Dubai Civil Defence has bought 15 "quad-copters" – remote-controlled drones that will be used to patrol high-risk areas, such as industrial zones, to monitor and record fires. In the event of a blaze, the drones, operated from Civil Defence stations, will be used to fly around a building on fire to help determine how best to handle the situation before firefighters arrive at the scene, reducing their risk. Col Rashid Al Falasi of the Dubai Civil Defence said the drones were being trialled before being fully rolled out across the force, which was likely to happen this year. A special division of the Operations Department at Dubai Civil Defence has been set up to operate the drones. The division has two staffers, but six more are being trained.
"In case of a fire, four helicopters will circle the building," said Ali Salem Ghalaita, the head of the division. "The officer-in-charge will check the monitor and will find what they need exactly to fight the fire." There are three main quad-copters – one for patrol and checking offences, another for supporting fire-fighting operations, and the third to provide aerial shots for media activities. Each drone has a 45-minute battery life. To boost their effectiveness, patrol bikes have been equippped with special cases to carry the drones for easy deployment at the scene of a fire. Col Falasi said the Dubai Government wanted the civil defence agency to have cutting-edge technology. "Because of that, we will look at all new technology, but we must check if it has gone through proper testing first," he said.
The agency was also looking at a robot firefighter that would be produced by the end of the year by Naffco, a firefighting equipment manufacturer, the colonel said. It resembles a small firefighting vehicle and is fitted with foam, water hoses, and ventilation equipment. It can be controlled remotely by technicians from a distance of up to 15 kilometres away. The robot, named Knight Hawk, has heat sensors and a navigation system, but its Dutch developer, Geoborn, said it was only a matter of time before it became fully autonomous, with the ability to fight almost any kind of fire. Folmer Kamminga, Geoborn's managing director, said: "Most fire brigades, whether in Belgium, the Netherlands or the UK, do not allow their firefighters to enter a burning building."
If a firefighter isn't going to do that, then let a robot do it. Once there is demand for this, it will revolutionise the industry. There will be big steps in the next 10 years. I'm 66 now, but by the time I'm 76, maybe everything will be completely automated. "By the time my grandchild enters this industry, maybe all they'll need to do is to press a button and robots will completely extinguish a fire." Col Al Falasi said the civil defence force was aware of the Knight Hawk, but it would need to see more tests before it could determine whether the robot is a worthwhile investment. "For a robot, that requires them to have a trial period," he said. We don't want to buy it only for use in training, it has to work in the field and be safe.
2014年1月19日星期日
2014年1月16日星期四
Cyber Security with Peter Singer
Welcome to the twenty-first century! This is something that we wrestle with in the robotics world, but the problem looms in cyberspace, too. There is a vast array of both capabilities but also political, military, and business, legal, moral, and ethical questions that we thought were science fiction a generation ago, but they are now with us. And yet a century ago people back then had to figure out strange things like “horseless cars” and “flying machines.” Hopefully, we will muddle our way through in this century. The point of the book is that you simply cannot respond appropriately if you do not understand how cyberspace works, what its implications are, and why it matters.
I think of the parallel to the introduction of the horseless carriage. Many were astounded by this new thing and realized that they had to have something that they had never needed before when everyone rode horses, which was the strange thing called the traffic law. That change went beyond laws, extending to norms of conduct. In the United States, a man wrote a book about the proper way to drive a car; not technically but socially the proper way to drive. From that book we got the idea of two lanes, passing on a certain side, signaling before the turn. These were not just legal laws but also norms.
Yet, if you go back and look at it, some of the early laws on the government side were insane because they did not understand the technology. One of the early laws related to horseless carriages was that someone was supposed to walk in front of the car with a flag to let people know that it was coming. And when they got into an intersection and wanted to turn, they pulled out a flare and fired it into the sky. This made great sense in a world of horses but makes no sense in a world of cars. “There are similar proposals out there now about cyber security that one day we will look back on in the same way we do on the above example.”
“I fully understand what you are saying. It is also possible that you have exponential technological change that you will start to run into gaps between what we experience and anything that we have ever encountered before. If you, for example, start to grow brain cells, in the tens of thousands or millions and sort of create a being, it is basically going to throw a monkey wrench into all of the assumptions we have.”
