• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • Subscribe
  • Your Membership
    • Edit Your Profile
  • Services
    • Advertising
    • Case studies
    • Design
    • Email marketing
    • Lead generation
    • Magazine
    • Press releases
    • Publishing
    • Sponsored posts
    • Webcasting
    • Webinars
    • White papers
    • Writing
  • Shop
    • My Account
    • Cart
  • About
    • Contact
    • Privacy
    • Terms of use
  • Events

Robotics & Automation News

Market trends and business perspectives

  • News
  • Features
  • Video
  • Webinars
  • White papers
  • Press releases
  • Featured companies
    • AMD Xilinx
    • BlueBotics
    • Elite Robot
    • RGo Robotics
    • SICK Sensor Intelligence
    • Vicor Power

environments

Intel Labs introduces SPEAR: An open-source photorealistic simulator for embodied AI

December 25, 2022 by Mark Allinson Leave a Comment

By Mike Roberts, a research scientist at Intel Labs, where he works on using photorealistic synthetic data for computer vision applications

Interactive simulators are becoming powerful tools for training embodied artificial intelligence (AI) systems, but existing simulators have limited content diversity, physical interactivity, and visual fidelity.

To better serve the embodied AI developer community, Intel Labs has collaborated with the Computer Vision Center in Spain, Kujiale in China, and the Technical University of Munich to develop the Simulator for Photorealistic Embodied AI Research (SPEAR).

This highly realistic simulation platform helps developers to accelerate the training and validation of embodied agents for a growing set of tasks and domains.

With its large collection of photorealistic indoor environments, SPEAR applies to a wide range of household navigation and manipulation tasks. Ultimately, SPEAR aims to drive research and commercial applications in household robotics and manufacturing, including human-robot interaction scenarios and digital twin applications.

Figure 1. Scenes may be cluttered with objects that can be manipulated individually. A strong impulse can be applied to all objects at the start of the simulation to create the disordered environment. Messy room configurations could serve as initial states for a cleaning task.

To create SPEAR, Intel Labs worked closely with a team of professional artists for over a year to construct a collection of high-quality, handcrafted, interactive environments. Currently, SPEAR features a starter pack of 300 virtual indoor environments with more than 2,500 rooms and 17,000 objects that can be manipulated individually.

These interactive training environments use detailed geometry, photorealistic materials, realistic physics, and accurate lighting. New content packs targeting industrial and healthcare domains will be released soon.

By offering larger, more diverse, and realistic environments, SPEAR helps throughout the development cycle of embodied AI systems, and enables training robust agents to operate in the real world, potentially even straight from simulation.

SPEAR helps to improve accuracy on many embodied AI tasks, especially traversing and rearranging cluttered indoor environments. Ultimately, SPEAR aims to decrease the time to market for household robotics and smart warehouse applications, and increase the spatial intelligence of embodied agents.

Challenges in Training and Validating Embodied AI Systems

In the field of embodied AI, agents learn by interacting with different variables in the physical world. However, capturing and compiling these interactions into training data can be time consuming, labor intensive, and potentially dangerous.

In response to this challenge, the embodied AI community has developed a variety of interactive simulators, where robots can be trained and validated in simulation before being deployed in the physical world.

While existing simulators have enabled rapid progress on increasingly complex and open-ended real-world tasks such as point-goal and object navigation, object manipulation, and autonomous driving, these sims have several limitations.

Simulators that use artist-created environments typically provide a limited selection of unique scenes, such as a few dozen homes or a few hundred isolated rooms, which can lead to severe over-fitting and poor sim-to-real transfer performance.

On the other hand, simulators that use scanned 3D environments provide larger collections of scenes, but offer little or no interactivity with objects.

In addition, both types of simulators offer limited visual fidelity, either because it is too labor intensive to author high-resolution art assets, or because of 3D scanning artifacts.

Figure 2. SPEAR enables embodied AI developers to train a navigation policy on an OpenBot entirely in simulation.

Overview of SPEAR

SPEAR was designed based on three main requirements:

  1. support a collection of environments that is as large, diverse, and high-quality as possible;
  2. provide sufficient physical realism to support realistic interactions with a wide range of household objects; and
  3. offer as much photorealism as possible, while still maintaining enough rendering speed to support training complex embodied agent behaviors.

Motivated by these requirements, SPEAR was implemented on top of the Unreal Engine, which is an industrial-strength open-source game engine. SPEAR environments are implemented as Unreal Engine assets, and SPEAR provides an OpenAI Gym interface to interact with environments via Python.

Figure 3. The LoCoBot Agent is suitable for both navigation and manipulation in simulation. This agent’s realistic gripper makes it ideal for rearrangement tasks.

