Category Archives: Robotics

Make-A-Wish Colorado recently teamed up with Arrow Electronics to make a 17-pound, cutting-edge robot that would fulfill a Colorado teens wish.

SEDALIA, Colo. (CBS4) What better place to meet a dragon than at the Cherokee Castle in Sedalia? The wish starts with a virtual reality experience for Belle Cress and some of her family members. The 14-year-old is a cancer survivor.

She was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. Its a rare bone cancer, said Amber Borata, Cresss mom.

Cresss diagnosis came on the heels of her brothers battle with the same cancer. Belle went through several surgeries, and 10 months of intense chemotherapy.

I dont really remember much about the cancer, Cress told CBS4.

It was really tough. And she doesnt really remember a lot of that just because she was feeling so sick most of the time, Borata explained.

The light at the end of the tunnel was Belles wish.

Excited like a feeling that I cant really explain in my chest sort of nervous.. excited, Cress said of the moments before meeting her new pet dragon.

Then the reveal: Cress saw the dragon that she had in her imagination come to life.

Ive loved dragons ever since I can remember, she said.

Make-A-Wish Colorado partnered with Arrow Electronics, who then brought Its Alive Labs into the project, to create a cutting-edge social robot, a newly emerging realm of technology.

What we try to do and what everybody involved in this project tried to do is bring Belles imagination to life and I think weve done that, said Scott Dishong, President & CEO of Make-A-Wish Colorado. All of our wishes are intended to bring hope.

What she wanted in the form of a dragon was a pet, a friend, a companion, and theres a whole emerging category of technology called social robots. They can do a variety of things. They can do things for you, they can help you remind you of things, they can handle some of your communications, maybe even get things for you. And in this case they can be used to make you feel better, said Joe Verrengia, Director of Corporate Social Responsibility for Arrow Electronics.

Just rubbing the chin, or the head, or the nose, petting its rump a little bit, that will give you those different reactions, Victoria Pea said as she demonstrated how the dragon interacts. Pea is the project manager for Arrow Electronics.

The dragon wags his tail, stands up, spreads his wings, makes noises, and even eats special food. Hell even sit down when he gets tired.

Honestly, at the beginning of this, we were wondering if it could be a fire-breathing dragon. Obviously with electronics, its not the best idea, Pea explained.

The body was 3D printed. Each of the scales was individual glued in place. There are 25 motors and several electronic boards that bring the dragon to life. Its a marvel of electrical and mechanical engineering, not to mention artistry.

I asked for a dragon because I wanted something that would be as close to a real dragon as possible, Cress said.

Im pretty she shes in love with it, her mom added.

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Make-A-Wish Teams Up With Arrow Electronics Robotics Team, Brings Teens Vision Of Imaginary Dragon To Life - CBS Denver

If a pandemic wiped out mankind, would robots still enter competitions?

We havent reached those points yet (smart robots organizing their own society or human extinction), but COVID-19 did kill last years First Robotics Competition (FRC).

Just three days before the big event in 2020, organizers were forced to pull the plug. The pandemic had arrived and the country shut down.

They basically dropped it and all of our work for that year was lost, said the robotics team captain. A Rowley resident, he transferred to Ipswich specially in his junior year just so he could compete in First Robotics.

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Now in its 30th year, FRC was founded by Dean Kamen, the inventor of Segway. Almost 4,000 teams with 97,000 students compete. Most are from America but dozens of other countries are represented.

The competitions values are gracious professionalism which embraces the competition inherent in the program, but rejects trash talk and chest-thumping, according to Wikipedia.

Another value is coopertition where teams can cooperate and compete at the same time.The goal of the program is to inspire students to be science and technology leaders, it added.

This year, the pandemic is still with us and its still not safe to hold large competitions in enclosed spaces. So FRC organizers have issued a modified challenge: High school students have to build a robot as they always do. The difference this time is that they have to video their bot at work and send the movie along.

Team coach and robotics teacher Ethan Powers said students received instructions in the new year on what they had to do. Tests included timed trials around a measured course and throwing objects through a hoop 8.5 feet off the ground.

With a submission date of April 8, its getting down to the wire in the music room at Ipswich High School. The robotics club moved there from one of the hallways they are using and found their times improved. It had nothing to do with acoustics and everything to do with flooring. The music room carpet had better traction than linoleum tiles and results improved on the timed trials.

The team has different groups with diverse responsibilities such as programming, mechanics and electronics. There is even a business sub-team that goes out to find sponsorship for what is an expensive build. Analog Devices, Institution for Savings, Tedfords and DJ Fabricators all helped there.

Although assisted by volunteers Dan Boone and David Platt, Powers said the coaches are white glove. That means they are not supposed to build or program or touch any equipment. All of the work must be done by the students.

Taking the robot through its paces last week, sophomore and operator Pia Stewart used two joysticks to guide the machine around a 15-by-30-foot course. She has to drive the robot around a pre-defined path without touching any cones. There is a five-second penalty for doing that, she explained.

Stewart said she drove one course 30 times before she got a good-enough score. You just progressively get better because you are doing it so often, she noted.

In addition to their coaches, the students have other advisors, Couvelon said. Every now and then an alum comes by and catches up with the team, he noted.

One of the them was Peyton Fitzgerald, now an engineering student Northeastern. Student Abi Dixon said he offered this advice: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. In other words, get the driving and course right before trying to do it fast.

