Robocup 2010 willl be held in Singapore in June.

But pre-qualification finals are on-going everywhere early on this year to screen hundreds of robot participants. In the latest “RoboCup Japan Open 2010″, we saw several enthusiastic robot owners all wanting to win a place for the finals.

One of of the event, the biggest robot soccer tournament in the world was participated by 225 teams from all over the world. Among them, played the soccer playing humanoid which competed in the adult size class (robots that stand between 130 and 160cm tall).

This robot was jointly developed by Professor Asada’s lab at Osaka University and the Osaka Institute of Technology. It has 22 joints and uses a servo motor (placed in its torque: 327kg/cm).

However, gauging from the video itself, you'll see that the developers have a lot more things to do in order for them to take a piece of the cup in the finals.

Here are two videos, courtesy of Crunchgear.

Click here to read more about Robocup 2010 Singapore, Robocup Open 2010 Japan

Great news! The Iron Man does exist in the real world but of course you have to cash in hundreds or thousands of dollars to get one. But don't get me wrong. I am not talking of the "Iron Man" mask or his robotic outfit; I am talking of the Exoskeletons that will get you working several times longer and faster without exerting your own strength.

Here are the top 5 Exoskeleton Robots you might want to check out.

1. Raytheon Sarcos Exoskeleton

2. Human Assistive Limb Exoskeleton (HAL)

3. Human Universal Load Carrier (HULC)

5. MIT Exoskeleton

Click here to read more about

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

Last January, the annual IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems was filled with new innovations and intelligent systems that promises to deliver pleasure to the makers and clients alike.

Among the video presentations, one that caught the eyes of the media researchers was a robot wall. At first, no one really had the idea that it will become something that is not typical of a wall.

This robot wall was named AWE which means Animated Work Environment, developed at the Clemson University School of Architecture and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

When the robot was presented by Keith Evan Green, the school director of the Intelligent Materials and Systems for Architecture program, for a demonstration of its capabilities, everybody in the room was literally put in "awe".

The robot wall segments itself into 6 different configurations such as collaborating, composing, conference, gaming or playing, lounging, presenting or viewing. The main purpose of these robot wall segmentation is for business people to convene in one place.

The robot wall AWE functions with an 8-degree of freedom, multiple electric motors, and multiple touch-screen monitors and mobile desk units.

Click here to read more about Robot Wall, AWE

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA has just awarded a $32 million dollar contract to Boston Dynamics to create a bigger Bigdog.

Last year, we met Boston Dynamics BigDog and he was quite efficient as an army companion. However, DARPA announced this year that they wanted a bigger, bolder and stronger BigDog capable of carrying 400 pounds or more of payload within 24 hours of sustained capability.

The contract was awarded in January 26, 2010 under the LS3 program of DARPA. The LS3 or the Legged Squad Support System is a joint effort between DARPA and the U.S. Marine Corps. Below is an excerpt of the DARPA's Official News Release.

Key LS3 program themes are:

-Quadruped platform development: design of a deployable walking platform with sufficient payload capacity, range, endurance, and low noise signature for dismounted squad support, while keeping weight and volume scaled to the squad level.

-Walking control: develop control techniques that allow walking, trotting, and running/ bounding and capabilities to jump obstacles, cross ditches, recover from disturbances, and other discrete mobility features.

-User Interface (to include perception technologies): the ability for the vehicle to perceive and traverse its immediate terrain environment autonomously with simple methods of Marine/Soldier control.

Click here to read more about LS3 Program, Boston Dynamics Bigger BigDog

Just recently, NASA made their official announcement to leave NASA's Mars Rover Spirit, after painstakingly doing everything to pull her up from the sand.

Remember Spirit? no, not the horse, but NASA's mobile Mars Rover which after six long years of unprecedented exploration of the Red Planet, could no longer perform its primary exploration task.

Spirit is not dead though, but as several attempts of getting her out were unsuccessful, NASA decided to transform her into a stationary science platform.

According to Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, "Spirit was driving south beside the western edge of a low plateau called Home Plate, its wheels broke through a crusty surface and churned into soft sand hidden underneath. "

On the lighter side, Mars Rover Opportunity is still very alive and kicking. Official NASA reports said that Opportunity has been traversing south toward a young impact crater, called "Concepcion." The crater is estimated to be about 1,000 years old, the youngest crater to be explored on Mars.

Click here to read more updates about Spirit and Opportunity.

If you think this is another kid's toy robot, think again and watch the videos below to see how a student assembled this kind of robot that accurately finds its way to climb up a freely configurable wall.

This one is a bioloid. A Bioloid is a very powerful system from Robotis. It is basically an educational robot with many advanced features added to the newer models. The Bioloid comes in a package of powerful GUI-based software along with a very advanced hardware system and servos.

The kit is user-friendly and can be used to develop different types of robots like a humanoid biped, multi- legged robots, a wheeled robot, quadruped puppy robot, spider robot, dinosaur robot all are products of this simple kit. Since it is an open source platform research related activities can be done here.

And the coolest part is, this climbing bioloid is the project of student, robosoccer referee and RoboGames contestant Marko Wickrath, in association with the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany & University of Manitoba, Canada.

Click here to read more about Bioloid, Autonomous Robot Kit

A marine biologist and ecologist came up with the idea of creating miniature marine life robots in order to broaden the learning of school children about sea life.

Japan is famous for its diverse selection of tropical fish. In fact they are the first ones to breed several kinds of aquarium fish like the carp to produce other carp species.

Now this love for fish has gone a notch higher. One of them is Prof. Masamichi Hayashi, who combined his love for the marine life with educating little children.

He created life-like robots that mimic the movements and sounds of some of the well-known and most dreaded sea creatures like the killer whale, the manta ray, the 5 feet turtoise and ¥2 million replica of the prehistoric coelacanth.

His creations were impressively made o recyclable materials from raincoats to windscreen wipers. His comprehensive knowledge in both robotics and marine creatures has produced realistic set of hand-crafted fish.

See this playful little killer whale out here, is actually a robot!

The whale is operated by a remote control and consists of a series of a network of internal servos and motors. Some of the larger 'fish-bots' are capable of opening and closing their mouths and eating artificial 'prey'.

Click here to read more about Fish Robots or 'Fish-Bots'.

Urban Aeronautics, an Israeli company has successfully hover tested AirMule, an Unmanned Medevac Vehicle, a highly potential war vehicles in future wars.

I've never seen like this. And it feels like we are becoming one with the Star Wars saga!

Urban's AirMule is just one of those fiction movies' high profile warships, which have come to reality. This is just another example of a fictitious subject coming to life. But the AirMule is more than that.

The AirMule, an autonomous VTOL cargo/medevac UAV has just completed its initial testing, which showed that the vane system used for roll and yaw control will, with planned improvements, allow the production vehicle to hover with high precision in winds gusting up to 50kt.

The AirMule is powered by a 730shp Turbomeca Arriel I turboshaft driving fore and aft ducted rotors. And the Israeli Defence Force has confirmed interest in the AirMule as a UMV because the rotors are safely shielded.

Click here to read more about Urban Aeronautics' AirMule, Unmanned Medevac Vehicle