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Posts Tagged ‘robots’

Fingerprints provide a unique identifier and a better means to hold on to objects, but they also shape the ways we sense and perceive the world around us. When we touch something, the ridges alter the vibrations moving through our skin such that nerve endings can better receive them. This serves as a kind of signal processing that allows the skin in our fingertips to provide richer information to our central nervous system than skin on other parts of the body.

For robots, who generally do a lot of processing in a single central processing unit, this distributed signal processing represents a distinct advantage. If robotic sensing surfaces could do more signal processing in the surfaces themselves, it would save on the amount of processing taking place in the CPU, leaving more room there for other kinds of computing.

So the National University team created a robotic touch sensor out of four force-sensitive sensors on a single four-millimeter square plate. Using a thin, flat plastic sheet covering the sensors, they recorded a series of force/touch measurements. They then repeated the measurements, this time covering the touch sensors with a ridged plastic sheet. They found that the ridged measurements where far richer in touch data, even helping the sensor identify the shape of the object being touched.

That all happens right at the “fingertips,” saving the central processor the trouble. And it represents a nice distributed solution that could greatly enhance robotic object recognition. It also represents a nice piece of biomimicry. Read the paper at arXiv.

[Technology Review]

We know that various research and academic institutions are working on robot autonomy (regular readers see stories and videos of these autonomous ‘bots right here on PopSci all the time), but what’s a bit mind-blowing is just how far along some of this technology is. At Fort Benning, a team of Georgia Tech computer scientists is helping the military demonstrate software that can autonomously--without a shred of human input--acquire and make life or death decisions about targets on the ground.

That is, the only thing that’s missing is the capability to fire. Add that, and you’ve got a killer robot.

Of course, these are just demonstrations (for now). But they create a blueprint for the inevitable future of warfare: when time is critical and running decisions up the chain isn’t feasible, software will make key decisions about what constitutes a target, what falls within the bounds of the “rules of war,” and whether or not it’s safe to commence firing. If a program can satisfy whatever requirements have been seeded in its coding, then it’s bombs away.

It all sounds a bit Skynet, but it’s moving forward at a rapid pace within the U.S. military, driven both by need (putting fewer human lives in harm’s way is obviously preferable) and that Cold War-esque mentality that if America isn’t at the front of autonomous warfare then it can only be behind. That sentiment is not entirely misplaced: South Korea has already deployed semi-autonomous armed robotic systems along the demilitarized zone bordering North Korea, and the Chinese have a dog in the hunt for autonomous weapons systems as well.

So what is the state of “lethal autonomy?” To put a number on it, it’s at least a decade (probably more) away from becoming battlefield reality. I sat in on a lecture at last month’s AUVSI unmanned robotics conference titled “Armed and Autonomous” where the focus was on the idea of deploying armed UAVs into contested airspace--using unmanned planes to deliver surface-to-air and air-to-air weapons in areas where anti-air defenses are still intact.

What might surprise many is that the computer programs necessary to evade air defenses and execute these kinds of missions autonomously already exist. The backbone technology is there, we just don’t trust it enough to actually deploy it. The idea of unleashing armed and autonomous robots, aerial or otherwise, is naturally abhorrent to us because robots--at least the robots that we have now--are incapable of making common sense decisions or distinguishing--with 100 percent accuracy--between friend or foe, surrendering troops or hostile enemy, the benign and the threatening.

But that capability gap between human and machine, as WaPo reports, is shrinking. The question is: when will it have shrunk enough that we trust robots with life and death decisions? As we’ve been coldly reminded by incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, even highly trained soldiers don’t always make the right decisions on the ground. At what percentage of error are we willing to say autonomous robots are ready for war?

Click through below for the Post piece. It’s a quick and engaging morning read.

[Washington Post]

The tractor, built by Flanders’ Mechatronics Technology Centre (FMTC) and the Mechatronics, Biostatistics and Sensors (MeBioS) division of K.U. Leuven’s Biosystems Department can automatically adjust its speed and turning radius during its preprogrammed route over a field.

Previous driving systems required manual calibration for hard and soft terrain settings. The new tractor anticipates wheel slippage based on the observed terrain and adjusts its speed and turning rate to compensate. The tractor’s driving system “allows for precision down to the centimetre.”

