Global Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

Amazon’s autonomous robot is being tested at some of its fulfillment facilities. | Source: Amazon Amazon already has more than half a million robots working in its fulfillment centers every day. These robots perform a variety of tasks, like stocking inventory, filling orders and sorting packages, in areas with physical and virtual barriers than prevent them from interacting with human workers in the fulfillment center.  The robots are kept away from the busy fulfillment floors, where Amazon associates are constantly moving pallets across a crowded floor littered with pillars and other obstacles, to ensure workers are safe and to keep the robots moving quickly.  However, there are jobs on the fulfillment center floor, like moving the 10% of items ordered from the Amazon Store that are too long, wide or unwieldy to fit in the company’s pods or on its conveyor belts. These tasks require a robot that can use artificial intelligence and computer vision to navigate the chaotic...

  ROBOTICS IS PART OF COMPUTER SCIENCE, OR MAYBE ENGINEERING Engineering, or even computer science, includes robotics Software and hardware both makeup robots. Engineering techniques are applied to create the robot’s physical components, while computer science is used to create the software that provides the machine with the intelligence it needs to do its work. As a result, robotics is an engineering and computer science topic that crosses several disciplines and is mainly used in AI. Automation reduces the need for human intervention through the use of robotics. The term “robotics” was taken from the word “robot,” which was popularised by Czech playwright Karel Capek in his 1920 play, Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R).   The foundation of a robot is composed of these basic elements. A typical robot is composed of three fundamental parts. They are: Mechanical components Electrical components Software components Mechanical Components – Robotic Hardware All robots are built in ...

  Role of Artificial Intelligence in Military Aviation The discovery of gunpowder in the ninth century and the invention of the atomic bomb in the twentieth century may be considered the first two revolutions in warfare. The third revolution in warfare is Artificial Intelligence (AI), the branch of computer sciences that is engaged in the development of intelligence machines i.e. those that could think and function like human beings. AI has gained enough prominence in military spheres by way of autonomous weaponry on land, sea, air, space and cyber domains to be considered as a breakthrough that militaries around the world are scampering to exploit so as to dominate, or at least gain an advantage over, potential or existing adversaries. Air power, from the days of Douhet, concerns air supremacy; that is to say, it aims at possessing the capability to use the medium of air to own advantage while denying its use to the adversary. However, concepts of air power thought have evolv...

Governing a world of 250 million robots Robots will shape the cities of the future — from educating children, to cleaning streets, to protecting borders from military threats and much more. While the ubiquity of robots isn't arriving tomorrow, it's closer than many realise — by 2030, humanoid robots (such as personal assistant bots) are slated to exceed 244 million worldwide, soaring from 220 million in 2020. Examples of some cities with existing robotic infrastructures are Masdar City's Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) and The Line, a future city in  Neom ,  Saudi  Arabia, South Korea's Songdo Waste Management system, Denmark's Odense City collaborative robots or cobots, and Japan's traffic navigating robots at Takeshiba District. But the rise of robotics poses thorny ethical questions about how we govern entities that sit between the conscience of humanity and the mechanical nature of machines like a dishwasher or a lawnmower. Getting on the front foot with govern...

  Artificial Intelligence to play major role in patient care Nellore:  The conference on Futuristic Nursing being held at Narayana Nursing College here has discussed at length aspects of patient safety as also use of artificial intelligence and tele-medicine, apart from mobile health and sensor-based technologies (smartphones, smartphone apps and wearable technologies).  More than 800 nurses are participating in the meet and around 40 eminent nursing leaders across the globe discussing the latest in nursing practices during the 3-day conference from Saturday. In a paper on ‘Artificial Intelligence in Nursing’ presented jointly by Dr Ramesh M.Sc Phd, HoD Medical Surgical Nursing, St Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College, Ethiopia, and Dr S. Indira, Dean of Narayana Nursing College, said AI offers three advantages over traditional methods -- the ability to quickly consider large volumes of data in risk prediction, increased intervention specificity (accurately flagging...

