Automation – Page 17

Stop & Shop is testing self-driving mini grocery stores

February 8, 2019

Grocery store chain Stop & Shop announced today that it will begin testing driverless grocery vehicles in Boston starting this spring, combining the hype of autonomous delivery cars, cashier-less stores, and meal kits into one experimental pilot. The launch is part of a partnership with San Francisco-based startup Robomart, whose vehicles will cart around Stop & Shop items like produce, convenience items, and meal kits to customers’ doorsteps.

The electric vehicles will be temperature-controlled to keep produce fresh, and controlled remotely from a Robomart facility. Customers can hail the mini grocery stores via an app, on an interface which feels a lot like calling an Uber. Once the vehicle arrives, customers can unlock the doors, and the items they grab are tracked with RFID and computer vision technology. When they’re done shopping, they can send the vehicle on its way, and a receipt is emailed soon after. It’s like a much tinier Amazon Go store coming directly to your house.

Continue reading… “Stop & Shop is testing self-driving mini grocery stores”

Automation, Automobiles, Driverless cars, Driverless vehicles

The road to seamless urban mobility

February 8, 2019

Will the coming mobility revolution make urban traffic better, or worse?

The age of modern transit began in 1863, when the first underground railway began rolling in central London. The line was short and smoky, and nothing like it had ever been seen before. But it worked, and cities around the world began to follow London’s lead. Over time, city authorities came to see providing transportation as one of their core responsibilities; governments often owned and ran transit systems themselves.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Science & Technology News

AI won’t take your job, people will

February 8, 2019

AI, specifically “augmented intelligence,” is going to have both an awesome and an unfortunate impact on our posterity. Let’s explore one possible way AI may impact the future of work, and how it may dramatically change how we train our workforce.

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Automation, Drone, Home Technology, Robotics, Science & Technology News

iRobot unveils Terra, a Roomba lawn mower

February 6, 2019

iRobot is best known for making vacuum cleaner robots: the infamous Roomba lineup. But the company also makes mopping robots (Braava lineup), pool cleaning robots (Mirra lineup), a bot to help clean gutters, and even programmable robots (Create lineup). So, what’s next for your home? A lawn mower robot.

Queue the “get off my lawn” jokes.

iRobot today introduced the Terra robot lawn mower, which features “state-of-the-art mapping and navigation technologies, high-performance, high-quality mowing, and easy installation.” It is arguably easier for a robot to mow a lawn than clean a house, but the company is still starting off cautiously — the iRobot Terra robot mower will be available for sale in Germany and as part of a beta program in the U.S. sometime later this year. iRobot said it would share more specific availability and pricing at a later date.

Continue reading… “iRobot unveils Terra, a Roomba lawn mower”

Amazon.com, Automation, Robotics, Wearables

Amazon built an electronic vest to improve worker/robot interactions

February 3, 2019

Over the course of the last year, Amazon began rolling out a new worker safety wearable to 25+ sites. From the looks of it, the Robotic Tech Vest is really more like a pair of suspenders attached to an electronic utility belt. The Amazon Robotics-designed product was created to keep workers safe when they need to enter a space in order to fix a robotic system or retrieve fallen items. Built-in sensors alert Amazon’s robotic systems to the wearer’s presence, and they slow down to avoid collision.

The vest is designed to work in tandem with the robots’ existing obstacle avoidance detection.

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Amazon.com, Automation, Electric Vehicles, Shopping

Amazon has made its own autonomous six-wheeled delivery robot

January 31, 2019

Amazon is entering the robot delivery game with an electric hamper on wheels it’s calling the Amazon Scout. The e-commerce giant is the latest company to try its hand at this sort of automated, last-mile delivery solution, following a crop of startups, as well as experiments by larger firms like Domino’s Pizza and PepsiCo.

Details about the Scout are thin on the ground, but the design looks similar to existing robots. In fact, the Scout looks almost identical to devices from Starship Technologies, an Estonian startup that was an early entrant to the field. (In a statement to The Verge after this story was published, a spokesperson for Starship Technologies said “[w]e’re huge believers in autonomous delivery robots. As the company that created this category, it’s great to see others realizing the potential.”)

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Alternative Transportation, Automation, Aviation, Transportation

Boeing’s flying car has taken off

January 31, 2019

Boeing’s Driverless Flying Taxi Completes Test Flight.

A Boeing Co. flying car designed to whisk passengers over congested city streets and dodge skyscrapers completed its first test flight on Tuesday, offering a peek into the future of urban transportation the aerospace giant and others are seeking to shape.

A prototype of its autonomous passenger air vehicle completed a controlled takeoff, hover and landing during the test conducted in Manassas, Virginia, the maker of military and commercial jets said in a statement Wednesday. Propelled by electricity, the model is designed for fully autonomous flight, with a range of as much as 50 miles, Boeing said.