SPEAR currently supports four distinct embodied agents:

  • The OpenBot Agent provides identical image observations to a real-world OpenBot, implements an identical control interface, and has been modeled with accurate geometry and physical parameters. It is well-suited for sim-to-real experiments.
  • The Fetch Agent and LoCoBot Agent have also been modeled using accurate geometry and physical parameters, and each has a physically realistic gripper. These agents are ideal for rearrangement tasks.
  • The Camera Agent can be teleported anywhere, making it useful for collecting static datasets.

Figure 3. The LoCoBot Agent is suitable for both navigation and manipulation in simulation. This agent’s realistic gripper makes it ideal for rearrangement tasks.

By default, agents return photorealistic egocentric observations from camera sensors, as well as wheel encoder states and joint encoder states. Additionally, agents can optionally return several types of privileged information.

First, agents can return a sequence of waypoints representing the shortest path to a goal location, as well as GPS and compass observations that point directly to the goal, both of which can be useful when defining navigation tasks.

Second, agents can return pixel-perfect semantic segmentation and depth images, which can be useful when controlling for the effects of imperfect perception in downstream embodied tasks and collecting static datasets.

SPEAR currently supports two distinct tasks:

  • The Point-Goal Navigation Task randomly selects a goal position in the scene’s reachable space, computes a reward based on the agent’s distance to the goal, and triggers the end of an episode when the agent hits an obstacle or the goal.
  • The Freeform Task is an empty placeholder task that is useful for collecting static datasets.

SPEAR is available under an open-source MIT license, ready for customization on any hardware. For more details, visit the SPEAR GitHub page.

Filed Under: Features, Science Tagged With: agent, agents, ai, embodied, environments, goal, navigation, objects, photorealistic, physical, realistic, simulation, simulators, spear, tasks, training

Ottonomy robots to provide customer services at Pittsburgh airport

November 28, 2022 by Mark Allinson Leave a Comment

Pittsburgh International Airport is teaming up with tech startup Ottonomy and its fully autonomous delivery robot – Ottobot – for a pilot project offering select passengers a contactless delivery system.

Ottonomy is partnering with PIT’s xBridge Innovation Center, the airport’s tech proving ground for technologies and startups that provide solutions for the industry and beyond.

Drawing from the region’s strong innovation economy, the airport is a proof-of-concept site for technologies in a real-world operating environment as well as a pilot site for companies’ first deployments. [Read more…] about Ottonomy robots to provide customer services at Pittsburgh airport

Filed Under: Infrastructure, News Tagged With: airport, airports, autonomous, delivery, deployments, environment, environments, fully, innovation, multiple, ottobot, ottobots, ottonomy, pit, pittsburgh, real-world, robots, site, solutions, system, technologies, technology, xbridge

Trimble and Exyn Technologies launch autonomous construction surveying technology

November 14, 2022 by Mark Allinson Leave a Comment

Industrial technology company Trimble and Exyn Technologies, a developer of multi-platform robotic autonomy for complex, GPS-denied environments, have agreed a strategic collaboration to explore the use of autonomous construction surveying technology.

The solution will integrate Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot, the ExynPak powered by ExynAI and the Trimble X7 total station. It will enable fully autonomous missions inside complex and dynamic construction environments, which can result in consistent and precise reality capture for production and quality control workflows.

Aviad Almagor, vice president of technology innovation, Trimble, says: “The integration of autonomous surveying technology into a construction workflow has groundbreaking potential. [Read more…] about Trimble and Exyn Technologies launch autonomous construction surveying technology

Filed Under: Industry, News Tagged With: autonomous, capture, collaboration, construction, data, efficiency, enable, environment, environments, exyn, exynai, integration, map, missions, powered, quality, result, robot, safety, surveying, technologies, technology, trimble

Auve Tech launches new generation self-driving vehicle

October 27, 2022 by Sam Francis 1 Comment

Estonian company Auve Tech has launched a new generation self-driving vehicle.

MiCa is the latest self-driving shuttle from Auve Tech, which specializes in developing and producing autonomous vehicles.

The startup says MiCa takes safety, practicality and self-driving to “a new level” and allows autonomous driving in various weather and traffic conditions. [Read more…] about Auve Tech launches new generation self-driving vehicle

Filed Under: Autonomous vehicles, News Tagged With: allows, areas, autonomous, auve, conditions, countries, developing, driving, environments, estonian, generation, helps, last mile, mica, passengers, provide, public, safety, self-driving, tech, transport, vehicle, vehicles, weather

Aerobotix partners with FerRobotics to develop ‘first-of-its-kind’ end-of-arm-tool automated sander for flammable dust

September 15, 2022 by David Edwards Leave a Comment

Aerobotix and FerRobotics, two robotics companies based in the US and Austria respectively, have partnered to create what they say is the first Class II, Division 1 (C2D1) End of Arm Tool (EOAT) automated sander.