Stewart said she wants to be a mechanical or aerspace engineer and credited First Robotics with developing her skills. It has definitely helped me grow my passion and make me realize how much I love engineering, she said.

Dixon, a sophomore, said she also has designs on a career in the field. She also operates the robot and has worked on mechanics and early design concepts using CAD, she said. She would like to study mechanical or biotechnical engineering.

Caralyn Conrad is strategy lead for the team. That entails stuff like scouting at competitions, but my role is obviously different due to the pandemic, she said.

If I were to say what I do in a nutshell, it would be troubleshooting roadblocks to team safety and efficiency and creating systems to fix problems. In addition, Ialso do quite a bit of mechanical work on the robot itself, and Im currently heading a project to createa team tool cart to store everything we need to work on the robot, all in one place, she said.

Senior Ian Maher said he has been on the team throughout high school. I showed up as an eighth grader and everybody was very confused, he said. Powers said eighth grade students are now sometimes allowed on the team.

Because of Covid, the team doesnt spend as much time working on its robot as it would in a normal year, Powers said. They work from 2:30 p.m. to 6 p.m., four days a week. There is no access to the building on Wednesdays or weekends, he noted.

He said the team has 20 to 25 members but of them, 10 to 15 are really serious and dedicated.

Boone, a retired engineer, expressed admiration for the students and their work ethic. When I think back to when I was that age, I didnt have my stuff together the same way, he laughed.

Meanwhile, the deadline draws near. Last week, the team was happy with one of its course times but still had plenty of work ahead of it. We think were in good shape now, Powers laughed, but I promise you on April 7

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Even when the Covid-19 downturn is finally past us, operators will have to continue exploring new avenues for cost reductions to be better equipped to withstand future market declines. In a report that looked into the adoption of robotics across the petroleum industry, Rystad Energy found that existing solutions could replace hundreds of thousands of oil and gas jobs globally and reduce drilling labor costs by several billion dollars by 2030, if there is an industry push for such a transition.

One of the segments with much to gain from the adoption of robotics is drilling, as it is highly cost-intensive and involves carrying out dangerous tasks in challenging environments. Robotic solutions have already been introduced successfully in drilling operations, with companies such as Nabors at the development forefront.

Applying current supplier specs, which suggest that robotic drilling systems can potentially reduce the number of roughnecks required on a drilling rig by 20% to 30%, Rystad Energy estimates that such a reduction in both offshore and onshore drilling crews can bring cost savings of more than $7 billion in wages in the US alone, based on present wage levels.

Inspection, maintenance and repair (IMR) operations are also ideal for robotic operations and is the segment where adoption of robotics has gained the most traction among operators in recent years. This has so far mainly been limited to subsea IMR activities, but we are now starting to see IMR robotics solutions also being used for topsides.

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Overall, Rystad Energy believes that at least 20% of the jobs in segments such as drilling, operational support, and maintenance could in theory get automated in the next 10 years. Looking at the current staffing headcount of some key oil and gas producing countries, the US could reduce its staffing needs by over 140,000 employees and Russia by over 200,000 personnel. Canada, the UK, and Norway could shed between 20,000 and 30,000 jobs each.

Despite the huge potential of robotics, operators should be aware that these savings will be partially offset by the considerable investments required for the adoption of these solutions, which may vary depending on the cost structure and whether the robots are owned or leased, says Sumit Yadav, energy service analyst at Rystad Energy.

Nevertheless, the next generation of robotics solutions is already emerging within subsea IMR in the form of perpetually underwater robotics solutions that offer significantly lower costs and better reach than a conventional remotely operated vehicle (ROV). While a conventional ROV needs to be sent down from the surface, these new systems can stay underwater permanently and easily access places that are difficult to reach for conventional ROVs, irrespective of the weather conditions. Related: Oil Markets Already Priced In An OPEC+ Output Cut Extension

A notable example is the self-propelled robotics arms unit Eelume, developed by Kongsberg Maritime and used by Norwegian operator Equinor. Owing to their snake-like design, the robotic arms have the flexibility and agility to transit over long distances and carry out subsea IMR activities such as visual inspection, cleaning, and operating valves and chokes in highly confined spaces.

Not all digitization and robotization translates into a reduction in manpower, however. For instance, Transocean has introduced wearable safety technology that alarms a crew member if they come too close to the drilling equipment. If the crew member still doesnt maintain a safe distance, the alarm will shut down the equipment.

Similarly, Diamond Offshore has launched the industrys first cybernetic blow-out preventer (BOP) service. The service named Sim-Stack makes a virtual replica of the BOP hydraulically and electrically to assess its overall health and regulatory compliance. The system provides much faster information on component failures, reducing downtime and improving safety, and can also be used to train personnel, according to the rig operator.

While the emergence of robotics in the oil and gas industry seems inevitable, we believe that full-scale adoption is still a few years away as the long-term reliability of robotics in complex 3D environments such as those found on offshore platforms is yet to be tested. Another challenge in the implementation of robotics is limited communication capabilities, especially between robotics units. If robots are to fully replace humans, it is imperative that these systems communicate seamlessly to unlock true value. The implementation of such communication systems is both complex and costly.

Finally, job cuts due to robotics are likely to be met with some resistance from labor organizations, and robotized work processes may also need to pass regulatory hurdles as authorities seek to ensure that the operational changes brought on by the new technology satisfy safety and environmental standards.

