The robocar Shelley is a 2010 TTS and can run without a human behind the wheels or inside the car. The team chose it because it features a fly-by-wire throttle, adaptive cruise control, a semiautomatic DSG gearbox and other gadgetry. That made it relatively easy to make the car fully autonomous using electronics developed at the Electronics Research Lab.

The car is named Shelley in honor of Michèle Mouton, an Audi rally driver and the first woman to win at Pikes Peak. Shelley uses differential GPS to track its location to within 2 centimeters, though Gerdes says the margin will be closer to 1 meter on the mountain. Wheel-speed sensors and an accelerometer measure its velocity and a gyroscope controls equilibrium and direction. The algorithms that make it all work run on hardware developed by Sun Microsystems.

“The components we added that actually interface with the car would fit in a shoebox,” said Marcial Hernandez, a senior research engineer at the Electronics Research Lab. “The largest component by far is the gyroscope, and it’s an 8-inch cube.”

Click here to read more about Shelley, Robocar.

Have you seen the first Geminoid robot (the HI-1) which was developed to look like its creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro?

Probably you were not that interested to learn more about that robot because he does not, well, looked very pleasing to the eyes. But the second creation of Mr Hiroshi Ishiguro will surely capture your senses.

The Geminoid F (F stands for female) is a better and prettier version of the HI-1. It is simpler in the sense that the creator only used 12 facial actuators compared to the previous 50+ more facial motors used in HI-1. It can demonstrate more natural facial expressions despite it's low cost and has lower degrees of freedom.

The Geminoid F is a robotic version of a woman in her twenties, and like Geminoid HI-1, it’s designed to copy a human as perfectly as possible. Also, all of the actuators and air servo valves and stuff fit into the Geminoid F’s torso, whereas the HI-1 required a big external box to get it to work.

The developers plan to use this as an android which provides patients a sense of comfort and tranquility in application experiments at hospitals. In the other aspects, they hope to use it widely for exhibitions at science museums, etc.

Click here to read more about Geminoid F, Tele-operated Android

UC Berkeley's own Assistant Professor, Pieter Abbeel has developed a household robot that will definitely offer a great help at home.

What it does? Simple folding of towels. To us humans, it may seem easy, but mind you when you several clothes or towels to fold, it may be tiresome or may not like to proceed with the task.

But not PR2, he can do the job seamlessly and with a pat-in-smooth gesture after every fold. PR2 does not miss out on folding different types and sizes of towels. You can see in ths video demonstration, how PR2 does the task "immaculately".

Pieter Abbeel used the robotics platform in Willow Garage. He developed a novel vision-based grasp point detection algorithm which can effectively detect the corners of a piece of cloth, using only geometric cues that are robust to variation in texture.

The best thing about PR2 is that it is able to sort out and analyze the type of cloth materials which he has no previous knowledge about.

Click here to read more about PR2, Vision-Based Grasp-Point Detection Algorithm

The WIND (Wireless Intelligent Networked Device) permits robot control with the use of a SiP (System in Package) chip, packing the full functionality of a personal computer onto a single semiconductor.

Recently presented by the Engineers from Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo), a division of the Chiba Institute of Technology, this nifty controller detects and recognizes human movement(which the user makes) and performs wireless transmissions of operation instructions to the robot via Bluetooth.

However, the current version only allows the user to control the hands. The accuracy and speed remain the main challenges that the Japanese engineers face with their latest invention.

Here are its specifications:

size: 50 x 35 (mm)

CPU: MIPS 266MHz

RAM: 128MB

ROM: 64MB x 2

I/O: Ethernet x 2

OS: Linux

Click here to read more about Wireless Intelligent Networked Device, WIND.

The Paparazzi Bots are autonomous robots which is a tech-hybrid camera and cameraman. It is comprised of multiple cameras and sensors on a custom-built rolling platform. They move at the speed of a walking human, avoiding walls and obstacles.

The robots stand at human height. With the help of infrared sensors, the robots move toward their “lucky” victims and then realizes their single goal - taking photos of people. Each robot decides whether or not to take pictures of particular people based on such things as whether a person is smiling or not.

Once a person or group is selected, the robots automatically stop. They adjust their focus and then take shots. The images that they took will then be uploaded in the Web, which makes their lucky models instant celebrities, at least for a little while.

“As we create and employ new high-tech tools, these technologies also structure and change us, forcing us to evolve as a species. These new works foretell a time when domestic robots will be living amongst us.”, says Ken Rinaldo, a faculty member in the Department of Art in the Ohio State University and the inventor of the Paparazzi Bots.

Click here to read more about Paparazzi Bots, Robo-Camera.

Kompaï, thanks to the ingenuity of the French company Robosoft, is a robot designed to assist dependent persons at home. This amazing robot can speak, understand what it is said to it, find its way all around the house and can even access all internet services with just a word.

