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Finger Lakes college partners with New Scale Robotics to develop collaborative robot tools

Finger Lakes Community College has been awarded a $50,000 manufacturing grant from the FuzeHub Innovation Fund to support its work with New Scale Robotics, accelerating development of New Scale’s precision measurement and gripping tools for a wide range of collaborative robots.

New Scale has a line of precision grippers, calipers and other tools that install in minutes on cobots from Universal Robots.

New Scale will collaborate with Dr Sam Samanta, head of the Instrumentation and Controls program at FLCC, and his students to develop a Smart Platform that expands plug-and-play compatibility of New Scale Robotics tools to multiple additional cobot brands. [Read more…] about Finger Lakes college partners with New Scale Robotics to develop collaborative robot tools

Public policy group calls for updating of laws to enable driverless truck platooning

A US public policy organization called the Competitive Enterprise Institute is urging states to update their laws to enable driverless truck platooning.

The CEO says the measures would offers safety, economic, and environmental benefits.

New automated vehicle technology will help freight truck companies transport consumer goods in a more fuel-efficient way, reducing transportation costs and emissions and boosting highway safety thanks to always-on automatic emergency braking. [Read more…] about Public policy group calls for updating of laws to enable driverless truck platooning

Foxconn boss reiterates commitment to build factory in Wisconsin

Foxconn boss Terry Gou has reiterated his commitment to building a multi-million-dollar factory in Mount Pleasant, in the US state of Wisconsin.

The chairman of Foxconn, which is better known as Hon Hai Precision in its native Taiwan, met with US President Donald Trump at the White House earlier this week.

After the meeting, media reports suggested that Foxconn will make additional investments in the Wisconsin facility.

Connected Signals launches cloud-based vehicle-to-infrastructure system

Connected Signals, a provider of predictive real-time traffic signal information, has launched its Signal Priority System product suite for smart cities.

SPS is a proprietary vehicle-to-infrastructure technology that is a cloud-based, centralized system connecting vehicles to traffic signals, and providing prioritization of buses, pedestrians, emergency vehicles, and others.

Connected Signals says this fresh approach capitalizes on existing traffic management infrastructure and cellular data, rather than requiring dedicated roadside equipment.

[Read more…]

Washington passes law allowing robots to take over the streets

Washington Governor Jay Inslee (main picture) has signed a bill allowing delivery robots to take over the streets.

Governor Inslee approved House Bill 1325, thereby creating the framework to regulate what are termed “Personal Delivery Devices”, or PDDs, across the entire state.

The legislation specifically permits the use of Starship Technologies’ robots – or PDDs – in the state of Washington and marks the eighth state-wide approval for such machines on sidewalks and crosswalks in the US. [Read more…] about Washington passes law allowing robots to take over the streets

Driverless cars set to take to the roads much faster than anticipated as Colorado passes first law regulating the technology

Volvo_driverless_car — Picture of driverless car with “passenger” in driving seat… courtesy of Volvo

The sheer speed with which driverless cars have gone from a fanciful notion to soon-to-be real-world, mainstream standard technology might be bewildering to some and slightly worrying to others.

But for proponents and supporters of the technology – of which there are many, both inside the industry as well as in society at large – the driverless car was always clearly on the horizon, and it’s imminent arrival is not a moment too soon.

Colorado has become the latest state to pass a law which allows the development of autonomous cars as long as the developers observe existing laws of the road. [Read more…] about Driverless cars set to take to the roads much faster than anticipated as Colorado passes first law regulating the technology