By Rystad Energy

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Robotic surgery systems are used in thousands of hospitals around the world. A decade ago they were clunky machines built to assist with routine procedures. Today, theyre capable of conducting end-to-end surgeries without human aid.

Recent leaps in the field of deep learning have made difficult tasks such as surgery, electronics assembly, and piloting a fighter jet relatively simple. It might take a decade to train a human in all the necessary medical knowledge required for them to perform brain surgery. And that cost is the same for each subsequent human surgeon thereafter. It takes about the same investment for every human surgeon.

But AI is different. The initial investment to create a robotic surgery device might be large, but that all changes once youve produced a working model. Instead of 8-12 years to create a human specialist, factories can be built to produce AI surgeons en masse. Over time, the cost of maintaining and operating a surgical machine one capable of working 24/7/365 without drawing a paycheck would likely become trivial versus maintaining a human surgical staff.

Thats not to say theres no place for human surgeons in the future. Well always need human experts capable of informing the next generation of machines. And there are some procedures that remain beyond the abilities of modern AI and robotics. But surgery, much like any other precision-based endeavor, lies well within the domain of modernAI.

Surgery is a specific skill and, for the most part, robots excel at automating tasks that require more precision than creativity. And thats exactly why robot surgeons are commonplace, but were likely decades away from a fully-functioning AI-powered nurse.

And this is exactly why AI didnt have a huge impact during the pandemic. When COVID-19 first hit, there was a lot of optimism that big tech would save the day with AI. The idea was that companies such as Google and Microsoft would come up with incredible contact-tracing mechanisms that would allow us to tailor medical responses at an extremely granular level. This, we collectively figured, would lead to a truncated pandemic.

We were wrong, but only because there wasnt really anything for AI to do. Where it could help, in aiding the rapid development of a vaccine, it did. But the vast majority of our problems in hospitals had to do with things a modern robot cant fix.

What we needed, during the last patient peak, were more human nurses and PPE for them. Robots cant look around and learn like a human, they have to be trained for exactly what theyll be doing. And thats just not possible during giant emergency situations where, for example, a hospitals floor plan changes to accommodate an increase in patients and massive quantities of new equipment is introduced.

Researchers at John Hopkins university recently conducted a study to determine what well need to do in order for robots to aid healthcare professionals during future pandemics. According to them, modern robots arent up to the task:

A big issue has been deployability and how quickly a non-expert user can customize a robot. For example, our ICU ventilator robot was designed for one kind of ventilator that pushes buttons. But some ventilators have knobs, so we need to be able to add a modality so that the robot can also manipulate knobs. Say you want one robot that can service multiple ventilators; then youd need a mobile robot with an arm attachment, and that robot could also do plenty of other useful jobs on the hospital floor.

Thats all well and fine when things are going perfectly. But what happens when the knob pops off or someone brings in a new kind of machine with toggles or a touch-screen? Humans have no problem adapting to these situations, but a robot would need an entirely new accessory and a training update to compensate.

In order for developers to create a nurse robot, theyd need to anticipate everything a nurse encounters on a daily basis. Good luck with that.

AI and machines can be adapted to perform certain tasks related to nursing, such as assisting with intake or recording and monitoring patients vital signs. But there isnt a machine in the world that can perform the day-to-day routine functions of a typical hospital staff nurse.

Nurses spend the majority of their time responding to real-time situations. In a given shift, a nurse interacts with patients, sets up and breaks down equipment, handles precision instruments, carries heavy objects through people-filled spaces, solves mysteries, keeps meticulous notes, and acts as a liaison between the medical staff and the general public.

We have the answer to most of those problems individually, but putting them together in a mobile unit is the problem.

That Boston Dynamics robot that does backflips, for example, could certainly navigate a hospital, carry things, and avoid causing injury or damage. But it has no way of knowing where a doctor might have accidentally left the chart it needs to update its logs, how to calm down a scared patient, or what to do if an immobile patient misses the bedpan.

Published March 30, 2021 17:58 UTC

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Hundreds of thousands of oil and gas jobs globally could be replaced by robots, according to a new report from Rystad Energy.

The oil and gas consulting firm said that the positions could be filled using existing technology, saving billions of dollars on reduced labour costs by 2030.

Drilling is one area that could see enormous savings. The process is both highly labour intensive and, especially in offshore environments, dangerous.

In addition, Rystad noted that inspection, maintenance, and repair (IMR) operations had much to gain from replacing human workers with robots.

Currently, numerous companies offer subsea remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for offshore work, saving divers from having to work in particularly treacherous conditions. However, the use of drones has become more common in recent years, being used to inspect the outside of rigs as well as offshore wind farms.

By applying current supplier specs, Rystad Energy estimated that robotic drilling systems can potentially reduce the number of workers required on a drilling rig, or in operational support, and maintenance, by 20-30%.

Figures for 2019 estimated that over 30,000 people are currently directly employed in the UKs offshore oil and gas industry, with indirect and induced employment bringing the total up to 269,000. As such, Rystad believes the UK could potentially shed 20,000-30,000 jobs over the next decade, with the majority coming from support roles.

Despite the huge potential of robotics, operators should be aware that these savings will be partially offset by the considerable investments required for the adoption of these solutions, which may vary depending on the cost structure and whether the robots are owned or leased, said Rystad Energy Energy Service Analyst Sumit Yadav.

