It was a hectic but interesting week at the 2017 IEEE International
Conference on Robotics and Automation in Singapore. Here’s a brief recap
of some of my observations and experiences.
Mosquitos kill more humans every year than any other animal on the
planet and conventional methods to reduce mosquito-borne illnesses
haven’t worked as well as many hoped. So we’ve been hard at work since
receiving this USAID grant six months ago to reduce Zika incidence and
related threats to public health.
To celebrate 20 years of RoboCup, the Federation is launching a video
series featuring each of the leagues. This week, we look at being part
of the RoboCupIndustrial league.
Over the past year, 398 audiences of up to 2,000 people witnessed an
octet of colorful lampshades perform an airborne choreography during
Cirque du Soleil’s Broadway show Paramour, which ran until April 20th.
The work behind the design and choreography of the flying lampshades,
which turn out to be self-piloted show drones, bears the signature of
the Swiss high-tech company Verity Studios.
But how novel is it really that robots have appeared in theater? Since Karel Capek’s science fiction play R.U.R. (short for Rossum’s Universal Robots) introduced the word “robot” to the English language and to science fiction almost 100 years ago, the technical challenges of incorporating robots into live performance and theater have been difficult to master. Before these Broadway drones, nearly all theater robots were remote-controlled puppets, relying on humans hidden off-scene to steer their movements and provide their intelligence.
But how novel is it really that robots have appeared in theater? Since Karel Capek’s science fiction play R.U.R. (short for Rossum’s Universal Robots) introduced the word “robot” to the English language and to science fiction almost 100 years ago, the technical challenges of incorporating robots into live performance and theater have been difficult to master. Before these Broadway drones, nearly all theater robots were remote-controlled puppets, relying on humans hidden off-scene to steer their movements and provide their intelligence.
Franklin Robotics has launched a Kickstarter campaign for Tertill, their solar-powered, garden-weeding robot.
No matter how great a surgeon is, robotic assistance can bring a
higher level of precision to the operating table. The ability to
remotely operate a robot that can hold precision instruments greatly
increases the accuracy of surgical procedures like thoracoscopic
surgery, which is used to treat lung cancer.
It is unclear if Masayoshi Son, Chairman of Softbank, was one of the
17 million YouTube viewers of Boston Dynamic’s Big Dog before acquiring
the company for an undisclosed amount this past Thursday. What is clear
is the acquisition of Boston Dynamics by Softbank is a big deal.
Softbank’s humanoid robot Pepper is trading up her dainty wheels for a
pair of sturdy legs.
interview by
Audrow Nash and Christina Brester
- June 9, 2017
In this episode, Audrow Nash and Christina Brester conduct interviews at the 2016 International Association of Science Parks and Areas of Innovation conference in Moscow, Russia. They speak with Vadim Kotenev of Rehabot and Motorica about prosthetic hands and rehabilatative devices; and Vagan Martirosyan, CEO of TryFit, a company that uses robotic sensors to help people find shoes that fit them well.
In 2016,
the European Union co-funded 17 new robotics projects from the Horizon
2020 Framework Programme for research and innovation. 16 of these
resulted from the robotics work programme,
and 1 project resulted from the Societal Challenges part of Horizon
2020. The robotics work programme implements the robotics strategy
developed by SPARC, the Public-Private Partnership for Robotics in
Europe (see the Strategic Research Agenda).
