Robotics Introduction: January 2016

The innovators: the swarm of sea drones sniffing out drugs and mines

The football-sized robots are designed to work in packs, programmed for various tasks from locating wreckage to detecting contraband through a ship’s hull

When Sampriti Bhattacharyya read about a controversial US Navy scheme in which dolphins try to locate sea mines she realised the true potential of the robot she was working on.

Bhattacharyya’s underwater device, about the size of a football, had been developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a tool to detect cracks or splits in nuclear reactor tanks. When Bhattacharyya saw that dolphins were being used to detect mines and locate equipment lost underwater, a world of possibilities opened up – among them mapping the ocean floor or scanning the hull of ships for contraband.

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Video Friday: Marvin Minsky, Submersible Drone, and SLAM on a SnakeBot

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos
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Solo For Photography – Panorama Interview w/ Craig Coker

My name is Oren Schauble, and I’ve got the aerial photography bug. It’s hard not to, working next to Colin Guinn and the creative team at 3DR — but I have it for real, to a point of obsession. Over the last year I’ve interrogated professionals and coworkers, devoured everything I can find on the internet and watched the quality of my aerial photos come a long way. I had to go to so many different sources for this information that I wanted to share all I’ve learned in one place, a single resource for aerial photographers, new and old.

This, then, is the first of a regular series where I interview 3DR staff, power users and creators alike about their processes and their tricks, compile some inspiration and provide tips for better aerial shots.

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We’ll start the series with an interview with 3DR creative team member and long-time drone user Craig Coker, touching on panoramas, stitching, flying tips and more!

DCIM@GOPROG0024785.

When you’re shooting to create a Panorama, what GoPro® settings do you use?

GoPro’s highest photo quality (12mp)

Single shot mode

Protune – ON

White Balance – Depends on conditions. Generally set to 5500K/Day and 3300K/Night

Spot Meter – OFF

Color – FLAT

ISO – 200

Sharpness – Medium

EV – 0

How do you space your pano photos for proper framing?

Pre-meditation and visualization is key before taking to the air. Try to calculate how many photos it will take for you to complete your pano. Once in the air you can start from either right to left or vice versa. Take all photos in a row and never random order so they’re easier to work with in post.

What software do you use for stitching panoramas?

I get optimal results with Adobe Photoshop. They have great auto-stitching software as well some really useful advanced options.

Any tips or tricks on getting a great stitch?

Flatten your GoPro image first to get rid of distortion. You may also need to crop your photos. Actually, I highly recommend cropping if you’re going to use auto-stitching in Adobe Photoshop.

What other post-processing do you do when you’ve finished the stitch?

I use Adobe Lightroom to color grade and flatten my images. Lightroom has some great GoPro presets

for getting rid of distortion.

DCIM100GOPROG0085309.

Let’s talk about downward facing panos. One of my favorite shots of yours is a straight downward stitch of a dock in California.

Downward-facing photos are some of my favorite aerial perspectives! And I’m assuming that here you’re talking about the pier with the waves? The post work on that one was a dual effort. Once I captured the shots our photo editor Jered Garrison did most of the stitching. The way I wanted the panorama completed it needed some advanced stitching and photo merging. Auto-stitching wasn’t possible with this pano because I wanted certain attributes merged in, like waves, which weren’t in the other photos. Shadows and lighting were inconsistent and needed advanced work as well.

Also, I get a lot of inspiration from the photos that @dailyoverview posts on Instagram.

How do you compose the different photos when planning to stitch a downward-facing set of shots?

First, a GoPro can’t lockout exposure. This is usually key to stitching panos. If your light changes from shot to shot you’ll have inconsistent data, making stitching difficult. To avoid this debacle try to shoot your pano during a time where light stays at a consistent value. Also be quick about getting all your shots.

Any tips or tricks for stitching downward versus aerial?

You’re going to take a similar approach either way. No matter what, you gotta be quick moving from shot to shot so that if your pano has any moving attributes— like clouds, sunsets or people — they’ll stay in one place, which will make stitching easier.

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The post Solo For Photography – Panorama Interview w/ Craig Coker appeared first on 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology.

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This Robot Changes How It Looks at You to Match Your Personality

How you look at a robot and how it looks at you can make you more comfortable
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Lily’s Flying Camera Is Flying Off of Virtual Shelves

Lily Robotics is making a drone for people who would never buy a drone. And the company is flying high
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Artificial Intelligence: Gods, egos and Ex Machina

Even with its flaws, last year’s Ex Machina perfectly captured the curious relationship between artificial intelligence, God and ego. A tiny change in its closing moments would have given it an intriguing new dimension.

It’s taken me a year and a several viewings to collect my thoughts about Ex Machina. Superficially it looks like a film about the future of artificial intelligence, but like most science fiction, it tells us more about the present than the future; and like most discussion around AI, it ends up reflecting not technological progress so much as human egos. (Spoilers ahead!)