While existing technology could be used to replace jobs, next-generation robotics solutions offer considerable savings on operating costs. One example is perpetually underwater robotics solutions, which would replace conventional ROVs, which need to surface. This would save time and money on having to hire a vessel to operate topside during operations.

While many of the new robotics solutions will replace human operators, technology is available to support and protect staff. Rystad pointed to wearable safety technology from Transocean that alarms crew if they come too close to drilling equipment.

However, Rystad noted that the long-term reliability of robotics in complex environments common in the energy industry has yet to be tested, meaning that full-scale adoption is still years away. Furthermore, introducing regulations needed to ensure robots can operate safely, both with humans and with each other, will cause further delays.

For oil and gas staff, the energy transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy is putting further pressure on the industry. While many oil and gas workers have skills transferrable to the renewables sector, many robotics solutions in oil and gas can also apply to renewables.

Since the 2014 crash, oil prices have struggled for years to return to previous highs around the $100-mark. Having taken a historic dive into the negatives in spring last year, oil prices remain stubbornly in the $40-60 band as the pandemic depresses economic activity.

As such, many oil and gas companies, especially upstream and services companies, have found their margins tightened and costs needing cut. Replacing expensive human staff with robots provides an obvious way of reducing expenses.

The role of robotics in the energy industry will be a key area of discussion at the upcoming Digital Energy 2021 Virtual Summit on April 22nd.

Hear from leading experts from across the energy industry and explore the crucial issues.

Register your free place now at: https://www.digitalenergysummit.com/

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Boston Dynamics is a cutting-edge robotics company that's spent decades behind closed doors making robots that move in ways we've only seen in science fiction films. They occasionally release videos on YouTube of their life-like machines spinning, somersaulting or sprinting, which are greeted with fascination and fear. We've been trying, without any luck, to get into Boston Dynamics' workshop for years, and a few weeks ago they finally agreed to let us in. After working out strict COVID protocols, we went to Massachusetts to see how they make robots do the unimaginable.

From the outside, Boston Dynamics headquarters looks pretty normal. Inside, however. it's anything but. If Willy Wonka made robots, his workshop might look something like this. There are robots in corridors, offices and kennels. They trot and dance and whirl and the 200-or-so human roboticists, who build and often break them, barely bat an eye.

That is Atlas, the most human-looking robot they've ever made.

It's nearly 5 feet tall, 175 pounds, nd is programmed to run, leap and spin like an automated acrobat.

Marc Raibert, the founder and chairman of Boston Dynamics doesn't like to play favorites, but definitely has a soft spot for Atlas.

Marc Raibert: So here's a little bit of a jump.

Anderson Cooper: I mean, that's incredible. (LAUGH)

Atlas isn't doing all this on its own. Technician Bryan Hollingsworth is steering it with this remote control. But the robot's software allows it to make other key decisions autonomously.

Marc Raibert: So really the robot is

Anderson Cooper: That's incredible--

Marc Raibert: You know, doing all its own balance, all its own control. Bryan's just steering it, telling it what speed and direction. Its computers are-- adjusting how the legs are placed and what forces it's applying--

Marc Raibert: In order to keep it-- balanced.

Atlas balances with the help of sensors, as well as a gyroscope and three on-board computers. It was definitely built to be pushed around.

Marc Raibert: Good, push it a little bit more. It's just trying to keep its balance. Just like you will, if I push you. And you can push it in any direction, you can push it from the side. (LAUGH)

Making machines that can stay upright on their own and move through the world with the ease of an animal or human has been an obsession of Marc Raiberts' for 40 years.

Anderson Cooper: The space of time you've been working in is nothing compared to the time it's taken for animals and humans to develop.

Marc Raibert: Some people look at me and say, "Oh, Raibert, you've been stuck on this problem for 40 years." Animals are amazingly good, and people, at-- at what they do. You know, we're so agile. We're so versatile. We really haven't achieved what humans can do yet. But I think-- I think we can.

Raibert isn't making it easy for himself, he's given most of his robots legs.

Anderson Cooper: Why focus on, on legs? I would think wheels would be easier.

Marc Raibert: Yeah, wheels and tracks are great if you have a prepared surface like a road or even a dirt road. But people and animals can go anywhere on earth-- using their legs. And, so, that, you know, that was the inspiration.

Some of the first contraptions he built in the early 1980s bounced around on what looked like pogo sticks. They appeared in this documentary when Raibert was a pioneering professor of robotics and computer science at Carnegie Mellon. He founded Boston Dynamics in 1992, and with CEO Robert Playter has been working for decades to perfect how robots move.

They developed this robot, called Big Dog, for the military as well as a larger pack mule that could carry 400 pounds on its back. Experimenting with speed, they got this cheetah-like robot to run nearly 30 miles an hour.

None of these made it out of the prototype phase. But they did lead to this. It's called Spot. Boston Dynamics made it not knowing exactly how it would be used.

But the inspiration for it isn't hard to figure out.

Hannah Rossi: So Spot is a omni-directional robot. So I can go forwards and backwards.

Anderson Cooper: This is crazy. (LAUGH)

Robert Playter: This is the real benefit of legs. Legs give you that capability.

That's Robert Playter, the CEO, and Hannah Rossi, a technician who works on Spot.

Hannah Rossi: I'm not doing anything special to let it walk over those rocks. There you go.

