Bots & Bullets

Next week (December 15 to 17 inclusive), Robotic Process Automation (RPA) market leader UiPath is hosting the  ‘Reboot Work Festival’. The virtual event’s aim: highlight the ways companies are using automation to reinvent the way they work and free their employees to realise their potential, and it includes some fascinating-looking automation use case studies live on-stage on Day 3, Customer Day.

The Guardian XO industrial exoskeleton, a full-body, battery-powered wearable industrial robot designed to increase strength and endurance, has been chosen by TIME as one of the 100 Best Inventions of 2020. The Guardian XO exoskeleton was selected in the Productivity category. An earlier hydraulically-powered prototype version of the Guardian XO exoskeleton, the XOS 2, was also named to TIME’s Best Inventions of 2010 list.

U.S. military explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) teams will use the FLIR Centaur ground robot to help disarm improvised explosive devices, unexploded ordnance, and to perform similar hazardous tasks. Operators can quickly attach different sensors and payloads to the robot to address other missions, including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) threats

A new machine learning algorithm, developed with Army funding, can isolate patterns in brain signals that relate to a specific behavior and then decode it, potentially providing Soldiers with behavioral-based feedback.

Strategic Elements subsidiary Stealth Technologies has licensed  CSIRO technology, that enables robots to work together in teams. The parties will initially focus on security applications and work under an Early Adopter Program (EAP) that will assist Stealth to integrate and commercialise the technology.

Pacific Defense announces the acquisition of Spear Research, a Nashua, New Hampshire based technology company focused on Electronic Warfare, Signals Intelligence, and autonomous networked sensor systems. Spear Research brings an experienced and innovative team of engineers with core competencies in RF engineering, advanced signal processing, autonomous command and control, and system integration.

The video Slaughterbots is now two years old, and more than two million people have watched it worldwide. This visual warning against the danger of autonomous weapons is still relevant today, and although protests against such weapons are growing, no official measures have yet been taken to ban autonomous weapons.

Sarcos Defense, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sarcos Robotics, today announced that the company has been awarded a contract by the Air Force Technology Acceleratory Program (AFWERX) to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) platform.for the Center for Rapid Innovation (CRI) at Air Force Research Labs (AFRL), that will enable human-scale dexterous robotic systems.