Archive 24.06.2020

Imagine a dressing that releases antibiotics on demand and absorbs excessive wound exudate at the same time. Researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology hope to achieve just that, by developing a smart coating that actively releases and absorbs multiple fluids, triggered by a radio signal. This material is not only beneficial for the health care industry, it is also very promising in the field of robotics or even virtual reality.

Universal Robots’ VP of Operations and Supply Chain, Martin Kjærbo shares with us his thoughts on how Honeywell Intelligrated is managing through the pandemic as well as insights into what the future of Robotics and Automation may be.

A navigation algorithm developed at the University of Zurich enables drones to learn challenging acrobatic maneuvers. Autonomous quadcopters can be trained using simulations to increase their speed, agility and efficiency, which benefits conventional search and rescue operations.

The introduction of construction robotics may prove to be a tipping point for this industry. How are robots changing on-site construction today, and where can we expect to see them in the future?

Last year, nearly one third of Australian adults owned a smart speaker device allowing them to call on "Alexa" or "Siri." Now, with more time spent indoors due to COVID-19, smart voice assistants may be playing even bigger roles in people's lives.

Robots can learn how to find things faster by learning how different objects around the house are related, according to work from the University of Michigan. A new model provides robots with a visual search strategy that can teach them to look for a coffee pot nearby if they're already in sight of a refrigerator, in one of the paper's examples.

The deployment of latest technologies in the UGV to enhance navigation and communication systems will positively influence the unmanned ground vehicles market outlook.

In this episode, we hear from Luca Colasanto, Senior Robotic Scientist at Realtime Robotics, about real-time robot motion planning in dynamic and complex environments with human-robot collaboration. Realtime Robotics focuses on accelerating conventional motion planning through optimization of algorithms and hardware to allow safe use of robotic tools in work areas with humans. Luca spoke to our interviewer Kate about Realtime Robotic’s fast motion planning technology, including key aspects, such as perception, algorithms and custom hardware.

 

Luca Colasanto

Luca Colasanto is a Sr. Scientist at Realtime Robotics focusing on AI-based grasping and multi-robot optimization. Luca completed his PhD in Humanoid Robotics at Italian Institute of Technology, focusing on control systems for bipedal walking machines and compliant actuators. During the past ten years, Luca has worked with successful startups to design and prototype new robotics products, and with science and technology leaders, such as Robert Bosch LLC (CA), Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (FL), and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), He is the listed inventor in two patent applications and the author of several scientific publications. Luca speaks four languages and is a keen traveler, having visited or lived in more than 20 countries.

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Training robots to guide injured workers through simulated tasks could make return-to-work evaluations and treatment programs more effective and accessible, according to researchers at the University of Alberta.

TUG automatically picks up and drops off carts, eliminating the labor that would otherwise be needed to load the robot. It also communicates with your IT system to automate the dispatching of the robot fleet and update the inventory system when materials are moved.

The two main pitfalls of robots which imitate the human body are their control and the difficulty encountered when manufacturing them in a cost-effective manner.

A high quality, efficient, and reliable screw CNC machine shop making two million parts per month, Swiss Productions gained a competitive advantage by implementing two OB7 cobots on their CNC mills to eliminate idle spindle time and maximize production.

The latest challenge for the autonomous vehicle industry: How to assure passengers that the car they are getting in is virus free, even if it doesn't have a driver.

For the next several months, visitors to the Atlanta Botanical Garden will be able to observe the testing of a new high-tech tool in the battle to save some of the world's most endangered species. SlothBot, a slow-moving and energy-efficient robot that can linger in the trees to monitor animals, plants, and the environment below, will be tested near the Garden's popular Canopy Walk.

The next time you go to a hospital for surgery, the surgeon's assistant may be a robot.