The controls are easier to use than you might expect.

Anderson Cooper: Does it have to come in, straight on?

Hannah Rossi: You don't have to be perfect about it drive it close to wherever you want to go and the robot will do the rest.

Anderson Cooper: Wow. In some ways it's like driving a very sophisticated remote control car. What makes it different?

Robert Playter: Spot is really smart about its own locomotion. It deals with all the details about how to place my feet, what gait to use, how to manage my body so that all you have to tell it is the direction they go to.

And in some cases, you don't even have to do that. When signaled, Spot can take itself off its charging station and go for a walk on its own -- as long as it's pre-programmed with the route.

It uses five 3D cameras to map its surroundings and avoid obstacles.

Atlas has a similar technology, while we were talking in front of Atlas, this is how it saw us.

Marc Raibert: This is inside Atlas's brain. And it shows its perception system. So, what looks like a flashlight is really the data that's coming back from its cameras. And it-- you see the white-- rectangles, that means it's identifying a place that it could step. And then once it identifies it, it attaches those footsteps to it, and it says, "Okay, I'm gonna try and step there." And then it adjusts its mechanics so that it actually hits those places when it's-- running.

All of that happens in a matter of milliseconds.

Marc Raibert: And so it's gonna use that vision to adjust itself as it goes running over these blocks.

Atlas cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, but it's not for sale. It's used purely for research and development.

But Spot is on the market. More than 400 are out in the world. They sell for about $75,000 a piece, accessories cost extra. Some spots work at utility companies using mounted cameras to check on equipment. Others monitor construction sites and several police departments are trying them out to assist with investigations.

Anderson Cooper: Let's talk about the the fear factor, When you post a video of Atlas or Spot doing something, a ton of people are amazed by it and think it's great. And there's a lot of people who think this is terrifying.

Robert Playter: The rogue robot story is a powerful story. And it's been told for 100 years. But it's fiction. Robots don't have agency. They don't make up their own minds about what their tasks are. They operate within a narrow bound of their programming.

Anderson Cooper: It is easy to project human qualities onto these machines.

Robert Playter: I think people do attribute to our robots much more than they should. Because you know, they haven't seen machines move like this before. And so they-- they want to project intelligence and emotion onto that in ways that are fiction.

In other words, these robots still have a long way to go.

Anderson Cooper: I mean, it's not C3PO. It-- it's not-- a thinking--

Marc Raibert: Yeah. So let me tell you--

Anderson Cooper: Okay.

Marc Raibert: About that. There's a cognitive intelligence and an athletic intelligence. You know, cognitive intelligence is making plans, making decisions-- reasoning, and things like that.

Anderson Cooper: It's not doing that?

Marc Raibert: It's mostly doing athletic intelligence--

Anderson Cooper: Okay--

Marc Raibert: Which is managing its body, its posture, its energetics. If you told it to travel in a circle in the room it can go through the sequence of steps. But if you ask it to-- go find me a soda, it's-- it's not doing anything like that.

Just picking an item off the floor can sometimes be a struggle for Spot. Enabling it to open a door has taken years of programming and practice and a human has to tell it where the hinges are.

Kevin Blankespoor: Each time we add some new capability-- and we feel like we've got it to a decent point, that's when you push it to failure to figure out, you know, how good of a job you've really done.

Kevin Blankespoor is one of the lead engineers here, but at times, he prefers a very low-tech approach to testing robots.

Anderson Cooper: You're pretty tough on robots.

Kevin Blankespoor: We think of that as-- as just another way to push them out of the comfort zone.

Failure is a big part of the process. When trying something new, robots, like humans, don't get it right every time. There might be dozens of crashes for every one success.

Anderson Cooper: How often do you break a robot? (LAUGH)

Marc Raibert: We break them all the time. I mean, it's part of our culture. We have a motto, "Build it, break it, fix it."

To do that, Boston Dynamics has recruited roboticists with diverse backgrounds - there's plenty of Ph.D's, but also bike builders, and race car mechanics. Bill Washburn is part of that pit crew.

Anderson Cooper: They all look pretty dinged up.

Bill Washburn: Yeah.

Anderson Cooper: How often do these need to get repaired?

Bill Washburn: The biggest-- kinda failures for me are, like, the bottom part of the robot breaks off of the top part of the robot. (CHUCKLE) And it's like--

Anderson Cooper: That seems like a big-- big failure. (CHUCKLE)

Bill Washburn: And the hydraulic hoses are the only thing holding it together.

Recently, Raibert and his team decided to push their robots in a way they never had before.

Marc Raibert: We spent at least six months, maybe eight, just preparing for what we were gonna do. And then we started to get the technical teams working on the behavior.

The behavior was dancing. All their robots got in on the act. The movements were cutting edge, but the music and the Mashed Potato were definitely oldschool.

Anderson Cooper: There are some people who see that and say, "That can't be real."

Marc Raibert: Nothing's more gratifying than hearing that.

Anderson Cooper: What's the point in proving that the robot can do the Mashed Potato?

Marc Raibert: This process of, you know, doing new things with the robots lets you generate new tools, new approaches, new understanding of the problem-- that takes you forward. But, man, isn't it just fun?

Anderson Cooper: But, I mean, it's-- it costs a lotta money. It took 18 months of your time.

Marc Raibert: I think it was worth it. (LAUGHTER)

Whether it'll be worth it to Boston Dynamics' new owners is less clear.

