Synopsis: Ict:

#Robot tourism coming soon to Korea: Masan Robot Land project finally breaks ground With permission finally given to occupy lands that include an existing road

#Google getting more roboticists with Nest acquisition Is Google getting a robot company? Or just another source of roboticists with the Nest acquisition that was announced today?

The small sampling of roboticists Iâ##ve spoken to who are employed at Google have shed little light on future plans

Perhaps Google is collecting libraries and IP instead in the same way that Wolfram is talking about owning the database of the internet of things.

Google is to buy Nest Labs Inc. for $3. 2 billion in cash. Nest launched in 2011 with a smart thermostat

and maintain a distinct brand identity but as a part of the Google stable. Forâ more information from Nestâ as to the transition.

Larry page CEO of Google said: â##Nestâ#founders Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers have built a tremendous team that we are excited to welcome into the Google family.

Theyâ##re already delivering amazing products you can buy right nowâ##thermostats that save energy

â##Weâ##re thrilled to join Google. With their support Nest will be placed even better to build simple thoughtful devices that make life easier at home

and that have a positive impact on the world. â#Colin Angle CEO of irobot described Google recent acquisitions as a logistics play around self driving vehicles

and that when Google solved the first mile/last mile problem irobot was planning on meeting them at the house door.

There are plenty more robotics companies left for Google to acquire but if I were looking it would be interesting to consider Unbounded and Otherlab.*

We are currently developing learning algorithms that allow the Cubli to automatically learn and adjust the necessary parameters

Furthermore the same momentum wheels can be used to implement a reaction-torque based control algorithm for balancing by exploiting the reaction torques on the cube body

Determining the required hardware specs. Specs and hardware designgiven the required velocities and torques determined above it was clear that the momentum wheel motor

and gearbox would be a major challenge for creating the robot. Using the mathematical model allowed to systematically tackle this problem by allowing a quantitative analysis of the trade-offs between higher velocities

This mathematics-driven hardware design resulted in detailed specs for the robot core hardware components (momentum wheels motors gears

and batteries) and allowed a CAD design of the entire system. Part of this step was the design of a special brake to suddenly stop a momentum wheel to transfer its energy to the entire cube

It expects a compound growth rate of 25%said Wang Weiming deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Information technology.

DHL and microdrones are testing drones that could be used to deliver urgently needed goods to hard-to-reach places eg medicines to remote sites.

After the workflow has been designed customer-specific hardware components would be installed 3d printed and on the standardized robot grippers.

once on site the robot would be connected to the machinery software through a brand-independent software system

 A set of predefined skills similar to Apps for smart phones would help speed the process.

The consortium aims to have the workflow process designed within the first year to have the software prototype tested for the first use case by the third year

#Rehabilitation support robot-cloudmakes muscle movement visible Associate professor Toshiaki Tsuji Laboratory at Saitama University has developed R-cloud a rehabilitation support robot that enables users to view how their own muscles

#Google buys up robotics companies from DRC If youe recently wondered where all the roboticists were going the answer is to an unassuming complex in Palo alto. Google has backed Android developer Andy Rubin to acquire at least 7 major robotics

Other companies include Holomni makers of high tech wheels Bot&dolly and Autofuss the super cool robotics software companies behind the special effects in the film Gravity.

â##I feel with robotics itâ#a green fieldâ#he said. â##Weâ##re building hardware weâ##re building software.

Weâ##re building systems so one team will be able to understand the whole stack. â#Google hasn announced yet

The vision is clearly to capitalize on the DARPA Grand Challenges as Google has done so thoroughly with the automobile/self driving challenge.

Google has purchased a number of teams and people involved in the upcoming DARPA Robotics Challenge

and note that Dndrea is the tech wizard behind Kiva robotic warehouse##the video shows a novel fail safe algorithm that allows an unmanned aerial vehicle to recover

According to Mueller the algorithm allows the vehicle to remain in flight despite the loss of one two or possibly even three propellers.

