.unibs.it/~cassinis/robot/acad.htm)
Telerobot Links (was http://telerobot.mech.uwa.edu.au/secn/links.html)
Internet Robotics Sources (was http://www.cs.indiana.edu/robotics/world.html)
Robotics FAQ Table of Contents
OffTopic
Robot Books.com - Robot Kits, Robotics, and Toy Robots
New Scientist: Darth evaders (Gone!)
Locust LGMD Model (was http://www.ncl.ac.uk/neurobiology/research/senses/projects/model.html)
Fuel Cell (was http://www.sandia.gov/isrc/Fuel_Cell/fuel_cell.html)
Project Borg (was http://han.ices.cmu.edu/projectborg/)
CNN - Crafty, dexterous robots beat bombers at their game - August 27, 1999
Vision - see ROBOT VISION
IRIS Partners (was http://www.precarn.ca/Corporate/IRIS_partners.htm)
CyberGuard Security System Product Guide (was http://www.cybermotion.com/html/products.html)
Georgia Tech Mobile Robot Laboratory
SCAMP Project Overview (was http://www.ssl.umd.edu/homepage/Projects/SCAMP/Project_overview.html)
UR vision and robotics research (was http://www.cs.rochester.edu/research/robotics.html)
Observation and Cooperation (was http://www.cs.rochester.edu:80/u/vanwie/paper/paper.html)
Georgia Tech School of Physics - David Finkelstein
bsy's List of Internet Accessible Machines
Video-Rate Stereo Machine - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/stereo-machine/www/StereoMachine.html
Robotics Institute: Video-rate Stereo Machine - was http://www.ri.cmu.edu/projects/project_53.html
Development of a Video-Rate Stereo Machine - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/usr/tk/www/Projects_www/IUW94stereo.fm.html
Computer Vision related papers (was http://ais.gmd.de/ROB/papers/vision_papers.html)
Neurobotics Home Page - was http://neurobotics.bu.edu/
Small, Portable, Mobile Robot Platforms
Alex Zelinsky's Home Page (was http://wwwsyseng.anu.edu.au/~alex/ )
Task Control Architecture - was http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/TCA/release/tca.html