With Kompaï’s current specs, it is really intended to assist dependent or handicapped persons in their daily lives. It has a recharging dock which it automatically heads back to when its batteries are running low. With speech as its primary means of communication with people, it is able to understand simple commands and gives a certain level of response. It also has additional touch screen that features simple icons and is permanently connected to the internet and all its associated services. It navigates within the house and knows how to get from one point to another, whether on demand or on its own initiative.

Future versions of Kompaï will be equipped with visual abilities, and also the possibility to understand and express emotions. And the addition of arms will allow it to do simple yet fundamental household tasks in everyday living which makes it more efficient.

Click here to read more about Kompaï, robots.

Mint, a new type of automatic floor cleaner, is a precursor to a new generation of robotic products in the consumer market. Designed by Evolution Robotics Inc., a robotics technology company, Mint’s innovations mainly focuses on the simple goal of making our lives easier.

With its sleek design, Mint can navigate and clean a room without human assistance. It’s simple yet elegant design makes its buttons visible thus making it more user-friendly. Here are some of Mint’s superior cleaning prowess:

• Dusts and Mops Mint offers dry and wet cleaning. With dry cloths, Mint systematically picks up the dust, dirt and hair that constantly accumulate on your floors. With wet cloths, Mint uses a special mopping motion to methodically clean each area of the floor, dissolving and wiping up the deeper dirt and grime, leaving floors shiny, fresh and clean. • Tracks Where It Cleans To clean floors thoroughly, Mint’s navigation system meticulously tracks where it cleans to ensure it doesn’t miss a spot. Guided by Evolution’s own NorthStar® technology, Mint integrates information from three different on-board positioning systems to carefully map the room, plan areas for cleaning, and pick up spots not covered on the first pass. This first-of-a kind navigation system represents unprecedented cleaning coverage for an automatic floor cleaner and truly clean hard surface floors for the consumer.

Click here to read more about Mint, Robot Vacuum Cleaner.

Roxxxy is the first Artificial sex robot engineered by Douglas Hines of TrueCompanion Company and is possibly the most classy sex toy on the market today.

Hines who is a computer scientist state the plan for the sex robot came when he was looking for a profitable application for his Artificial Intelligence Technology. Talking about the sex robot he believes that “there’s a tremendous need for this kind of product”.

Roxxxy is 5 ft 7 inch tall and her body is anatomically just like a real woman. Her skin is made from silicone and is touch sensitive in all the right places and she can even have an sense of sexual climax.

Consumers can also customize things like eye color, hair color and breast size. The Artificial Intelligence engine is programmed to learn the owner’s likes and dislikes.

There is also a choice of purchasing Roxxxy with five different personalities - sociable Wild Wendy, reserved and shy Frigid Farrah. Mature Martha is a young naive personality and S & M Susan is very daring.

What makes Roxxxy different from her inflatable ancestors is that she's the first sex doll equipped with artificial intelligence. "She hears you. She listens to you. She speaks. She feels your touch. She goes to sleep," Hines says.

Click here to read more about Roxxxy, Artificial Sex Robot

For more than ten years, the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart as the partner for contract research which develop and optimize solutions for a wide range of different tasks in science and engineering, is working on the development of a mobile robot assistant Care-O-bot® that can able to assist and to make human’s life more accessible and most likely easier way to live in.

The meanwhile third generation of this successful development series is characterized by a product like system design and for the first time provides the potential to apply manipulating mobile service robots in everyday environments. By using industrial components approved in daily practice the dependability of the system can be ensured.

As an interactive butler Care-O-bot® 3 is firstly, it is able to move safely among humans and of course to the animals too like if you have pets in the house, secondly, could able to detect any necessary thing like metals and able to grasp typical household objects , and lastly, able to safely exchange them with humans.

And because of this, we could do anything what we wanted to do in life and enjoy the beauty of life with Care-O-bot®.

Click here to read more about Care-O-bot®, Mobile Robot Assistant

A robot that can distinguish human emotions was developed by the European Feelix Growing project. The overall aim of this project is the interdisciplinary investigation of socially situated development from a global or integrated viewpoint.

It is said that robots are incorporated in human’s everyday environment for them to give services such as entertainment, caregiving and company. Thus, it is anticipated that robots will be made to adapt to human behavior. Or else, the varied human environments will require an endless reprogramming of the robots.

The Feelix Growing project tries to give a solution to this problem by making a robot that could sympathize and understand human feelings.

The project uses software that gives the robots the power to comprehend how or what a person is feeling based on feedback from sensors and cameras. Artificial neural networks are used in order to give the robot learning capabilities. The robot can identify the subject’s mood by looking at a human’s facial expression and voice analysis.

“It's mostly behavioral and contact feedback; tactile feedback and emotional feedback through positive reinforcement, such as kind words, nice behavior or helping the robot do something if it is stuck,” explained project coordinator, Dr Lola Canamero.

Click here to read more about Emotional Robot Feelix, European Feelix Growing Project