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Visit us at ICRA & ROSCon 2013

ta — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:11:35 +0000

From the May 6^th to 10^th in Karlsruhe, Germany, Shadow will exhibiting at ICRA 2013. We will be showcasing the Shadow Dexterous Hand and our new product: RoNeX.

Ugo & Toni from our software team will also be at ROS Con 2013 in Stuttgart and will be giving a lightning talk about RoNeX – if you’re interested in this upcoming product or how we use ROS with our Dexterous Hand, that’ll be a great opportunity to find out more.

Shadow Featured on French Channel 3

art — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:31:43 +0000

Shadow were in Lyon, France for Innorobo 2013, where the Shadow Hand was filmed and later showcased on French channel 3. Innorobo was great and we had a big response to RoNeX. Thanks to all of those who dropped by. Here’s a video of our booth and the card trick again.

See Us At InnoRobo and ERF 2013, Lyon

art — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 18:44:22 +0000

See Us At InnoRobo and ERF 2013, Lyon

From the 19-21 March in Lyon, France, Shadow will exhibiting at InnoRobo and attending the European Robotics Forum. We will be showcasing the Shadow Dexterous Hand and our new product: RoNeX.

Shadow Hand Automates Hazardous Lab Work

ta — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:39:33 +0000

The University of Hamburg, Shadow & the UK’s Health Protection Agency are jointly developing robotics for autonomous operation in hazardous bacteriological and chemical laboratories.

The research is funded by ECHORD, an FP7 project.

The project has made great progress with performing complex tasks and handling small, delicate objects; take a look at the video for the latest results!

Shadow Builds Bionic Man for Channel 4

ta — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:29:10 +0000

Shadow Builds Bionic Man for Channel 4

Yesterday saw the unveiling of a “Bionic Man” showcasing the cutting-edge in prosthetic and organ replacement technologies.

Shadow was the technical consultant for the project, responsible for designing the “Bionic Man” and the integration of parts from high-end manufacturers. The latest vision recognition algorithms from Shadow’s research projects were used, allowing the “Bionic Man” to locate, move to and grasp objects.

Read more about the “Bionic Man” at the Telegraph, Guardian, Wired or watch him on Channel 4 on February 7th.

After the episode is aired the “Bionic Man” will be unveiled as an exhibit at London’s Science Museum.

BBC News interviewed Rich Walker, MD, and Prof Alexander Seifalian on the bionic man – watch the interview here.

(Updated 2013-02-18: “REX” is the name of the exoskeleton produced by REX Bionics Ltd – not the “Bionic Man”)

Stephen Fry Gadget Man

ap — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 19:18:34 +0000

The Shadow Hand recently featured as part of a robotic version of Stephen Fry in his new show Stephen Fry: Gadget man! This allowed Stephen to present an award at the Golden Joysticks video game awards from the comfort of his own home, using his robotic avatar.

You can see the results on the Channel 4 website here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/stephen-fry-gadget-man/4od#3446610

5 Years of ROS

ap — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 08:21:22 +0000

Willow Garage’s Robot Operating System, which turns 5 this month is growing more popular year upon year. Shadow use ROS in both the Dexterous Hand and also a large number of our bespoke projects, as it provides a flexible open source solution with access to a huge amount of robot software resources.

Willow Garage have put together a video of robots using ROS to mark its 5th birthday which can be found below. Look out for a shot of our hand and arm system in the HANDLE project at 1:40.

Robots on iPad

ap — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:53:12 +0000

Shadow Hand on iPad app

The new Robots for iPad app from IEEE Spectrum magazine was released this week and features the Shadow Dexterous Hand as one of its 126 robotics projects from around the world. As well as info about the hand the app also includes a special 360 degree view of the hardware. Check it out here.

ESA Dexterous Project Milestone

ap — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:41:09 +0000

Shadow engineers this week demonstrated and delivered a Shadow Dexterous Hand at the ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands. The research will look at the challenges of using a tele-operated hand end-effector in a space setting.

BioTac Sensors

ap — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:45:33 +0000

Syntouch LLC, makers of the (Shadow Hand compatible) BioTac tactile sensor, have published a study in Frontiers in Neurorobotics showing just what their sensors are capable of. “The specialized robot was trained on 117 common materials gathered from fabric, stationery and hardware stores. When confronted with one material at random, the robot could correctly identify the material 95% of the time, after intelligently selecting and making an average of five exploratory movements.” Syntouch are also currently using a Shadow hand equipped with BioTac sensors to carry out similar material identification research.

The video below explains the research presented in this paper, with the Shadow system used visible in the background.

Robots Get A Feel For The World from USC Viterbi on Vimeo.