OpenROV Trident Pre-orders
From OpenROV:
OpenROV Trident Features:
Depth: Capable of 100m (will ship with a 25m tether - longer tethers will be sold separately)
Mass: 2.9 kg
Top Speed: 2 m/s
Run Time: 3 hours
Connectivity
The data connection to Trident is a major evolution from the connection setup of the original OpenROV kit. It uses a neutrally buoyant tether to communicate to a towable buoy on the surface (radio waves don't travel well in water) and the buoy connects to the pilot using a long range WiFi signal. Using a wireless towable buoy greatly increases the practical range of the vehicle while doing transects and search patterns since a physical connection between the vehicle and the pilot doesn't need to be maintained. You can connect to the buoy and control Trident using a tablet or laptop from a boat or from the shore... ( preorder $1,199.00 )
America, Regulate Drones Now or Get Left Behind
Missy Cummings for Wired: Drones are a big business and getting bigger, a reality that comes with both economic opportunities and risks. The UAV market is set to jump from $5.2 billion in 2013 to $11.6 billion in 2023. Opportunities for delivery services, cinematography, and even flying cell towers could introduce thousands of jobs and reinvigorate an ailing aerospace market.
At the same time, drone sales to hobbyists have exploded. Registered drone operators in the US now outnumber registered manned aircraft. In tandem with that growth, close calls with commercial aircraft have more than doubled in the past two years. An analysis of FAA reports by Bard College’s Center for the Study of the Drone counts 28 instances in which pilots changed course in order to avoid a collision. Cont'd...
Robotics expert: Self-driving cars not ready for deployment
Joan Lowy for PHYS.org: Self-driving cars are "absolutely not" ready for widespread deployment despite a rush to put them on the road, a robotics expert warned Tuesday.
The cars aren't yet able to handle bad weather, including standing water, drizzling rain, sudden downpours and snow, Missy Cummings, director of Duke University's robotics program, told the Senate commerce committee. And they certainly aren't equipped to follow the directions of a police officer, she said.
While enthusiastic about research into self-driving cars, "I am decidedly less optimistic about what I perceive to be a rush to field systems that are absolutely not ready for widespread deployment, and certainly not ready for humans to be completely taken out of the driver's seat," Cummings said.
It's relatively easy for hackers to take control of the GPS navigation systems of self-driving cars, Cummings said.
"It is feasible that people could commandeer self-driving vehicles ... to do their bidding, which could be malicious or simply just for the thrill of it," she said, adding that privacy of personal data is another concern. Cont'd...
I Sing the Body Electric
Prosthetic technology is advancing rapidly, but not without sticking points.
Image Processing 101
Sher Minn Chong wrote a good introductory to image processing in Python:
In this article, I will go through some basic building blocks of image processing, and share some code and approaches to basic how-tos. All code written is in Python and uses OpenCV , a powerful image processing and computer vision library...
... When we’re trying to gather information about an image, we’ll first need to break it up into the features we are interested in. This is called segmentation. Image segmentation is the process representing an image in segments to make it more meaningful for easier to analyze3.
Thresholding
One of the simplest ways of segmenting an image isthresholding. The basic idea of thresholding is to replace each pixel in an image with a white pixel if a channel value of that pixel exceeds a certain threshold... ( full tutorial ) ( iPython Notebook )
User Case Study: MapleSim Used To Speed Up Development Of High-fidelity Robotic Manipulator Models
Using MapleSim, engineers created multiple models of robotic manipulator in time previously required to create just one model.
Postdoc's Trump Twitterbot Uses AI To Train Itself On Transcripts From Trump Speeches
From MIT:
This week a postdoc at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) developed a Trump Twitterbot that Tweets out remarkably Trump-like statements, such as “I’m what ISIS doesn’t need.” The bot is based on an artificial-intelligence algorithm that is trained on just a few hours of transcripts of Trump’s victory speeches and debate performances...
... ( MIT article ) ( twitter feed )
Using Drones for Aerial Photography
If you can envision a shot, the drone can probably help achieve the photograph or video.
How This New Drone Can Track Your Every Move
Lisa Eadicicco for Time: Drones can already follow professional snowboarders as they speed down a slope or keep up with mountain bikers racing through rocky terrain. But drone-equipped athletes are usually required to keep their phone nearby, since the aerial devices often rely on handheld devices’ GPS signal to track a person’s location.