Ferrari and Comau launched a new learning center this week called the e.DO Learning Center that will use Comau’s robots to help students explore STEM subjects, coding and robotics.  The e.DO Learning Center is an educational environment where eight to 19-year-olds are given the tools and materials to explore robotics, while also learning soft skills and work culture. The facility is equipped with five of Comau’s e.DO 6-axis robots , complete with all necessary materials and accessories. Students can access the experience at the Istituto Istruzione Superiore (IIS) “Fermo Corni” of Modena, Italy, an institute of higher education and a secondary school.   “This important initiative, which has been carried out with such a prestigious Company as Ferrari, is proof of Comau’s dedication to creating social value for the local territory and designing advanced robotics solutions for new sectors,” Pietro Gorlier, Comau’s CEO, said. “The e.DO Learning Center is the ideal tool to ...

Aurora’s premier product, the Aurora Driver, can be used to autonomously operate passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles and heavy-duty trucks. | Source: Aurora Ford and VW announced this week that the companies would be ending their investment in Argo AI , a self-driving company with partnerships with Lyft and Walmart, and that the company would be shutting its doors. Some of Argo AI’s around 2,000 employees would either be receiving offers from Ford, whose president and CEO said the company expected to make several hundred offers, or VW. The rest would be let go and receive severance packages that include insurance and two separate bonuses.  Chris Urmson, the co-founder and CEO of Aurora , a self-driving company that has partnerships with Toyota and Uber, shared a note to Aurora’s newsletter about the recent news.  Urmson’s entire note can be read below.  Sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming, but major news was announced in the self-drivi...

Welcome to Episode 97 of The Robot Report Podcast , which brings conversations with robotics innovators straight to you. Join us each week for discussions with leading roboticists, innovative robotics companies and other key members of the robotics community. This week, cohosts Steve Crowe and Mike Oitzman discuss the news this week about the shutdown of autonomous driving technology company Argo AI. The company is being dissolved and the technology and team members are going to be distributed to leading funders FORD and VW. Finally this week, Mike speaks with Peter Chen, CEO of Covariant.AI, about the company’s new RaaS solution, CovariantOne, which is built on service level agreements (SLAs) for the performance of the Covariant warehousing solution. Links from today’s show: Call for presentations for Robotics Summit Tatum Robotics ARGO story Ford CEO comments IAC race details Covariant website  ROBOWeeks.com If you would like to be a guest on an upcoming episode of ...

Fox Robotics builds robotic fork trucks that autonomously unload tractor trailers in the warehouse. | Credit: Fox Robotics Fox Robotics announced the close of a $20M funding round led by BMW i Ventures. Additional new investors include Zebra Technologies, Japan Airlines & Translink Innovation Fund, and Foothill Ventures. Existing investors Menlo Ventures, ENIAC Ventures, and SignalFire also participated in the round. Concurrent with the closing of the round, Till Reuter, former CEO of KUKA, and David Fuller, former CTO of KUKA and current CEO of Artificial, will join the company as independent board directors. The company was founded in 2018 and has raised a total of $38M to date (source: Crunchbase). A “Holy Grail” problem We often talk about “holy grail” applications in robotics – those applications which are deemed difficult to solve, and thus require additional invention, investment and time to mature. Tractor-trailer unloading is one of these holy grail applications. Ma...

THINK Surgical’s TSolution system can automate the bone preparation process for knee surgeries. | Source: THINK Surgical THINK Surgical , a developer of active robotics for knee replacement surgeries, announced that it brought in a $100 million investment from KDB Investment Global Healthcare of Korea, a new investor in the company.  The company plans to use the investment to bring new products to market that will offer a standard planning solution that will work across multiple robotic platforms and a choice of implants from different manufacturers.  Many current surgical robotic systems are closed systems that require surgeons to pick from a single manufacturer’s implants. THINK Surgical wants to make it possible for surgeons to pick implants from many manufacturers, so they can focus on which implant would be best for each individual patient.  “We are extremely excited to strengthen our financial position to support successful new product commercialization throug...

Universal Robots, part of Teradyne’s industrial automation group, recently released its UR20 cobot. | Source: Universal Robots Teradyne saw a small backslide in revenue in its industrial automation group, a 2% decrease, in Q3 of 2022 compared to the same time period last year. The group brought in $89 million in revenue for Q3 2022.  The industrial automation group’s revenue is a decline from Q2 of this year when it brought in $101 million in revenue . The group consists of Energid, Mobile Industrial Robots (MiR), which just merged with AutoGuide Mobile Robots , and Universal Robots (UR). Energid’s revenue is included with UR’s.  During Q3, UR brought in $73 million, and MiR brought in $16 million. UR sales decreased 5% during the quarter, while MiR sales rose 17% from the same quarter last year. Both companies saw a decrease in sales from last quarter when UR brought in $83 million and MiR brought in $17 million.  For the first 9 months of 2022, 41% of Teradyne’s ...

