Category: Robots

A video demo shows how Atlas could help human construction workers at a building site (or possibly lead a robot uprising).

By Michael Kane

We’ve seen the Atlas robot from Boston Dynamics dance, do backflips, and even perform parkour. But now it’s received a new skill: the ability to pick up and throw objects. 

In a new video, the Atlas robot is seen carrying a tool bag up some scaffolding and then throwing it to a human construction worker who’s standing on a simulated construction site. The demonstration requires Atlas to use its sensors and a large variety of capabilities to navigate the site while remaining balanced. 

In the video, the Atlas robot first picks up and places a large wooden plank to act as a bridge over the construction site. The machine then proceeds to walk over the plank after picking up the tool bag with its two hands. 

Continue reading… “Boston Dynamics’ Atlas Robot Can Now Pick Up and Throw Things”

By Brian Heater

Simulators have been a godsend when it comes to testing robots. Real-world testing is lengthy, expensive and potentially dangerous, so anything you can do to work out as many kinks as possible ahead of time is a big win. Isaac Sim has thus far proven a success for Nvidia, as the chipmaker has looked to aggressively enter the world of robotics and automation, while roboticists search for a way to run simulations of real-life working conditions.

Today at CES, the company announced some key improvements to the system. Accessible via the cloud for robotics developers everywhere, the system is adding a very important piece of the puzzle: humans. Well, virtual humans. After all, for all the talk about robots replacing human jobs, the two are going to be working side by side for the foreseeable future.

“To minimize the difference between results observed in a simulated world versus those seen in the real world,” Nvidia notes, “it’s imperative to have physically accurate sensor models.”

Continue reading… “Nvidia’s robot simulator adds human co-workers”

Disney has filed a patent for flying robots that would be powered with a hybrid and air and water, Orlando Business Journal reports.

By Shannen Michaelsen

The patent is for an “Untethered robot with hybrid air and water power for hovering and quick airborne movements.” It describes how they could control the movements of a flying robot through thrust propulsion via air or water. The robot would be able to pose and change directions in mid-air.

“In-flight movements and stable or controlled landings for a flying robot have recently come into demand to provide unique and surprising entertainment to audiences in settings where it may be difficult to utilize live performers,” the patent says.

The patent also indicates projectors would be able to put different images onto the robot while it is moving, turning it into different characters.

Continue reading… “Disney Files Patent for Air and Water-Powered Flying Robots”

Clearbots has operations in India and Hong Kong and is looking to expand to the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore soon

By Sainul Abudheen

A few years ago, Sidhant Gupta, an ocean lover, and Utkarsh Goel, a techie, visited Bali, Indonesia, as part of their course at the University of Hong Kong. Miffed by the growing the ocean plastic pollution in the archipelago, a top contributor to global plastic pollution, the duo decided to leverage their technical expertise to tackle it.

Over 300 million tons of plastic are produced every year, of which about 14 million tons end up in the ocean every year. Plastic makes up 80 per cent of all marine debris. While many solutions are available to address this problem, they are grossly inadequate.

“Existing solutions are slow, with some communities still using paddle boats and diesel-powered boats for fishing trash. We realised technologies like Artificial Intelligence could address this problem effectively.”

This led the duo to start Clearbot in 2019.

Clearbot is a remotely operated vehicle designed to perform various tasks in the marine sector, including data collection, site monitoring, marine pollution cleaning, and goods delivery. Powered by an electric motor, it can complete these tasks without human intervention.

Continue reading… “How all-electric, self-driving Clearbot helps tackle ocean plastic pollution in Asia”

ROBOTIC WATER PIPES FROM ICAIR COULD PROTECT BILLIONS OF LITERS FROM LEAKING

By Madhurjya Chowdhu

The University of Sheffield’s Integrated Civil and Infrastructure Research Centre (ICAIR) is testing a new generation of subterranean robotic pipe patrollers. Pipebots are tiny, mobile robots with all-terrain legs and cameras for eyes. They are being created in coordination with the water sector to inspect pipes and detect flaws and cracks before they become leaks.

