Weekly Robotics #42 09 Jun 2019

Two weeks ago we promised that the issue 42 will come with some answers to a secretive sub-project we’ve been working on. The short story is that we are becoming custodians of Robotics content. For a longer version scroll down to the announcement section (or if you really can’t wait: go directly to our curated database).

1) Collinear Mecanum Drive ICRA 2019.

YouTube

INFO: This video shows a balancing robot utilizing mecanum wheels that allow it to move sideways. Combining sideways movement with a forward motion produces quite interesting results.

2) Dashing Diademata Delivers Second Generation ROS.

Hackaday

INFO: ROS 2 Dashing Diamenta, has been released. We found the above article to be a great introduction to this long term release (with support guaranteed for the next 2 years). For more information you can head to ROS discourse, where you can find some demonstrators posted in the thread.

3) Open Robotics Meets the Open Road - DECODED Show S3E1.

YouTube

INFO: In this episode of The Decoded Show the authors meet Matt Robinson from SwRI to talk about ROS Industrial and showcase some examples utilizing ROS. At BMW we can learn how ROS is used to optimize logistics and some insights on plan alpha - a testing ground for robots that are meant to operate in a manufacturing plant.

4) videoflow.

GitHub

INFO: Videoflow is an open source Python framework that facilitates quick development of complex video analysis applications. You can find a result of an object detection used with this framework in this YouTube video. Here you can find project documentation.

5) TU Delft Scientists Create World’s Smallest Autonomous Racing Drone.

Innovation Origins

INFO: The scientists from MAVLab (last time we’ve featured their work was back in issue #6) created a 72 gram (2.5 oz) drone capable of flying autonomously on a track using an onboard camera for localization. The drone is capable of flying the track with an average speed of 2 m/s.

6) Tiny Robots Carry Stem Cells Through a Mouse.

IEEE

INFO: Scientists from DGIST-ETH Microrobotics Research Center created a magnetically-actuated robot that successfully carried stem cells through a live mouse. As it is noted in the article a huge challenge for working with such robots in vivo is observing the position of the robot while performing the procedure.

7) Publication of the Week - University Rover Challenge: Tutorials and Team Survey (2018).

GitHub

INFO: This repository contains loads of information from Team R3 of Ryerson University in Toronto that took part in the University Rover Challenge in 2017. In the linked repository you will also find a chapter from the book Robot Operating System (ROS): The Complete Reference (Volume 3), Studies in Computational Intelligence that was prepared by the members of the team. From the published chapter we can learn about the system design, comparison of solutions chosen by various teams. The chapter also includes plenty of tutorials on various aspects of robot development with ROS.

8) Orbital Index Newsletter.

Orbital Index

INFO: Orbital Index is a newsletter with curated links related to space technologies. We’ve been subscribed to Orbital Index for two months now and we are thoroughly enjoying it and we are sure that the readers who are also into space technology will love it too!

Careers

1) Liquid Robotics (Sunnyvale, CA, US) - Various Positions.

INFO: Liquid Robotics creates autonomous wave-powered ocean vehicles- remote sensor platforms that are used in oceanography, oil and gas, defense and communications. The platform doesn’t require fuel for propulsion, and can operate for up to a year in the ocean which creates unique engineering challenges for durability, fault tolerance and remote sensing.

2) BotsAndUs (London, UK) - Robotics Quality Assurance Engineer.

INFO: BotsAndUs are building a social robotics platform to help organisations interact with and learn about their customers and guests. We have developed our own platform to support this goal, and we’re looking for a new team member who can help us scale up our technical expertise and development resources.

3) Sevendof (Trondheim, Norway) - Embedded Software Engineer.

INFO: Sevendof is a startup in Trondheim focused on building the drone infrastructure of the future. We seek to make drones available as a service to businesses for purposes such as inspection, mapping, and search and rescue. Sevendof will operate a network of long-range drones which are stationed in the field, enabling missions to be carried out automatically.

Announcements

1) Awesome Weekly Robotics.

Weekly Robotics

INFO: An awesome list is a list of awesome things curated by the community and are usually hosted on GitHub. We are in very early stages of working on this sub-project but all the links related to the chosen categories should already be included in the existing version. You can view the list by clicking on the link above or view it directly on GitHub. If you would like to contribute to it then feel free to send us an e-mail or create a pull request.

2) CDAO Executive Summit 2019.

Opal Group

INFO: The CDAO Executive Summit taking place in Atlanta, GA, September 22 - 24, 2019 is a gathering of C-Suite Executives and Senior Decision Makers from Fortune 1000 and leading enterprise organizations. Our intimate, invitation-only event creates new and meaningful business relationships with true peers. We believe in creating a memorable, collaborative and effective experiences for Chief Data Officers, Chief Analytics Officers, and other top executives in data, analytics, artificial intelligence, business intelligence, IT and data governance. Join us! Interested in attending, speaking or sponsoring? Contact Bobby Swartout at (212) 532-9898 ext 248 or email info@opalgroup.net.

3) Deep Reinforcement Learning Summit, San Francisco.

RE•WORK

INFO: Weekly Robotics is proud to partner with RE•WORK summits. From Robotics to Reinforcement Learning, they have it covered. As a WR reader, you can not get up to 40% off summit passes using the discount code ‘WEEKLYROBOTICS’. See the full list of summits here.