The Chicago-based plane maker and arch rival Airbus SE are among a slew of companies racing to stake a claim on flying cars and parcel-hauling drones, which have the potential to be the next disruption to sweep the aerospace industry. Boeing’s push was boosted by a 2017 acquisition of Aurora Flight Sciences, whose projects include a new flying taxi it is developing with Uber Technologies Inc.

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Amazon.com, Automation, Latest Trend, Shopping

Amazon Go, one year old, has attracted a lot of cashierless imitators

January 31, 2019

Mighty AI spent much of its first five years building software that helps self-driving cars recognize real-world objects. The Seattle startup went so far as to open a Detroit office to cozy up to the auto industry.

Then last February, Mighty AI’s sales team received an unusual request: Instead of identifying pedestrians and cars, could they track items plucked from store shelves by shoppers? A few months later, Mighty AI signed a deal to do just that, joining the race to help brick-and-mortar retailers keep pace with Amazon.com Inc.

A year ago, the e-commerce giant opened a cashierless convenience store called Amazon Go, marking its biggest effort yet to change the way people shop in the physical world. Today a fleet of companies are working to replicate elements of Go or invent other ways of streamlining store operations.

Many are startups like Mighty AI, but established giants are wading in, too. Walmart has been testing Go-style technology, and Kroger and Microsoft recently announced a joint venture to bring elements of the e-commerce shopping experience to the grocery store.

Continue reading… “Amazon Go, one year old, has attracted a lot of cashierless imitators”

Automation, Automobiles, Electric Vehicles

Hyundai and Kia unveil driverless car-charging and parking concept

January 28, 2019

The companies intend to launch this technology when electric vehicles reach level 4 autonomy, which is expected around 2025. — Hyundai

This week Hyundai Motor Company and Kia Motors Corporation shared a video outlining the features of EV wireless charging and automated valet parking concept systems that could park your car without you or any other driver.

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Automation, Electric Vehicles, Solar Power, Transportation

India’s first solar-powered, driverless bus has made its maiden journey

January 28, 2019

Students of Lovely Professional University (LPU) at Jalandhar has designed this bus with the uses of GPS and Bluetooth for navigation

Jalandhar (Urban Transport News): India’s first solar-powered, driverless bus made its maiden journey at the Indian Science Congress in last week Thursday. A team of students of Lovely Professional University (LPU) at Jalandhar has designed this bus with the uses of GPS and Bluetooth for navigation.

According to the project head Mandeep Singh, the camera installed on top of the bus allows for image processing. It senses the road pattern and the bus moves accordingly.

“We have been working on this project for the last five years. Around 300 students, from departments of electronics, electrical and civil and mechanical engineering, have been part of it. It was a huge project and bringing everyone together itself was a huge challenge,” said Mandeep Singh.

Continue reading… “India’s first solar-powered, driverless bus has made its maiden journey”

Automation, Automobiles, Self-driving Cars, Transportation

AUTONOMOUS CARS: ALTERING ONE IN NINE JOBS

January 28, 2019

It seems clear that driverless vehicles are coming, although the timeline for their arrival remains unclear. David Beede, Regina Powers and Cassandra Ingram of the Economics and Statistics Administration at the US Department of Commerce look at one aspect, “The Employment Impact of Autonomous Vehicles,” in ESA Issue Brief #05-17 (August 11, 2017). They set the stage this way:

“In September 2016, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) published policy guidelines for AVs [autonomous vehicles], recognizing their potential as “the greatest personal transportation revolution since the popularization of the personal automobile nearly a century ago” (NHTSA 2016). … The worldwide number of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), such as backup cameras and adaptive cruise control, increased from 90 million to 140 million units between 2014 and 2016. Consumers have indicated a willingness to pay $500-$2,500 per vehicle for ADAS. Sensor technologies are rapidly advancing to provide sophisticated information to vehicle operating systems about the surrounding environment, such as road conditions and the location of other nearby vehicles. However, slower progress has been made in developing software that can mimic human driver decision-making, so that fully autonomous vehicles may not be introduced for another ten or more years …”

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2019 CES, Automation, Robotics, Robots, Shopping

Robot dogs are the weirdest package delivery system we’ve seen

January 15, 2019

A mailman’s fever dream at CES 2019

Germany automotive firm Continental is best know for its tires, but at CES 2019 the company is demonstrating something a little different: package delivery by robot dog.

As part of its research into the future of mobility, Continental has partnered with robotics company ANYbotics (a spin off from ETH Zurich) to imagine the future of package delivery. In a staged demonstration on the CES show floor, the firm showed how one of ANYbotics’ four-legged robots could jump out the back of a self-driving delivery truck and carry a package right up to someone’s front door.

In the demo, the ANYMal robot could be seen slowly picking its way over debris in the garden before ringing the fake doorbell with one if its limbs. It then tips the package off its back onto the porch and performs a little victory dance as a bonus.

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