Ken Mankoff is a PhD student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he studies ice and ocean interactions. He also counts himself among a growing legion of environmental scientists who have begun using Microsoft's Kinect to create detailed, 3D maps of caves, glaciers and even asteroids. As Wired reports, the Kinect has garnered something of a cult following within the scientific community, especially among those who, until now, have relied upon comparatively more expensive and complicated technologies to gather detailed 3D data. The approach du jour for most researchers is something known as Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) -- a laser-based technology capable of creating precise maps over relatively large areas. The Kinect, by contrast, can only see up to 16 feet in front of itself, but at just $120, it's significantly cheaper than the average LIDAR system, which can run for anywhere between $10,000 and $200,000. It's also surprisingly accurate, capable of capturing up to 9 million data points per second.

Mankoff, for one, has already used the device to map a small cavern underneath a glacier in Norway, while Marco Tedesco, a hydrologist at the City College of New York, is looking to attach a Kinect to a remote-controlled helicopter, in the hopes of measuring so-called meltwater lakes found on glaciers during the summer. Then there's Naor Movshovitz, also a PhD student at UC Santa Cruz, who's more interested in using the Kinect and its image processing software to figure out how asteroids behave when broken up by a projectile. There are limitations, of course, since the device still has trouble performing amidst severe environmental conditions, though its supporters seem confident they'll find a solution. Read more at the source link below.

There's nothing like a little bounty to light a fire under a group of open source fanatics, is there? We saw this principle applied recently when Adafruit offered up cold, hard cash for an Open Source Kinect driver, and now one enterprising reader over at robotbox.net has gone and hacked the LIDAR unit on a Neato XV-11 robot vacuum -- and won $401 for the effort. What's this mean to you? Well, the gentleman (who goes by the nom de hack Hash79) can now read data sent from the optical ranging hardware on the vacuum to a PC. There has been a pretty enthusiastic group of hackers surrounding the device for a while now and now with a little hard work (and a $399 autonomous robot vacuum) you too can have a 360 degree scanning LIDAR with one degree accuracy and a 10Hz refresh rate. Pretty sweet, right? Video after the break.

Looks like the kids at MIT might have a little competition for their LIDAR-equipped 3D mapping drone. Researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology have teamed up with the University of Missouri-Columbia for a prototype robot that uses light detection and ranging (similar to RADAR, but with lasers) to map areas and send the 3D data to a nearby laptop. The technology not only provides detailed info on floor plans and physical structures (such as possible structural damage) but it can also "see" people inside a space. There are many possible applications for this, from spotting terrorists hiding in caves to seeing if your new internet girlfriend really looks like her profile pic, or -- and this is especially important in the modern era -- seeing if your new internet girlfriend is actually a terrorist (we wondered why she wanted that first meeting to take place in a cave). "Once you have the images, you can zoom in on objects and look at things from different angles," says Dr. Norbert Maerz, associate professor of geological engineering at Missouri S&T -- an ability that we wish we had while browsing PlentyofFish.com.

We first heard about this laser-guided wheelchair way back in 2006 but didn't really have much more than promises from the team behind it about exactly what they had in store. As New Scientist reports, however, it seems that the folks from Lehigh University and Freedom Sciences are still hard at work at it, and they're finally showing off some of their progress. The wheelchair is apparently still not entirely automated though, with it needing to be driven to the rear of the vehicle by remote control, after which the on-board LIDAR system kicks in and loads it onto the lift all by itself. Not surprisingly, the estimated price for the eventual commercial version has also gone up since we last heard from the team, with it now set to demand $30,000 (as opposed to $15,000 to $20,000) when it goes on sale later this year, assuming it gets the necessary FDA approval. Until then, you can head on over after the break to check it out in action.