Impact Lab – Page 328 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Robots

A new micro aerial robot based on dielectric elastomer actuators

December 26, 2021

A 0.16 g microscale robot that is powered by a muscle-like soft actuator.

by Ingrid Fadelli

Micro-sized robots could have countless valuable applications, for instance, assisting humans during search-and-rescue missions, conducting precise surgical procedures, and agricultural interventions. Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have recently created a tiny, flying robot based on a class of artificial muscles known as dielectric elastomer actuators (DEAs).

This new robot, presented in a paper published in Wiley’s Advanced Materials journal, significantly outperformed many DEA-based micro-systems developed in the past. Most notably, the robot can operate at low voltages and has high endurance despite its miniature size.

“Our group has a long-term vision of creating a swarm of insect-like robots that can perform complex tasks such as assisted pollination and collective search-and-rescue,” Kevin Chen, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore. “Since three years ago, we have been working on developing aerial robots that are driven by muscle-like soft actuators.”

In their previous research, Chen and his colleagues presented several micro robots that could fly remarkably well, performing acrobatic movements in the air and quickly recovering after colliding with other objects. Despite these promising results, the soft actuators underpinning these systems required a high driving voltage of 2 kV, which prevented the robots from operating without an external power supply.

“To fly without wires, the soft actuator needs to operate at a lower voltage,” Chen explained. “Therefore, the main goal of our recent study was to reduce the operating voltage of muscle-like DEAs.”

Virtual Reality

Neuroscientists are using virtual reality to unlock a whole new world of brain research

December 24, 2021

A team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany is using virtual reality to help us shed some light on one of the world’s greatest mysteries: emotions and our human brains.

For years, researchers have struggled to figure out how human brains process complex emotions. This is because replicating real human emotions within the controlled environment of a laboratory, a necessity for standardizing several variables is extremely difficult. However, the aforementioned team of scientists has circumvented this issue as best they could in a revolutionary way using virtual reality.

The team conducted a study to monitor the neural activity of emotionally charged humans by using the cutting-edge technology of virtual reality. The participants in the study put on VR glasses that made them feel as though they were in the cars of a rollercoaster ride. On this ride, they go through many exhilarating highs and lows. Their journey starts off as a steady roll through picturesque mountain landscapes, then suddenly they are frantically dashing through a raging fire, and lastly, after a tense moment of teetering on the edge, they fall into the depths of an abyss.

Cancer

Digital twins for cancer patients could be ‘paradigm shift’ for predictive oncology

December 24, 2021

A proposed framework for Cancer Patient Digital Twins (CPDTs) — virtual representations of cancer patients using real-time data — would combine high performance computing modeling and simulation, model inference and clinical data to make treatment predictions and individualized health care decisions for cancer patients.

by Jeremy Thomas

A multi-institutional team, including a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) contributor, has proposed a framework for digital twin models of cancer patients that researchers say would create a “paradigm shift” for predictive oncology.

Published online in Nature Medicine on Nov. 25, the proposed framework for Cancer Patient Digital Twins (CPDTs)—virtual representations of cancer patients using real-time data—would combine high performance computing modeling and simulation, model inference and clinical data to make treatment predictions and individualized health care decisions for cancer patients. When fully realized, CDPTs would reflect a patient’s molecular, physiological and lifestyle characteristics as they evolve over time and across different treatments, and help “usher in a new age in medicine” by increasing the probability of optimal care, the authors concluded.

“CPDTs are a grand challenge problem in this growing convergence of high performance computing and oncology,” said contributor Amy Gryshuk, who serves as a lead in LLNL’s Strategic Science Engagements Office. “They have a tremendous potential to advance predictive medicine, but to fulfill that promise we will need to integrate multiscale and multimodal data to then build and test dynamic models at scale.”

Robots

Ford Invents The Ultimate Barbeque Robot

December 24, 2021

It’s the Terminator of cooked meats.

BY MICHAEL BUTLER

As the world becomes increasingly automated, car manufacturers, who have historically been innovators in the field of automation, are taking things to the next level. Hyundai’s newest employees are all robots, and even Honda plans on employing an army of delivery robots in the near future. Ford has also shown some serious advancement in the world of automation, with its most impressive being this robotic grilling machine, complete with a Ford Ranger front-end. The robot operates from Ford’s Silverton assembly plant in South Africa, and is blowing people away with its ability to flip a burger better than SpongeBob could ever dream of. Welcome to the future ladies and gentleman.

