One really interesting robot is the Urban Robot developed by Real World Interface, part of iRobot corporation. It is a military reconnaisence platform, and one video of it in testing showed a soldier attempting to toss it into a second story window, but missing. Urbie then continued after the fall into the building driving itself through the ground floor door. Now lets see a Battlebot do that! The Urban robot also is shown to be able to climb stairs, and stand vertically on it's "flippers". It appears to have a number of sonar sensors (about 2 per side, front, back), and has also had camera and laser range finders attached in various experiments. Unfortuantely, it appears to be a military only item, though iRobot does sell a nummber of other great robots, at a pretty hefty price.
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RoboSnail is a very simple robot, designed to move and avoid obstacles in an enclosed space. It was meant as a low cost robot to compete in the DPRG Roborama Contests. The steering is through a differential drive with a single rear support. Control is done with a Homebrew Basic Stamp 2 board from Dennis Clark and Peter Anderson. Sensors included the DLC IRPD for proximity and 2 front bumper switches, with attempts in using 2 reflective IR sensors that could be used for line following. The motors are 2 Canon DC gearmotors from Tanner Electronics, about 40 rpm at 24 volts. Battery power came from 2 RC vehicle 9.6 NiCad packs hooked in series in an attempt to get some kind of speed. Wheels came from a baby stroller and are about 5 1/2 inches in diameter, again large to increase speed. The body is the paper roll cover from a label printer. Overall measurements are about 8 1/2 wide by 11 length by 6 3/4 inches tall.
