Trends in robotics

In 2006, Carnegie-Mellon's Microdynamic Systems Laboratory operating within the Robotics Institute (department of the School of Computer Science) at Carnegie Mellon University have surprised everyone with a certain interesting breakthrough which is reported here:
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/060809_ballbot.htm

 This is a truly holonomic robot and they show that they can obtain dynamic stability in the plane (2 degrees of freedom) which is pushing a step further what was obtained with those famous Segway that I saw in use in the city center of Metz in France. http://www.segwaynorth.com/

Here is the related academic page from which you can download some movies and of course articles:
http://www.msl.ri.cmu.edu/projects/ballbot/

Talking about this project with professor Lauria of Sherbrooke University who is himself an expert in mobile robot design, we agreed that there is an issue whether we could obtain good accuracy with such ball actuators which are very similar to any mechanical mouse.

LHR