What Robots and AI Learned in 2015
By Will Knight for MIT Technology Review: The robots didn’t really take over in 2015, but at times it felt as if that might be where we’re headed.
There were signs that machines will soon take over manual work that currently requires human skill. Early in the year details emerged of a contest organized by Amazon to help robots do more work inside its vast product fulfillment centers.
The Amazon Picking challenge, as the event was called, was held at a prominent robotics conference later in the year. Teams competed for a $25,000 prize by designing a robot to identify and grasp items from one of Amazon’s storage shelves as quickly as possible (the winner picked and packed 10 items in 20 minutes). This might seem a trivial task for human workers, but figuring out how to grasp different objects arranged haphazardly on shelves in a real warehouse is still a formidable challenge for robot-kind. Cont'd...
Five Open Source AutoPilot UAV Projects
Here are five open source Autopilot UAV projects that are helping accelerate the adoption of autopilot drones.
Watch these robotic 'reindeer' from Boston Dynamics pull Santa's sleigh
By Lulu Chang for Digital Trends: We’re going to rewrite Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, because now, it’s robotic dogs that are pulling Santa’s sleigh. In a rather frightening video, Google-owned robotics design firm Boston Dynamics has shown us the future of Christmas, and it’s plenty progressive, complete with machines and female Santas. I can get behind that sort of holiday, I think.
Of course, the Internet wasn’t so sure. And to be fair, the dog-like robots are a bit frightening. Large and, well, headless, these machines seem to hearken more to the Thestrals (the skeletal winged horses visible only to those who’ve witnessed death) of Harry Potter’s universe than the adorable reindeer that are supposed to transport jolly Saint Nick to and from the North Pole.
CES 2016 - Autonomous Cars Set To Dominate
BY DAVID GILBERT For International Business Times: As cars become less about horsepower and torque and more about the technology inside, CES has become one of the most important showcases of the year for auto manufacturers. It's a sea change in how cars are built and marketed, with technology now the core, rather than an added feature. Connected, autonomous and electric vehicles will all be on display at CES 2016, with some of the world’s most talk-about companies in the field looking to make a major impact.
First up will be Faraday Future, the secretive startup based in Los Angeles and backed by a Chinese billionaire. It is set to unveil its first ever concept design on Jan. 4, and while all the company has said so far is that it will be an electric vehicle, it is widely believed to feature autonomous capabilities.
While Faraday Future is a relative unknown, one of the world’s biggest automotive companies, Ford, will also be at CES announcing news about the autonomous car it has been testing internally for several years. Among the announcements expected is apartnership with Google to build some of Google’s fleet of self-driving cars. Cont'd...
Time-of-Flight Camera - An Introduction
In this paper, we introduce the TOF technology and the theory of operation. We also compare TOF sensors with 2D machine vision and other 3D vision technologies and highlight TOF sensors' differentiating advantages.
Startup Gets $11M Funding for GPS-enabled Robots
In our automated future, the navigation capabilities of autonomous vehicles, devices and machines will demand high precision, stability and flexibility.
Google Attracts Top U.S. Automakers With Self-Driving Technology
Jack Clark for Bloomberg Business: Google’s self-driving car technology is attracting top U.S. automakers, as Ford, Fiat Chrysler and General Motors talk with the company while laying the groundwork for a future with autonomous cars.
Ford Motor Co. and Google are discussing working together, including in a joint venture to build cars using Google’s technology, said a person familiar with the talks who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
That follows comments in October from Mark Reuss, product development chief for General Motors Co., that the automaker was “very interested” in exploring ways its manufacturing skills could complement Google’s system. Sergio Marchionne, chief executive officer of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, has said repeatedly the past few months that his company wants to work on autonomous driving with technology companies such as Apple Inc. and Google.
“We are entering the era of the technology and software-defined vehicle,” said Thilo Koslowski, a vice president in the automotive practice at Gartner Inc. “You’re just seeing the auto industry recognize the importance of that.” Cont'd...
2016 Will Be A Pivotal Year For Social Robots
There really is an unusual affinity for human-like robotic things - which is why so much money is flowing to adapt these new social robots to quickly speak Chinese and Japanese in addition to English and to provide localized apps for their software stores.
Three Heavily Funded Robotic Arms Projects on Kickstarter
Well over a million dollars pledged for these projects.
Google to incubate its robotics and drone divisions under Google X
By Mike Wheatley for SiliconAngle: Google is planning an organizational reshuffle that will see its secretive robotics department and drone business folded into its Google X labs.
Google’s robotics division, and the drone group it created when it acquired Titan Aerospace in 2014, will both fall under the Google X umbrella when the reshuffle takes place some time next year, Re/Code reported.
Google X is the secretive part of Google that develops some of its most futuristic, bleeding edge technologies. These include its famous self-driving cars, Project Loon (Wi-Fi hot air balloons), and its airborne wind turbines. Google X operates as a standalone company under Google’s parent Alphabet Inc., which was created following Google’s corporate restructuring earlier this year.
Google X’s projects are largely experimental and extremely uncertain in terms of a business model. Nevertheless, Google obviously deems it the best place to be for its robotics division, which has been left leaderless ever since Andy Rubin quit the Web giant last year. Previously, there was speculation that the robotics division may become a standalone company under Alphabet, but today’s news would indicate that’s not going to happen any time soon. Cont'd...
Drone Light Painting - The Christmas Edit
From Ascending Technologies' blog:
The moves of the LED drone were shot while taking a long exposure photograph of every scene. Up to 10 minutes exposure time were needed. Additionally the flights have been filmed with an A7S Mark ii. In post processing the stills from the original drone flights were visualized via VFX and combined with further video footage.
The Drone Light Painting flights have been performed at airspeeds of 2 m/s with the patented V-Form Octocopter AscTec Falcon 8. Santa Claus throwing the presents into the chimneys and the snowflakes in the starting sequence of course are animated GIFs, yet based on flown paintings. Probably it was possible to do any drone light painting you like... ( more )
Automating the Chemo Compounding Process
RIVA uses automation of sterile manipulations and isolation of the compounding area to solve major safety issues with manual compounding, which are accuracy of every dose measurements and assuring sterility of every finished compound.
RoboUniverse San Diego 2015
If you really want to see what imagination and a bit of opportunity can do for an industry I urge you to attend one of these Expos. You won't regret it and you might even come away with a new and unique solution to something you need.
Four Market Forces That Will Shape Robotics Over The Next Year
Richard Mahoney for TechCrunch: As 2016 approaches, robotics is poised to traverse from a narrow set of industrial and military use cases to broader market applications that include commercial drones, telepresence robots, delivery robots and, of course, mobile vacuum cleaners.
But, are robots ready to be a part of our daily life?
Gill Pratt, a visionary who served as a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and oversaw the DARPA Robotics Challenge, postulated earlier this year that robotics might soon be headed for a “Cambrian Explosion.”
The term refers to a period of time roughly half a billion years ago when the numbers and diversity of animals became critical to evolution. Pratt offered that technology developments are ushering in a similar upsurge in the diversification and applicability of robotics. Cont'd...
HRI Case Study of Wireless Control: 5D Robotics
When you're building something for the military to use, you have to be sure it can survive the toughest working conditions.
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