Tag: robotics

AAA is testing self-driving cars to see how safe they are

Fully autonomous cars won’t be allowed on the streets until they’re safe , but how will we know when that happens? The American Automobile Association (AAA) is trying to figure that out by testing self-driving cars powered by Torc Robotics “Asimov” system. The aim is to gather information and develop safety criteria that could be used by any company developing self-driving tech. “By creating a blueprint for automakers to follow, we hope to build public trust in technology, ” said AAA Northern California, Nevada & Utah CEO Tim Condon. A recent AAA survey found that 75 percent of Americans are skeptical of self-driving cars, and as a driver-focused, independent organization, the AAA feels its well-placed to help build up that trust. Torc Robotics, meanwhile, is one of the early pioneers of self-driving, having placed third in DARPA’s 2007 Urban Challenge — back when self-driving cars were a bit more bulky . The Asimov system has been cross-country tested in more than 20 states, it notes. The non-profit AAA has historically weighed in on motorist rights and safety issues, supporting increased infrastructure spending, lower speed limits and gas tax increases. It’s aware that its business model is changing rapidly, however, with the arrival of EVs, self-driving cars and other tech. Autonomous cars, it believes, “have the potential to dramatically reduce traffic fatalities on our roadways.” The AAA even launched its own one-way car-sharing service in the Bay Area recently. “We’re acknowledging that transportation habits are changing, ” Condon said. “AAA is over a hundred years old, and we remain committed to continuously innovating in the area of traffic safety.”

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AAA is testing self-driving cars to see how safe they are

These Are the Wildly Advanced Space Exploration Concepts Being Considered by NASA

Earlier today, NASA announced funding for 22 projects as part of its Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. From a planet hopping laser-driven sail and a solar powered Venusian weather balloon to an autonomous rover on Pluto, the future of space exploration looks incredibly bright. Read more…

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These Are the Wildly Advanced Space Exploration Concepts Being Considered by NASA

Harvard’s soft exosuit makes walking 23 percent easier

Harvard Wyss Institute researchers have been working on a soft exosuit with DARPA’s financial help for years. While they were able to present a proof of concept in 2016, it’s only now that they’ve found out just how much the suit can actually help its wearer. According to a new study published in Science Robotics , Harvard’s exosuit reduces the energy a user needs to exert while walking by 23 percent. It does that by providing assistive force to the ankle at the perfect moment when you take another step. Team leader Conor Walsh said that’s the highest percentage of reduction in energy use observed with an exosuit: “In a test group of seven healthy wearers, we clearly saw that the more assistance provided to the ankle joints, the more energy the wearers could save with a maximum reduction of almost 23% compared to walking with the exosuit powered-off. To our knowledge, this is the highest relative reduction in energy expenditure observed to date with a tethered exoskeleton or exosuit.” Of course, assistive force wouldn’t be as helpful without an effective design. As Wired explains, the muscles and tendons from the hip to the knee need to work together in stabilizing the leg to achieve an efficient stride. So the researchers couldn’t stop with something that only covers the ankles — they had to use garters to connect the ankle straps to a hip girdle. The result is the exosuit’s current form, which you can see below. That said, the researchers admit that they need to conduct follow-up tests. For one, they had the subjects offload the exosuit’s cable-based actuation, electronics and battery units before conducting the experiment. Those make up an additional 17-plus pounds that would have changed the wearers’ situation. Further, they found that the subjects’ gaits changed depending on how much assistive force they provided, which was between 10 to 38 percent of the ankle force needed to take a step. They still need to explore the possibility that the reduction in energy is a result of the subjects’ change in gait rather than the assistive force itself. In the future, Harvard’s exosuit could help the elderly and patients suffering from Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy and other conditions to walk well on their own. As you can guess from that DARPA funding, though, it also has a potential military application: the agency hopes it can help soldiers carry heavy supplies far longer than they’d normally be able to. [Image credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University] Via: Wired , New Scientist Source: Harvard’s Wyss Institute

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Harvard’s soft exosuit makes walking 23 percent easier

Pop-up sensor would give robot surgeons a sense of touch

Robotic surgery is no longer the stuff of science fiction. However, these robots can’t really feel their way around — the need for super-small mechanisms rules out existing approaches to touch. That’s where Harvard researchers might come to save the day. They’ve developed a pop-up sensor whose four layers collapse to a tiny footprint (just a tenth of an inch) when necessary, but expand into a 3D sensor thanks to a built-in spring. The design is extremely sensitive, too, with a light intensity sensor that can detected mere millinewtons of force. Source: Harvard University , IEEE Sensors Journal

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Pop-up sensor would give robot surgeons a sense of touch

Smoother movements help robots save a lot of energy

Eliminating the herky-jerky movements of robots isn’t just good for comforting nervous humans… it helps the robots, too. Researchers have developed smooth movement algorithms that slow the acceleration and deceleration of robots, saving as much as 40 percent of the energy they’d normally use. The trick is to order tasks in a way that lets robots move at their own pace without colliding into each other. Factory robots typically rush through tasks in a rigid order, only to wait for their fellow automatons to catch up. Here, they’re more flexible as to when and how quickly they get things done. You may see these more graceful robotics sooner than you think. General Motors is one of the partners in the project, and it has a vested interest in saving as much energy as it can. Robots use roughly half of the electricity at a vehicle assembly plant — if GM can save a lot of money using nothing more than code, you know it’s going to leap on that opportunity. While it’ll likely take a long time before robots ship with smoother movements from the get-go, it won’t be surprising if the underlying algorithms eventually become ubiquitous. [Image credit: Oscar Mattson, Chalmers University] Filed under: Robots , Science Comments Via: Geek Source: Chalmers Tags: algorithm, chalmers, ChalmersUniversity, factory, generalmotors, gm, robot, robotics, science, video

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Smoother movements help robots save a lot of energy

Scientists Turn To Seahorses For Nearly Unbreakable Limbs

 Researchers at Clemson University have created a new sort of robotic design based on the long, curled tail of the seahorse. The seahorse is unique because it consists of “square prisms surrounded by bony plates that are connected by joints.” Other animal tails are cylindrical and therefore easily crushed. The researchers write: Researchers found that the square prototype was… Read More

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Scientists Turn To Seahorses For Nearly Unbreakable Limbs

NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovered 1,000 Planets In Its Quest to Find Life

It was six years ago this month that NASA shot the Kepler telescope to the heavens on a galactic, planet-finding mission. Today, the space agency released this graphic that could also be Kepler’s mic-dropping resume. Read more…

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NASA’s Kepler Mission Discovered 1,000 Planets In Its Quest to Find Life

Apple Just Gave iOS 8 a Few New Tricks

We’ve long known that iOS 8 was a powerful (mostly under-the-hood) upgrade . But on its official launch day, Apple announced a few new features that really take the operating system to the next level. And you won’t even have to hunt very hard to find them! Read more…

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Apple Just Gave iOS 8 a Few New Tricks

Postal Service Starting To Use Mobile Point of Sale Tech

An anonymous reader writes “The U.S. Postal Service is conducting a pilot test of mobile point of sale technology in 50 facilities, using a modified iPod device and printers. During the holiday season, the 50 facilities testing mPOS processed more than 102, 000 transactions using the technology.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Postal Service Starting To Use Mobile Point of Sale Tech