In my writing, what draws my attention is exactly those game-changing technologies, these disruptive technologies, ‘killer applications,’ however they are described. These are technologies that fundamentally alter the political, military, legal, business, and ethical discourse. We have had these game-changing technologies before in history. They range from fire, the printing press, gunpowder, steam engine, to the atomic bomb and the computer. The difference today is that with the speeding up of technological change, they are coming at us faster and simultaneously happening in multiple domains. So, we are having a tough time keeping up with Moore’s Law in IT.
I think of the parallel to the introduction of the horseless carriage. Many were astounded by this new thing and realized that they had to have something that they had never needed before when everyone rode horses, which was the strange thing called the traffic law. That change went beyond laws, extending to norms of conduct. In the United States, a man wrote a book about the proper way to drive a car; not technically but socially the proper way to drive. From that book we got the idea of two lanes, passing on a certain side, signaling before the turn. These were not just legal laws but also norms.
Yet, if you go back and look at it, some of the early laws on the government side were insane because they did not understand the technology. One of the early laws related to horseless carriages was that someone was supposed to walk in front of the car with a flag to let people know that it was coming. And when they got into an intersection and wanted to turn, they pulled out a flare and fired it into the sky. This made great sense in a world of horses but makes no sense in a world of cars. “There are similar proposals out there now about cyber security that one day we will look back on in the same way we do on the above example.”
“I fully understand what you are saying. It is also possible that you have exponential technological change that you will start to run into gaps between what we experience and anything that we have ever encountered before. If you, for example, start to grow brain cells, in the tens of thousands or millions and sort of create a being, it is basically going to throw a monkey wrench into all of the assumptions we have.”
In my writing, what draws my attention is exactly those game-changing technologies, these disruptive technologies, ‘killer applications,’ however they are described. These are technologies that fundamentally alter the political, military, legal, business, and ethical discourse. We have had these game-changing technologies before in history. They range from fire, the printing press, gunpowder, steam engine, to the atomic bomb and the computer. The difference today is that with the speeding up of technological change, they are coming at us faster and simultaneously happening in multiple domains. So, we are having a tough time keeping up with Moore’s Law in IT.
2014年1月14日星期二
Robots Have Their Own Wikipedia
Called RoboEarth, the project is intended to allow robots to share experience so they can learn from each other, with the aim of improving their interaction with humans. It works by robots (or humans) uploading information—like a map, image, or instructions for doing a task—to a cloud-based database in a machine-readable format that other robots can understand. Basically, the robots will all soon be reading each other’s minds.
“At its core, RoboEarth is a World Wide Web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment,” the initiative’s website explains. It’s run by six European institutes, including Philips, the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands (where the project will be unveiled on Thursday), and four other universities, and is funded by the European Commission.
The showcase of the project, which has been in development for four years, will involve four robots using RoboEarth in a hospital scenario. “These robots will use RoboEarth as a knowledge base, communication medium, and computational resource to offload some of their heavy computation,” the team promises.
A hospital-like setting is an ideal test for the project, because where RoboEarth could come in handy is in helping out humans with household tasks. A big problem for robots at the moment is that human environments tend to change a lot, whereas robots are limited to the very specific movements and tasks they've been programmed to do.
“To enable robots to successfully lend a mechanical helping hand, they need to be able to deal flexibly with new situations and conditions,” explains a post by the University of Eindhoven. “For example ICM gets to grips with two new climbing robots you can teach a robot to bring you a cup of coffee in the living room, but if some of the chairs have been moved the robot won’t be able to find you any longer. Or it may get confused if you’ve just bought a different set of coffee cups.”
But with a shared knowledge base, the robots could learn this kind of information from each other and constantly stay updated. In a hospital example, the researchers suggest one robot could upload a map to RoboEarth (after using a sensors to scan the room, for instance) so that another could identify something like a glass of water immediately, even if it’s the first time it's set foot in the room. Or one robot could share its knowledge of conducting a task like opening a bottle of pills with all the others, so that each robot didn’t have to be individually programmed to do that. As the researchers ask on their site, “Why are thousands of systems solving the same essential problems over and over again anyway?”