The South Korean carmaker, Hyundai, has agreed to buy a majority stake for more than a billion dollars. It'll be Boston Dynamics' third owner in eight years. There's pressure to turn their research into revenue.

And Boston Dynamics hopes this new robot will help. It's called Stretch and it's due to go on sale next year. This is the first time they've shown it publically.

Kevin Blankespoor: Warehouses is really the next frontier for robotics.

Stretch may not be that exciting to look at, but it's built with a definite purpose in mind. It's got a seven-foot arm and they say it can move 800 boxes an hour in a warehouse and work for up to 16 hours without a break. Unlike many industrial robots that sit in one place, stretch is designed to move around.

Kevin Blankespoor: You can drive it around with a joystick. And at times, that's the easiest way to get it set up. But once it's ready to go in a truck and unload it, you hit go and from there on it's autonomous. And it'll keep finding boxes and moving 'em until it's all the way through.

Robert Playter: This generation of robots is gonna be different. They're gonna work amongst us. They're gonna work next to us-- in ways where we help them but they also take some of the burden from us.

Anderson Cooper: The more robots are integrated into the workforce, the more jobs would be taken away.

Robert Playter: At the same time, you're creating a new industry. We envision a job-- we-- we-- we like to call the robot wrangler. He'll launch and manage five to 10 robots at a time and sort of-- keep them all working.

Anderson Cooper: Is there a robot you've always dreamt of making (LAUGH) that you haven't been able to do yet?

Marc Raibert: A car with an active suspension essentially legs like w-- like a roller skating robot. And a robot like that, you know, could go anywhere on earth. That's one thing that maybe we'll do at some point. But, you know, really, the sky's the limit. There's-- there's all kinds of things we can and will do.

As with so many things Boston Dynamics does. It's hard to imagine how that would work, but then again, who'd have thought a bunch of metal machines would one day show us all how to do the Mashed Potato.

Produced by Nichole Marks. Associate producer, David M. Levine. Broadcast associate, Annabelle Hanflig. Edited by Sean Kelly.

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Boston Dynamics: Inside the workshop where robots of the future are being built - 60 Minutes - CBS News

The Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp aims to support both employers and professionals by bridging the training gap through an accelerated 12-week bootcamp. Elizabeth Melville, SAE International

WARRENDALE, Pa. (PRWEB) March 30, 2021

SAE International announced today the new 12-week Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp for recent graduates and/or entry-level mechanical, electrical and computer science engineers joining the industry to support autonomous vehicle (AV) system development. In partnership with Clemson University and Argo AI, SAE designed the rigorous, hybrid (virtual and in-person) workforce development experience to provide participants with an in-depth technical understanding of how to build autonomous systems.

Companies can spend upwards of 10 months onboarding entry-level AV positions, which in this fast-moving industry can directly hinder the development and deployment cycles. The Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp aims to support both employers and professionals by bridging the training gap through an accelerated 12-week bootcamp, said Elizabeth Melville, director of learning at SAE International. SAE International is the world leader in professional training for the mobility engineering field, and with the addition of this new bootcamp, were expanding our robust training offerings and preparing new employees to enter the AV field.

With coursework conducted by leading experts from industry and academia, bootcamp participants will learn by programming a mobile robot through hands-on approaches using ROS, Gazebo and Python. Additionally, participants will apply software engineering principles such as SLAM; Localization; Navigation/Path Planning; Perception: LiDAR, Cameras & Vision and Visual Intelligence; and Machine Learning.

The Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp will be led by:

The program will run three times per year, with the initial all-virtual offering occurring between May 14-June 30, 2021. Participants can register for the course individually or as part of a team.

To learn more about SAE Internationals Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp, visit: https://discover.sae.org/robotics-bootcamp-ctrl.

About SAE InternationalSAE International is a global association committed to advancing mobility knowledge and solutions for the benefit of humanity. By engaging nearly 200,000 engineers, technical experts and volunteers, we connect and educate mobility professionals to enable safe, clean, and accessible mobility solutions. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering professionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our philanthropic SAE Foundation, including award-winning programs like A World In Motion and the Collegiate Design Series. More at http://www.sae.org.

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SAE International Reduces Onboarding and Training Time with New Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp - PR Web

Oil-and-Gas-Robotics-Market

Latest research on Global Oil and Gas Robotics Market report covers forecast and analysis on a worldwide, regional and country level. The study provides historical information of 2016-2021 together with a forecast from 2021 to 2026 supported by both volume and revenue (USD million). The entire study covers the key drivers and restraints for the Oil and Gas Robotics market. this report included a special section on the Impact of COVID19. Also, Oil and Gas Robotics Market (By major Key Players, By Types, By Applications, and Leading Regions) Segments outlook, Business assessment, Competition scenario and Trends .The report also gives 360-degree overview of the competitive landscape of the industries.

