A robotic underwater vehicle that can hover in place like a helicopter has been developed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The new craft, Odyssey IV, is the latest in a series of small, inexpensive artificially intelligent submarines developed over the last two decades by The MIT Sea Grant College Program’s Autonomous Underwater Vehicles laboratory.

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Whether driving on the highway or walking down the street, we pick up on both deliberate signals and unconscious cues to predict what other people are going to do and act accordingly. But robots have trouble following each other around, for example, when a leader turns a corner and disappears from sight. Researchers at UC Davis have come up with a control system that allows a robot to pick up on cues that the leader is about to turn, predict where it is going and follow it.

“The following problem is a quite fundamental problem in robotics,” said Sanjay Joshi, associate professor of mechanical and aeronautical engineering at UC Davis. Robots that are better at following could be easier for people to work with, he said. A hospital robot could follow a doctor around the wards.

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There are big changes ahead in social interactions, robotics and improvements in the ability of computer to sense the real world, according to Justin Rattner, chief technology officer at Intel Corporation.

Rattner explained: “The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago. There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason in the not so distant future.”

In his keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Rattner looked at how technology is xpected to bring man an machine closer together by 2050.

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Dr Tony Belpaeme has been awarded £165,000 by the EPSRC to study how robots can learn concepts from humans, and how that knowledge can be passed on to other robots.

Researchers at the University of Plymouth, are to build two robots that will learn the meanings of words through interacting with people, much in the same way that young children learn conceptual knowledge from hearing adults speak to them about objects, relations and actions.

It takes children three years to master a few hundred words and related concepts – the duration of this project, however, the researchers hope to speed up this process of word-concept learning by using training more than one robot, and so reducing the training time needed, and then downloading the missing knowledge from one robot to the other. Such ‘telepathic’ access to concepts is impossible for humans: we need to resort to pointing out examples of concepts and speaking about them, but direct transfer should be easy to arrange for robots. However, just copying information from one robot to another will almost certainly upset the conceptual knowledge already present in the receiving robot. To avoid this, direct transfer of conceptual knowledge needs to proceed with care in order to not disturb already present knowledge.

The project has two main aims.

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Scientists hope to launch specialised space robots with the ability to think for themselves by 2020.

Currently all of the machines and rovers on Mars and around space are controlled by humans sending them instructions. Virtually everything is a command which must be given. This project, led by Wolfgang Fink, senior researcher, California Institute of Technology, aims to turn over a lot of the decision making to the robots. It would allow NASA to use their workforce more effectively, and speed up the process of researching space.

The robots could also reduce the necessity of humans in dangerous space missions that require on the spot reactions, and could ultimately eliminate the need for humans in space.

Fanuc Robotics has announced that its M-430iA/2F high-speed, food picking robot is the first to meet the hygiene requirements for meat and poultry processing.

Designed specifically for food washdown environments, the M-430iA/2F food robot is capable of picking primary food and packaged products at speeds up to 120 cycles per minute on a continuous basis while using visual line tracking. In addition, the compact robot can be mounted in a variety of positions including floor, wall or invert, which maximizes flexibility for tight workspaces.

“We’re extremely proud that the M-430iA is built in accordance with the USDA, AMS hygiene requirements for the materials, design, and fabrication of equipment used in the preparation and packaging of food products,” said Sumeet Vispute, product manager, picking, packing, and palletizing, FANUC Robotics America, Inc. fan”The M-430iA robot has met or exceeded the USDA, AMS criteria as published in the NSF/ANSI/3-A 14159-1 2002 specifications, passed inspection, and earned the right to bear the USDA, AMS Meat and Poultry Accepted Equipment logo.”

The US Army is putting robots destined for the scrap heap to good use, by sending them into potentially contaminated areas, so soldiers don’t need to risk their lives.

The robot, the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Unmanned Ground Vehicle, or CUGV (part of the CBRN Unmanned Ground Reconnaissance Concept), was previously used with explosive ordnance disposal units around the Army, but more current models have made them redundant. Now the CUGV is being used to detect ammonia, chlorine, carbon monoxide, oxygen levels, lower explosive limits, volatile organic compounds, gamma radiation rate and dose rate, temperature and humidity. An onboard lightweight chemical detector means the device will also detect nerve and blister agents.

