Tag Archives: Team
#437824 Video Friday: These Giant Robots Are ...
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here's what we have so far (send us your events!):
ACRA 2020 – December 8-10, 2020 – [Online]
Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today's videos.
“Who doesn’t love giant robots?”
Luma, is a towering 8 metre snail which transforms spaces with its otherworldly presence. Another piece, Triffid, stands at 6 metres and its flexible end sweeps high over audiences’ heads like an enchanted plant. The movement of the creatures is inspired by the flexible, wiggling and contorting motions of the animal kingdom and is designed to provoke instinctive reactions and emotions from the people that meet them. Air Giants is a new creative robotic studio founded in 2020. They are based in Bristol, UK, and comprise a small team of artists, roboticists and software engineers. The studio is passionate about creating emotionally effective motion at a scale which is thought-provoking and transporting, as well as expanding the notion of what large robots can be used for.
Here’s a behind the scenes and more on how the creatures work.
[ Air Giants ]
Thanks Emma!
If the idea of submerging a very expensive sensor payload being submerged in a lake makes you as uncomfortable as it makes me, this is not the video for you.
[ ANYbotics ]
As the pandemic continues on, the measures due to this health crisis are increasingly stringent, and working from home continues to be promoted and solicited by many companies, Pepper will allow you to keep in touch with your relatives or even your colleagues.
[ Softbank ]
Fairly impressive footwork from Tencent Robotics.
Although, LittleDog was doing that like a decade ago:
[ Tencent ]
It's been long enough since I've been able to go out for boba tea that a robotic boba tea kiosk seems like a reasonable thing to get for my living room.
[ Bobacino ] via [ Gizmodo ]
Road construction and maintenance is challenging and dangerous work. Pioneer Industrial Systems has spent over twenty years designing custom robotic systems for industrial manufacturers around the world. These robotic systems greatly improve safety and increase efficiency. Now they’re taking that expertise on the road, with the Robotic Maintenance Vehicle. This base unit can be mounted on a truck or trailer, and utilizes various modules to perform a variety of road maintenance tasks.
[ Pioneer ]
Extend Robotics arm uses cloud-based teleoperation software, featuring human-like dexterity and intelligence, with multiple applications in healthcare, utilities and energy
[ Extend Robotics ]
ARC, short for “AI, Robot, Cloud,” includes the latest algorithms and high precision data required for human-robot coexistence. Now with ultra-low latency networks, many robots can simultaneously become smarter, just by connecting to ARC. “ARC Eye” serves as the eyes for all robots, accurately determining the current location and route even indoors where there is no GPS access. “ARC Brain” is the computing system shared simultaneously by all robots, which plans and processes movement, localization, and task performance for the robot.
[ Naver Labs ]
How can we re-imagine urban infrastructures with cutting-edge technologies? Listen to this webinar from Ger Baron, Amsterdam’s CTO, and Senseable City Lab’s researchers, on how MIT and Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS Institute) are reimagining Amsterdam’s canals with the first fleet of autonomous boats.
[ MIT ]
Join Guy Burroughes in this webinar recording to hear about Spot, the robot dog created by Boston Dynamics, and how RACE plan to use it in nuclear decommissioning and beyond.
[ UKAEA ]
This GRASP on Robotics seminar comes from Marco Pavone at Stanford University, “On Safe and Efficient Human-robot interactions via Multimodal Intent Modeling and Reachability-based Safety Assurance.”
In this talk I will present a decision-making and control stack for human-robot interactions by using autonomous driving as a motivating example. Specifically, I will first discuss a data-driven approach for learning multimodal interaction dynamics between robot-driven and human-driven vehicles based on recent advances in deep generative modeling. Then, I will discuss how to incorporate such a learned interaction model into a real-time, interaction-aware decision-making framework. The framework is designed to be minimally interventional; in particular, by leveraging backward reachability analysis, it ensures safety even when other cars defy the robot's expectations without unduly sacrificing performance. I will present recent results from experiments on a full-scale steer-by-wire platform, validating the framework and providing practical insights. I will conclude the talk by providing an overview of related efforts from my group on infusing safety assurances in robot autonomy stacks equipped with learning-based components, with an emphasis on adding structure within robot learning via control-theoretical and formal methods.
[ UPenn ]
Autonomous Systems Failures: Who is Legally and Morally Responsible? Sponsored by Northwestern University’s Law and Technology Initiative and AI@NU, the event was moderated by Dan Linna and included Northwestern Engineering's Todd Murphey, University of Washington Law Professor Ryan Calo, and Google Senior Research Scientist Madeleine Clare Elish.