Artificial intelligence is one of the most narcissistic fields of research since astronomers gave up the geocentric universe. A central conceit of the field has long been that creating human-like intelligence is both desirable and some sort of ultimate achievement. In the last fifty years or so, a chain of thinkers from von Neumann to Kurzweil via Vernor Vinge have stretched beyond that, to develop the idea of the ‘Singularity’ – a point at which the present human-led era ends as the first super-human AIs take charge of their own development and begin to hyper-evolve in ways we can scarcely imagine.

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Squishy Robot Fingers Gently Tickle Deep Sea Critters

Soft robotic fingers help scientists collect deep sea specimens
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Is Velo3D Poised to Revolutionize 3-D Printing—and Robotics?

Metal 3-D printing is due for disruption, and Velo3D might be looking to do just that
via Is Velo3D Poised to Revolutionize 3-D Printing—and Robotics?

The Neural Network That Remembers

With short-term memory, recurrent neural networks gain some amazing abilities
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Artificial Intelligence: Gods, egos and Ex Machina

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Hawaiian Robot Practices Landing Pad Construction for Space Exploration

Teleoperation and in-situ materials are how robots will prepare the moon and Mars for our arrival
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Video Friday: Segway Robot Demo, Pepper the Retail Worker, and Megakopter World Record

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos
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What does it mean to be human in the age of technology?

Meaningful collaboration between people and machines must not subvert human creativity, feeling and questioning over speed, profit and efficiency

When I think about the future of human-machine interactions, two entwined anxieties come to mind.

First, there is the tension between individual and collective existence. Technology connects us to each other as never before, and in doing so makes explicit the degree to which we are defined and anticipated by others: the ways in which our ideas and identities do not simply belong to us, but are part of a larger human ebb and flow.

We think of ourselves as individual, rational minds, and describe our relationships with technology on this basis

The evolutionary pressures surrounding machines are every bit as intense as in nature, and with few of its constraints

We’re handing over more and more of what happens in our world, today, to the speed and efficiency of unthinking deciders

Cutting people out of every loop to assure speed, profit, protection or military success is a poor model for a future

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Lithium-Ion Battery Warms Up, Operates In Subzero Temperatures

Advance May Help Support High-Altitude Drones, Space Exploration
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Helicopter Robot Airdrops Recon Ground Robot, No Humans Necessary

A robot team of a UAV and a UGV carry out dangerous recon missions so that you don't have to
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Helicopter Robot Airdrops Recon Ground Robot, No Humans Necessary

A robot team of a UAV and a UGV carry out dangerous recon missions so that you don't have to
via Helicopter Robot Airdrops Recon Ground Robot, No Humans Necessary

US military aims to create cyborgs by connecting humans to computers

Researchers hope to develop a high-bandwidth, implantable neural interface to open the channel between the human brain and modern electronics

The US government is researching technology that it hopes will turn soldiers into cyborgs, allowing them to connect directly to computers.

The US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has unveiled a research programme called Neural Engineering System Design (NESD) which aims to develop an implantable neural interface, connecting humans directly to computers.

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Davos 2016: Global economic fears grow as stock markets dive - live

Spectacular Video Shows Flyability's Gimball Drone Exploring Ice Caves

It takes an indestructible drone to explore these dangerous glacial crevasses
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Self-Driving Cars Will Be Ready Before Our Laws Are

Putting autonomous vehicles on the road isn’t just a matter of fine-tuning the technology
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Fourth industrial revolution set to benefit richest, UBS report says

Greatest disruption could be experienced by workers who have so far felt immune to robotic competition, Swiss bank adds

The richest stand to gain more from the introduction of new technology than those in poorer sections of society, according to a report that warns of the impact on low-skilled roles from increased use of automation.

The so-called fourth industrial revolution, following on from the introduction of steam power, electricity and electronics, will have less of an impact on developed economies, but emerging markets will suffer when artificial intelligence and robots become widely used, reducing the competitive advantage of their cheap labour.

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Multimillion dollar humanoid robot doesn't make for a good cleaner

Atlas robot assistant from Team IHMC has a way to go before it can perform tasks nearly as effectively as humans can

Robotic humanoid butlers still have a way to go before you’ll be able to let them have free reign of the house, but Team IHMC from Florida and their multimillion dollar Google-developed US government Atlas robot are giving it a good try.

The robotics team from the Florida institute for human and machine cognition taught the humanoid robot how to perform typical human chores and housework, which proved more difficult than you might imagine, even for the team that came second in the 2015 Darpa Robotics Challenge.