Ford calls this wondrous machine the TCF BBQ (Braai Boerewors Quickly), which refers to a type of South African sausage cooked on open coals. The TCF BBQ was salvaged from decommissioned tooling used in the Silverton Assembly Plant, and was dreamt up by Claude Roux, an area manager from the trim and chassis and final (TCF) line. The robot was programmed as part of a competition held by Ford South Africa to design something unique from decommissioned tools sitting at the plant.

New Inventions

Self-healing 3D printed plastic can repair itself using only light

December 23, 2021

3D printed materials treated with a reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) agent have been shown to self-heal under UV lights.

by Neil Martin

UNSW engineers have demonstrated a way to help 3D printed plastic heal itself at room temperature using only lights.

Professor Cyrille Boyer and his team, Dr. Nathaniel Corrigan and Mr Michael Zhang, in the UNSW School of Chemical Engineering have shown that the addition of “special powder” to the liquid resin used in the printing process can later assist with making quick and easy repairs should the material break.

This can be done very simply by shining standard LED lights on the printed plastic for around one hour which causes a chemical reaction and fusion of the two broken pieces.

The entire process actually makes the repaired plastic even stronger than it was before it was damaged, and it is hoped that further development and commercialisation of the technique will help to reduce chemical waste in the future.

That is because broken plastic parts would not need to be discarded, or even recycled, and could be mended simply even when remaining embedded in a component including many other materials.

The results of the team’s research have now been published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

Food

California’s New Lab-Grown Meat Facility Is the Most Advanced in the World

December 23, 2021

And it will be open to visitors.

If you weren’t aware of it, the amount of meat that humans consume globally has rapidly risen over the decades and meat production is now at an all-time high. According to the Worldwatch Institute, meat production has tripled over the last forty years, increasing by 20 percent in just the last decade. And more meat production leads to more carbon emissions that feed climate change.

Since the issue has become a major problem, companies around the world have been working on green alternatives to meat products. Perhaps you might remember our previous coverage of Impossible Foods’ Impossible Burgers and how they’re nearly identical to regular patties and Redefine Meat’s 3D-printed steaks.

One such company is Upside Foods, a cultured meat company that is headquartered in Berkley, California, and it claims that its vast 53,000-sq ft (16,154-m²) facility is the world’s most advanced lab-grown meat facility, so far.

Driverless vehicles

Ford to launch free food delivery program in southwest Detroit using autonomous shuttle

December 23, 2021

By Jordyn Grzelewski

In a move aimed both at fulfilling a community need and advancing vehicle technologies considered a key part of its future, Ford Motor Co. is launching a fresh food delivery pilot in southwest Detroit using an autonomous vehicle shuttle.

The Dearborn automaker, with its philanthropic arm the Ford Motor Co. Fund, on Tuesday announced a six-month initiative kicking off after the holidays that aims to deliver approximately 10,000 pounds of fresh food to residents of Rio Vista Detroit Co-op Apartments, a senior living center near Ford’s under-construction Michigan Central campus in Corktown.

The pilot builds on a free food program, called Ford Resource and Engagement Center on the Go, that the Ford Fund and Gleaners Community Food Bank launched earlier this year, doubling the existing food deliveries for more than 20 Rio Vista residents who participate in the service.

“We’re constantly thinking about how to expand our reach in communities for those who don’t have access to the most basic goods, like groceries or warm meals,” Joe Provenzano, mobility director for the Ford Fund, said in a statement. “Bringing Ford’s mobility expertise together with local collaborations allows us to create innovative solutions that make communities stronger and people’s lives better.”

The existing food delivery program operated by the Ford Fund and Gleaners already has distributed roughly 2.4 million pounds of food, according to a news release. Participants receive a mixture of dry and canned goods, plus fresh produce, milk and cheese. The pilot program will bring participants with an additional delivery, containing fresh produce and milk, each month.

Augmented Reality

Google is building a new augmented reality device and operating system

December 23, 2021

Job listings expose plans for a mobile AR platform intended to reach “billions.”

