Market trends and business perspectives
Honeybee Robotics has received four Nasa Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I awards and two Nasa Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I award to develop new spacecraft systems and enabling technologies.
The awards will allow Honeybee to analyze concepts for advanced future planetary exploration, sampling, in-situ resource utilization, and on-orbit operations. [Read more…] about Honeybee Robotics wins Nasa funding for six spacecraft projects
Toshiba Mitsubishi-Electric Industrial Systems Corporation has been selected to provide industrial drive and automation solutions for The Port of Virginia’s historic expansion project, totaling 86 Konecranes Automated-Stacking Cranes (ASC) at the Norfolk International Terminal (NIT) and Virginia International Gateway (VIG) facilities.
This is the largest ASC order TMEIC has received to date and the largest single ASC order ever placed by a port.
“TMEIC has been a longtime, proven partner with Konecranes and The Port of Virginia, including the construction of VIG and the original ASC implementation there in 2007,” TMEIC president and CEO Dale Guidry said. [Read more…] about TMEIC to supply Virginia port with world’s largest automated cranes system in deal worth $670 million
Saving energy has been a serious preoccupation of many industrial companies for many years, but especially in recent years with prices of fuel fluctuating and public concern about the environment growing.
In the auto manufacturing sector, which buys the most number of industrial robots and uses vast amounts of energy, companies such as Kuka have been looking to make their automation systems more energy efficient.
Now, in the European Union, a project called Automation and Robotics for European Sustainable Manufacturing, or Areus, says it has developed the components of an energy-efficient automobile production system of the future. [Read more…] about Daimler develops ways for industrial robots and factories to save energy under Areus project
lockIf aliens from beyond our solar system or even our galaxy were to land on Earth and wanted to communicate with intelligent machines that can move around and shake hands, chances are that one of the first in line to greet our otherworldly visitors will be a robot with a brain built using the Robot Operating System.
The simple reason for this is that ROS is one of the most ubiquitous platforms for robotics in the world today, helped largely by the fact that it is an open-source project, in contrast to the majority of robot operating systems which are proprietary and closed.
Described as a collection of frameworks for robot software development, ROS was originally developed in 2007 at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. ROS was then extended by Willow Garage, and that’s when it really started taking off. [Read more…] about All’s well that ROS well: Robot Operating System taking over the world
NXP to supply RoadLink chipsets for secure vehicle-to-x communications in Korea’s next-generation intelligent transportation system project
NXP Semiconductors and eSSys will be technology partners in Korea’s next-generation Cooperative Intelligent Transportation System (C-ITS) project promoted by the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
NXP will supply eSSys with its RoadLink V2X chipset, a vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communication and security solution which will be test-operated on an 87.8 km route between Sejong City (city of government offices) and Daejon. The year-long pilot operation started this month.
Currently, a variety of smart transport technologies are being installed on national highways, including the primary highway for access to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang. [Read more…] about NXP and eSSys to deliver intelligent transport systems for Korean government project
HBP opens up all of its computing platforms to the wider research community as it looks to accelerate progress
The Human Brain Project has released all six of its computing platforms to the wider research community and the general public in an attempt to accelerate progress.
People who are interested can now request access to any or all of the platforms, most of which are suitable for collaboration and accessible through the worldwide web.
The six platforms have the following titles: Neuroinformatics; Brain Simulation; High Performance Analytics and Computing; Medical Informatics; Neuromorphic Computing; and NeuroRobotics. [Read more…] about Human Brain Project gives public access to web-based simulation platforms
Carnegie Mellon University’s National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) has been selected as a prime contractor or subcontractor on four major new federal research projects totaling more than $11 million over the next three years. The projects range from research on a wheel that can transform into a track to automated stress testing for critical software.
Herman Herman, NREC director, said the center has hired 10 new technical staff members in the past six months and anticipates hiring another five-to-10 staff members in the coming months to augment its existing staff of about 100.
“For the past 20 years, NREC has been an important national resource, combining unique technical skills and testing capabilities to solve problems that other groups can’t,” said Martial Hebert, director of CMU’s Robotics Institute, which includes the NREC. “These new projects are a reminder that NREC continues to advance the art and science of robotics and that it remains a vital part of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute.” [Read more…] about Carnegie Mellon robotics unit wins $11m in contracts
When first learning to drive, many people find steering a bit tricky. You realise the roads maybe aren’t as straight as you thought they were and you constantly have to turn an inch this way, and an inch that way. Not being used to the relationship between the wheel in your hands and the wheels on the road, you’re not quite sure if the unsteady minute manoeuvers you’re having to make is because you lack the skill, or if the road is wrong, or if the wheels are not all connected up properly. Many cars seem to have some slack between the steering wheel and the road wheels.
With autonomous cars of course you no longer have to worry about your steering skills. In fact, if Google has its way, you may not even see a steering wheel. For not only did the self-styled archiver of all human knowledge stupefy everyone by presenting us with the crazy idea of driverless cars and actually persuade everyone it’s actually quite a good idea when you think about it, the modern equivalent of Big Brother is now telling us it wants to do away with the steering wheel, the acceleration pedal, the clutch and brake. The weird thing is that their mad ideas make sense to us, even though we have a sneaky suspicion that they really shouldn’t. But paranoia aside, why would you need a steering wheel or anything like that in a car that you don’t have to operate, that moves around by itself? On this evidence, Google will continue to drive people out of their minds, and we will accept it, probably.
Now, of course, everyone and their grannies are developing autonomous car technologies in anticipation of some brave new world where all cars have the same rights as humans. And who better to help us innovate our way into inconsequence than the Germans? Their long tradition of automotive engineering excellence would demand that they come up with at least one screwball idea that people may think is actually quite practical. So in keeping with Google’s continual challenges to conventional thinking, the Germans have been pushing the idea of car wheels all turning and moving independently of each other, theoretically in any direction the autonomous, cloud-connected robot chooses for each one. [Read more…] about Germans developing car wheels that can be steered individually
Please pause your adblocker and refresh page to continue reading. Thank you.