“At its core, RoboEarth is a World Wide Web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment,” the initiative’s website explains. It’s run by six European institutes, including Philips, the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands (where the project will be unveiled on Thursday), and four other universities, and is funded by the European Commission.
The showcase of the project, which has been in development for four years, will involve four robots using RoboEarth in a hospital scenario. “These robots will use RoboEarth as a knowledge base, communication medium, and computational resource to offload some of their heavy computation,” the team promises.
A hospital-like setting is an ideal test for the project, because where RoboEarth could come in handy is in helping out humans with household tasks. A big problem for robots at the moment is that human environments tend to change a lot, whereas robots are limited to the very specific movements and tasks they've been programmed to do.
“To enable robots to successfully lend a mechanical helping hand, they need to be able to deal flexibly with new situations and conditions,” explains a post by the University of Eindhoven. “For example ICM gets to grips with two new climbing robots you can teach a robot to bring you a cup of coffee in the living room, but if some of the chairs have been moved the robot won’t be able to find you any longer. Or it may get confused if you’ve just bought a different set of coffee cups.”
But with a shared knowledge base, the robots could learn this kind of information from each other and constantly stay updated. In a hospital example, the researchers suggest one robot could upload a map to RoboEarth (after using a sensors to scan the room, for instance) so that another could identify something like a glass of water immediately, even if it’s the first time it's set foot in the room. Or one robot could share its knowledge of conducting a task like opening a bottle of pills with all the others, so that each robot didn’t have to be individually programmed to do that. As the researchers ask on their site, “Why are thousands of systems solving the same essential problems over and over again anyway?”
2014年1月9日星期四
ICM gets to grips with two new climbing robots
International Climbing Machines (ICM) has announced two new wall climbing robots will be joining its original Climber robot this year. Targeted at inspecting dams, wind turbines, and submarines, the MINI robot will be used to squeeze into tight spaces, while the MAXI model will be used to tackle large surfaces.
Made primarily for naval applications, the new MINI Climber weighs 20 lb (9 kg), and is about 14 in (35 cm) long and 15 in (38 cm) wide. The little robot is made from carbon fiber and epoxy to keep weight to a minimum, and carries a robotic arm that can position a laser to remove coatings from complex surfaces within confined spaces, like those found within a nuclear submarine.
ICM says it recently completed development of the MINI Climbing Robot, which will be put to work by the US Navy, but that the larger MAXI model is still under development. However, company CEO Sam Maggio tells us that the MAXI will be used to climb the exterior of Navy vessels to carry out coating removal tasks, and will be able to handle 1 in (25 mm) obstacles.
ICM started building wall climbing robots in 2001, after the owner of a industrial coatings company lamented that there was no easy way to clean large structures. The traditional method of scaffolding, scaffolding covers, and sandblasting was dirty and dangerous, creating a very hostile environment for workers high off the ground, breathing in dust, debris, and paint flecks.
To solve this problem, ICM invented the original Climber, which uses a vacuum system to stick to walls – or even overhead surfaces. Since even a smooth wall may contain obstacles, bolts, sills, or dirt, the robot needed to have some ability to deal with rough surfaces. ICM developed a thick foam rubber pad that forms a "rolling pressure seal" for the vacuum and acts as tank treads. The foam is able to handle 3/4-in (20 mm) bumps, which gives it the ability to climb brick walls, steel plates, and aircraft exteriors.
All of the ICM robots are remote controlled, operated by a worker using video cameras and a video-game type controller. A variety of cameras and sensors, cleaning systems (abrasion, sand blasting, etc.), and painting systems can be attached to the robots. Typical uses are inspection of giant wind turbine blades, cleaning the inside and outside of storage tanks, cleaning the bilges on ships and submarines, and inspecting the concrete in dams and nuclear power plants.
Made primarily for naval applications, the new MINI Climber weighs 20 lb (9 kg), and is about 14 in (35 cm) long and 15 in (38 cm) wide. The little robot is made from carbon fiber and epoxy to keep weight to a minimum, and carries a robotic arm that can position a laser to remove coatings from complex surfaces within confined spaces, like those found within a nuclear submarine.
ICM says it recently completed development of the MINI Climbing Robot, which will be put to work by the US Navy, but that the larger MAXI model is still under development. However, company CEO Sam Maggio tells us that the MAXI will be used to climb the exterior of Navy vessels to carry out coating removal tasks, and will be able to handle 1 in (25 mm) obstacles.
