Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: robotics/AI

Over the past decade or so, researchers have been trying to develop techniques that could enable effective collaborative strategies among teams of robots. One of the tasks that teams of robots could complete better than individual robots is simultaneously searching for several targets or objects in their surrounding environment.

The ability of a team of robots to collectively seek and identify numerous targets at once could be useful for a wide range of applications. For instance, it could aid surveillance applications and help to better track individuals or vehicles.

Researchers at Tongji University and University of Stuttgart have recently devised a systematic framework for enabling more effective multiple target search in swarm robots. This framework, presented in a paper published in IEEE Access, is based on the use of a mechanical particle swarm optimization method and artificial potential fields.

Read more | >

For many comparatively simple ai applications, that means that the cost of training a computer is falling, says Christopher Manning, an associate director of the Institute for Human-Centered AI at the University of Stanford. But that is not true everywhere. A combination of ballooning complexity and competition means costs at the cutting edge are rising sharply.

Increased complexity and competition are part of it.

Technology Quarterly Jun 11th 2020 edition.

Read more | >

Tesla’s Autonomy Day in April 2019 gave supporters of the company a look into Elon Musk’s vision of a fully-autonomous future. While the event featured the company’s strategies for the future as it prepares to “free investors from the tyranny of having to drive their own cars,” the $100 billion agriculture sector is also looking into sustainable, self-driving technologies that would revolutionize the industry.

Santa Monica, California-based lawn and landscaping startup Graze is developing a solar-powered, fully-autonomous lawn mower that requires no human interaction. The battery-operated, fully-autonomous mower is being developed by Graze CEO John Vay who has an extensive background in landscaping, and CTO Roman Flores whose past employers include NASA and the Caltech Curiosity Mars Rover Team. The two minds are developing the product in an attempt to revolutionize commercial agriculture as we know it.

Read more | >

Disinfecting spaces such as warehouses is especially critical during the COVID-19 pandemic, but doing so while keeping workers safe can be challenging. So MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory came up with a solution: use a robot that employs UV-C light to disinfect surfaces and neutralize aerosolized forms of coronavirus.

Through a collaboration with Ava Robotics and the Greater Boston Food Bank, CSAIL mounted a custom UV-C lamp on an Ava Robotics mobile robot base. The lamp neutralizes around 90% of surface microorganisms, according to CSAIL. The robot is initially operated by a remote user and subsequently works autonomously, and can disinfect 4,000 square feet of warehouse space in half an hour.

Read more | >

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) revealed a miniaturized electromagnetic railgun based pistol- and- rifle-sized synchronous induction coilgun prototypes.

These weapons’ technical capabilities were recently revealed in a demonstration session. The weapons are in prototype stage, state media reported Sunday.

Developed by the PLA Army Logistics University, the weapons, named Small Synchronous Induction Coilguns, come with pistol-sized, rifle-sized and land robot-mounted variants, according to a report by Chinese military news website js7tv.cn last week.

Read more | >

There are risks and rewards for any kind of new weapon, and how the Air Force buiilds its next plane is a big question.

By Kris Osborn

Should the Air Force and Navy prioritize the engineering of an entirely new platform with paradigm-changing technologies for a 6th-Generation fighter, or simply keep upgrading the state of the art 5th-Gen aircraft in the near term?

Read more | >