Archive 26.06.2023

An unknown admirer of felines once remarked, "Cats and computers both have one thing in common—they both rule the Internet."

Imperial College London and Empa researchers have built a drone that can withstand high enough temperatures to enter burning buildings. The prototype drone, called FireDrone, could be sent into burning buildings or woodland to assess hazards and provide crucial first-hand data from danger zones. The data would then be sent to first responders to help inform their emergency response.

A trio of roboticists at CREATE Lab, EPFL, in Switzerland, has designed, built and tested a robot that can pick raspberries. In their project, reported in the journal Communications Engineering, Kai Junge, Catarina Pires and Josie Hughes designed and tested their robot based on a new idea to reduce the cost of designing fruit-picking robots.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drones, have already proved to be highly promising for tackling numerous real-world problems, for instance allowing users to take aerial images, monitor remote or natural environments, deliver parcels, or assisting agents during search and rescue missions and military operations. While these systems are already being used by many companies and individuals worldwide, they can have significant limitations, such as a high-power consumption and limited operation times.

In this article, we look at how construction companies are currently automating workflows and can continue to leverage technology to address workforce challenges.

We are happy to dedicate this post to our new volunteer: Shaunak Kapur. Shaunak is a soon-to-be senior in high school (Texas), and he has been captivated by robotics from a young age. He has participated in numerous robotics competitions (namely VEX and FRC), pursued robotics/engineering internships and robotics-based research projects, and even worked to develop robot products in medical applications that aid individuals with motor skill impediments.

Shaunak’s volunteering role will be to summarize the most exciting news in robotics that comes up, either in academia or industry.

If you are interested in his impressive skills and experience at his young age, you can check out his CV below. Welcome to our community, Shaun!

Rescuers spotted debris from the tourist submarine Titan on the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic on June 22, 2023, indicating that the vessel suffered a catastrophic failure and the five people aboard were killed.

With omnidirectional movement and smart docking with virtually any warehouse cart in under 20 seconds, these new robots are making material handling faster and safer.

In this special live recording of the Robot Talk podcast at the Great Exhibition Road Festival, Claire chatted to Glyn Morgan (Science Museum), Bani Anvari (University College London) and Thrishantha Nanayakara (Imperial College London) to explore how our intelligent friends from the world of science fiction match up with state-of-the art robotics and artificial intelligence reality.

Glyn Morgan is a curator of exhibitions at the Science Museum, most recently: “Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination” (open until August 20th). He also teaches a course on Science Fiction at Imperial College, and has published widely on many aspects of the genre writing for the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Royal Society, and the Science Fiction Research Association, amongst others. His research is interested in the interface between science fiction and other disciplines from history to psychology and beyond, and the ways science fiction can be used as a cognitive tool to help us understand ourselves and our society.

Bani Anvari is a Full Professor of Intelligent Mobility at the Centre for Transport Studies in the Faculty of Engineering at University College London (UCL). She is the founder and director of Intelligent Mobility at UCL. Her vision is to enable humans to trust and fully exploit the benefits of future mobility services through new technology and innovation. Her research focuses on Intelligent Mobility and exploring interactions with semi- and fully-autonomous vehicles in various contexts, benefiting significantly from Robotics and AI.

Thrishantha Nanayakkara is a Professor of Robotics and the Director of the Morphlab at Dyson School of Design Engineering (DSDE), Imperial College London. His group has used soft robots to understand how compliance of the body helps to stabilise dynamic interactions with the environment. He is and has been PI on projects of more than £5 million that have pushed the boundaries of our understanding on how conditioning the body improves the efficacy of action and perception in human-human and human-robot interactions.

Forvia, one of the world’s leading automotive manufacturers, completes a successful AGV installation at its factory in Paraná, Brazil.

Researchers at three Japanese universities exploring the potential benefits of collaborations between robots and living creatures found bugs in their project.

Ensuring that countries abide by future nuclear arms agreements will be a vital task. Inspectors may have to count warheads or confirm the removal of nuclear weapons from geographical areas. Those hotspots could include underground bunkers and require confirmation that no weapons exist in a location at all. Now, researchers at Princeton University and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have devised an automated way to ensure compliance.

At its simplest form, the AMR market is split into two segments - manufacturing and intralogistics. Because of the wide range of tasks required in numerous industries, there are often specific robots optimized for one environment.

The air taxi market is almost ready for take off, with companies such as Boeing, Hyundai, Airbus and Toyota building fleets to have commuters flitting through the sky. Europe and the U.S. have both drafted new rules to pave the way for air taxis to begin operations within the decade, with Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to follow suit.

Pangolins are fascinating creatures. This animal looks like a walking pine cone, as it is the only mammal completely covered with hard scales. The scales are made of keratin, just like our hair and nails. The scales overlap and are directly connected to the underlying soft skin layer. This special arrangement allows the animals to curl up into a ball in case of danger.