Robotics & Automation News

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Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot shows off its gymnastic skills

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Boston Dynamics, the much-talked-about maker of humanoid and canine robots, has been demonstrating the gymnastic skills of one of its robots, Atlas. (See video below.)

Atlas is about 1.5 metres tall, weighs approximately 80 kg, and has 28 hydraulic joints.

The Boston Dynamics team have always impressed with their ability to mimic natural human or canine movements with their robots, and the new gymnastic skills they have taught Atlas are equally as accomplished. [Read more…] about Boston Dynamics’ humanoid robot shows off its gymnastic skills

Apple unveils Mac Pro with new display

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Apple has introduced the all-new Mac Pro, a completely redesigned workstation and unveiled Apple Pro Display XDR.

Designed for maximum performance, expansion and configurability, the Mac Pro features workstation-class Xeon processors up to 28 cores, a high-performance memory system with a massive 1.5TB capacity, eight PCIe expansion slots and a graphics architecture featuring the world’s most powerful graphics card.

It also introduces Apple Afterburner, an accelerator card that enables playback of three streams of 8K ProRes RAW video simultaneously.

[Read more…] about Apple unveils Mac Pro with new display

Hitachi Vantara launches Lumada Video Insights for ‘smart spaces’

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Hitachi Vantara has launched Lumada Video Insights to enable the development of what it calls “smart spaces”.

Vantara, which is a subsidiary of Hitachi, says Lumada Video Insights is an end-to-end, intelligent and adaptable suite of applications that delivers operational safety and business intelligence using the internet of things, video, artificial intelligence, and analytics.

Lumada Video Insights complements and extends Hitachi’s Lumada platform and services ecosystem with expanded AI, computer vision, advanced analytics, data integration, and orchestration capabilities to help enterprise and industrial customers accelerate their IoT, initiatives and cultivate their own smart spaces and ecosystems.

[Read more…] about Hitachi Vantara launches Lumada Video Insights for ‘smart spaces’

Intel acquires Omnitek to strengthen FPGA video and vision offering

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Intel Corporation has announced the acquisition of Omnitek, a leading provider of optimised video and vision FPGA IP solutions.

Omnitek’s technology enables customised high-performance vision and artificial intelligence (AI) inferencing capabilities on FPGAs in areas such as video conferencing, projection and display, medical vision systems, and more.

Based in Basingstoke, UK, Omnitek was founded in 1998 and has developed over 220 FPGA IP cores and accompanying software including performance-leading solutions for WARP, ISP processing and video connectivity.

[Read more…] about Intel acquires Omnitek to strengthen FPGA video and vision offering

Oceaneering selected to ‘digitally’ transform Pacific Drilling’s global fleet

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Oceaneering International, Inc., and Pacific Drilling have entered into a five-year Digital Services Package agreement to provide Pacific’s customers with better reliability and improved throughput enabling streaming video and real-time data.

This will allow the provision of emerging services such as remote ROV piloting, surveying, and automation aboard Pacific Drilling’s high-specification drillship fleet.

As a result of these efforts, Pacific Drilling’s customers can benefit from higher security, increased access and management of third parties as well as new and expanded digital services.

[Read more…] about Oceaneering selected to ‘digitally’ transform Pacific Drilling’s global fleet

Sony and Docomo to test driverless concept vehicle via 5G trial network in Guam

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Sony Corporation and NTT Docomo, Inc. will jointly trial Sony’s conceptual driverless vehicle, the New Concept Cart SC-1, which uses 5G mobile technologies for various remotely controlled functions.

The test will be conducted using the trial network in Docomo 5G Open Lab Guam, which will provide test facilities and an outdoor verification environment constructed by Docomo.

The test will verify data transmission and operational performance required to remotely control the cart from a long distance via the extra-high speed, large capacity, low latency and massive-device connectivity.

[Read more…] about Sony and Docomo to test driverless concept vehicle via 5G trial network in Guam

Veo Robotics could make all industrial robots collaborative

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Traditional industrial robots tend to be very large and potentially dangerous, which is why they tend to be caged off and kept separate from human workers.

But a new company called Veo Robotics says it has the technology to transform traditional industrial robotic arms into safe machines that humans can work alongside, within close proximity.

Veo’s solution could make every industrial robot a collaborative robot. The term “collaborative” is recognized by international standards organizations and usually applies to much smaller, newer types of robots which are specifically designed to safe for humans to work with.  [Read more…] about Veo Robotics could make all industrial robots collaborative

MIT reveals robot to inspect pipes, while Stanford shows ‘vine-like growing robot’

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Universities are doing a lot of interesting work in the area of robotics, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford are two of the most active in the field. 

Both universities showed similar robots this week, MIT’s being a bottle-shaped device which checks pipes and Stanford’s one a machine which is said to grow like a vine.

According to DigitalTrends.com, MIT’s PipeGuard team recently won $10,000 in the university’s competition and swims through pipes to detect any problems.

The YouTube video for the device (above) describes as a “leak detection robot for city water distribution systems”.

Stanford, which also made a video (below) of its strange plant- or worm-like organic robot, if it can be called that, said its invention “could be useful in search and rescue and medical applications”.

Commercial customers for the robots are probably already lined up and perhaps the two teams could spin out into startup companies.

Tiny chip capable of running deep neural networks could accelerate robotics development

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movidius

One of the challenges in robotics development is the fact that the computer processing required is just massive, often too much for a complex machine to handle onboard without packing very large pieces of hardware. 

One way around it has been to connect the robots up to cloud computing systems which run such things as neural networks and can remotely process data – but this is inefficient and slow.

Even if takes a few seconds to process massive quantities of data, those seconds are just too much time wasted for a machine such, for example, an autonomous car on the move – these things need to be instantaneous.  [Read more…] about Tiny chip capable of running deep neural networks could accelerate robotics development

Beam me up virtually, Scotty: I canna change the laws of physics, captain

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Kirk, Spock teleportation

lockA while ago, Robotics and Automation News interviewed Alex Boch about 360 cameras, and he said he would be developing a new product soon which would incorporate virtual reality. 

Now, having helped build the ALLie Camera, Boch – who is VP of operations there – is back in touch to talk about the device which he says gives users a better view of events than if they were actually there.

One of the events ALLie has been used for is the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, which Boch mentions in the Q&A that follows.  [Read more…] about Beam me up virtually, Scotty: I canna change the laws of physics, captain