According to Ofwat, the economic regulator for the water industry, about three billion liters of water are lost through leaks every day in England and Wales hundreds of thousands of kilometers of water pipe. Miniature robots have now been created by engineers to patrol the pipe network, look for problems, and stop leaks. Without robotics, they claim that maintaining the network will be “impossible.” According to the water industry’s trade group Water UK, businesses are already “spending billions” in reducing leakage. However, a recent Ofwat assessment emphasized that water providers had not made enough investments. By not investing enough in upgrades, it cited a number of them as “letting down customers and the environment.” In response, Water UK stated that leakage had reached “its lowest level since privatization.” Leaks are a common and challenging issue: In the UK, millions of properties are supplied with water by hundreds of thousands of kilometers of pipe that are in various states of repair and age.

Continue reading… “Miniature Robots to Patrol the Pipe Network to Prevent Leaks”

By Stuart Clark

If we want to explore the Solar System even further, we’ll need self-sufficient robots to help us do it. And that’s why scientists are putting futuristic bots through their paces on the lunar-like landscape of Mount Etna.

Anyone who has followed our efforts to explore other planets over the last few decades will have realised the importance of robots. They’re our mechanical eyes and ears on distant worlds, and have allowed us to see places that would have otherwise remained shrouded in mystery. Perhaps this is why the landing of each new NASA rover on Mars draws millions of viewers online.

Recently, however, most of the headlines have been about the imminent return of humans to the Moon. So with people once again venturing further out into space, will robotic explorers start to fade in importance?

Not at all. The fact is robotic explorers are set to become more important than ever. “There are some places in the Solar System you can’t send humans, Venus, for example, or some moons of Jupiter or Saturn,” says Prof Alin Albu-Schäffer from the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center, Munich. “They’re just too far away and too hostile for humans. So, you know, robots will be very important.”

Continue reading… “Meet the autonomous Moon robots about to change space travel forever”

Ottobot is an autonomous robot will be used for food delivery at airports next year. 

By Ishita Banerjee

Food delivery is expected to reach a whole new level with Ottobot- a self-manoeuvring that will deliver food from airport eateries to your gate. With the help of Ottobot, you can get your food delivered to the gate through which you board your flight.

Ottobot is an autonomous robot for delivery of small hand-held items. Around next year, it may be put into use and it might be seen delivering airport restaurant and cafe food right to customers’ tables. As of now the areas that it is being explored in are the restaurant terrains, airports, groceries and postal services.

Ritukar Vijay, Ashish Gupta, Pradyot Korupolu and Hardik Shama are the four founders of the Ottonomy company which they have been working on since 2020. It has around 40 employees across India and the US.

Continue reading… “This robot will soon deliver food from airport restaurants to your gate”

ABM Deploys Knightscope Autonomous Robots in Major Parking Facility (Photo: Business Wire)

Knightscope Introduces Innovative New Automated Monitoring Measures and Parking Infrastructure Improvements in Partnership with ABM, One of the Nation’s Largest Parking Service Providers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Knightscope, Inc. (Nasdaq: KSCP), a developer of advanced physical monitoring technologies focused on enhancing U.S. facility operations, and ABM (NYSE: ABM), a leading provider of integrated facility services, parking and transportation management solutions, and electric vehicle (“EV”) charger installations, today announced the deployment of three Autonomous Robots at an international airport parking facility in the US.

The Knightscope self-driving robots will navigate and monitor ABM’s parking facility without any human intervention to gather and deliver unprecedented levels of data and actionable intelligence for the airport operations team to assist in making smarter, safer, and faster decisions. With the ability to see a full 360-degrees (even in the dark), stream video directly to airport staff, and keep a high-definition record of its observations for up to 30 days, the powerful analytics embedded within the Autonomous Robots can even detect a person that the human eye may not be able to see under certain conditions. Each Autonomous Robot also features a sensitive 16-microphone array with two-way audio functionality, allowing airport staff to have a live conversation with a person within the garage using the robot itself as the communication medium.