ICM started building wall climbing robots in 2001, after the owner of a industrial coatings company lamented that there was no easy way to clean large structures. The traditional method of scaffolding, scaffolding covers, and sandblasting was dirty and dangerous, creating a very hostile environment for workers high off the ground, breathing in dust, debris, and paint flecks.
To solve this problem, ICM invented the original Climber, which uses a vacuum system to stick to walls – or even overhead surfaces. Since even a smooth wall may contain obstacles, bolts, sills, or dirt, the robot needed to have some ability to deal with rough surfaces. ICM developed a thick foam rubber pad that forms a "rolling pressure seal" for the vacuum and acts as tank treads. The foam is able to handle 3/4-in (20 mm) bumps, which gives it the ability to climb brick walls, steel plates, and aircraft exteriors.
All of the ICM robots are remote controlled, operated by a worker using video cameras and a video-game type controller. A variety of cameras and sensors, cleaning systems (abrasion, sand blasting, etc.), and painting systems can be attached to the robots. Typical uses are inspection of giant wind turbine blades, cleaning the inside and outside of storage tanks, cleaning the bilges on ships and submarines, and inspecting the concrete in dams and nuclear power plants.
2014年1月2日星期四
NASA's International Space Station
Researchers at NASA's Jet propulsion Laboratory have reportedly been experimenting with controlling robots through the use of Microsoft's Xbox One Kinect sensor and the new virtual reality headset from Oculus Rift.
According to reports from IGN, the team in question has been using the gaming technology as a means to control a robotic arm called JACO in real time. NASA says the way it works is simply by combining the position tracking from the Kinect's data readout with the rational tracking of the oculus Rift's VR sensor to create a first-person view of their operator. Once the operator is set and the view is oriented properly, the person using the system can perform simple tasks with the arm such as picking up blocks.
According to NASA, if the remainder of the tests on the technology prove successful, future applications of this system will include use aboard the Robonaut 2 humanoid on the International FAA Chooses Nevada for Drone Development Space Station. Why risk any lives with a space walk when someone can send a robot and control it with the same technology that's now found its way into countless living rooms across the world.
While Kinect is making one of its first appearances with the United State's space program, this is the Oculus Rift's second project. Previously in 2013, NASA used the technology on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They paired an Oculus Rift headset with an Omni treadmill in order to recreate the conditions and feel to give people and idea of what it's like to walk on the surface of Mars.
The video, seen below, shows the robitc arm and the Kinect/Oculus Rift system setup. After calibrating the body tracker and linking up with the headset, the person demonstrating is able to, very slowly, maneuver the arm in position to grab the block. It also has some cool in-space images of Robonaut 2. Watch the video and then tell us what you think about this emerging robot technology, all based on hardware designed for the world of gamers.
According to reports from IGN, the team in question has been using the gaming technology as a means to control a robotic arm called JACO in real time. NASA says the way it works is simply by combining the position tracking from the Kinect's data readout with the rational tracking of the oculus Rift's VR sensor to create a first-person view of their operator. Once the operator is set and the view is oriented properly, the person using the system can perform simple tasks with the arm such as picking up blocks.
According to NASA, if the remainder of the tests on the technology prove successful, future applications of this system will include use aboard the Robonaut 2 humanoid on the International FAA Chooses Nevada for Drone Development Space Station. Why risk any lives with a space walk when someone can send a robot and control it with the same technology that's now found its way into countless living rooms across the world.
While Kinect is making one of its first appearances with the United State's space program, this is the Oculus Rift's second project. Previously in 2013, NASA used the technology on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. They paired an Oculus Rift headset with an Omni treadmill in order to recreate the conditions and feel to give people and idea of what it's like to walk on the surface of Mars.
The video, seen below, shows the robitc arm and the Kinect/Oculus Rift system setup. After calibrating the body tracker and linking up with the headset, the person demonstrating is able to, very slowly, maneuver the arm in position to grab the block. It also has some cool in-space images of Robonaut 2. Watch the video and then tell us what you think about this emerging robot technology, all based on hardware designed for the world of gamers.
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