By Haje Jan Kamps

Even though the only thing the robot can do right now is pull weeds, Aigen is adamant it isn’t building a weed-whacking robot. It claims to be on a mission to terraform the earth, and says it has a path toward making agriculture carbon negative. It must have made a compelling argument, because it just announced a $4 million seed round led by NEA, with participation from AgFunder, Global Founders Capital and ReGen Ventures.

The company is building solar-powered, autonomous robots that can zoom around in fields, using computer vision to tell friend from foe and plant from weed. In its first incarnation, the robot — in a fine “hot dog / not hot dog” impersonation — simply bumbles about, covering up to three acres of farmland per day.

“My relatives are farmers in Minnesota, and I’ve been talking with them for quite some time. They’re really experiencing some trouble with traditional agriculture approaches. Even the diehard people that love chemicals, that love tilling the earth and other practices that have been releasing carbon in the atmosphere for thousands of years are starting to realize, hey, maybe we should be open to other ways to do this,” reflects Richard Wurden, CEO at Aigen. He is particularly passionate about throwing agriculture’s carbon output in reverse. “Right now, agriculture is about 16% of carbon emissions. In the future, it has the potential to go negative, by reducing diesel emissions, soil compaction, chemical usage and reducing tilling.”

A robotic paving slab cutting process developed by Eurovia UK is nearly ready to be used on site.

By Grant Prior

The Distributed Automated Cutting System (DACS) project is being led by the contractor in partnership with Loop Technology and The University of Sheffield Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre.

The current practice of cutting paving in town centers and other public places to fit within set boundaries or around street furniture is normally performed manually on site and is noisy, messy and disruptive.

The DACS process will automate the manufacture of bespoke paving units which are tailor-made to fit unique ground conditions.

The cutting robot can be housed in a factory or a compact container which can travel between sites.

Inspired by the growth of bones in the skeleton, researchers at the universities of Linkoping in Sweden and Okayama in Japan have developed a combination of materials that can morph into various shapes before hardening.

Inspired by the growth of bones in the skeleton, researchers at the universities of Linkoping in Sweden and Okayama in Japan have developed a combination of materials that can morph into various shapes before hardening. The material is initially soft but later hardens through a bone development process that uses the same materials found in the skeleton.

When we are born, we have gaps in our skulls that are covered by pieces of soft connective tissue called fontanelles. It is thanks to fontanelles that our skulls can be deformed during birth and pass successfully through the birth canal. Post-birth, the fontanelle tissue gradually changes to hard bone. Now, researchers have combined materials that together resemble this natural process. “We want to use this for applications where materials need to have different properties at different points in time. Firstly, the material is soft and flexible, and it is then locked into place when it hardens. This material could be used in, for example, complicated bone fractures. It could also be used in microrobots – these soft microrobots could be injected into the body through a thin syringe, and then they would unfold and develop their own rigid bones”, says Edwin Jager, associate professor at the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM) at Linkoping University.

The idea was hatched during a research visit in Japan when materials scientist Edwin Jager met Hiroshi Kamioka and Emilio Hara, who conduct research into bones. The Japanese researchers had discovered a kind of biomolecule that could stimulate bone growth under a short period of time. Would it be possible to combine this biomolecule with Jager’s materials research, to develop new materials with variable stiffness? In the study that followed, published in Advanced Materials, the researchers constructed a kind of simple “microrobot”, one which can assume different shapes and change stiffness. The researchers began with a gel material called alginate. On one side of the gel, a polymer material is grown. This material is electroactive, and it changes its volume when a low voltage is applied, causing the microrobot to bend in a specified direction.

 BY MAI TAO 

Kawasaki Heavy Industries says it has successfully completed proof-of-concept (PoC) testing for an unmanned cargo transport system. Watch video below.

The system combines Kawasaki’s K-Racer-X1 prototype unmanned vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft and what is commonly described in the industry as an autonomous mobile robot, and which the company describes as a “delivery robot”.

Kawasaki says the PoC testing was conducted with the aim of helping to solve societal issues such as labor shortages in the logistics industry. 

In its Group Vision 2030, which describes the company’s future vision for 2030, Kawasaki specified three areas where it will focus its efforts:

• A Safe and Secure Remotely-Connected Society
• Near-Future Mobility
• Energy and Environmental Solutions