#Three new quadrotor videos demonstrate agile control and the power of machine learning The team at the ETH Flying Machine Arena has released three new videos demonstrating quadrotors building tensile structures tossing a ball back and forth

and refining a figure-eight trajectory using iterative learning. Worth the watch!!Building Tensile Structures with Flying Machinesfederico Augugliaro:

his video shows quadrocopters assembling prototypical tensile structures. Part of a body of research in aerial construction a field that addresses the construction of structures with the aid of flying machines theâ video demonstrates that flying machines are capable of autonomously spanning a rope between two support points.

and evaluating quadrocopter interception trajectories. Each trajectory goes from an arbitrary initial state (position velocity and acceleration) to an arbitrary final state.

The evaluation of the trajectory includes determining input feasibility and state feasibility (e g. that the position of the quadrocopter remains inside a box.

Per trajectory this requires less than two microseconds on a modern laptop computer. The trajectory generator is used here to generate trajectories to hit a ball towards a target and determines:

Iterative Learning for Periodic Quadrocopter Maneuversmarkus Hehn: his video demonstrates an iterative learning algorithm that allows accurate trajectory tracking for quadrocopters executing periodic maneuvers.

The algorithm uses measurements from past executions in order to find corrections that lead to better tracking performance.

In order to do this we measure the tracking error over two laps of the maneuver. The new correction is computed then and applied.

and the algorithm provides a means to then transfer the learned corrections from the lower execution speed to higher speeds.

The method is also applicable to more complex tasks shown here by the example of the quadrocopter balancing a pole

#Play-i want to bring a robot to every child After receiving a $1million seed fund round from investors like Google Ventures many of us have been waiting for Play

Play-i are based a Silicon valley startup with a founding team from Amazon Google frog design and Apple;

Bo is a mobile multi ball robot whereas Yana is designed to be a storyteller. Both robots come with different skins

and Blockly and can be programmed wirelessly from a device like an ipad. The robots are designed to be programmed by early readers

The Play-i team are parents who want to address the shortfall of computer scientists in an increasingly digital world. â##What makes Play-iâ#robots so unique and special is that they really connect with younger kids on an emotional level

and now a VP of Product and Businessâ Development at irobot and adviser for Play-i. â##They are leveraging a legacy ofâ ideas from research on computing robotics

or 2nd grade can easily play with programming and in the process construct rich models for understanding the world.

â#â##Play-i gets how a developmentally appropriate introduction to programming can pave the way towards a lifelong interest and aptitude in computer scienceâ#saidâ Vibha Sazawal Lecturer and Visiting Research Scientist at the University

of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech Kiki Prottsman Educator and Executive director of Thinkersmith Vibha Sazawal Scientist at the University of Maryland and Prashant Kanhere who led led development of the ipod at Apple.

However Play-i may be funded the best company with a focus on programming robots at the moment s

Haider hopes to close the gap between the rapid developments in ecommerce and logistics which has remained largely unchanged.

#Sharp futuristic Health care Support Chair a proactive health care solution Sharp has developed a health care support chair that combines a range of sensors for checking the user health.

Wee considering a system that enables people to videoconference with a physician if theye detected anything abnormal.

while looking at the information the user has obtained so far.?Rather than people who are ill going to the doctor our idea is for healthy people to think about how to stay healthy prepare for any emergencies

Nowadays theye used for applications that require extremely high precision such as mounting smartphone components and coating the glass panels in LCD TVS.?

if the timing is correct the braking energy of one axis can be used as energy for another in the same way as a regenerative braking system reducing energy usage. his system is used currently in the automotive chip-making printing and food industries.

and control tasks (with the exception of a microcontroller for bundling sensor data) are executed on a base station that runs the Robot Operating system.

These sensors are used currently only for user feedback. The camera used on the robot is a Gopro Hero 3 where it serves as a demonstrator for a visual sensor.

Ethicon Endo-Surgery a Johnson & johnson subsidiary created SEDASYS a computer-assisted device that administers the prescription drug propofol into the blood stream via intravenous IV infusion.

#OAK, a Kinect-based active support system for the severely disabled OAK which stands for bservation and Access with Kinectis a software application for use by people with severe disabilities.

It has been developed by RCAST at the University of Tokyo in collaboration with Microsoft Japan and is available from assist

 Through theâ Open Hand Project an open source project with the goal of making robotic prosthetic hands more accessible to amputees aâ fully-functional prototypeâ has already been developed.

