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Source: Olli by Local Motors
Between taking a few days off to catch a Broadway show with my daughter in New York City, and then catching a cold in the same city (curse you, Times Square tourists!), I fell a bit behind last week in gathering the latest news and trends in the world of robotics. But at least I didn’t become a floating grandma (read on, you’ll see what I mean!).
But this isn’t about me (or is it?) – it’s about bringing you, dear reader, the most comprehensive and cultivated and curated content that I can possibly create (go alliteration!) around the world of robotics, while actively ignoring the plethora of broken rules of grammar in this very long run-on sentence.
Before this goes off the rails any further, this week I’m going to highlight a lot of different items that I found interesting in previous weeks, in slightly shorter form than our normal “things to know” column. Put on your bullet-list-proof vests, we’re going in!
From left to right it is Joe Lamberty Assistant Director at Advanced Manufacturing Training Center, Kevin Bruffet, Veteran Scholarship Recipient, Curt Dohert, CEO; and lead tech and Army Vet David Wilkes
- Great story of the week: CNC Machines awards scholarship to Orlando, Fla., veteran who is learning to become a machinist after being injured in the line of duty. A great example of how the manufacturing industry can help people with jobs, especially veterans. Read here.
- Solar glare affects self-driving cars: During the spring, summer, and early fall, my commute both in and from work is often affected by solar glare, since parts of the Massachusetts Turnpike goes directly east or west at times, right during sunrise or sunset. That messes up an already tricky commute, but solar glare is also affecting self-driving cars in their ability to detect whether traffic lights are red, yellow, or green. Yikes. Read here.
- Sacramento State gets self-driving shuttle: The Olli self-driving shuttle has been deployed to Sacramento State as a reward for the university winning the company’s Olli Fleet challenge, which looked for best-use scenarios for the eight-person vehicle. The university will have use of two Olli shuttles on campus, but will be available for use by members of the public who want to try out the autonomous vehicles. Read here.
Source: Axilum Robotics
- Axilum Robotics earns FDA clearance for TMS-Cobot: Two weeks after it received its CE mark from Europe, Axilum Robotics said it has received 501(k) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market the TMS-Cobot TS MV, which is used for the spatial positioning and orientation of the treatment coil of the MagVenture TMS Therapy system. The system will be used for the treatment of major depressive disorder in adult patients who have failed to receive improvement from prior antidepressant medication. Current use of the therapy requires patients to stay perfectly still, and the cobot allows doctors to provide precise TMS delivery while relieving operators from the demanding and time-consuming task and reduce the movement constraints on patients. Read more here.
- More drones in Reno: NASA named the state of Nevada as an award recipient for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) Technical Capability Level (TCL) 4 operation, which involves aerial drones flying in higher-density urban areas for newsgathering, package delivery, and “large-scale contingency mitigation”. For the next several months in downtown Reno, demonstrations will occur with beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) conditions. The operation aims to develop “a safe and reliable airspace platform to integrate drones into the National Airspace System,” NASA said. I just hope they watch out for Flying Elvises. Read more here.
- Misty, get me a beer: The nice people over at Misty Robotics have created a video showcasing an application of their Misty II robot – it was able to deliver beer to attendees at a recent developer show. Go Misty!
- ROS support for Windows IoT: At the Embedded World event in Germany recently, Microsoft announced that developers can build and deploy commercial-grade Robot Operating System (ROS) solutions on Windows. The ROS to Windows IoT system includes rich AI and intelligent edge capabilities, including hardware-accelerated Windows machine learning, computer vision, Azure Cognitive Services, and turnkey connection to Azure IoT cloud services. Read more here.
- Bill Gates likes robot dexterity: A lot of news coverage this week talked about the MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies piece, in which Bill Gates was asked to choose this year’s list of inventions “that will change the world for the better.” At the top of the list was robot dexterity, which we’ve featured lots of articles on here at Robotics Business Review. Glad to see that Mr. Gates is on board. Read more here.
- Odd press release of the week: I get a lot of press releases, but this one in particular caught my eye this week. “Cameras, Radar and Other Sensors Require Careful Calibration, Advises Veteran Auto Technician.” Basically, the people at Advanced Tire & Auto Center want to remind people that as advanced driver assist systems and sensors get deployed in our automobiles, they’re going to need trained technicians to be sure that those sensors are fixed correctly should they get into an accident. Because you won’t want your lidar or other sensors to go haywire after a fender-bender. But then again, isn’t avoiding the fender-bender the point of having all those sensors? Read more here.
Non-robot story of the week for watercooler discussion:
“Grandma floats away on ice throne during photoshoot“. Don’t worry, she’s OK. The twist? She was rescued by a “Florida man,” often the protagonist in odd news stories.
Real robotics stories to catch up on
Here’s a list of robotics stories we published last week on our site. As always, click and read these so I can keep my page view counts high. Thanks, Aunt Mary!
Go enjoy the week, everyone!
Peace, love and Cocoa Pebbles!
Keith
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