The automated tractor could potentially drive down high tractor operator costs. “The job of an operator is really quite complex: he observes the tractor’s current position, makes a judgement based on terrain conditions and the route to be followed, and, based on all this, decides the speed and orientation of the tractor,” says Erik Hostens, project engineer of FMTC. An automated system that could complete this task would fulfill the need for a highly trained operator, without the continuous high cost.

FMTC and MeBioS will unveil their robot tractor on September 24 and 25 at the Annual International Agriculture and Horticulture Days of Mechanisation, in Oudennarde, Belgium.

Meanwhile, today's Wall Street Journal covers an American partnership between Kinze Manufacturing and Jaybridge Robotics that has also produced a self-driving tractor. The Kinze Autonomous Grain Cart system is designed to work in tandem with a human-operated harvester combine, driving alongside the combine and collecting harvested grain, with a surprisingly sprightly, even playful, gait [see below]. When the grain cart is full, the autonomous tractor hauls the crop to storage, and then returns to find the combine. Kinze and Jaybridge have also developed an autonomous planting system.

[Science Daily, WSJ]

Stretchable electronics and smart tattoos give human skin an upgrade from the future

Click here for a photo gallery of future skin technology for humans and machines.

Many of skin’s properties would be useful in other applications — like helping people with artificial limbs regain some of what they’ve lost. And an electronic skin, or at least some tactile sensory ability, could help machines understand the delicate differences in force that are required to grip an apple, a hand or a piece of steel.

Researchers trying to duplicate its beneficial properties are building teeny stretchable electronics that can give artificial limbs a real sense of touch.

And scientists are making several changes to human skin itself, turning it into a 21st century interface capable of much more than feeling another person’s caress. From conductive tattoos that turn skin into a human-machine communications device, skin is getting plenty of upgrades.

Click through to the gallery for a look at some recent breakthroughs in skin technology.

IBM's Jeopardy! master robot Watson may not be a judge anytime soon, but he has gotten his first job: as a diagnostic whiz, like we expected. (Note: We will refer to Watson as a "he" and not an "it" until he stops being more charismatic than most humans we know.) According to the Wall Street Journal, IBM and health insurer WellPoint have agreed to use Watson to "help suggest treatment options and diagnoses to doctors." Congratulations, Watson! Don't blow your first paycheck on anything frivolous! [WSJ]

The motors turn on, as it were, when one side of a Janus microsphere grows a suite of molecules on one side. Eventually, the lopsided sphere creates an osmotic gradient. As fluid flows toward the area with fewer particles, the whole sphere moves.

Janus microspheres have two distinct hemispheres made of different substances. In this case, one half is gold and the other is silicon dioxide. Researchers led by Ayusman Sen at Penn State attached a molecule called a Grubbs catalyst, which induces polymerization, to the silica side. Then they added a monomer, which the catalyst strings into long chains. The monomer strings gather on the SiO2 side, which creates a mini current that sends the whole sphere moving the opposite direction.

To prove it can deliver substances, the scientists filled a gel substance with the monomer, which was slowly leached out. The micromotors moved toward the gel stream, like a single-celled organism following a trail of nutrient breadcrumbs.

This could be a handy, electricity-free way to send tiny devices into the bloodstream to do various tasks. The microspider motors could drive nanorobots that destroy tumor cells, or they could target drugs to specific organs more quickly, for instance.

The research is reported in the journal Angewandte Chemie.

[via New Scientist]

Paraswift, as it’s called, rolls up the main building at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in the video below. It doesn’t need the red carpet, but its builders at ETH Zurich get style points for that touch.

Unlike other wall-climbing tech based on vacuum suction, the robot uses a low pressure gradient to stick to the wall. Paraswift uses an impeller, a rotor spinning in a tube, to create a low pressure vortex like the center of a tornado. This creates a partial vacuum that adheres the robot to the wall, as explained by ETH Zurich. The wheels stay in contact with the surface to be climbed, and the vortex holds the robot to the wall, so there’s no need to create a vacuum seal.

It was built for fun in a collaboration with Disney Research, which has been exploring new robot designs for use in its theme parks. But it could conceivably be used to capture aerial footage or test new robot landing systems.

As the video shows, Paraswift unfurls its parachute before it jumps off, which ensures it has time to position properly for a safe landing. In that sense, it’s not a true base jumper. But impressive nonetheless.

[via Tech Crunch]