Talking ATX West with Universal Robots
Booth #4605 - We're very excited to show the ATX audience three new UR cobot-assisted applications developed by our partners
Talking ATX West with Denso Robotics
Booth #4139 - DENSO's newest 6 axis robot, Cobotta, we have targeted the marketing of small, delicate parts handling, with the selection of both an industrial mode of operation, as well as, a collaborative mode of operation.
Talking ATX West with OnRobot
Booth #4481 (co-exhibiting with Futura Automation) - Gecko Gripper, that uses millions of micro-scaled fibrillar stalks that adhere to a surface using powerful van der Waals forces — the same way that geckos climb.
#279: Safe Robot Learning on Hardware, with Jaime Fernández Fisac
In this interview, Audrow Nash interviews Jaime Fernández Fisac, a PhD student at University of California, Berkeley, in Anca Dragan’s InterACT Lab. Fisac is interested in ensuring that autonomous systems such as self-driving cars, delivery drones, and home robots can operate and learn in the world—while satisfying safety constraints. Towards this goal, Fisac discusses different examples of his work with unmanned aerial vehicles and talks about safe robot learning in general; including, the curse of dimensionality and how it impacts control problems (including how some systems can be decomposed into simpler control problems), how simulation can be leveraged before trying learning on a physical robot, safe sets, and how a robot can modify its behavior based on how confident it is that its model is correct.
Below are two videos of work that was discussed during the interview. The top video is on a framework for learning-based control, and the bottom video discusses adjusting the robot’s confidence about a human’s actions based on how predictably the human is behaving.
Jaime Fernández Fisac
Jaime Fernández Fisac is a final-year Ph.D. candidate in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He received a B.S./M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain, in 2012, and a M.Sc. in Aeronautics from Cranfield University, U.K., in 2013. He is a recipient of the La Caixa Foundation fellowship. His research interests lie between control theory and artificial intelligence, with a focus on safety assurance for autonomous systems. He works to enable AI systems to reason explicitly about the gap between their models and the real world, so that they can safely interact with uncertain environments and human beings, even under inaccurate assumptions.
Links
Mouser Electronics – TE Connectivity HDC Dynamic Module
TE Connectivity's HDC Dynamic Module integrates the Dynamic series flexible signal and power solutions and the HDC Heavy Duty Connector series to form a solution of harsh environment connectors. TE's HDC Dynamic Module offers the top features of the two series. It uses the contact concept of the Dynamic series, with its proven performance in industrial uses and its cost effectiveness compared to legacy cutting contacts. The HDC connectors make the module a reliable solution for harsh environments. TE's HDC Dynamic Module supports 2A/32V to 40A/300V performance and 3 positions to 48 positions.
SICK is taking safety to the next level with collaborative robot systems
There is an increasing demand for collaborative robots that can work autonomously and adapt to changing production conditions. This requires reliable sensors that detect human presence and can overcome future challenges with the development of collaborative technologies.
Talking ATX with ABB Robotics
Booth #4311 - The single-arm YuMi provides manufacturers of all sizes added flexibility and scalability to meet the challenges of high-mix, low-volume production in shorter cycles.
Video: Aircraft-inspecting suction robot successfully trialled
A prototype robot that uses intense suction to climb around the outside of aircraft and inspect them for damage has successfully been trialled at Cranfield University.
A Step Closer to Self-Aware Machines – Columbia engineers create a robot that can imagine itself
Columbia Engineering researchers have made a major advance in robotics by creating a robot that learns what it is, from scratch, with zero prior knowledge of physics, geometry, or motor dynamics.
A new machine learning based intention detection method using first-person-view camera for Exo Glove Poly II
A Korean research team has proposed a new paradigm for a wearable hand robot that can aid people with lost hand mobility. The hand robot collects user behaviors with a machine learning algorithm to determine the user's intention.
Streamlining Operations: Automotive Robotic Automation and Fork Truck Free Initiatives
Because of the very complex nature of automotive manufacturing AGV vehicles on the plant floor must feature a wide range of standard modules that are configurable to meet automotive customers’ automation needs.
Talking ATX West with ATI Industrial Automation
Booth #4411 - We are showcasing our newest Manual Tool Changer, Force/Torque Sensor, and Universal Compliance Compensator models in a live robotic demonstration! These solutions are ideal for use in collaborative robot applications.
ASU’s Southwest Robotics Symposium previews the new technology guiding the next wave of human-robot interaction
“We can rely on the brain of the human and the muscles, eyes and sense of touch of the robot in places where humans cannot, or should not, be,” said Khatib. “For example, we will be able to safely repair underwater structures
Toshiba unveils robot to probe melted Fukushima nuclear fuel
Toshiba Corp. has unveiled a remote-controlled robot with tongs that it hopes will be able to probe the inside of one of the three damaged reactors at Japan's tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear plant and manipulate chunks of melted fuel.