By SAMUEL AXON

Google was one of the early leaders in the first wave of modern augmented reality (AR) research and devices, but the company has appeared to cool to AR in recent years even as Apple and Facebook have invested heavily in it. But it looks like that trend will soon be reversed.

On LinkedIn, operating system engineering director Mark Lucovsky announced that he has joined Google. He previously headed up mixed reality operating system work for Meta, and before that he was one of the key architects of Windows NT at Microsoft. “My role is to lead the Operating System team for Augmented Reality at Google,” he wrote.

He also posted a link to some job listings at Google that give the impression Google is getting just as serious about AR as Apple or Meta.

DNA

New Gene-Writing Tool Helps To Develop Advanced Gene Therapies

December 23, 2021

| Original story from Pompeu Fabra University Barcelona

An international, multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Translational Synthetic Biology Laboratory at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona, Spain), led by Dr. Marc Güell, has published an article in the scientific journal Nature Communications showing the potential of Find Cut-and-Transfer (FiCAT) technology as a state-of-the-art tool for gene writing to develop advanced therapies that are safer and more effective in their future clinical application in patients with genetic and oncological diseases that have few treatment options.

The UPF Translational Synthetic Biology Laboratory has been working on gene editing and synthetic biology applied to gene therapies since 2017. FiCAT technology is an important scientific breakthrough to overcome the current limitations of the technology used today for genome editing and gene therapy.

“Human genome engineering has significantly progressed in the last decade with the development of new editing tools, but there was still a technology gap that would allow therapeutic genes to be transferred efficiently with few size limitations”, comments Dr. Marc Güell, supervisor of the study.

In this work, the researchers develop an efficient and precise programmable gene writing technology based on the combination of modified proteins CRISPR-cas and piggy Bac transposase (PB), succeeding in inserting small and large fragments. Dr. Maria Pallarès, co-first author of the study explains that: “CRISPR stands out for its precision when editing small fragments. However, transposases allow us to insert large fragments but in an uncontrolled manner. We have combined the best of each technology”.

Robots

Autonomous Two-Legged Robot Ascento Pro Has Motorized Wheels, Jumps Like a True Athlete

December 23, 2021

by Cristina Mircea

Wheeled robots are really starting to catch on, as this design makes them suitable for a variety of applications. The Ascento Pro is a good example of versatile mobile bots and it combines both the flexibility of the legs and the speed of wheels. 6 photos

Developed by Swiss company Ascento Robotics, the Ascento Pro is an upgraded version of the previous Ascento 2 machine, which was launched in 2020. That robot was already impressive in terms of motor skills, but the Pro version brings even more features to the table.

With a simple, compact, and modular design, the Ascento Pro is designed in a way that leaves enough space for custom sensors and various payloads. It has two legs, each with a motorized wheel, and a tensional spring in the knees, which compensates for the bot’s own weight. It can bend its knees to get even smaller, it can walk on any surface, climb stairs, jump up and forward, and hop over obstacles.

Augmented Reality

Oppo Air Glass assisted reality device is like nothing we’ve seen before

December 21, 2021

By Chris Smith

Augmented reality (AR) is the next big thing in tech, with Apple making no secret of its focus on AR features for its products. One of the most exciting AR rumors out there says that Apple is developing sleek pair of Apple Glasses that will project AR content to the user retina. But technology has not gotten to the point where it can offer these features, and Oppo’s newly announced Air Glass device proves it. The Air Glass is light and sleek, but the device doesn’t provide augmented reality features. Instead, we’re looking at features that Oppo calls assisted reality or AR.

Robots

Courier service Glovo to use robots for Madrid deliveries

December 21, 2021

MADRID – The decision of the Madrid City Council to allow self-driving vehicles on the street is an excellent opportunity for Glovo to start with robot deliveries. The courier service has now applied for approval for a trial in the chic Salamanca district.

If it is up to Glovo, the robots will take to the streets after approval in January. This represents a major challenge for the city council of the Spanish capital. On one hand, it wants to make Madrid an attractive location for innovative companies. However, on the other hand, it must continue to monitor safety on the street.

In addition to Glovo, the Madrid start-up Goggo Network has also requested approval for putting self-driving vehicles on the road. The intention is that these vehicles, like Glovo’s robots, will be deployed in the Salamanca district. It will then be the first time that automated vehicles will drive around the city.