Usually they need to be fitted custom to the user remaining arm which can rack up medical bills with consultations and fittings.

It uses stick-on electrodes to read signals from the users remaining muscles which can control the hand telling it to open or close.

because the user can select any colour it easy to switch from a right hand to a left hand

#Researchers use single joystick to control swarm of RC robots What can you do with 12 RC robots all slaved to the same joystick remote control?

Common sense might say you need 11 more remotes but our video demonstrates you can steer all the robots to any desired final position by using an algorithm we designed.

The algorithm exploits rotational noise: each time the joystick tells the robots to turn every robot turns a slightly different amount due to random wheel slip.

We use these differences to slowly push the robots to goal positions. The current algorithm is slow

so wee designing new algorithms that are 200x faster. You can help by playing our online game:

www. swarmcontrol. net. The algorithm extends to any number of robots; this video shows a simulation with 120 robots and a more complicated goal pattern.

Our research is motivated by real-world challenges in microrobotics and nanorobotics where often all the robots are steered by the same control signal (IROS 2012 paper).

Our colleagues Yan Ou and Agung Julius at RPI and Paul Kim and Minjun Kim at Drexel use an external magnetic field to steer single-celled protozoa swimming in a Petri dish.

We can then either drive the robots around with a simple joystick or let a computer apply the control.

Regardless the commands are the same and consist merely of go forwards/backwards x seconds or turn left for 2 seconds.

The computer has an advantage over human players because it can precisely measure the position

This steering algorithm is based on piecewise-constant inputs and Taylor series approximations. Taylor series approximations give us a clear method for increasing precision.

You can test this out by purchasing several RC cars tuned to the same radio frequency.

The algorithm published in another 2012 IROS article shows that rotational noise improves control but translational noise impairs control.

Our algorithm allowed us to control the final position of n robots but we could not control the final orientation.

The video for our upcoming IROS 2013 paper illustrates this algorithm using robots equipped with laser turrets.

Secondarily wee created a simple platform for publishing these academic user experiments projects online why settle merely for a handful of undergrads to sample with?

and weighing only 3g/m 2 are 30 times lighter than office paper. They also feature a bend radius of 5 microns meaning they can be scrunched up into a ball without breaking.

and even worn without restricting the users movement. The integrated circuits are manufactured on rolls of one micron thick plastic film making them easily scalable and cheap to produce.

Here the user is operating the master robot. This demonstration enables you to experience for example how you can feel the reaction force

The images are analyzed by a computer and the robot works out which way to orient the tofu.

and software engineering as well as technical staff and instructors including myself. Our task was to design and build a functional prototype that would demonstrate three key abilities of the system:(

and (2) measurement information (or control information) needed to be transmitted to the vehicle wirelessly for control purposes which at the time of development (using Wifi) generally incurred a lot of latency and packet loss.

Designed from the ground upeach unit uses a single 32-bit 72 MHZ microcontroller to interface with all of the onboard sensors actuators and communication peripherals.

The same microcontroller is used also for performing all of the computation necessary for estimation and control there is no computation that is performed offboard.

An interchangeable wireless module (either Wifi or proprietary frequency hopping spread spectrum) allows us to communicate with each unit e g. telemetry and user commands;

in the case where external sensors are used (e g. 3d motion capture system) the data can be sent to the units over this wireless link.

With this we developed our own network layer to handle inter-unit communication as well as algorithms for routing packets time synchronization information fusion etc. on a resource limited embedded system.

The Distributed Flight Array is currently being used at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control at ETH Zurich as a modular robotics platform for investigating algorithms in distributed estimation and control.

Raffaello Dndrea and team demo amazing quadrotor thleteswith reporting and photos by Dario Brescianini and Mark Mueller and timelapse video by  James Duncan Davidson.

A quadrocopter swoops through the air to serve a glass of water without spilling a drop.

these models are leveraged then by a branch of mathematics called Control theory to synthesize algorithms for controlling them.

He goes on to show a series of pretty amazing quadrotor feats that would be sophisticated impossible without automatic feedback.

