XWING INNOVATIVE VERTICAL TAKE OFF AND LANDING HELIPLANE

X Wing is an innovative vertical take off and landing (VTOL) heli+plane developed by Vishwa Robotics that maintains the human horizontal in seating position throughout the flight thus eliminating the typical take off and landing anxiety in present day fixed wing aircraft. This video shows a Froude scale model test of the heliplane switching from helicopter mode to fixed wing mode and back to helicopter mode for landing. Unlike typical roll out landing gear the Vishwa X Wing features telescoping legs to keep human level on uneven terrain. Other advantages follow due to combination of a helicopter and an airplane including faster than a helicopter forward flight, better range than a helicopter, ability to land in very small and confined spaces or parking lots where typical fixed wing aircraft cannot be placed. Ability to park in a garage in a folded wing configuration. Multiple safety features including emergency parachute, multiple motor redundancy, landing shock absorbers, autogyration etc.

ON MECHANICAL ENERGY STORAGE

BETTER THAN BIOLOGY-A WATER SEALED HUMAN FINGERED ROBOT HAND FOR DEEP SEA EXPLORATION

Bhargav Gajjar's Research: Deep sea human like robotic hand

http://phys.org/news/2014-09-deep-sea-diver-freedom-feedback.html

Bhargav Gajjar's Research: Deep sea human like robotic hand

Bhargav Gajjar's Research: Deep sea human like robotic hand

Bhargav Gajjar's Memoirs:Interaction with Child Robot with Biomimetic Body (CB^2)

The picture above shows CB^2 and the video shows my interaction with CB^2 (Child Robot with Biomimetic Body) created under direction of Dr.Minoru Asada, Professor department of Adaptive Machine Systems, Osaka University, Osaka,Japan. The JST ERATO project lead by Dr. Minoru Asada and Dr.Hiroshi Ishiguro investigates Synergistic Intelligence (hereafter, SI)” which merges intelligent behaviors through the interaction with environment including humans. Synergistic effects with brain science, neuroscience, cognitive science, and developmental psychology are expected. SI is one approach to a new discipline called “Cognitive Developmental Robotics” that aims at providing a new way of understanding ourselves and a new design theory of humanoids through mutual feedback between the design of human-like robots and human-related science. This project consists of four groups: (1) Physio-SI: dynamic motions such as walking, running, jumping, and heading and their seamless connections based on pneumatic muscle actuators, (2) Perso-SI: cognitive developmental robotics including body image, imitation, and language communication, (3) Socio-SI: emergence of communication and society by androids, and (4)SI-mechanism: neuroscientific supports for Physio, Perso, and Socio-SIs. Professor Rodney Brooks at MIT described a metric that might be used to determine when a robot can be considered alive. He said that a robot might be considered alive if his students felt bad about turning it off. By that criteria, scientists from Japan’s Osaka University are on the brink of making an artificial life form. CB2, a child robot with biomimetic body for cognitive developmental robotics [1] developed by the Socially-Synergistic Intelligence
(Hereafter, Socio-SI) group of JST ERATO Asada Project. The Socio-SI group has focused on the design principles of communicative and intelligent machines and human social development
through building a humanoid robot that has physical and perceptual structures close to us, that enables safe and close interactions with humans. For this purpose, CB2 was designed, especially in order to establish and maintain a long-term social interaction between human and robot. The most significant features of CB2 are a whole-body soft skin (silicon surface with many tactile
sensors underneath) and flexible joints (51 pneumatic actuators). These studies at Osaka University associate elucidation of the mechanism of human development. CB2 enables long-term and tight interaction with people, and, therefore, it can be a research platform to study a developmental mechanism in which various factors are combined in a complicated way. It contributes not only to a development of communicative and intelligent robots but also to understanding the development of human intelligence.

REFERENCE: CB^2 : A Child Robot with Biomimetic Body for Cognitive Developmental Robotics, T Takashi, Y Yoshikawa, T Noda, S Ikemoto, H Ishiguro, M Asada, Asada Project-ERATO, Japan Science and Technology Agency, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-0ka,Suita, Osaka 565-0871,Japan

Current Research

WHY SPEND TIME DOING SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATIONS AND ENGINEERING DESIGN ?

Quite often I am confronted by family and friends who advise me to spend less hours at laboratories (MIT and others) and spend time in activities other then high priority (high priority for future of mankind) scientific research and engineering design. Before I jump into elaborating my current research activities I would like to share the importance of scientific investigation and engineering design. What follows is my synopsis from the preface of a great book "Precision Machine Design" by Professor Alexander Slocum at MIT. In the preface, Dr. Slocum suggests that world around is full of starvation , both at mental levels and also physical levels. The resources needed to help these people can only be extracted by adding further value to available natural resources. This in economical sense means new concepts that turn into engineered designs and become products and this process generates jobs that will push a group of people out of poverty. This is the result of the famous supply and demand phenomenon. Jobs are created when there is high market demand for a product and that product must be not only continuously improved by scientific innovation but also manufactured and supplied by design and engineering. Engaging in scientific research thus is an important preceding factor in this supply demand chain which drives the bare bones economics of our society. Once a fundamental problem is cleverly solved by numerical simulations and analysis the scientific process is handed over to expert engineers who use optimization and CAD tools to develop sleek and efficient solutions. After several design iterations one may expect further and extensive involvement of machine shops,assembly,sales, service giving rise to yet more jobs and opportunities. Dr.Slocum considers it his personal goal to help people discover how they can better use their minds so that the can use their minds not only to help themselves but to help others in this process.

Imagine a hypothetical cube shown below whose edges are formed by Wisdom, Knowledge and Imagination.


Everytime an engineer or scientist learns something new he creates a new box inside this cube. While this box could get shelved inside this giant 3 dimensional cube forever, its only through random or systematic search of this space new solutions are created to help others. Spending time in scientific activity, research and engineering design and doing this process tirelessly and repeatedly may enable an individual to optimize this cube quite significantly so that the search in this 3 dimensional state space is very fast and hence more imagination and more wisdom are packed in every new solution. Dr.Slocum suggests that it is the duty of every engineer and scientist as a citizen of the world to do this. "If you do not do work to optimize your cube, you are slapping the face of the power that gave you our potential"....

MY CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS AND ACTIVITIES

I am currently designing robotic systems in the following concentrations:

1. Space Robotics

2. Humanoid Robotics

3. Telepresence and Telerobotics

4. Precision Machine Design

5. Wearable Technologies

6. Machines for Alternate Energy Harvesting

7. Rehabilitation Robotics

8. Biomechatronics

9. Telesurgery and Telemedicine

10. Robotic systems for Gene Sequencing

11. Art and Architecture

12. Oceanographic Robotic Exploration