In order to survive the Great Recession, manufacturers had to get lean. Real lean. And it was painful. But here’s the good news: when things turned around, they held on to those same lean principles as they expanded, creating more efficient businesses in the process. Today they are able to maintain consistently higher levels of

DreamHammer, the company behind the Ballista drone operating system, reported today that it has completed a series of successful demonstrations of its technology with the U.S. Defense Department and UAS prime contractors. The Business of Robotics recently wrote about how Lockheed Martin was able to successfully control multiple unmanned aerial systems using Ballista. DreamHammer says

Maker Camp, a free virtual summer camp for teens, is dedicating today’s lesson to building robots. The session will be hosted by robot creator and blogger RobotGrrl and kid webshow host Super Awesome Sylvia at 2 p.m. eastern at the MAKE+ Google Hangout. Maker Camp offers free daily do-it-yourself tutorials and virtual field trips for

Last week, DARPA and Boston Dynamics unveiled Atlas, the humanoid robot that seven lucky teams won the right to program for the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials in December. They will be competing against a group of teams that created their own search-and-rescue robots, which remain shrouded in considerably more mystery. As we near the competition,

We’re living in an era where low-cost computers, open-source software and crowdfunding have helped democratize the creation and production of robots. Now a new company that comes out of that ethos — its product runs off Arduino boards, it promotes open-source ideology and its origins were on Kickstarter — is trying to do the same for

In the first stage of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, which we reported on here, contestants were asked to demonstrate that they could navigate a virtual robot through a variety of simulated challenges. The winners received the honor of moving to the next round with a real robot provided by DARPA to compete for a spot

One of the many advantages of robots is that they can go places humans physically cannot. We often think of that in terms of search-and-rescue situations or hazardous locales like nuclear power plants (where snake-like robots have shown potential), but it has less serious applications as well — like getting the perfect view of an

As debate about the proper role of humans in the cockpit swirls in the wake of Saturday’s Asiana Airlines plane crash, the Navy achieved an important milestone by completing its first-ever carrier-based arrested landing. The feat was accomplished on board the USS George H.W. Bush off the coast of Virginia earlier today. According to the

When Congress passed the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, it set the clock ticking toward the day when unmanned aircraft systems must be integrated into the national airspace. The target is Sept. 30, 2015, now just a little more than two years away. That fast-approaching deadline has created a new intensity in discussions

The U.S. military has increasingly turned to unmanned systems in recent years, which is naturally reflected by a larger and larger portion of total military spending going toward acquiring the systems. However, following the U.S. fiscal crisis, the Department of Defense has made it a priority to rein in these costs where it can. One