MK2 arms perfect for gun-toting military robots

in HDT, MK2, robots

Quick draw: The MK2 system gives remote operators increased dexterity.

(Credit: HDT Global)

It has rolling treads, three fingers, and opposable thumbs. The MK2 robot arm and torso system looks like a cybernetic cowboy in the making. Ohio-based HDT Global says its MK2 system can be deployed on any robotic mobile platform, such as Qinetiq's Talon bomb-disposal robot, pictured above.

With two fingers and a thumb, its dextrous hands (as seen in this vid) can use a variety of tools. Or users can swap them out for end effectors such as scoops for digging. The remote-operated system can be configured to have up to 27 degrees of freedom, or axes of movement, with two arms. It could be used to lift a 110-pound 155-mm projectile, extract a detonator, or unzip a suspicious backpack that someone has left behind.

It weighs some 51 pounds in the dual-arm.

"The new features of the MK2 give the operator nearly the same dexterity, strength, and speed as a human, with the safety of performing required tasks hundreds of meters away," HDT quoted its COO Tom Van Doren as saying. 

Source: CNET 

Read more

SuperTalent shows lower-cost PCIe-based flash storage

in CeBIT, CeBIT 2012, SSD, SuperTalent

SuperTalent's forthcoming RAIDDrive UpStream is a PCIe-based system with an array of four SSDs for high performance. The company showed it off at CeBIT.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

HANOVER, Germany - SuperTalent showed off a forthcoming product at CeBIT, a PCI Express flash storage system that beats out conventional SSDs in performance but that doesn't cost as much as the company's existing PCIe products.

The RAIDDrive UpStream uses a SandForce controller to handle data-transfer speeds of 1GBps. That's roughly twice the speed of SSDs that, like the pokier but cheaper hard drives they typically replace, use the SATA interface.

The product should in weeks, said product marketing director Peter Carcione in an interview here. "I'm hoping the end of April," he said. Price hasn't been set yet.

The system gets high performance by combining four storage drives in a single RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) group. Competitor OCZ has a two-drive RAID system, but the RAIDDrive UpStream should shake up the competition, he predicted. "This will be an upsetter."

SuperTalent also showed a product that has been announced, the higher-end RAIDDrive II, which Carcione said "just started shipping." It comes in capacities up to 2TB by packing in eight SSDs onto a single PCIe card. Transfer speeds are 2.4GBps for writing data and 2.8GBps for writing. It costs about $5,000, though, so casual users need not apply.

The PCIe SSDs only work on Windows, he added.   

Source: CNET
 

Read more