Robotics Trends

Teaching Your Car How To Drive What if your car could learn how you handle different driving situations, then alert you if you fail to slow for a curve or start driving erratically? A European research project has already built a working prototype of a car so smart that it goes to driving school every day. Drivers go to school to learn to anticipate emerging situations and respond appropriately. Why shouldn’t cars do the same? That’s the question Florentin Wörgötter and his colleagues at the EU-funded research programme DRIVSCO asked themselves three years ago. Their answer was that, with state-of-the-art sensors, image processors, and learning algorithms, a car that smart could be built. The result, now tested in a prototype vehicle, is a system that tracks a driver’s every move, matches those… View this post
Filed in: Academics and Research • Feature • Robotics Features
Tagged: Autonomy, Artificial intelligence, Drivsco, Automobile

Virtual Conference to Focus on Autonomy, Navigation and Mobility Solutions, and Business Development Robotics Trends’ Robotics Summit Virtual Conference and Exposition to feature keynotes and general sessions by world class speakers, as well as a virtual exposition floor packed with cutting-edge technologies. Robotics Trends and EH Publishing, Inc. announce the focus of the first virtual conference serving the robotics and intelligent systems industries.  The inaugural Robotics Summit Virtual Conference and Exposition will take place June 16, 2010 and feature an international cast of keynote and general session speakers from the robotics and intelligent systems industries.  Attendees will attend the event free of charge, with full access to the exhibit hall, keynote presentations, sessions, online networking opportunities, and prize giveaways - without travel expense or time away from their business.  The event website is http://www.robovirtualevents.com. Robotics Trends’ Robotics Summit offers… View this post
Filed in: Service Robotics • Latest News • Robotics Features
Tagged: Autonomy, robotics, robot, robotics trends, robotics summit, business development, investment, robotics summit virtual conference and exposition

Virginia Tech Team to Build Battlefield Robots for 2010 Competition The roving, walking robotic soldiers of the “Terminator” films are becoming less sci-fi and more certain future every day. Now, a team of robotics researchers from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering will build a team of fully autonomous cooperative battle-ready robots as part of a 2010 international war games challenge that could spur real-life battle bots. The roving, walking robotic soldiers of the “Terminator” films are becoming less sci-fi and more certain future every day. Now, a team of robotics researchers from the Virginia Tech College of Engineering will build a team of fully autonomous cooperative battle-ready robots as part of a 2010 international war games challenge that could spur real-life battle bots. The 2010 Multi-Autonomous Ground-robotic International Challenge (MAGIC) tasks teams with building squads… View this post
Filed in: Academics and Research • Feature • Robotics Features
Tagged: Autonomy, Robotics, Virginia tech, Multi-autonomous ground-robotic international challenge, Robots, Ground robots

MobileRobots Rolls Out Low-Cost Seekur Jr UGV Producer of standard robotic platforms releases the Seekur Jr unmanned ground vehicle, an affordable, highly customizable, robotic platform suitable for variable weather conditions (IP 54, from -5 to +35°C), 45-degree grades and variable terrain. New Seekur Jr Unmanned Guided Vehicle (UGV), from MobileRobots Inc, jump-starts industry-of-the-future inventions like self-driving cars, soldier-following carts, fruit-picking wagons and teams of reconnaissance scouts. Before Seekur Jr, roboticists needed to jerry-rig a standard vehicle, build their own, or seek the rare six-figure grant to buy a typical UGV. Seekur Jr changes all that. This is not the first time MobileRobots succeeded in advancing research while growing the robotics market. Back in 1995 when the company was founded, most researchers had to build any robot they wanted to study. With luck, the… View this post
Filed in: Service Robotics • Opinion
Tagged: Autonomy, Unmanned ground vehicle, Mobilerobots , Autonomous, Seekur, Platform, Ugv

EU Commissions Swarm of Robot Fish to Sniff Out Pollution in Ports Researchers in Southern England have won part of a European Union contract with a sophisticated, autonomous, marine-locomotive pollution detector that looks astonishingly like a fish. The 2.5 million-pound ($3.6 million) contract was awarded by the EU’s 7th Framework Programme for SHOAL a project whose name looks like an acronym but isn’t, whose goal is to use robot fish to sniff out and report pollution in Europe’s harbors and rivers. EU countries currently spend about $350 million per year on detection of pollution in its ports, but often either overlooks new sources of pollution, or identifies them too late – after a ship has left port, for example. The idea behind the fish swarm is to use “hybrid particle swarm/ant colony optimization techniques,” according to the EU’s… View this post
Filed in: Robotics Trends Feature • Editor's Pick • RT News • Robotics Features
Tagged: Autonomy, Fish, Essex university