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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced a major new initiative to create robotic autonomous manipulators that mimic the human hands, an agency program manager said. For the past several decades, the research agency and the robotics community have concentrated their efforts on programming ground robots to get from point A to point B, said Robert Mandelbaum, a DARPA program manager who focuses on robotics and autonomous systems. That challenge has for the most part been tackled, he said. The autonomous robotics manipulation program will take on a new goal, creating an inexpensive hand-like device that is as adaptable as...

Stanford computer scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables robotic helicopters to teach themselves to fly difficult stunts by watching other helicopters perform the same maneuvers. The result is an autonomous helicopter than can perform a complete airshow of complex tricks on its own. The stunts are "by far the most difficult aerobatic maneuvers flown by any computer controlled helicopter," said Andrew Ng, the professor directing the research of graduate students Pieter Abbeel, Adam Coates, Timothy Hunter and Morgan Quigley. The dazzling airshow is an important demonstration of "apprenticeship learning," in which robots learn by observing an expert,...

DARPA, the Pentagon's source for R&D (and lovers of acronyms big and small) have released a video illustrating the Damage Tolerance and Autonomous Landing Solution they developed alongside Athena Technologies. Basically, DTALS is designed to take over for a pilot in the event that the aircraft sustains heavy damage. The system automatically detects the damage and adjusts the flight control system to land the aircraft safely.In the demo video, a scale model F-18 manages to return safely to the earth despite the loss of over 60% of its wing. At this point, the DTALS system is being confined to UAVs...

The US Air Force has launched a micro-satellite that could lead to an autonomous robotic mechanic that fixes satellites in orbit. The launch is the first of two such technology-demonstration satellites to lift off this week. The 138-kilogram XSS-11 - which stands for Experimental Spacecraft Systems 11 - blasted off at 0635 PDT (1435 GMT) on Monday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, US, aboard a Minotaur rocket. “Nobody’s ever done anything like this in space,” says Vernon Baker, XSS-11 programme manager at the Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, US. He says developing an...

How al-Qa'ida has split into dozens of autonomous, hard-to-find 'franchises' By Kim Sengupta 22 November 2003 The Afghan war was meant to deprive al-Qa'ida of the protection of its Taliban allies and destroy it as a fighting force. But the Istanbul bombings are the latest example of how the organisation has reinvented itself to continue its jihad. Al-Qai'da has proved to be a many-headed hydra. One was decapitated in Afghanistan, with many of Osama bin Laden's senior lieutenants killed or captured, and much of its financial resources uncovered and blocked. But the organisation has now sprung up again in a...