Quadruped CHEETAH robot to outrun any human

It would be scary to be chased by a military robot. It would also be scary to be chased by a cheetah. So, imagine what it would be like to have a military robotic cheetah sprinting after you. Such a scenario could one day be possible, as robotics company Boston Dynamics recently announced that America's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded it a contract to design and build such a ... critter. The contract also includes the creation of an agile, bipedal humanoid robot. It's hard to say which one might ultimately be creepier.

The CHEETAH robot will reportedly have four legs, a flexible spine, an articulated head/neck, and perhaps a tail. It will be able to run faster than any existing legged robot or human runner, make tight, zig-zagging turns in order to chase or evade, be able to accelerate very rapidly from a standstill, and stop just as quickly.

The other robot, ATLAS, "will walk like a man, using a heel-to-toe walking motion, long strides and dynamic transfer of weight on each step," according to Boston Dynamics VP of Engineering Rob Playter. It will have a torso, two legs and two arms, although spookily enough, there's no mention of a head. It will be able to turn sideways to squeeze through narrow passages, and use its hands for balance and support on rough terrain.

The machine will incorporate some of the advanced behaviors already used in PETMAN (pictured above), another anthropomorphic robot that the company previously developed for the US Army. Both CHEETAH and ATLAS will also build upon control software and mechanical and electrical systems designed for PETMAN, and for the company's quadruped pack horse-like BigDog military robot.

While the exact purpose of either robot hasn't been stated, Boston Dynamics did say that "In addition to military applications, such robots can be used in civil and commercial applications such as emergency response, firefighting, advanced agriculture and vehicular travel in places that are inaccessible to conventional wheeled and tracked vehicles."

Eye implant contains 'world's first' millimeter-scale computing system

Researchers from the University of Michigan have created what they claim is the world's first millimeter-scale complete computing system, designed as an implantable eye pressure monitor for glaucoma patients. Incorporating a microprocessor, pressure sensor, memory, thin-film battery, solar cell and wireless radio with an antenna that can transmit data to an external reader device, the device is just over one cubic millimeter in size. The scientists see it as the next step in the evolution of ever-smaller and more efficient computers.

"When you get smaller than hand-held devices, you turn to these monitoring devices," said U Michigan's Prof. David Blaauw. "The next big challenge is to achieve millimeter-scale systems, which have a host of new applications for monitoring our bodies, our environment and our buildings. Because they're so small, you could manufacture hundreds of thousands on one wafer. There could be 10s to 100s of them per person and it's this per capita increase that fuels the semiconductor industry's growth."

The lilliputian computer uses the third generation of the university's Phoenix chip, which utilizes a unique power gating architecture and an extreme sleep mode to achieve ultra-low power consumption. The system wakes itself up every 15 minutes to take readings, consuming an average of 5.3 nanowatts. In order to stay charged, the battery requires exposure to ten hours of indoor light per day, or 1.5 hours of sunlight. Up to a week's worth of data can be stored at one time.

While the device can send data to an external reader, it is so far not able to communicate with other systems like it – something that's imperative if such computers are ever to make up a wireless sensor network. To that end, U Michigan's David Wentzloff and Kuo-Ken Huang have been developing a tiny on-chip antenna that will allow for node-to-node communication.

Part of what allows the sub-cubic-millimeter antenna to keep its size down is the elimination of the crystal. Usually, crystals are required for keeping time, and selecting a radio frequency when two devices are communicating. Instead, the tiny new antenna acts as its own reference, thanks to a size and shape that precisely dictates how it will respond to electrical signals. This reportedly means that a radio equipped with such an antenna would not need to be externally tuned, and that a network of such radios would automatically align themselves at a common frequency. Wentzloff and Huang are now working on reducing the power consumption of their antenna.

The millimeter-scale implantable computer is not expected to be commercially available for several more years.

The research on both technologies was presented this week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco.