ROBOTSAT

WORK AND PLAY

Muziek: Kraftwerk The Robots

Resembling a headless horse, a robotic Legged Squad Support System (LS3) developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency navigates terrain during a demonstration

at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Fort Myer, Virginia, on September 10, 2012. The LS3 is being developed for use by the U.S. military to carry heavy loads and equipment over a variety of terrain.

A free-swimming robot submarine maneuvers beneath sea ice in Eastern Antarctica. Scientists have produced the first three dimensional map of the surface beneath Antarctic sea ice,

helping them better understand the impact of climate change on Antarctica. The team of scientists from eight countries used a robot submarine to chart a frozen and inverted world of mountains

and valleys, allowing accurate measurements of the crucial thickness of Antarctic sea ice.

French engineer Christophe Millot stands with his Wall-Ye prototype, a robot designed to prune vines, in the Pouilly Fuisse vineyard during a press presentation near Macon, France, on October 12, 2012.

The 50 by 60 centimeter robot, with four wheels and two metal arms, has six web cameras and a GPS and can roll between grapevines, test the soil and check the grapes. With a little more training, Wall-Ye will be able to prune up to

600 vines per day, says his inventor, who has been working on the project for the past three years.

U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 2 Dylan Ferguson, a brigade aviation element officer with the 82nd Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, launches a Puma unmanned aerial vehicle in Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, on June 25, 2012.

Sophie Morgan walks with the aid of "Rex", a Robotic Exoskeleton at the Welcome Trust on September 19, 2012 in London, England. The system allows wheelchair users including fully paralyzed people, to stand upright and walk

independently. Sophie was paralyzed from the breast bone down in 2003 following a car accident.

On Mars, NASA's Curiosity rover images itself -- this image shows the rover's Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS), with the Martian landscape in the background. The image was taken by Curiosity's Mast Camera on the 32nd Martian

day, or sol, of operations on the surface (September 7, 2012). APXS can be seen in the middle of the picture. This image let researchers know that the APXS instrument had not become caked with dust during Curiosity's dusty

landing. Scientists enhanced the color in this version to show the Martian scene as it would appear under the lighting conditions we have on Earth, which helps in analyzing the terrain.

The Andros F6A robot, controlled by U.S. Air Force Explosive Ordinance Disposal team members, carries a backpack containing an improvised explosive device during a hostile threat exercise at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico,

on June 20, 2012

A robot sits before Buddhist monks, as they pray during a mass alms-offering ceremony at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang in Bangkok, on June 19, 2012.

The ceremony was held to mark the 2,600th anniversary of the enlightenment of Lord Buddha.

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, made by the French company Fly-n-Sense, flies over Mont-de-Marsan, France, on July 12, 2012.

French firefighters were testing it in the Landes forest region as an innovative forest surveillance system which will enable a real-time monitoring of fire outbreaks.

A series of three pictures shows a pole dancing robot at the Tobit Software booth prior to the opening of the CeBIT IT fair in Hanover, Germany, on March 5, 2012.

A robot gestures at the Ideen Park fair in Essen, Germany, on August 13, 2012. The fair is organized for children and young adults by the German steel company ThyssenKrupp AG

to inspire their spirit of research and to promote careers in science and technology.

The Expedition 32 crew onboard the International Space Station, flying an altitude of approximately 240 miles, recorded a series of images of Aurora Australis, also known as the Southern Lights, on July 15, 2012.

The Canadarm2 robot arm is in the foreground.

A 49-year-old electric bike mechanic who identified himself only as Wu welds a component to fit onto his newly-made robot at his repair shop in Shenyang, Liaoning province, China, on June 25, 2012.

Wu spent over 10 days to make this nearly two-meter high robot using parts from abandoned electric bikes. The robot, which is able to walk and pump up tires by itself, is still under modification, according to local media.

Small robots with faces attached of "Gangnam Style" singer Psy, perform the dance during a contest for future strategies of robots in Seoul, South Korea, on October 17, 2012.

A man looks at the HRP-4C Miim humanoid robot at the venue of the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group in Tokyo, on October 9, 2012.

A Pacbot 310, an explosive ordnance disposal robot, turns the corner as U.S. Army Spc. Andrew B. Clement, an EOD technician from Jackson, Tennessee, practices maneuvering it at Combat Outpost Honaker-Miracle

in eastern Afghanistan, on August 1, 2012.

Lauri Mihkels from the technical support team of the Estonian company Fits.me adjusts a shape-shifting robotic mannequin on March 27, 2012 at offices in Tallinn. Fashion fans have one more reason to swap brick-and-mortar shops for online retailers after

an Estonian company has come up with a technology allowing them to virtually try their clothes on. Using shape-shifting robotic mannequins, who can grow from slim to muscular in moments, and a technology invented

by Estonian universities, the Fits.me company also spares online shops from heaps of returned goods. The robots can take on about 100,000 different body shapes, but only about 2,000 are being used for commercial purposes.

A large beetle-shaped robot "Kabutom RX-03", produced by a Japanese engineer Hitoshi Takahashi is displayed before public at the Tsukuba Festival at Tsukuba city, Tokyo, on August 26, 2012. The Kabutom, 11-meters in length and

weighing 17-tons, can walk with its six legs, powered by diesel engines and can blow smoke from its nose.

A robotic cigarette-smoking apparatus, inside the Czech Republic-based subsidiary of cigarette-maker Philip Morris International Inc. in Kutna Hora, on August 28, 2012.

A soft-bodied robot navigates, from top to bottom, an obstacle course. Harvard University researchers built this flexible prototype robot that can crawl and move in a wavelike motion.

Unlike rigid robots, soft robots can be used to squeeze into tight spaces.

Alvin Kabwama, one of the designers of a prototype robot that can detect and disarm Improvised Explosive Devices attempts to switch it on at Makerere University's College of Engineering, Design Art and Telecommunication in Kampala, Uganda,

on June 6, 2012. The robot is remotely controlled by a computer and can navigate a flat surface of up to a 20m radius. The development comes in the wake of continuous terrorist threats as a result of the country's contribution of

forces to the African Union peace keeping mission in Somalia.

Quadriplegic research subject Tim Hemmes operates a mechanical prosthetic arm with Katie Schaffer during a testing sessions at a University of Pittsburgh Medical Center research facility in Pittsburgh. Hemmes had a chip implanted on the surface of his brain that reads his intention to move his paralyzed arm and sends that instruction instead to an advanced bionic arm.

The goal is to create mind-controlled prosthetics to restore some independence to the paralyzed.

Akie Koh, a stylist from Japan, makes final preparations on the face of Geminoid F, a female robot, in Hong Kong, on March 28, 2012. The Geminoid F robot, developed by Ishiguro Laboratory in Osaka University and

ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, will be on display with other robots at City Plaza's "Robots in Motion 2012" exhibition from March 29 to April 15.

A robot named "Treebot", developed by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, climbs up a tree in Hong Kong, on June 20, 2011. Treebot has two grippers that dig into bark and allow the device to wriggle up a tree like a caterpillar.

It weighs less than 1 kg (2.2 lbs), can carry a camera and is designed to climb trees in place of humans, to perform health checks, reported the South China Morning Post.

Octavia, a mobile, dexterous, social (MDS) robot, puts out a fire in the prototyping high bay of the just-opened Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

The LASR facility will integrate science and technology components into research prototype systems and will become the nerve center for basic research that supports autonomous systems research for the Navy and Marine Corps.

Two Soft Octopus-like Robot arms, photographed at the Institute of Biorobotics of the Italian University Sant'Anna School in Pisa, on July 17, 2012. The Graduate School Sant'Anna of Pisa (SSSA), which includes six research

institutes, has developed two prototype bionic arms, a robot capable of overcoming obstacles, another that recycles garbage, and one that has the form of an octopus.

The robot "Obelix" runs through Freiburg city center, on August 21, 2012. The machine, starting 9:45 in the morning at the University of Freiburg, found its way independently to a plaza

in the center of Freiburg, about four kilometers away. Obelix made the journey, avoiding people and obstacles, in about 100 minutes.

E I N D E