DJI’s newest drone, the Phantom 4, claims to eliminate that hassle. The company says the Phantom 4’s new ActiveTrack feature uses the drone’s front-facing sensors to see and track a target.
“Being able to learn about the object, as it squats, as it rotates, as it turns, is really complicated,” says Michael Perry, DJI’s director of strategic partnerships. “When you’re flying toward something, you have to make a decision to fly around it, fly above it, or stop. And to train the system to learn those different functions is also a big challenge.” Cont'd...
Boomers at Work: Retirement vs. Working … It's Complicated
A lot of really smart people in technology took Confucius' advice, "Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life."
Robotic Process Automation (RPA)
We believe that RPA will be a game changer and that automating repeatable, simple tasks will free up employees to do higher-value work.
Roving robot 'ground drones' take to streets for deliveries
MARK BLUNDEN for Evening Standard: A delivery robot tested among the crowds of central London is set to start being deployed in the capital.
The self-driving, battery-powered box on wheels is poised to undertake local delivery trials in Greenwich following 3,000 hours of testing.
The robots by Starship Technologies have been described as “ground drones” and were created by former Skype co-founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis.
Their invention is expected to be popular at smaller local businesses, such as bakeries and corner shops, that could send out the robot containing goods in its tub body costing only a pound or two. Cont'd...
Japanese Firm To Open World's First Robot-run Farm
Spread , a vegetable producer, said industrial robots would carry out all but one of the tasks needed to grow the tens of thousands of lettuces it produces each day at its vast indoor farm in Kameoka, Kyoto prefecture, starting from mid-2017.
The robots will do everything from re-planting young seedlings to watering, trimming and harvesting crops.
The innovation will boost production from 21,000 lettuces a day to 50,000 a day, the firm said, adding that it planned to raise that figure to half a million lettuces daily within five years.
“The seeds will still be planted by humans, but every other step, from the transplanting of young seedlings to larger spaces as they grow to harvesting the lettuces, will be done automatically,” said JJ Price, Spread’s global marketing manager.
The new farm – an extension of its existing Kameoka farm – will improve efficiency and reduce labour costs by about half. The use of LED lighting means energy costs will be slashed by almost a third, and about 98% of the water needed to grow the crops will be recycled.
The farm, measuring about 4,400 sq metres, will have floor-to-ceiling shelves where the produce is grown... ( cont'd )
DARPA - FLA Program Takes Flight
They may not have zoomed flawlessly around obstacles like the Millennium Falcon did as it careened through the hull of a crashed Star Destroyer in Star Wars VII. But the sensor-loaded quadcopters that recently got tested in a cluttered hangar in Massachusetts did manage to edge their way around obstacles and achieve their target speeds of 20 meters per second. Moreover, the quadcopters were unmanned … and real. Thus was the initial phase of data collection for DARPA's Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program recently deemed an encouraging success.
DARPA’s FLA program aims to develop and test algorithms that could reduce the amount of processing power, communications, and human intervention needed for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to accomplish low-level tasks, such as navigation around obstacles in a cluttered environment. If successful, FLA would reduce operator workload and stress and allow humans to focus on higher-level supervision of multiple formations of manned and unmanned platforms as part of a single system. Cont'd...
Getting Started with Collaborative Robots - Part 5 - Get Management On Board with Robots
Even if you are part of management yourself, you will need to justify the integration of the robot with solid arguments. We suggest the "Scotty maneuver": under-promise, over-deliver!
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Featured Product
ATI Industrial Automation at IMTS 2018
ATI Industrial Automation's MC-10 Manual Tool Changer provides a cost-effective solution for quickly changing tools by hand. Its compact yet robust design is optimized for collaborative robot applications. The ergonomic twist-collar locking mechanism ensures a secure attachment of the tool and easy manual operation with tactile feedback. This Manual Tool Changer can carry payloads of up to 22 lbs and includes multiple fail-safe features that resist vibration and prevent loosening. The MC-10 Manual Tool Changer has integrated air pass-through connections and options to connect electrical utilities if needed. ATI will feature the new MC-10 along with a variety of other robotic demonstrations and product displays at this year's IMTS show in Chicago (Booth #236417).