A robot recreates the walk of a fossilized animal
Using the fossil and fossilized footprints of a 300-million-year-old animal, scientists from EPFL and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin have identified the most likely gaits of extinct animals and designed a robot that can recreate an extinct animal’s walk. This study can help researchers better understand how vertebrate locomotion evolved over time.
How did vertebrates walk 300 million years ago? Could they already stand upright on their legs? Did they move in a balanced, energy-efficient way? Scientists at EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory – supported by the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics – and the Interdisciplinary Laboratory Image Knowledge Gestaltung at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin set out to answer these questions. Using the fossilized skeleton and footprints of Orobates pabsti – a vertebrate that, on the evolutionary tree, comes between amphibians on one hand and reptiles and mammals on the other – the scientists created computer simulations and a robot. Drawing on experimental studies of four living amphibian and reptile species, they used these tools to gauge how plausible different ways of walking were for the fossilized animal.
“Orobates is an ideal candidate for understanding how land vertebrates evolved because it is in the lineage leading to modern amniotes. These animals formed in eggs laid on land and became largely independent of water,” says John Nyakatura, a professor at Humboldt-Universität. What’s more, Orobates is the oldest-known vertebrate for which scientists have been able to link a fossil with its fossilized footprints. “This combination is what enabled us to carry out our unique quantitative study, which paves the way to replicating the walk of other fossilized animals,” says NCCR Robotics Professor Auke Ijspeert. The researchers’ findings appear in Nature.
A motion-based model and then a robotic one
To better understand how Orobates walked and pinpoint just how advanced its locomotion was, the scientists at Humboldt-Universität developed a digital model of its skeleton based on the animal’s fossil and the biomechanics of modern animals with sprawling postures. They used this model to carry out the first kinematic computer simulation of Orobates’ gait as it walks on its digitalized footprints. This simulation focuses on movements (rather than forces) and identifies gaits where the animal’s bones do not collide or come out of their joints.
In parallel, two scientists at EPFL’s Biorobotics Laboratory – post-doctoral researcher Kamilo Melo and PhD student Tomislav Horvat, both members of NCCR Robotics at the time of the study – used the fossilized animal anatomy to build a robot called OroBOT. Designed and scaled to match the shape and movements of the extinct animal, OroBOT was used to calculate the physics of how Orobates walked. “We tested our hypotheses about the animal’s locomotion dynamics with our robotic model, which factors in the real-world physics of the animal’s gait,” says Melo.
Testing hundreds of different gaits, based on contemporary animals
The interdisciplinary team of scientists tested hundreds of different gaits with their robot in order to determine which ones Orobates could have used – and those that it clearly did not. The gaits they tested were based on biomechanical principles extracted from similar modern-day animals such as caimans, salamanders, iguanas and skinks, which they analyzed through X-ray videos and force measurements. “We studied the biomechanics of their movements and determined which mechanical principles they all followed”, says Nyakatura. The research team looked at three features in particular: how erect the animal stood on its legs; how its backbone bent; and how much its elbow or shoulder joints bent as it walked. These three features determine what the researchers call the animal’s “sprawling gait space”. They created a powerful interactive website where fellow scientists – and the wider public – can explore the universe of movements that Orobates could have used.
With these results, they came up with the most likely ways that Orobates may have walked. They scored the gaits based on how much energy was required, how stable the movements were, how the leg forces compared with those of other sprawling animals, and how closely the movements aligned with the fossilized footprints. The gaits with good scores appear quite athletic and most closely resemble the movements of caimans. This suggests that Orobates probably already held itself a little upright on its legs – unlike salamanders and skinks. Its locomotion was thus more advanced — more upright, balanced and mechanically power-saving — than had been previously thought.
The study concludes that advanced locomotion, as in Orobates, may have evolved before the common ancestor of reptiles and mammals lived. The novel approach developed for this study can be applied by other scientists in their work, and it could be modified to study other evolutionary transitions, such as the origins of flight or galloping gaits in mammals. Last but not least, being able to select the most efficient gait for any given morphology is of fundamental importance for the walking robots that NCCR Robotics researchers are developing, in particular for search-and-rescue applications.
Orobates fossil
Literature
John A. Nyakatura, Kamilo Melo, Tomislav Horvat, Kostas Karakasiliotis, Vivian R. Allen, Amir Andikfar, Emanuel Andrada, Patrick Arnold, Jonas Lauströer, John R. Hutchinson, Martin S. Fischer and Auke J. Ijspeert. “Reverse-engineering the locomotion of a stem amniote“, Nature, 17 January 2019.