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Some of the key manufacturers operating in this market include: iRobot Corporation, ABB Ltd, Fanuc Corporation, Delaval Group, Lely Group, Kuka AG, Yaskawa Electric Corporation and More

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Product Type Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Major Company of Product Type etc.): Remotely Operated Vehicles Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Uavs & Unmanned Ground VehiclesApplication Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Different Demand Market by Region, Main Consumer Profile etc.): Inspection Monitoring & Surveillance Others

Regions Covered in the Global Oil and Gas Robotics Market:1. South America Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina.2. North America Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers Canada, United States, and Mexico.3. Europe Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia.4. The Middle East and Africa Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa.5. Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers Korea, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, and India.Years Considered to Estimate the Market Size:History Year: 2015-2021Base Year: 2021Estimated Year: 2021Forecast Year: 2021-2026

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Oil and Gas Robotics Market Will Increase Demand In Forecast By 2026 |iRobot Corporation, ABB Ltd, Fanuc Corporation, Delaval Group, Lely Group, etc ...

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins discussed how the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated new advances in automation, while also unveiling bottlenecks in the rollout of robotic systems in health care settings.

They argue that advances in human-robot interactions like enhancing robots' capabilities for touch, feeling, and decision-making will decide whether tomorrow's robots will help hospitals keep their lead on the encroaching pressure of the next global pandemic, according to an article shared on Nature Machine Intelligence.

The research team observed three ways robots have significantly advanced both patient care and provider safety amid the COVID-19 crisis. Robotic technology minimized contact between patients who had contracted the virus and health care workers, while also reducing the need for PPE, and also freed up time for health care workers to devote more attention to other crucial tasks. But the team of researchers looked forward, anticipating how advances could be leveraged to further adapt and enhance the reliability of robots for similar health calamities of the future.

Involved in the discussion were commentary authors Russel Taylor and Axel Krieger of the Whiting School of Engineering, along with Director Brian Garibaldi of the Johns Hopkins Biocontainment Unit.

"You go into a pandemic with the robots you have, not the robots you wish you had," explained Taylor, in the Nature Machine Intelligence article. "We can't build a fleet of robots for an emergency and put them in a warehouse. Not only is that not economically viable, but by the time you need them, they could be obsolete." This means advances in robotics and automated services surrounding health care require new "core capabilities into deployed systems that can be easily adapted for the challenges of the moment."

When the pandemic hit hospitals, there were already robots capable of delivering meals and taking a patient's temperature, explained Taylor. "Now we are talking about much more sophisticated systems that can do serious cleaning, that can perform nursing tasks, that can do many things beyond just delivering supplies." But these new capabilities create serious engineering challenges.

One of the major challenges revolves around deployability and how rapidly non-expert users can adapt and customize the robot for specialized scenarios. "For example, our ICU ventilator robot was designed for one kind of ventilator that pushes buttons," said Taylor. "But some ventilators have knobs, so we need to be able to add a modality so that the robot can also manipulate knobs."

"Say you want one robot that can service multiple ventilators; then you'd need a mobile robot with an arm attachment, and that robot could also do plenty of other useful jobs on the hospital floor," Taylor said.

"The pandemic has shown some of the current limitations of robotic systems to robustly work and adapt in difficult, changing environments at large scales," said Krieger, toNature Machine Intelligence. The greater degree of uncertainty and chaos surrounding the unexpected in hospitals is taxing on any system, robotic or not. One strategy for overcoming this is implementing health care robots with shared autonomy, "which combines the knowledge of medical experts with the capabilities of robots."

Unlike human health care workers, robots don't need to wear fresh PPE every time they move close to an infectious patient and this "frees up valuable supplies and time for human providers," said Garibaldi, in theNature Machine Intelligence article.

However, a major point of potential improvement for robots lies in advancing their ability to execute fine motor tasks, so they can offer more comprehensive health care service, like "placing an IV, intubating the trachea, or inserting central lines," explained Garibaldi. "Other potential tasks could include basic room cleaning, phlebotomy, and ventilator and monitor management and manipulation."

However, there are some tasks for which patients will prefer human health providers for the foreseeable future. In addition to the moral support and empathy offered by a living, breathing human, there are instances when caregivers will still say "I'm not sure I can trust a robot to do that," said Taylor. "Engineers need feedback on how these systems really work in the wild."

The research team is exploring ways of enhancing ICU robots with an emphasis on "higher accuracy and higher fidelity operation of ventilators," said Krieger. Future health care robots might also carry out lung ultrasound imaging via 3D cameras and force sensors in addition to advanced autonomous surgical robotic procedures (like suturing). With a more efficient feedback loop between deployment, implementation, and development of robot and automated systems, the next generation of health care robots could eventually prove a match tothe logistical chaos of pandemics, move for move.

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The Next Pandemic May Be in the Hands of...Human-Like Robots? - Interesting Engineering

Microscopic swimming robots that could navigate through the body to perform medical tasks such as delivery of targeted cancer therapies or surgeries are currently in development. In a study published March 24 in Science Robotics, scientists made magnetically controlled microrobots based on neutrophils, a type of white blood cell. In mice, these so-called neutrobots penetrated the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to deliver drugs to brain cancer cells.

This is a very cool idea, says Liangfang Zhang, a nanoengineer and bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved with the study. I would say this paper is still an early proof-of-concept study, but I think that the overall concept is novel. Its interesting because its new thinking about how to send cargo to the brain.

A major hurdle in treating neurological diseases is getting drugs past the BBB, a highly selective boundary that denies most substances admission to the brain. But certain white blood cells are granted special access to deal with infections and inflammation, making them good trojan horses for getting drugs past this blockade. In previous studies, researchers have loaded brain cancer drugs into neutrophils and macrophages, which have a natural ability to scout out cancer because they swim toward higher concentrations of inflammatory chemicals released by diseased tissue.

