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As Russia ramps up preparations for a possible assault on Ukraine, President Biden has ruled out sending U.S. troops, but an invasion would still face serious resistance and Ukraine’s defense minister promising a ‘bloody massacre’ if Russia invades. While Ukraine is heavily outmatched by Russian forces, the threat of heavy casualties is one which Russian cannot ignore. This is why uncrewed systems – remote-controlled robot warriors – could play an important part where the fighting is heaviest.

Soviet Russia shrugged off mass casualties, with Stalin remarking, “One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.” During World War II – the Great Patriotic War to Russians – the Soviet Union lost more than 8 million members of its armed forces, 20 times as many as the United States. Names like Stalingrad became legendary for bloody battles and tough resistance regardless of casualties.

Modern Russia is very different. Unlike Stalin, President Putin cannot ignore public opinion, and his media machine will hide or deny Russian casualties in foreign operations. Mercenaries are increasingly used to keep conflict at arm’s length, as the loss of contractors does not play so badly in the motherland.

And it looks a little creepy.

Roboticists at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) strapped a fully functioning jetpack onto their humanoid robot, called iRonCub, a report from IEEE Spectrum reveals.

While several outlets have unsurprisingly drawn comparisons to Iron Man, the truth looks far scarier, and like something out of an as-yet unmade horror movie.

In the same configuration as Gravity Industries’ famous Iron Man-like jetpack design, the iRonCub robot was equipped with four jet engines, giving it the ability to fly. Tests are ongoing, but let’s just say, the team at IIT have struggled at times to keep their robot from igniting, and even exploding, due to the exhaust from the engines.

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A team at Swiss-Mile, a spinoff of ETH Zurich has improved upon its ANYmal robot by giving it wheels—the result is known as the Swiss-Mile Robot. And by giving it wheels, the robot is now classified as a car, a quadruped and a humanoid robot, depending on its activity at any given time. Like the original ANYmal, the Swiss-Mile has a cartoonish look about it, as if it rolled out of one of the Pixar “Cars” movies.

It is also deceptively agile. In car mode, it rolls on the ground like a remote-controlled toy car but with much better abilities. It can roll up and down stairs and over objects it has never encountered without hesitation. It keeps on rolling with gusto, moving over any obstacle in its path, lifting up whatever wheels may need lifting, making it a rolling, stepping quadruped. But then it lifts its front end off the ground and rolls or walks on its two rear wheels, like a human on roller skates. Adding lock has really given the robot a lot of options, allowing it to stop rolling, if need be, and to walk on two or four feet.

Watching the Swiss-Mile in action, such as in this YouTube video or this one, one thing is very clear: Wheels are much more efficient in many instances than feet. The robot looks eager to go as it rolls around engaging in acts of nimble agility. Also, unlike Big Dog or its cousins, Swiss-Mile never seems to lose its cool or to hesitate. It never looks afraid to plow forward, like a puppy who has not yet learned that sometimes doing stuff can hurt or result in damage.

Israeli drone manufacturer Airobotics has collaborated with Israeli solar farm services company Solar Drone to develop and supply to Solar Drone a unique solar panel cleaning drone system. The fully automated system will include a drone docking station for automatic battery replacement and cleaning fluid replenishment, enabling the system to operate continuously.

While solar power and solar panels are essentially maintenance-free systems, but solar panels do require cleaning from time to time to enable proper function. Dirt, dust, mud, and bird dropping greatly reduce solar panel efficiency, impacting power output. Frequent cleaning is expensive and time-consuming, especially when panels are remote, difficult to access, or difficult to clean.

A new “drone-in-a-box”-type system is now being developed to do this job. A quadrocopter is housed inside a weatherproof dock located near the solar panels. At regular intervals, the station doors on top will open, releasing the drone. The drone will then take off and fly up to the panels, using LiDAR sensors and mapping cameras for more accurate positioning. Each panel will be sprayed with a cleaning fluid, and after completing the task, the drone will return to the docking station. If necessary, the robotic system will replace the discharged battery with the charged one and replace its cleaning fluid container with a full one.

Scientists from the Division of Mechanical Science and Engineering at Kanazawa University developed a prototype pipe maintenance robot that can unclog and repair pipes with a wide range of diameters. Using a cutting tool with multiple degrees of freedom, the machine is capable of manipulating and dissecting objects for removal. This work may be a significant step forward for the field of sewerage maintenance robots.

Various sewer pipes that are essential to the services of buildings require regular inspection, repair, and maintenance. Current robots that move inside pipes are primarily designed only for visual surveying or inspection. Some robots were developed for maintenance, but they couldn’t execute complicated tasks. In– robots that can also clear blockages or perform complex tasks are highly desirable, especially for pipes that are too narrow for humans to traverse. Now, a team of researchers at Kanazawa University have developed and tested a prototype with these capabilities. “Our robot can help civic and industrial workers by making their job much safer. It can operate in small pipes that humans either cannot access or are dangerous,” explains first author Thaelasutt Tugeumwolachot.

One of the main challenges with designing a robot of this kind is how to achieve a snug fit inside pipes of different sizes. Previous models can expand or contract their width by only about 60 percent. Here, the researchers used six foldable “crawler” arms around the body of the robot. This adjustable locomotion mechanism allowed it to work in pipes with sizes between 15 to 31 cm, a range of over 100 percent. Another is how to crowd complex and tough arm mechanism into small space. This robot equipped a compact arm which enables complicated cutting movements by being driven via gear train from several motors inside the robot body.

Human computing for labeling at scale

All this begs the question: How do you create labeled data at scale?

Manually labeling data for AI is an extremely labor-intensive process. It can take weeks or months to label a few hundred samples using this approach, and the accuracy rate is not very good, particularly when facing niche labeling tasks. Additionally, it will be necessary to update datasets and build bigger datasets than competitors in order to remain competitive.

Summary: A new machine-learning algorithm could help practitioners identify autism in children more effectively.

Source: USC

For children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), receiving an early diagnosis can make a huge difference in improving behavior, skills and language development. But despite being one of the most common developmental disabilities, impacting 1 in 54 children in the U.S., it’s not that easy to diagnose.