Bots & Brains

The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) team PoliMOVE from Politecnico di Milano (Italy) and the University of Alabama  won the Autonomous Challenge at CES, making history as the first head-to-head autonomous racecar competition champion.

The National AI Initiative Office of the federal government of the United States has established an AI Researchers Portal on AI.gov. It is created in partnership with Federal departments and agencies and the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development coordination office. The portal connects AI researchers to Federal resources that can support their research, including data, computing, and testbeds, as well as AI-relevant grant funding programs. 

As part of their machine learning internship, two University of Adelaide computer science students, Christopher Fusco and Jash Vira, created a neural network that was able to learn how to make beer by studying a vast trove of brewing records. The result is a unique AI-designed IPA.

Across a vast array of robotic hands and clamps, there is a common foe: the heirloom tomato. You may have seen a robotic gripper deftly pluck an egg or smoothly palm a basketball – but, unlike human hands, one gripper is unlikely to be able to do both and a key challenge remains hidden in the middle ground.

Tetraplegic patients are prisoners of their own bodies, unable to speak or perform the slightest movement. Researchers have been working for years to develop systems that can help these patients carry out some tasks on their own.

When it comes to robots, bigger isn’t always better. Someday, a swarm of insect-sized robots might pollinate a field of crops or search for survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building.

A maze is a popular device among psychologists to assess the learning capacity of mice or rats. But how about robots? Can they learn to successfully navigate the twists and turns of a labyrinth? Now, researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in the Netherlands and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, have proven they can.

Merlin Labs has reached an agreement with Ameriflight to equip the cargo airline’s fleet with autonomous and semi-autonomous flight capability. Ameriflight cites potential for enhanced safety, cost savings, and a solution to the pilot shortage.

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) need traffic data to run smoothly. At intersections, where there is the greatest potential for conflicts between road users, being able to reliably and intelligently monitor the different modes of traffic is crucial.

Researchers in Harbin Institute of Technology’s School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation have developed a robotic arm weighing 9.23 kilograms — about the size of a one-year-old baby — capable of carrying almost a quarter of its own weight, with the ability to adjust its position and speed in real time based on its environment. They published their results on Sept. 28 in Space: Science & Technology.