http://www.robodaily.com/index.html Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST en-us NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has used the drill on its robotic arm to collect a powdered sample from the interior of a rock called "Cumberland." Plans call for delivering portions of the sample in coming days to laboratory instruments inside the rover. This is only the second time that a sample has been collected from inside a rock on Mars. The first was Curiosity's drilling at a targ]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST A team of researchers from the SETI Institute, the Mars Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, and the space robotics company Honeybee Robotics has successfully completed a first series of field tests aimed at investigating how humans will explore and work on near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and eventually the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. From 13 to 15 April 2013, field experiments were]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST The Northrop Grumman-built MQ-4C Triton high-altitude unmanned aircraft successfully completed its first flight from the company's manufacturing facility in Palmdale. Triton is specially designed to fly surveillance missions up to 24 hours at altitudes of more than 10 miles - allowing coverage out to 2,000 nautical miles. The advanced suite of sensors can detect and automatically classify ]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Researchers in Saudi Arabia say they're working on a drone system that could track potentially deadly floods in real time to sound an alarm before they hit. Flash floods are a risk in the country; at least 13 people died when floods hit parts of Saudi Arabia earlier this month, and two years ago more than a hundred died when thunderstorms saturated land to the east of the Red Sea port o]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST US drone strikes in Pakistan have a "minimal" impact on militant recruitment, a respected think tank said Tuesday, contrary to arguments the controversial programme creates more extremists than it kills. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said however the missile strikes in Pakistan's lawless tribal zones were not a long-term solution to militancy and urged Washington to be ]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST A humanoid robot can receive an object handed to it by a person with something approaching natural, human-like motion thanks to a new method developed by scientists at Disney Research, Pittsburgh in a project partially funded by the International Center for Advanced Communication Technologies (interACT) at Carnegie Mellon University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Recognizing ]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Future teams of subterranean search and rescue robots may owe their success to the lowly fire ant, a much-despised insect whose painful bites and extensive networks of underground tunnels are all-too-familiar to people living in the southern United States. By studying fire ants in the laboratory using video tracking equipment and X-ray computed tomography, researchers have uncovered fundam]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Israel's high-tech defense industry leads the world in exporting unmanned aerial vehicles, a new study says, while UAV designers are reported to be moving toward developing drones so advanced they could replace manned aircraft. The international business consultancy Frost and Sullivan reports that over the last eight years Israeli manufacturers have sold UAVs worth more than $4.6 billio]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Raytheon has delivered two electronic attack payloads in support of the U.S. Army's Networked Electronic Warfare, Remotely Operated (NERO) system. The payloads were delivered as part of a contract awarded by the U.S. Navy NAVSEA-Crane in 2012. NERO is utilized on the Army's MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS (Umanned Aircraft System) as an airborne electronic attack system capable of jamming enemy communicati]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has used the drill on its robotic arm to collect a powdered sample from the interior of a rock called "Cumberland." Plans call for delivering portions of the sample in coming days to laboratory instruments inside the rover. This is only the second time that a sample has been collected from inside a rock on Mars. The first was Curiosity's drilling at a targ]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST A Wayne State University researcher understands that the three most important things about real estate also apply to small ground robotic vehicles: location, location, location. In a paper recently published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Weisong Shi, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science in the College of Engineering, describes his developme]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Australia is eyeing possible acquisition of the U.S. Navy's MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft system. A Letter of Request as to cost, capabilities and availability will be sent by Canberra to the United States and a Foreign Military Sales Technical Services Case opened with the U.S. Navy, defense officials said. The MQ-4C Triton is a developmental maritime variant of Northrop Grumma]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST The U.S. Navy's launch of a carrier-based unmanned aircraft opens new markets for defense industries as the catapult-driven flight is celebrated across the sector as a milestone event. The Unmanned Combat Air System demonstration is many hours of research from actual combat readiness. With the jet launch accomplished the project's developers now must perfect a safe return of the craft t]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Navy has launched a new chapter in the history of unmanned systems - carrier-capable unmanned aircraft - by successfully catapulting the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System (UCAS) demonstrator from the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush(CVN-77). The launch occurred at 11:18 a.m. Eastern time while the carrier was under way off the coast of Virginia. The tailless, s]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST Raytheon has delivered two electronic attack payloads in support of the U.S. Army's Networked Electronic Warfare, Remotely Operated (NERO) system. The payloads were delivered as part of a contract awarded by the U.S. Navy NAVSEA-Crane in 2012. NERO is utilized on the Army's MQ-1C Gray Eagle UAS (Umanned Aircraft System) as an airborne electronic attack system capable of jamming enemy commu]]> Fri, 24 MAY 2013 11:54:39 AEST