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Hardware platforms for socially interactive robotics can be limited by cost or lack of functionality. This article presents the overall system—design, hardware, and software—for Quori, a novel, affordable, socially interactive humanoid robot platform for facilitating noncontact human–robot interaction (HRI) research. The design of the system is motivated by feedback sampled from the HRI research community. The overall design maintains a balance of affordability and functionality. Initial Quori testing and a six-month deployment are presented. Ten Quori platforms have been awarded to a diverse group of researchers from across the United States to facilitate HRI research to build a community database from a common platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the reflexive architecture for perceptual robotics (REAPER) system used by the winning entries in the 2000 American Association for Artificial Intelligence Mobile Robot Competition. Swarthmore College's robot entries; Integration of visual sensing, speech synthesis and recognition; Display of animated face, navigation and interrobot communication.

The article reports that some robotics engineer and researchers in the U.S. are trying to analyze a system to figure out how to develop a self-replicating robots. It relates that a handful of researchers are working to develop simple robots that can self-replicate out of a few relatively complex parts. Accordingly, these researchers are defining precisely what it means for a machine to self-replicate based on the scientific principles of self-replication, and some are making efforts to emulate the nature's process for reproduction.

The article highlights the 2007 Urban Challenge robotic car competition which is sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It relates the competition is the third and the most demanding in the series that aims to spur the development of autonomous vehicles, which the U.S. military hopes to incorporate into service by 2015. It is also noted that the competition showcases some of the world's best talent in robotics, in which they must navigate the streets of an abandoned air base in the Mojave Desert in California, without colliding with one another or with human guided vehicle.