#robots

#robots

Plant Armed with Robot Arm and MacheteThe world is dangerous enough as it is, what with robots and artificial intelligence and TikTok. We certainly don’t need our metal overlords who are planning to rise up against us in the robopocalypse to gain allies, yet human collaborator David Bowen wants to strike an alliance between robots and plants.Yes, plants.Thanks to the villainous work of vegetarians, plants have a grudge against us humans. And now they can fight back. His art installation appropriately called Plant Machete allows a plant to control the swinging machete arm through electrical signals transmitted through the leaves. You can see a video of this remorseless killer at Design Boom.-via Dave Barry#robots #robopocalypse

Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM): Flying 3D Printing Drones Inspired by Bees and WaspsDon’t fret! This swarm is just here to build some structures.Experts from the Imperial College of London have developed a new kind of drone that can actually print 3D materials while flying in mid-air. The flying robots were created with the collective building methods of bees and wasps in mind. These drones make up a system called Aerial Additive Manufacturing (Aerial-AM), where all of them work together to create something. There are two different kinds of robots in the said system.The first is called BuilDrones and is in charge of depositing materials during their flight. The second kind is called ScanDrones which measures the BuilDrones’ output and directs them to what they would do next. The researchers, led by professor Mirko Kovac of the college’s Department of Aeronautics, believe that the Aerial-AM’s in-flight 3D printing capabilities will be of great use for the construction industry. These drones will be perfect for building in difficult-to-access areas, such as tall buildings or even locations that got devastated by natural disasters. “We’ve proved the concept that drones can work autonomously and in tandem to construct and repair buildings, at least in the lab. This scalable solution could help construction and repair in difficult-to-reach areas, like tall buildings,” professor Kovac stated. Image credit: Yusuf Furkan KAYA, Aerial Robotics Laboratory of Imperial College London#robots #drones #3DPrinting #AerialAM #ImperialCollegeLondon #construction #manufacturing #technology #robotics #aeronautics 

Robot Uses AI to to Peel a BananaPeeling a banana is an effortless task for us humans. The same could not be said for robots, however. These machines find manipulating deformable objects problematic, as this activity requires knowledge of the type of force and dexterity needed. There is a solution to this, though, and that is by using human demonstration data. This group of researchers from the University of Tokyo did just that. After feeding the robot with the said data, it was able to pick up a banana from a table and peel it successfully, all in less than three minutes — a fast time for a robot. But there is one problem with this system. It needs "quite a lot of expensive GPUs." Nevertheless, it will be a useful system. Not just in peeling bananas but in other activities that require fine motor skills. (Image Credit: futuretimelinedotnet/ YouTube) #Bananas #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #DeepLearning #Robots

White Castle to Get "Flippy 2" Robot Fry Cooks to Serve Food FasterAbout two years ago, the American burger chain White Castle decided to deploy a robot from Miso Robotics. Aptly named Flippy, this robot can flip burgers — a huge help for human cooks in fast food restaurants. After getting satisfactory results from a test run of the autonomous robot, White Castle decided to deploy more Flippy robots to more locations. Miso Robotics unveiled Flippy 2 in November 2021. Of course, White Castle availed of their partner's new robot. The restaurant chain has recently announced that it will be installing Flippy 2 in 100 of its locations. Compared to the previous model, this version takes 56% less aisle space and is 13% shorter. The main difference between Flippy and Flippy 2 is that the former model is a burger-flipping robot, while this one takes over a whole frying station. While it seems that this version no longer cooks burgers, it can fry chicken tenders, onion rings, and french fries. With a Flippy robot by their side, cooks at White Castle will have a less stressful environment. (Image Credit: Miso Robotics) #Innovation #Robots #Burgers #Fastfood #Cooking #WhiteCastle #MisoRobotics

Researchers are Developing "Intelligent" Firefighting Robots and Drones that Can Fight Fire AutonomouslyIt is said that over 3,000 Americans die in fires annually. From this number, around 80 of these are firefighters. It goes without saying that firefighting will always be one of the most dangerous professions one could have. To try and make the job a little safer, scientists are exploring the idea of robots helping us fight fires. Soon, humanity might see gadgets as small as a tiny wagon and large vehicles similar to military tanks extinguishing fires. Devices like these capable of entering hot buildings and passing through toxic smoke could mean a lot for our dear firefighters.Of course, these robots would not fully replace human firefighters, but it reduces the risk of losing human lives, says New York University assistant professor Giuseppe Loianno.Check out the article over at Scientific American to learn more about this ongoing development.(All Images: Columbine Wildland Fire Module)#Firefighting #ArtificialIntelligence #Robots