TED just posted an update on their blog about the demo here and we will link to the video of the talk as soon as it goes online.

and algorithms that make this demonstration possible and that was just to get to the point where they could do the demos in-house.

and demo their quadrotor tricks at the ETH Flying Machine Arenaâ a 10x10x10m airspace dedicated to the study of control algorithms

and featuring aâ high-precision motion capture system a wireless communication network and custom software for executing estimation and control.

and at Google annual flagship conference Google IO in San francisco. Still it takes a lot of time

and careful planning to recreate the set up at a new site and on this occasion they were planning a video shoot as well as a live audience.

-and-a-half hours to get the first quadrotor hovering. On Sunday they rehearsed the talk and especially the transitions between each demo in preparation for the video shoot

and more Robohub articles on how quadrocopters learn acrobatic maneuvers cooperate to throw and catch balls perfect air racing

a script takes 3d models designed by the user in CAD software converts them into 3d curves

but none are offering them at low cost or with user friendly training or the plug and play and safety features.

Rethink Robotics Baxterrethink Robotics##new Baxter robot is getting a software upgrade. Big deal? Actually it is.

Brooks vision was to have a hardware platform frequently enhanced with new software and capabilities#and it is happening as promised and on schedule.

Rethink recently launched an academic version of Baxter with a Software Development Kit (SDK) enabling users to train the robot and share their programs with other Baxter owners.

Just the other day Rethink upgraded their operating system to V1. 1 to make it easier to integrate existing factory machine synchronization

This new update also enables users to coordinate actions across Baxter s two arms. Baxters are being produced at a pace for sales of 500+units in 2013.

or more to get the end price due to safety guarding and expensive programming. None of this is necessary with the new Universal Robots.##

#We believe these new robots will soon cross the chasm between early adopters and mainstream users.##

###Once purchased our users can expect a steady stream of software upgrades giving them access to all the new features on the latest robots to leave the factory.

and is among the first plastics processors to deploy a Baxter robot. It is being used for repetitive tasks like picking up parts off a conveyor

and can be controlled by an ios device, data-gathering could be done in a gaming context,

It can be controlled by smart devices such as the iphone or Android devices, which can be used send data over the internet.

The code for communicating with Parrot is open source. Methodology The question we faced experimentally was how to couple the real-world object to the virtual space in which the drone would be flying.

Having a reference object of known size was a goal since it would provide some form of ground-truth measurement.

Because of the iphone computational constraints, we decided to save 5 subsequent images while the player is trying to dock

Finally, since some players may use 3g for sending their data we considered that the data should be as compact as possible.

Therefore, the data is compressed on board the iphone before being sent. The data from 5 textured images on average takes around 77 kb.

Parrot also promoted our app on their site. The news was picked soon up by BBC Technology

For example, if an ipad or ipod is connected to the drone Wifi, it cannot send its data.

There was no message that showed the absence of an internet connection (solved in version 1. 2). At the same time

as a personal mobile device for intravenous equipment at a hospital, or topped with a telepresence device and acting as a museum tour guide.

This process of measuring, computing, and actuating happens 160 times per second, and the underlying controller is key to achieving robust and dynamic movement.

#Desktop PC-sized fully automatic genetic testing device The Genelead from Precision System Science (PSS) is a fully automatic genetic testing device that completely automates the genetic testing process that ordinarily would require manual intervention.

It is just about the same size as a computer so one of its features is being easily usable in any location.

Using an intuitive ipad interface, a doctor can visit a patient, and communicate with hospital staff and patients with a single click, regardless of their location.

#Quadrocopter Drones from China The market of remote controlled quadrocopter drones is growing fast. The world's first crash avoiding drone comes from Guangzhou Walkera Technology Co. Ltd. a Chinese manufacturer of R c model toys such as helicopters

For traditional radio frequency helicopters in same frequency cannot fly together because of interference. With 2. 4ghz radio system many helicopters can fly at the same time without interference.

Mind-controlled quadrotor dronemind controlled drones are a hot area for researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzou China who have adapted a Parrot AR Drone 2. 0 to be operated by an Emotiv EPOC

electroencephalogram (EEG) headset hooked up to a PC running custom software. By thinking left strongly the mind-pilot can make the drone take off;

which were limited to two sites and were difficult to place accurately on the spinal cord. Drug delivery was via an intraperitoneal injection i e. an injection into the body cavity.

