Category: Science & Technology News

What’s the difference between deep space and the deep sea? For a robot, the answer is: not much. Both environments are harsh and demanding, and, more importantly, both are far removed from the machine’s operator.

By Loura Hall

Nauticus Robotics’ Aquanaut robot can swim to a destination and carry out tasks with minimal supervision, saving money for offshore operations from oil wells and wind turbines to fish farms and more. Credits: Nauticus Robotics Inc.

What’s the difference between deep space and the deep sea? For a robot, the answer is: not much. Both environments are harsh and demanding, and, more importantly, both are far removed from the machine’s operator.

That’s why a team of roboticists from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston decided to apply their expertise to designing a shape-changing submersible robot that will cut costs for maritime industries.

By Jagmeet Singh

Ottonomy.IO, a startup working on solving delivery problems using autonomous robots, has raised $3.3 million in a seed funding round as it looks to expand its market and deploy robots to existing customers.

Led by Bengaluru-based Pi Ventures, the latest funding round included participation from Connetic Ventures and Branded Hospitality Ventures. Sangeet Kumar, founder and chief executive of Uttar Pradesh-based Addverb Technologies, also joined the round.

Founded in late 2020 by Ritukar Vijay along with Pradyot Korupolu, Ashish Gupta and Hardik Sharma, New York-headquartered Ottonomy.IO develops robots that feature sensors, including 3D lidar sensors and cameras. The company, which employs about 25 people in the U.S. and India, also writes software and AI algorithms to power the sensors.https://jac.yahoosandbox.com/1.2.0/safeframe.html

“One of the most important problems which we are trying to solve with these autonomous delivery robots is around labor shortages,” said Vijay, who serves as the chief executive of Ottonomy.IO, in an interaction with TechCrunch. He added that due to the labor shortages, there is a substantial increase in the hourly wages of laborers — to $18 to $45 per hour from $9 to $12 — in the U.S.

“So, that’s almost a 100% hike in hourly wages, making it very difficult for enterprise customers to provide the same services to the customers they were given earlier. And what happens at the end is that customers start paying more for deliveries.”

By Isaiah Richard

Researchers achieved a new development in their studies in this new publication focusing on nano-sized robots that came from a DNA’s design, now concentrate on doing wonders for biological advancements. The innovation will help bodily functions to improve and give the world more information regarding the diseases that occur in the body. 

According to SciTechDaily, researchers from Inserm, CNRS, and the University of Montpellier focused on developing new nanobots that came from a DNA for studying bodily functions and processes. The research took place at the Structural Biology Center in Montpellier, and its paper is now published in Nature Communication. 

The research entitled “A Modular Spring-Loaded Actuator for Mechanical Activation of Membrane Proteins” focus on conducting biological processes with these mechanical objects inside the body.

It may sound like it came from a science fiction show or content, but it is already a reality from the researchers that devised a way patterned from DNA. 

Three Omnid mocobots working collaboratively with a human on a pipe assembly task. The 16kg pipes feel weightless to the human and can be easily and intuitively manipulated due to the assistance of the Omnids.

By Ingrid Fadelli

Teams of mobile robots could be highly effective in helping humans to complete straining manual tasks, such as manufacturing processes or the transportation of heavy objects. In recent years, some of these robots have already been tested and introduced in real-world settings, attaining very promising results.

Researchers at Northwestern University’s Center for Robotics and Biosystems have recently developed new collaborative mobile robots, dubbed Omnid Mocobots. These robots, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, are designed to cooperate with each other and with humans to safely pick up, handle, and transport delicate and flexible payloads.

“The Center for Robotics and Biosystems has a long history building robots that collaborate physically with humans,” Matthew Elwin, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. “In fact, the term ‘cobots’ was coined here. The inspiration for the current work was manufacturing, warehouse, and construction tasks involving manipulating large, articulated, or flexible objects, where it is helpful to have several robots supporting the object.”