But prior iterations of drug-ferrying immune cells have failed to completely treat mouse brain tumors, likely due in part to slow migration to the disease site. To improve speed and control, researchers have endowed microrobots based on sperm, bacteria, or red blood cells with magnetic material to externally guide them with magnetic fields, says Zhiguang Wu, a bioengineer at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China and a coauthor of the new study.

To treat glioma, a type of brain cancer, in mice, Wu and his colleagues designed neutrophil-based microrobotsneutrobotsthat could be controlled with a magnetic field. First, the team made nanoparticles from a gel embedded with magnetic iron oxide beads and the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel. Next, the nanoparticles were enrobed in E. colibacterial membrane. Disguised as harmful bacteria, the nanoparticles were engulfed by mouse neutrophils in vitro much more readily than bare nanoparticles. The bacterial cloak also prevented the premature leakage of drugs and made the particles less toxic to the neutrophils, the researchers found.

A transmission electron microscopy image of a single neutrobot. The yellow arrow indicates a cluster of nanoparticles containing iron oxide and paclitaxel, each enclosed by an E. coli membrane. The scale bar is 2 m.

The team tested the neutrobots navigation and drug-delivery capabilities in vitro. Under the control of a rotating magnetic field, the neutrobots reached a speed of 16.4 m per second, about 50 times faster than the speed of natural neutrophils. By monitoring the neutrobots via a microscope, the researchers could direct them to move in complex orientations on an artificial substrate.

To evaluate the neutrobots inflammation-seeking ability, the researchers placed them in a gel with a concentration gradient of an inflammatory factor. The neutrobots migrated toward higher concentrations of the chemical at a speed on par with natural neutrophils. And in a model BBB, neutrobots penetrated mouse cells grown on a membrane to access glioma cells and released their drug payload upon exposure to inflammation signals.

Finally, the researchers tested whether the bots could treat brain cancer in mice. First, they injected glioma cells into mouse brains. After 10 days, they performed surgery on some of the mice to remove a portion of the tumor in order to boost neutrophil-attracting inflammatory signals. The researchers injected neutrobots into the tails of all of the mice, and in a subset of mice, they used a rotating magnetic field to direct the neutrobots toward the brain. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the team found that more neutrobots accumulated around gliomas in mice treated with both surgery and the magnetic field compared with mice that werent exposed to the magnetic field, didnt undergo surgery, or received neither. The doubly treated mice also survived longerevidence that the two interventions complemented one another. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed that neutrobots penetrated the BBB and entered glioma tissue.

All of the neutrobot-treated mice survived longer compared with animals treated with an injection of just saline or paclitaxel, indicating that neutrobots could still deliver drugs across the BBB in response to a weak inflammatory signal or a strong inflammatory signal without magnetic propulsion.

According to Zhang, the individual components of the studythe use of immune cells as drug carriers, magnetically controlled nanoparticles, and bacterial membranes as cloaksare not new. But what they did is integrate these common individual components together and assembled them into a new system, he says. They [developed] a very unique functionalitythat is, the long-range control of neutrophils.

Mariana Medina-Snchez, a bioengineer at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden in Germany who did not contribute to the research, says the study is valuable because it demonstrates effective treatment of tumors in vivo, a goal of many researchers in the field. [The study] is complete, its systematic, and there is strong evidence that what theyve developed is functioning, she says.

If you know the amount of the drug that you load per microrobot, you can control the drug dose by swarming these microrobots in a controlled way.

Mariana Medina-Snchez, Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden

But before microrobots can be used to treat cancer in people, there are still a number of challenges that need to be overcome. One of these is improving the percentage of microrobots that make it to the tumor. They had an accumulation of these neutrophil-based microrobots of about eleven percent in the disease site [in vivo]. So what happens with the others? says Medina-Snchez. Microrobots could accumulate in other organs or regions of the body, and the long-term side effects are unknown, she says. But this happens for every type of microrobot, not just for this particular work. This is a challenge for everyone to [overcome].

Once the microrobots arrive at the disease site, another hurdle is making sure they deliver enough of the drug. You need to increase the overall drug payload inside, and you also need to control premature drug release, says Zhang. It takes time for the neutrophil to get to the destination. You dont want to them to dump all the payload before they get to the destination.

Because a single microrobot cant carry enough medication to treat a disease, researchers are also trying to understand how they move as swarmssimilar to the collective movements of groups of ants, fish, or birds. If you know the amount of the drug that you load per microrobot, you can control the drug dose by swarming these microrobots in a controlled way, says Medina-Snchez. So this is one of the challenges: how to transport multiple [microrobots] in a controlled manner and deliver them to a target location. Wu and his colleagues found that neutrobots formed chains of four in vitro, and these swarms swam about five times faster than individual bots did. But according to Medina-Snchez, other microrobot researchers are aiming for swarms of hundreds, thousands, or even millions. It depends on the target and location, she says. You may need just a few or millions of them.

Its not clear how the neutrobots swarmed in mice because current imaging techniques arent good enough to track individual or small chains of microrobots in real time at high enough resolution in vivoanother challenge for precise navigation of these tiny drug couriers in humans.

H. Zhang et al., Dual-responsive biohybrid neutrobots for active target delivery,Sci Robot,doi:10.1126/scirobotics.aaz9519, 2021.

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Microscopic Robots Deliver Drugs to the Brain - The Scientist