In addition to just finding contaminated areas and deciphering the level of danger, the robot can also mark the areas for further sampling and investigation or decontamination.

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A team at the University of Washington has developed a group of three Robofish that communicate with each other underwater.

While most ocean robots need to periodically surface to communicate with scientists or satellite intermediaries, the ability of these Robofish, which are roughly the size of a 10-pound salmon, and use fins rather than propellers for increased manoeuvrability, to communicated underwater mean they need not surface until the their task is complete.

Kristi Morgansen, from the University of Washington, explained: “Underwater robots don’t need oxygen. The only reason they come up to the surface right now is for communication.”

In order to get the Robofish to communicate underwater, the researchers faced the challenge of having the robots transmit information through dense water.

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Microscopic robots crafted to manoeuvre separately without any obvious guidance are now assembling into self-organised structures.

Bruce Donald, the Duke University computer scientist behind the research, explained that each microbot is shaped something like a spatula but with dimensions measuring just microns. They are almost 100 times smaller than any previous robotic designs of their kind and weigh even less.

In videos produced by the Duke University team, two microbots can be seen pirouetting to the music of a Strauss waltz on a dance floor measuring 1mm access. In another sequence, the devices pivot whenever their boom-like steering arms are drawn down to the surface by an electric charge.

The microbots propel themselves across an electrified surface in the style of an inchworm. Driven by a ‘scratch-drive’ motion actuator, the microbots move between just 10 and 20 billionths of a meter each, but the motion is repeated up to 20,000 times every second.

In a new report, the research team shows that five of the microbots can be made to advance, turn and circle together in pre-planned ways when each is built with slightly different dimensions and stiffness.

Engineers at Duke University believe that the results of feasibility studies conducted in their laboratory represent the first concrete steps towards robots performing surgery on patients in dangerous situations, or in remote locations, such as on the battlefield, or in space, with minimal human guidance.

On a more immediate level, the technology developed by the engineers could make certain contemporary medical procedures safer for patients.

For their experiments, the engineers started with a rudimentary tabletop robot whose “eyes” used a novel 3-D ultrasound technology developed in the Duke laboratories. An artificial intelligence program served as the robot’s “brain” by taking real-time 3-D information, processing it, and giving the robot specific commands to perform.

Stephen Smith, director of the Duke University Ultrasound Transducer Group and senior member of the research team, explained: “In a number of tasks, the computer was able to direct the robot’s actions.

“We believe that this is the first proof-of-concept for this approach. Given that we achieved these early results with a rudimentary robot and a basic artificial intelligence program, the technology will advance to the point where robots – without the guidance of the doctor – can someday operate on people.”

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To help scientists collect the more detailed data they need in order to find out why the world’s ice shelves are melting, without risking scientists’ safety, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in conjunction with Pennsylvania State University, have created specially designed robots called SnoMotes to traverse these potentially dangerous ice environments.

The SnoMotes work as a team, autonomously collaborating among themselves to cover all the necessary ground to gather assigned scientific measurements. Data gathered by the Snomotes could give scientists a better understanding of the important dynamics that influence the stability of ice sheets.

Ayanna Howard, lead on the project and an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, explained: “In order to say with certainty how climate change affects the world’s ice, scientists need accurate data points to validate their climate models. Our goal was to create rovers that could gather more accurate data to help scientists create better climate models. It’s definitely science-driven robotics.”

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SRI International, an independent nonprofit research and development organization, has demonstrated robust wall-climbing robots using a new electrical adhesive technology called compliant electroadhesion.

Electroadhesion is an electrically controllable adhesion technology that is being applied to wall-climbing robots for the first time.

It involves inducing electrostatic charges on a wall surface using a power supply connected to compliant pads placed on the moving robot.

Unlike conventional or dry adhesives, the electroadhesion can be turned off for mobility or cleaning.

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Engineers have unveiled a sophisticated robotic prototype developed to roam the surface of Mars as part of Europe’s billion-euro ExoMars mission.

The new prototype, developed by MDA Corporation, will help engineers understand how the real rover will behave when it moves through Mars’ rocky terrain, and will test a possible suspension and locomotion set-up to be built into the final rover design.

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