An Argo AI vehicle performing a driverless test ride in Austin, TX. | Source: Argo AI Argo AI , the self-driving company previously backed by Ford and VW, is closing down, according to reports from  TechCrunch and confirmed by  The Robot Report.  An Argo AI spokesperson gave this statement from the company to  The Robot Report, “In coordination with our shareholders, the decision has been made that Argo AI will not continue on its mission as a company. Many of the employees will receive an opportunity to continue work on automated driving technology with either Ford or Volkswagen, while employment for others will unfortunately come to an end.” Argo AI’s founders, CEO Bryan Salesky and President Peter Rander told its estimated 2,000 employees Wednesday during an all-company meeting that Ford and VW would be absorbing parts of the company, and that some employees would receive offers from the two companies. Other employees were told they would receive severance ...

WTWH Media invites you to submit a session abstract to be considered for presentation at the Robotics Summit & Expo , to be held May 10-11, 2023 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The Robotics Summit & Expo focuses on the technical issues involved with the design, development, manufacturing and delivery of commercial-class robots. Event organizers are seeking thought-provoking sessions from compelling speakers in each of the following tracks: Technologies, Tools and Platforms – Covers the latest advances in the core technologies common to all classes of robots Design and Development: Covers the latest technologies, tools and methodologies to simulate, prototype and build commercial-class robots Manufacturability, Production and Distribution: Covers issues related to professional design and volume production of commercial-class robots Developing & Deploying AMRs Track – Focuses on the key enabling technologies and methods that support the design and ...

Celera Motion , a business unit of Novanta, recently introduced its Everest S servo drive . The company said it’s about 30% smaller than its predecessor and that the EtherCAT and CANopen versions deliver bus latency reduced to 1 cycle. Designed with 3 kW of power and a starting weight of just 18 grams, the Everest S is designed for applications such as surgical robots, exoskeletons, collaborative robots, legged robots and autonomous mobile robots. The Everest S includes all the features of other Everest servo drives plus Dual BiSS-C feedback support. Celera Motion said it combines 16-bit differential current and four configurable ranges. “We’re excited to introduce the Everest S to meet the growing demand for smaller, faster servo drives that provide more space for applications and even better performance,” said Marc Vila, Director of Strategy & Business Development for Celera Motion. “Our goal is to give product designers as much freedom and flexibility as possible, and the Ev...

Formant now offers a freemium version of its flagship cloud robotics solution. | Credit: Formant Formant announced a new freemium offering that gives roboticists an easy way to monitor, teleoperate, and access, via ssh, all their devices. Founded in 2017, Formant has gained traction recently as a data platform for robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) companies , with fast-growing companies like Canvas, Blue River Technologies, and Burro all leveraging Formant’s platform to manage field-deployed robots. Rather than investing resources into the development of their web-tier applications, these companies leverage Formant for these basic capabilities. Formant’s new free tier, Formant Studio , is built for a slightly different user: the individual roboticist or early-stage founder. This slimmed-down version of Formant’s enterprise-grade offering enables individual users to upload live robot data to the cloud and control their robot in real-time. Built for ROS Initially released for ROS syste...

PickNik Robotics has previously worked with NASA to develop advanced planning capabilities for robots in microgravity environments. | Source: PickNik Robotics PickNik Robotics announced that it recently won two contracts, a SpaceWERX contract to work on robotics for the U.S. Space Force and a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract, as well as a Colorado Advanced Industries Accelerator (AIA) grant for space robotics.  The company’s contract with SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force and part of the Air Force Research Laboratory, involves PickNik Robotics helping develop enhanced control for capturing space assets in orbit. PickNik will work with the Nuclear and Applied Robotics Group at the University of Texas, Austin, and will focus on using robotic arms to capture and manipulate objects in orbit for In-space Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) missions.  PickNik’s MoveIt Space software , which combines motion planning a...