Weekly Robotics #22 22 Jan 2019

1) A robot recreates the walk of a 300-million-year-old animal.

EPFL

INFO: Researchers at EPFL and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin developed a method of reproducing the gait of a 300 million year old animal based on fossil and fossilized footprints.

2) Intelligent Energy claims new endurance record for hydrogen-powered multicopters.

New Atlas

INFO: Intelligent Energy created a coaxial multirotor powered by a fuel cell and a 6L tank of hydrogen compressed at 300 bars. The 70 minute flight test was performed and documented by Batcam, an UK based drone operating company. The video of the flight test has been recorded and can be seen at the bottom of the article. If you watch it in full please let us know!

3) Delivery Drones Use Bird-Inspired Legs to Jump Into the Air.

IEEE

INFO: Passerine, a South African startup is working on a fixed wing drone with feet that help the drone to launch and land vertically. The drone prototype is using blown wings (exhaust from the engine passes over the wings and portion of wing flaps). In the article you will find 3 videos of the prototype and an interview with Matthew Whalley, the CEO of Passerine.

4) Mapping “Camp Fire” with drones, lessons learnt.

sUAS News

INFO: This report is a write up on lessons learned after mapping over 17,000 acres of land affect by California “Camp Fire”. 16 emergency responders performed 518 flights, producing 70,000 images.

5) Inside NVIDIA’s new robotics research lab.

The Robot Report

INFO: Recently NVIDIA has opened a new robotics laboratory in Seattle, US. The laboratory will be focused mainly on collaborative robots R&D. In the article you will find demonstrators on mobile manipulator in the kitchen, deep object pose estimation, tactile sensing and human-robot interaction.

6) NASA May Decide This Year to Land a Drone on Saturn’s Moon Titan.

Space.com

INFO: A Dragonfly mission could be launched in 2025 and arrive on Titan in 2034. The robot used in the mission is a multirotor aircraft powered by a nuclear power source. The main goal of the mission is to evaluate the organic compounds present on Titan.

7) Publication of the week - Line-of-sight guidance techniques for manned orbital rendezvous (1963).

MIT

INFO: In the hopes that this work may in some way contribute to their exploration of space, this is dedicated to the crew members of this conuntry’s present and future manned space programs. If only I could join them in their exciting endeavors! - this is the dedication that can be found in this PhD thesis by Buzz Aldrin.

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