Weekly Robotics #7 30 Sep 2018

1) UgCS team spent 8 days on an ice cap in Greeland searching for a lost WWII fighter plane.

https://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/how-we-spent-8-days-on-an-ice-cap-in-greenland-and-found-a-lost

INFO: The linked post is a short summary of an expedition UgCS took part in. The team used 2 DJI multirotors, one of which was carrying a Ground Penetrating Radar as a payload. The team faced interesting challenges such as batteries not having up to date firmware, collision sensors reacting with fog, and quadrotors descending into the glacier due to pressure changes.

2) Potentially deadly automotive software defects.

https://betterembsw.blogspot.com/2018/09/potentially-deadly-automotive-software.html

INFO: This post by Phil Koopman is a not complete selection of automotive software defects that could prove deadly. The list has been selected from the US NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) database. The issues range from air bag failures, selecting reverse while in forward motion etc.

3) NASA-inspired robotic skins turn soft objects into robots.

https://www.therobotreport.com/robotic-skins-soft-objects-robots/

INFO: Yale University Researchers came up with a soft skin that can be put on various object to perform such tasks as grasping or moving the object. In the video presented in the article we can see at least two different types of actuators used; the first one seems to be actuated pneumatically (the one that goes on the pony)while the other one, according to the publication linked in the article, is using coiled shape memory alloys.

4) Technical information on Hayabusa 2 rovers.

http://www.hayabusa2.jaxa.jp/en/topics/20180919e/

INFO: Hayabusa 2 mission made quite a bit of news this week by landing on an asteroid. The interesting bit about those rovers is that they use hopping mechanism (with the asteroid’s gravity they can achieve an altitude of 15 meters or 50 feet). The robots are only 18 cm (7 inch) in diameter and 7 cm (2.8 inch) in height and weight around 1.1 kg (2.2 pounds).

5) Self solving Rubik’s cube.

https://media.dmm-make.com/item/4462/

INFO: A Rubik’s cube that can solve itself. At the bottom of the page you can see the disassembled cube in action.

6) The Hunt for Robot Unicorns.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/industrial-robots/the-hunt-for-robot-unicorns

INFO: In this IEEE guest’s post Benjamin Joffe from HAX, a hardware startup accelerator, writes abut the current buzz in Robotics world. The article is a good resource on rising robotics startups and a view on some aspects of the industry.

7) Paper of the week - An information model for modular robots: the Hardware Robot Information Model (2018).

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1802.01459.pdf

INFO: The paper talks about incompatibility between robot components (and a lack of true Plug&Play capabilities for hardware and most software). Hardware Robot Information Model (HRIM) is an attempt to create a common interface for communication between robot components. HRIM itself is a part of H-ROS project and it seems to be based on ROS2.

Careers

0) Would you like to advertise an open position in a robotics related company?

https://weeklyrobotics.com/About

INFO: If you would like us to include your open position in the hiring section please feel free to send us an e-mail.

1) Dishcraft Robotics (San Carlos, California, US) - Various Positions.

http://www.dishcraft.com/jobs/

INFO: At Dishcraft Robotics, our mission is to revolutionize the commercial kitchen industry with robotics.