Using telepresence, Florida International University's proposed PatrolBot will let disabled police officers and military veterans serve as distance patrol officers, filling a gap in both the lack of patrol staff, and the lack of available jobs for disabled vets and officers. At a distance, the humans can perform many of a normal patrol officer's functions, including patrolling, issuing citations, and responding to 911 calls. The Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has loaned two robots built for its defense-funded Urban Warrior Robot program to the university's researchers who will adapt the robots to the PatrolBot platform. The prototype will include video, audio, and sensory abilities. (Source: Florida International University)
Thanks, Nadine. Olga's design is now a few years old--I looked for info on deployments or other more recent info about the prototype but haven't found any yet.
This is terrific stuff Ann. But put yourself in the soldier's position for a moment, trapped under heavy debris, when the Golum Krang robot rolls out of the smoke carrying a big-ass pipe in its hands, with a mechanical voice coming from its grill "I am Golem Krang. I am here to help you". Talk about SF movies in real life.
That's really funny, TJ! In reading and writing about all these robots and not having seen any of them up close and personally (yet), I have to say it does creep me out sometimes to think of how sophisticated these machines are becoming. While I appreciate the tasks they can accomplish, there is that whole "Terminator" worry lurking in the background. At what point do robots become smarter than us? (Hopefully never, of course, but the artificial intelligence being created today is getting pretty darned smart!)
Elizabeth, I'm not at all worried about a Terminator takeover. It's the base programming that we should worry about.
Modern airliners are fly-by-wire. Pilots give control inputs which tell the flight computers what the pilot wishes to do. The flight computers interpret that input and adjust the planes control surfaces, engines, etc. to best meet these wishes.
Flight computers today can override or discard a pilot's inputs if they're outside of acceptable range. Effectively, a computer engineer designing the control laws has overriden the pilot. Granted with the best of intentions, but it still means a set of rules set down by someone not in immediate control has more say in what happens than the pilot.
There was a Paris airshow crash back in the 90's I think it was, that can be attributed to the pilot and the flight computer having a difference of opinion. The aircraft made a low, slow flyby of the show with flaps down, gear down. The plane kept sinking slowly while the pilot was pulling back (go up!). The plane thought the pilot wanted to land (flaps down, gear down), and so igored the excessive pull-up input by the pilot.
Something similar happened to one of the YF-22 prototypes (also in the 90s). The pilot was in a similar situation (low, slow, flaps down, gear down), and decided to abort his landing. He went through full power into afterburner, and that confused the flight computer. Flaps down, gear down, but MAX throttle. Eventually, the plane crashed (after the landing gear retracted, but no injuries) because the plane got into PIO Pilot-Induced-Oscillations.
I totally understand, TJ. So if the underlying programming and technology is good, there won't be a problem and in fact, in some cases, robots know best. It's when the code under the covers is faulty that there could be issues with the behavior of these more sophisticated robots. Let's hope that all those working behind the scenes know what they're doing! (Well, of course they do, or we wouldn't have such clever robots.)
The Blue River Technology weed puller serves as a reminder that robotic farming is already arriving. Deere was showing off autonomous tractors as far vack as 2008.
That type of problem is what's being addressed in work done by the University of Aberdeen, which we wrote about inHumans, Do You Speak !~+V•&T1F0()? http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1386&doc_id=251721 so humans and robots can communicate at a distance about specific tasks the robot is engaged in, and change plans or tactics as necessary.
New disc magnet motors fit into the design trend of stepping up to closed loop performance while maintaining the cost advantage of stepper motor technology.
At the Design News webinar on June 27, learn all about aluminum extrusion: designing the right shape so it costs the least, is simplest to manufacture, and best fits the application's structural requirements.
A new battery design, which replaces lithium with abundant and low-cost elemental sulfur, is still in its nascent stages but shows real promise for giving batteries more energy potential.
The push to achieving more intelligent, integrated manufacturing is putting a strong focus on networking and connectivity as key enabling technologies.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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