safety

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) researcher Markus Nemitz is the recipient of a $599,815 CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation to develop an innovative architecture for low-cost custom robots capable of traversing challenging terrains by swimming, crawling, climbing, and diving through hostile and confined spaces as part of search-and-rescue operations.

DRONE pilots have successfully completed two flight firsts on a UK nuclear site leading the way to increased safety of employees during decommissioning. The successful deployment of the Elios 3 drone equipped with a LiDAR sensor marks a major milestone for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) team, enabling Sellafield to achieve efficiency in mapping and 3D modelling. 

PLP and FulcrumAir have partnered to develop a robotic system for installing conductor spacers on overhead power lines. The CSR-18 robot is an unmanned system that automatically and precisely installs PLP’s CUSHION-GRIP Twin Spacers on bundled conductors, helping to reduce safety concerns for lineworkers while also exponentially increasing overall efficiency.

Camera-based incident detection has become an established technology to support tunnel operators in keeping their roads safe and in organizing fast response. After the introduction of thermal cameras as a solution for 24/7 automatic incident detection, systems supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI) may well be the next wave. Today, AI is already bringing incident detection to an even higher performance level. sensors and cameras.

With the support of Fujitsu, the operators of the Nürburgring are showing how history, the present and the future can be optimally combined – for greater safety using advanced AI technology. Especially on the one of the world’s most challenging race tracks: the Nordschleife. There, the unique tourist drives in particular can become even safer.

Self-driving cars, or autonomous vehicles, have long been earmarked as the next generation mode of transport. To enable the autonomous navigation of such vehicles in different environments, many different technologies relating to signal processing, image processing, artificial intelligence deep learning, edge computing, and IoT, need to be implemented.

Aerobotix and FerRobotics, two robotics companies based in the U.S. and Austria respectively, announced they have partnered to create an End of Arm Tool automated sander for hazardous environments, to reduce human involvement in hazardous tasks. 

In a research project West Virginia University engineers are deploying robots to help workers by saving them from potential slips, falls and workplace hazards. Yu Gu and Jason Gross, associate professors in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, have received $367,000 from the National Science Foundation to study ways of reducing falling risk in retail environments.

The BMW factory in Munich has commissioned a new welding line equipped with Inxpect’s safety radar system. The sensors in this system use radar-based technology to safely detect people and ensure that machines only operate when workers are outside the work area.

A team of researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a new early warning system for vehicles that uses artificial intelligence to learn from thousands of real traffic situations. A study of the system was carried out in cooperation with the BMW Group. The results show that, if used in today’s self-driving vehicles, it can warn seven seconds in advance against potentially critical situations that the cars cannot handle alone – with over 85% accuracy.