[ Northwestern ] Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#437820 In-Shoe Sensors and Mobile Robots Keep ...
In shoe sensor
Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology are leveraging some of the newest mechanical and robotic technologies to help some of our oldest populations stay healthy, active, and independent.
Yi Guo, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of the Robotics and Automation Laboratory, and Damiano Zanotto, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and director of the Wearable Robotic Systems Laboratory, are collaborating with Ashley Lytle, assistant professor in Stevens’ College of Arts and Letters, and Ashwini K. Rao of Columbia University Medical Center, to combine an assistive mobile robot companion with wearable in-shoe sensors in a system designed to help elderly individuals maintain the balance and motion they need to thrive.
“Balance and motion can be significant issues for this population, and if elderly people fall and experience an injury, they are less likely to stay fit and exercise,” Guo said. “As a consequence, their level of fitness and performance decreases. Our mobile robot companion can help decrease the chances of falling and contribute to a healthy lifestyle by keeping their walking function at a good level.”
The mobile robots are designed to lead walking sessions and using the in-shoe sensors, monitor the user’s gait, indicate issues, and adjust the exercise speed and pace. The initiative is part of a four-year National Science Foundation research project.
“For the first time, we’re integrating our wearable sensing technology with an autonomous mobile robot,” said Zanotto, who worked with elderly people at Columbia University Medical Center for three years before coming to Stevens in 2016. “It’s exciting to be combining these different areas of expertise to leverage the strong points of wearable sensing technology, such as accurately capturing human movement, with the advantages of mobile robotics, such as much larger computational powers.”
The team is developing algorithms that fuse real-time data from smart, unobtrusive, in-shoe sensors and advanced on-board sensors to inform the robot’s navigation protocols and control the way the robot interacts with elderly individuals. It’s a promising way to assist seniors in safely doing walking exercises and maintaining their quality of life.
Bringing the benefits of the lab to life
Guo and Zanotto are working with Lytle, an expert in social and health psychology, to implement a social connectivity capability and make the bi-directional interaction between human and robot even more intuitive, engaging, and meaningful for seniors.
“Especially during COVID, it’s important for elderly people living on their own to connect socially with family and friends,” Zanotto said, “and the robot companion will also offer teleconferencing tools to provide that interaction in an intuitive and transparent way.”
“We want to use the robot for social connectedness, perhaps integrating it with a conversation agent such as Alexa,” Guo added. “The goal is to make it a companion robot that can sense, for example, that you are cooking, or you’re in the living room, and help with things you would do there.”
It’s a powerful example of how abstract concepts can have meaningful real-life benefits.
“As engineers, we tend to work in the lab, trying to optimize our algorithms and devices and technologies,” Zanotto noted, “but at the end of the day, what we do has limited value unless it has impact on real life. It’s fascinating to see how the devices and technologies we’re developing in the lab can be applied to make a difference for real people.”
Maintaining balance in a global pandemic
Although COVID-19 has delayed the planned testing at a senior center in New York City, it has not stopped the team’s progress.
“Although we can’t test on elderly populations yet, our students are still testing in the lab,” Guo said. “This summer and fall, for the first time, the students validated the system’s real-time ability to monitor and assess the dynamic margin of stability during walking—in other words, to evaluate whether the person following the robot is walking normally or has a risk of falling. They’re also designing parameters for the robot to give early warnings and feedback that help the human subjects correct posture and gait issues while walking.”
Those warnings would be literally underfoot, as the in-shoe sensors would pulse like a vibrating cell phone to deliver immediate directional information to the subject.
“We’re not the first to use this vibrotactile stimuli technology, but this application is new,” Zanotto said.
So far, the team has published papers in top robotics publication venues including IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering and the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). It’s a big step toward realizing the synergies of bringing the technical expertise of engineers to bear on the clinical focus on biometrics—and the real lives of seniors everywhere. Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots
#437805 Video Friday: Quadruped Robot HyQ ...
Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):
RSS 2020 – July 12-16, 2020 – [Virtual Conference]
CLAWAR 2020 – August 24-26, 2020 – [Virtual Conference]
ICUAS 2020 – September 1-4, 2020 – Athens, Greece
ICRES 2020 – September 28-29, 2020 – Taipei, Taiwan
IROS 2020 – October 25-29, 2020 – Las Vegas, Nevada
ICSR 2020 – November 14-16, 2020 – Golden, Colorado
Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.
Four-legged HyQ balancing on two legs. Nice results from the team at IIT’s Dynamic Legged Systems Lab. And we can’t wait to see the “ninja walk,” currently shown in simulation, implemented with the real robot!