Meeting industry demand for a hazardous-environment solution that will achieve time and cost efficiencies, and enable much safer work environments, this special orbital sander – based on the industry-proven Active Orbital Kit (AOK) with patented Active Compliant Technology – lessens human involvement in hazardous tasks.

Each year, according to the International Labour Organization, tens of millions of workers globally are afflicted with silicosis, an incurable lung disease caused by crystalline silica dust inhalation, leading to thousands of deaths. [Read more…] about Aerobotix partners with FerRobotics to develop ‘first-of-its-kind’ end-of-arm-tool automated sander for flammable dust

Filed Under: Industrial robots, News Tagged With: active, aerobotix, aerospace, automated, combustible, created, defense, disease, dust, environments, equipment, ferrobotics, hazardous, human, ignited, industries, involvement, lung, orbital, sander, sanding, tasks, tool

Comau introduces new robot for ‘sensitive’ environments

July 16, 2022 by David Edwards Leave a Comment

Comau has introduced its new Racer-5 Sensitive Environments (Racer-5 SE), a high-speed industrial robot designed for the special and sensitive settings that characterize the pharmaceutical, health and beauty, food and beverage and electronics industries.

Featuring a protective water, heat and grease-resistant coating, the ruggedized 6-axis articulated robot fully responds to the demand for IP67 certification, high-grade ISO 5 Cleanroom classification (ISO 14644-1), protection from chemical agents and the need to reduce the risk of contamination. It also has NSF H1 food grade lubrication.

Further benefits of the dedicated robot include reduced operator risk when working with potentially harmful chemicals and substances, as well as increased productivity, traceability, and quality. [Read more…] about Comau introduces new robot for ‘sensitive’ environments

Filed Under: Industrial robots, News Tagged With: agents, certified, chemicals, cleanroom, comau, contamination, easily, ensure, environments, eu, food, higher, ip, iso, mm, payload, production, quality, racer, reach, reduce, reduced, reg, repeatability, risk, robot, se, sensitive

5 Modern Technologies Improving Workplace Safety

July 14, 2022 by David Edwards 1 Comment

Top 5 Types of Technology to Keep Workplaces Safe



Workplace safety should be at the forefront of business owners’ minds and the employees who work at these places.

There are a lot of industries that you traditionally think of as being dangerous, especially industrial plants and factories, but the reality is that accidents can happen anywhere, including seemingly unthreatening places like hotels and stores.

If you’re looking for ways to decrease the OSHA recordable incidents at your workplace, take a look at some of these technologies that are improving workplace safety. [Read more…] about 5 Modern Technologies Improving Workplace Safety

Filed Under: Wearable Tagged With: accidents, apps, dangerous, employees, environments, help, hotels, including, injuries, lifting, people, provide, reality, robots, safe, safety, tasks, technologies, technology, types, wearables, work, workplace

Velodyne Lidar signs multi-year agreement with Boston Dynamics

July 3, 2022 by David Edwards Leave a Comment

Velodyne Lidar has agreed a multi-year contract for its lidar sensors with Boston Dynamics, a developer of mobile robotics.

Boston Dynamics selected Velodyne’s sensors to provide perception and navigation capabilities for its highly mobile robots, which are capable of tackling the “toughest robotics challenges”.

Velodyne’s lidar sensor solutions enable mobile robots to operate autonomously and safely, without human intervention. They provide real-time 3D perception data for localization, mapping, object classification and object tracking. [Read more…] about Velodyne Lidar signs multi-year agreement with Boston Dynamics

Filed Under: Industry, News Tagged With: agreement, autonomously, boston, capabilities, dynamics, enable, environments, lidar, mobile, multi-year, object, perception, provide, robotics, robots, safely, sensors, supply, velodyne

Trimble implements new localization system for autonomous vehicles

June 17, 2022 by David Edwards Leave a Comment

Trimble has released details of the first deployment of its map-based localization system for land-based autonomous vehicle applications.

IHI Corporation, a heavy industry manufacturer based in Japan, will retrofit its existing container and haulage trucks with a customized Applanix POS LV system as part of its broader autonomy capabilities for the transport of goods around industrial facilities.

Map-based localization provides precise positioning and orientation estimation, augmenting GNSS/inertial data, which is critical for safe and efficient autonomous vehicle operations. The ability to provide IHI Corporation a full workflow and real-time data ensures seamless integration into IHI’s truck design. [Read more…] about Trimble implements new localization system for autonomous vehicles

Filed Under: Autonomous vehicles, News Tagged With: autonomous, autonomy, capabilities, corporation, critical, data, environments, existing, ihi, industrial, localization, lv, map-based, operation, operations, POS, positioning, provide, real-time, reliable, safe, solutions, system, trimble, vehicle, vehicles

Stratom launches platform to enable faster development of autonomous systems in complex terrain environments

April 26, 2022 by David Edwards Leave a Comment

Stratom, a developer of autonomous ground vehicles and robotic systems for logistics and operational applications, has launched its Summit Off-Road Autonomy Platform, which it describes as “a highly configurable modular software system that can be easily customized for various unmanned vehicles, applications, operations and environmental conditions”.