Continue reading… “ABM Deploys Knightscope Autonomous Robots in Major Parking Facility”

The Gitamini ”follow” robot has a cargo hold that allows its users to walk further without having to carry heavy items.

By Kyle Stock

The Gita “follow” robot aims to replace driving for Americans’ quickest daily errands. But progress has been slow.

When my six-year-old son first “woke up” the Gitamini robot, I was surprised he didn’t flinch — robots these days tend to be ominous. But as November leaves swirled around the sidewalk meet-cute, the squat personal droid gave a friendly “chirp” and popped up on its two large wheels, ready to follow a new friend.

The three of us were walking to a bookstore across Princeton University’s campus, and I charged my son with loading up the robot. Pokemon cards, snacks and non-negotiable stuffed animals were crammed into the Gitamini’s hollow center cavity. As we set off, with the cream-colored droid following about six feet behind, my son glanced back to monitor Gitamini’s loyalty, occasionally prodding it with a “C’mon.” An hour later, the snacks and stuffed animals had company: a handful of new books and a pile of leaves deemed too beautiful to leave behind.

Service robots are now an $11 billion industry, according to the International Federation of Robotics, with nearly 200 new fleets launched during the pandemic. Most of those bots are in hospitals — assisting in surgery, for example — and many can be found trundling around warehouses and factories. But Gitamini wasn’t designed to pack boxes, pick oranges or strip minerals from treacherous mines. It has a more straightforward mission: to forestall short car trips. Americans make nearly four such trips per day on average, according to government statistics, and 35% of them are less than two miles.

Gita — Italian for “trip” — hopes to be a 28-pound solution to a 5,000-pound problem. “These trips are totally walkable, but nobody’s walking two miles with a bag of dog food,” says Greg Lynn, chief executive officer of Gitamini-maker Piaggio Fast Forward. “We definitely want to be part of the ecosystem where you don’t have to take a two-ton thing to carry two bags of stuff.”

Continue reading… “THIS ROBOT IS ON A MISSION TO ELIMINATE SHORT CAR TRIPS”

By Sierra Mitchell

A perfect mix of chemistry and engineering has produced microscopic robots that function like specialized immune cells—capable of pursuing pathogenic culprits with a specific mugshot. 

The pathogen in question is Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), which can impact dairy cows’ milk production. These bacteria also make toxins that cause food poisoning and gastrointestinal illnesses in humans (that includes the usual trifecta of diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and nausea). 

Removing the toxins from dairy products is not easy to do. The toxins tend to be stable and can’t be eradicated by common hygienic practices in food production, like pasteurization and heat sterilization. However, an international group of researchers led by a team from the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague may have come up with another way to get rid of these pesky pathogens: with a tiny army of magnetic microrobots. Plus, each “MagRobot” is equipped with an antibody that specifically targets a protein on the S. aureus bacteria, like a lock-and-key mechanism. 

In a small proof-of-concept study published in the journal Small, the team detailed how these MagRobots could bind and isolate S. aureus from milk without affecting other microbes that may naturally occur.

Continue reading… “Magnetic microrobots could zap the bacteria out of your cold glass of Milk”

The service was designed to assist people with mobility difficulties. 

Charging Robotics Ltd. anticipates releasing the beta of its wireless charging robot user interface by the end of the year. The company, which is a subsidiary of Medigus, will release the software as part of a collaboration with Make My Day, which develops apps and services for electric vehicles.

Customers will be able to take advantage of Charing Robotics wireless charging service through an app developed by Make My Day. They will be able to request charging services, receive information about billing, review driving directions and analysis real-time data about the EV’s battery status, according to the companies. The app will also show customers the location of the nearby charging stations.

Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Medigus Ltd. said it focuses on innovative growth partnerships, mainly in advanced medical solutions, digital commerce, and electric vehicle markets.

Continue reading… “Charging Robotics to Launch Robotic EV Charging Station Pilot in Q1 2023”