The development of balance controllers for legged robots with point feet remains a challenge when they have to traverse extremely constrained environments. We present a balance controller that has the potential to achieve line walking for quadruped robots. Our initial experiments show the 90-kg robot HyQ balancing on two feet and recovering from external pushes, as well as some changes in posture achieved without losing balance.
[ IIT ]
Thanks Victor!
Ava Robotics’ telepresence robot has been beheaded by MIT, and it now sports a coronavirus-destroying UV array.
UV-C light has proven to be effective at killing viruses and bacteria on surfaces and aerosols, but it’s unsafe for humans to be exposed. Fortunately, Ava’s telepresence robot doesn’t require any human supervision. Instead of the telepresence top, the team subbed in a UV-C array for disinfecting surfaces. Specifically, the array uses short-wavelength ultraviolet light to kill microorganisms and disrupt their DNA in a process called ultraviolet germicidal irradiation. The complete robot system is capable of mapping the space — in this case, GBFB’s warehouse — and navigating between waypoints and other specified areas. In testing the system, the team used a UV-C dosimeter, which confirmed that the robot was delivering the expected dosage of UV-C light predicted by the model.
[ MIT ]
While it’s hard enough to get quadrupedal robots to walk in complex environments, this work from the Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich shows some impressive whole body planning that allows ANYmal to squeeze its body through small or weirdly shaped spaces.
[ RSL ]
Engineering researchers at North Carolina State University and Temple University have developed soft robots inspired by jellyfish that can outswim their real-life counterparts. More practically, the new jellyfish-bots highlight a technique that uses pre-stressed polymers to make soft robots more powerful.
The researchers also used the technique to make a fast-moving robot that resembles a larval insect curling its body, then jumping forward as it quickly releases its stored energy. Lastly, the researchers created a three-pronged gripping robot – with a twist. Most grippers hang open when “relaxed,” and require energy to hold on to their cargo as it is lifted and moved from point A to point B. But this claw’s default position is clenched shut. Energy is required to open the grippers, but once they’re in position, the grippers return to their “resting” mode – holding their cargo tight.
[ NC State ]
As control skills increase, we are more and more impressed by what a Cassie bipedal robot can do. Those who have been following our channel, know that we always show the limitations of our work. So while there is still much to do, you gotta like the direction things are going. Later this year, you will see this controller integrated with our real-time planner and perception system. Autonomy with agility! Watch out for us!
[ University of Michigan ]
GITAI’s S1 arm is a little less exciting than their humanoid torso, but it looks like this one might actually be going to the ISS next year.
Here’s how the humanoid would handle a similar task:
[ GITAI ]
Thanks Fan!
If you need a robot that can lift 250 kg at 10 m/s across a workspace of a thousand cubic meters, here’s your answer.
[ Fraunhofer ]
Penn engineers with funding from the National Science Foundation, have nanocardboard plates able to levitate when bright light is shone on them. This fleet of tiny aircraft could someday explore the skies of other worlds, including Mars. The thinner atmosphere there would give the flyers a boost, enabling them to carry payloads ten times as massive as they are, making them an efficient, light-weight alternative to the Mars helicopter.
[ UPenn ]
Erin Sparks, assistant professor in Plant and Soil Sciences, dreamed of a robot she could use in her research. A perfect partnership was formed when Adam Stager, then a mechanical engineering Ph.D. student, reached out about a robot he had a gut feeling might be useful in agriculture. The pair moved forward with their research with corn at the UD Farm, using the robot to capture dynamic phenotyping information of brace roots over time.
[ Sparks Lab ]
This is a video about robot spy turtles but OMG that bird drone landing gear.
[ PBS ]
If you have a DJI Mavic, you now have something new to worry about.
[ DroGone ]
I was able to spot just one single person in the warehouse footage in this video.
[ Berkshire Grey ]
Flyability has partnered with the ROBINS Project to help fill gaps in the technology used in ship inspections. Watch this video to learn more about the ROBINS project and how Flyability’s drones for confined spaces are helping make inspections on ships safer, cheaper, and more efficient.
[ Flyability ]
In this video, a mission of the Alpha Aerial Scout of Team CERBERUS during the DARPA Subterranean Challenge Urban Circuit event is presented. The Alpha Robot operates inside the Satsop Abandoned Power Plant and performs autonomous exploration. This deployment took place during the 3rd field trial of team CERBERUS during the Urban Circuit event of the DARPA Subterranean Challenge.
[ ARL ]
More excellent talks from the remote Legged Robots ICRA workshop- we’ve posted three here, but there are several other good talks this week as well.
[ ICRA 2020 Legged Robots Workshop ] Continue reading
Posted in Human Robots