E-dura is implanted over the lumbosacral segments below the site of injury and engages with the#dormant#lumbar locomotor circuits.

and involved a team comprising experts in materials science electronics neuroscience medicine and algorithm programming. Co-author Prof.

and recovers easily thanks to new algorithm In August 2014 Google x announced that they had been secretly developing a drone delivery program to rival Amazon Prime Air.

however, Google scrapped the design, saying that it was difficult to control and didn perform well in high winds.

Since then, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new algorithm for robustly controlling a tailsitter flying machine in hover position.

Using the algorithm the tailsitter is able to recover from any orientation, including upside down. ETH has demonstrated not yet its algorithm in real-world conditions (e g.,

, high winds, GPS localization, different payload distributions. However, given the robustness of the solution shown in the video,

perhaps Google should not dismiss the tailsitter design too quickly for its next design iteration.

The algorithm demonstrated in the video is based on Optimal Control. Optimal trajectories for a set of initial orientations are precomputed

The algorithm is presented in research paper Global Strategy for Tailsitter Hover Control submitted to International Symposium on Robotics Research (ISRR), 2015.

The panel agreed on one thing: Without renewable energy, we cannot end poverty by 2030. enewable energy is the foundation of a modern economy,

In his blog 99 Mind-blowing Ways the Digital economy Is Changing the Future of Business, Vivek Bapat revealed that 68%of consumers are interested in companies that bring social and environmental change.

Promote a platform for collaboration among product users as individuals or organizations. Product as a service:

"The actors are filmed against a green screen, and the background, created by the studio's graphic designers,

nor do their names appear on the screen.""They never state that they are the instructor,

The team uses Adobe Connect to capture the audio and the Powerpoint slides.""That's a fairly simple way to get something on the ground

"Most of the SMES we've worked with are comfortable creating voice over Powerpoint. That's an easy way for them to get their content out

The instructor would use his or her slides on a monitor as a form of teleprompter.

the monitor wasn't exactly in line with the camera, and student feedback could be harsh:"

#Researchers at Brown U Develop Terahertz Wireless Multiplexing A Brown University-led team of researchers has developed a system for multiplexing

solving one of the technical challenges of terahertz wireless networking, which could potentially deliver data at rates that are up to 100 times faster than current wireless technology.

Terahertz waves operate at a much higher frequency than the microwaves used in cellular and Wi-fi communications,

However, there are numerous technical challenges to solve before terahertz wireless can become a reality. This new multiplexing system potentially solves one of those challenges.

such as a single TV cable carrying multiple channels.""Any terahertz communications application is going to need some form of multiplexing

a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer engineering at the UC San diego Jacobs School of engineering and the senior author of the study. ull invisibility still seems beyond reach today,

and Syria has stopped temporarily receiving new recruits at its training sites. e continue to recruit

#US ARMY Turns to Computer Software for Medic Training Technology already has pushed medical and emergency responder training well beyond the days of mock wounds and static mannequins.

New software designed for Army medical training allows personnel to see in real-time the effect of their treatments on the bodies of virtual patients and high-tech mannequins.

a new ARA software program funded in part by the Army intends to significantly advance that training via a downloadable hysiology enginethat allows medical personnel see how their actions affect every other aspect of their patient physiology.

what happening to the respiration rate, this is how the patient is responding to your actions. great deal of military medical training is conducted now using sophisticated gaming systems and virtual reality, with the trainee personnel n front of a laptop or with a mouse, keyboard or joystick,

and interacting with virtual patients in the computer, she said. With the new software, not only will they be able to train to perform various procedures,

but immediately see the affects actions and treatments have on the patient. The Defense Medical Research Development Program put $7 million up for the new software

which not only may be downloaded into Dod existing virtual reality and mannequin training system, but by the broader public because it is open source. ll the models we are creating can be downloaded for free by anyone to create immersive training,

Carter said. hat the Army is hoping is that this physiology engine becomes the standard for physiology simulations,

This software allows anyone in the military, Dod-wide, to take this as a building block for simulation

as open source, ore people can get into the ballgameto build simulation programs, he said e

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