Archive 09.11.2020

Industrial robots have long had a reputation problem. In fact, distrust in automation has led to slow adoption in some countries. Even in the US, the International Federation of Robotics’ 2019 report found that adoption rates were 49 per cent below what was expected.

With the breakthrough in vaccination and when situation is under control, last mile delivery will certainly not look the same, as the companies are preparing for innovation shift post lift of the restrictions to rapidly assess and adapt their supply chains.

By Caroline Brogan

Imperial researchers have created drones that can attach sensors to trees to monitor environmental and ecological changes in forests.

Sensors for forest monitoring are already used to track changes in temperature, humidity and light, as well as the movements of animals and insects through their habitat. They also help to detect and monitor forest fires and can provide valuable data on how climate change and other human activities are impacting the natural world.

However, placing these sensors can prove difficult in large, tall forests, and climbing trees to place them poses its own risks.

Now, researchers at Imperial College London’s Aerial Robotics Lab have developed drones that can shoot sensor-containing darts onto trees several metres away in cluttered environments like forests. The drones can also place sensors through contact or by perching on tree branches.

Via GIPHY. Credit: Imperial College London

I like to think of them as artificial forest inhabitants who will soon watch over the ecosystem and provide the data we need to protect the environment.

Professor Mirko Kovac, Department of Aeronautics

The researchers hope the drones will be used in future to create networks of sensors to boost data on forest ecosystems, and to track hard-to-navigate biomes like the Amazon rainforest.

Lead researcher Professor Mirko Kovac, Director of the Aerial Robotics Lab from the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial said: “Monitoring forest ecosystems can be difficult, but our drones could deploy whole networks of sensors to boost the amount and precision of environmental and ecological data.

“I like to think of them as artificial forest inhabitants who will soon watch over the ecosystem and provide the data we need to protect the environment.”

The drones are equipped with cameras to help identify suitable targets, and a smart material that changes shape when heated to launch the darts, which then stick to the trees. They can also perch on tree branches like birds to collect data themselves, acting as mobile sensors.

The researchers have tested their drones at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA) and on trees at Imperial’s Silwood Park Campus.

Via GIPHY. Credit: Imperial College London

We aim to introduce new design and control strategies to allow drones to effectively operate in forested environments.

Dr Salua Hamaza, Department of Aeronautics

The drones are currently controlled by people: using control units, the researchers watch through the camera lens to select target trees and shoot the darts. The next step is to make the drones autonomous, so that researchers can test how they fare in denser forest environments without human guidance.

Co-author André Farhina, of the Department of Aeronautics, said: “There are plenty of challenges to be addressed before the drones can be regularly used in forests, like achieving a careful balance between human input and automated tasks so that they can be used safely while remaining adaptable to unpredictable environments.”

Co-author Dr Salua Hamaza, also of the Department of Aeronautics, said: “We aim to introduce new design and control strategies to allow drones to effectively operate in forested environments. Exploiting smart mechanisms and new sensing techniques we can off-load the on-board computation, and create platforms that are energy-efficient and better performing.”

• Hamaza, S., Farinha, A., Nguyen, H.N. and Kovac, M., 2020, November. Sensor Delivery in Forests with Aerial Robots: A New Paradigm for Environmental Monitoring. In IEEE IROS Workshop on Perception, Planning and Mobility in Forestry Robotics.
• Nguyen, H.N., Siddall, R., Stephens, B., Navarro-Rubio, A. and Kova?, M., 2019, April. A Passively Adaptive Microspine Grapple for Robust, Controllable Perching. In 2019 2nd IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft) (pp. 80-87). IEEE. Video.
• Farinha, A., Zufferey, R., Zheng, P., Armanini, S.F. and Kovac, M., 2020. Unmanned Aerial Sensor Placement for Cluttered Environments. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, 5(4), pp.6623-6630. Video.

These works were funded by the EPSRC, ORCA Robotics Hub, EU Horizon 2020, NERC (QMEE CDT), UKAEA with RACE and the Royal Society.

Erwin Quarder had a need for a delicate gripper application for an Automotive OEM that required the Zimmer Group’s expertise for design and timely delivery that would not only stand up to a harsh molding environment, but would also add long term value and durability.

Social rewards such as praise are known to enhance various stages of the learning process. Now, researchers from Japan have found that praise delivered by artificial beings such as robots and virtual graphics-based agents can have effects similar to praise delivered by humans, with important practical applications as social services such as education increasingly move to virtual and online platforms.

How to expose a deep learning model, built with Tensorflow, as an API using Flask. Learn how to build a web application to serve the model to the users and how to send requests to it with an HTTP client.

GNSS and INS performance accuracy is generally tested in an ideal static environment, and often not representative of end use performance. Dynamic environments introduce error sources such as multipath, obscured sky view, vibration, inconsistent RTK data streams and more.

In this episode, Lilly interviews Jonathan Sauder, the Principal Investigator of a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts project to design a rover for the surface of Venus. Sauder explains why exploring Venus is important and why previous surface missions have only lasted a few hours. They discuss his innovative wheeled-robot concept, a hybrid automaton rover which would be mostly mechanical and powered by wind.

Jonathan Sauder

Jonathan Sauder is a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fellow and Senior Mechatronics Engineer at NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in the Technology Infusion Group focused on innovative concepts.  He is also a lecturer of “Design Theory and Methodology” and “Advanced Mechanical Design” at the University of Southern California, where he received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

 

 

 

 

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Nature is one of the greatest sources of inspiration for engineers and computer scientists developing new technological tools. Over the past decade or so, roboticists have developed countless robots inspired by the behavior and biological mechanisms of snakes, fish, cheetahs, birds, insects and countless other animals.

Imperial researchers have created drones that can attach sensors to trees to monitor environmental and ecological changes in forests.

To manage growth in eCommerce and its associated challenges retail companies will need to embrace automation. Smart logistics provider Geek+ and market research firm Interact Analysis cooperated to create a whitepaper to discuss the future for smart logistics automation.

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