Leveraging Stratom’s proven off-road and complex terrain capabilities, Summit delivers flexible, tailored and cost-saving autonomy solutions for a variety of industries and applications in challenging or dangerous environments. [Read more…] about Stratom launches platform to enable faster development of autonomous systems in complex terrain environments

Filed Under: News, Software Tagged With: applications, autonomous, autonomy, behaviors, easily, environments, implement, off-road, platform, robotics, software, specific, stratom, summit, system, systems, terrain, unmanned, vehicles

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 6
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Latest articles

  • Scythe Robotics secures $42 million new financing to accelerate production of zero-emissions autonomous mower
  • Mining robotics company Nabors acquires digital twin developer MindMesh
  • Lockheed Martin Ventures invests in on-demand manufacturing startup Machina Labs
  • Unlocking the Benefits of Static Residential Proxies for the AI revolution
  • 2023 Predictions & Forecasts: Five challenges for warehouse management, according to AutoStore
  • Mercedes-Benz becomes ‘world’s first’ automotive company to certify SAE Level 3 system for US market
  • Universal Robots reports record annual revenue of $326 million
  • Berkshire Grey and Locus Robotics combine to offer ‘industry-first’ cross-platform robotic automation
  • Fox Guest Posting: The Best Service Providers for Your Blogging Needs
  • 16+ Best Business Card Templates for Google Docs (Word) & Slides

Most Read

  • Why is My Car Key Stuck in the Ignition?
    Why is My Car Key Stuck in the Ignition?
  • Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies
    Top 20 electric vehicle charging station companies
  • Difference Between Three-Phase and Single-Phase Power
    Difference Between Three-Phase and Single-Phase Power
  • Scientists have found more water in space than they ever knew possible
    Scientists have found more water in space than they ever knew possible
  • The Best Mechanical Engineering Design Software in 2022
    The Best Mechanical Engineering Design Software in 2022
  • Top 20 programmable logic controller manufacturers
    Top 20 programmable logic controller manufacturers
  • How to Know if Your iPhone is Being Tracked? Check This!
    How to Know if Your iPhone is Being Tracked? Check This!
  • What You Need to Know About Fixing an Engine Misfire
    What You Need to Know About Fixing an Engine Misfire
  • 5 Top Jobs Where Robots Could Replace Humans?
    5 Top Jobs Where Robots Could Replace Humans?
  • Track your lost Android
    Track your lost Android

Overused words

ai applications automated automation automotive autonomous business china companies company control customers data design development digital electric global industrial industry logistics machine manufacturing market mobile operations platform process production robot robotic robotics robots safety software solution solutions system systems technologies technology time vehicle vehicles warehouse

Secondary Sidebar

Latest news

  • Scythe Robotics secures $42 million new financing to accelerate production of zero-emissions autonomous mower
  • Mining robotics company Nabors acquires digital twin developer MindMesh
  • Lockheed Martin Ventures invests in on-demand manufacturing startup Machina Labs
  • Unlocking the Benefits of Static Residential Proxies for the AI revolution
  • 2023 Predictions & Forecasts: Five challenges for warehouse management, according to AutoStore
  • Mercedes-Benz becomes ‘world’s first’ automotive company to certify SAE Level 3 system for US market
  • Universal Robots reports record annual revenue of $326 million
  • Berkshire Grey and Locus Robotics combine to offer ‘industry-first’ cross-platform robotic automation
  • Fox Guest Posting: The Best Service Providers for Your Blogging Needs
  • 16+ Best Business Card Templates for Google Docs (Word) & Slides

Footer

We are…

Robotics and Automation News was established in May, 2015, and is now one of the most widely-read websites in its category.

Please consider supporting us by becoming a paying subscriber, or through advertising and sponsorships, or by purchasing products and services through our shop – or a combination of all of the above.

Thank you.

Independent

Archivists

January 2023
M T W T F S S
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
3031  
« Dec    

Complex

Old-skool

This website and its associated magazine, and weekly newsletter, are all produced by a small team of experienced journalists and media professionals.

If you have any suggestions or comments, feel free to contact us at any of the email addresses on our contact page.

We’d be happy to hear from you, and will always reply as soon as possible.

Future-facing

Free, fair and legal

We support the principles of net neutrality and equal opportunities.

Member of The Internet Defense League

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies.
Do not sell my personal information.
Cookie SettingsAccept
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously.
CookieDurationDescription
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional11 monthsThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance11 monthsThis cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy11 monthsThe cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
SAVE & ACCEPT