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Davos 2016: eight key themes for the World Economic Forum

Political and business leaders gather at Swiss ski resort to discuss issues including robots, terrorism, migration and inequality

The world’s political and business leaders, plus the usual smattering of celebrities – including Leonardo DiCaprio – are heading to Davos, the Swiss Alpine resort where the World Economic Forum’s annual conference begins on Tuesday evening. The ensuing four days of debate will focus on the following themes:

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Toshiba Prepares Amphibious Robot for Fukushima Reactor Pool

Extracting fuel rods is too dangerous for humans, but not for this floating dual-arm robot
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Women to lose out in jobs revolution, WEF warns

Survey on future of working life predicts white collar and administrative roles to see the greatest job losses

More than 7 million jobs are at risk in the world’s largest economies in the next five years as technological advances in fields such as robotics and 3D printing transform the world of work.

According to a report into the impact of the so-called ”fourth industrial revolution”, women will lose out in the workplace as they are less likely to be working in areas where the adoption of new technology will create jobs.

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Robots rub up with Davos delegates

The annual bunfight in the Alps will focus on artificial intelligence this year

Thomas Mann called it The Magic Mountain, but this week it will be more like the Magic Robot. The World Economic Forum at the Swiss resort of Davos sees the great and the good and the not so good gather to discuss the burning issues of the day, and this year’s theme is the fourth industrial revolution. Which means the impact of robots and artificial intelligence.

Of course, the global market meltdown, the collapse in the oil price and concerns about Chinese growth will also be on the agenda. The chairman of BP, various bankers including Jiang Jianqing from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and economists such as Nouriel Roubini will be in attendance.

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The innovators: nanoscale devices making big strides in surgery

An Imperial College London team is pioneering nanoscale robotic surgical instruments which can, among other uses, better target cancer cells with chemotherapy drugs

When Chinese president Xi Jinping visited Britain last October, one of the more unusual gifts he received was one he couldn’t actually see – a model of the Great Wall of China which was the same width as a human hair.

Researchers at Imperial College had used advanced 3D printing techniques to make the model. But the more practical use of the technology is for the development of advanced surgical instruments. The detail of these precision surgery instruments cannot be seen by the human eye, but they are expected to replace the large robotic instruments used in operating theatres at present.

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Video Friday: 100-Drone Spectacle, Autonomous Car vs. Snow, and Robot With Machine Gun

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos
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IHMC's ATLAS Robot Learning to Do Some Chores

Meet the robot butler that you will never, ever be able to afford
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Steerable, Motorized Cyborg Spermbots Take on Infertility

Tiny, magnetically-driven power suits for individual sperm turn them into steerable cyborg spermbots
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Let’s Bring Rosie Home: 5 Challenges We Need to Solve for Home Robots

What problems do engineers need to crack before they can deliver the proverbial Rosie the Robot?
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AirMule drone ambulance makes maiden flight

Autonomous ambulance that took its first untethered flight in Israel is capable of landing in spaces that helicopters can’t, and will be able to airlift two people

A drone ambulance designed to airlift two people has taken autonomously to the air for the first time.

The AirMule, which can take off and land vertically, is designed for conditions where landing a helicopter is unfeasible – such as on a battlefield. The drone, made by Israeli company Tactical Robotics, has seen recent setbacks in development but is designed to carry up to 450kg up to 31 miles.

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Solo’s Camera Potential: The Swiss Army Drone

A lot of folks ask if Solo can carry cameras other than a GoPro®. Short answer: Yes. In fact, Solo has truly amazing potential in this department that no other drone can touch. Here’s what you can expect.

The Only Drone Optimized for GoPro

First off, Solo is optimized for GoPro. We designed the Solo Gimbal with GoPro, and we’re lucky to have the strong relationship with them that we do. They gave us access to the GoPro Herobus, which means that Solo is not only the only drone that lets you change GoPro controls (right from our app, as you fly), but it’s the only product in the world that lets you do that.

Additionally, any camera that fits a GoPro hard mount and has a micro HDMI input is compatible with Solo for aerial photography or FPV flight.

Why GoPro? Check out this blog for more info on why we went with GoPro and how to get the most of it.

The future

Unlike other drones, however, we haven’t locked you into one camera — or even one gimbal. This was a conscious decision: As drone owners and pilots, ourselves, a huge pain point has been the need to buy a whole new drone as camera technology changes. We decided not to make you do that.

We gave Solo an open gimbal bay. We knew that if we kept Solo completely open to new hardware as well as new software, then over time it could evolve into basically the next iteration of itself. This means that the Solo you buy today comes prepared to carry entirely new gimbals and cameras. You won’t have to buy a whole new drone to get new drone technology.

New cameras

Because Solo’s gimbal bay is completely open, it’s not just 3DR who can develop on Solo. We can make new gimbals for new cameras, of course, but so can anyone else. This means Solo has the potential to become a kind of Swiss Army Drone for gimbals and cameras, and even new sensors outside the visible spectrum.

Again, only Solo offers you this opportunity to expand the power of your original purchase as technology improves.

So what cameras and sensors can you expect your Solo to host? While we’ve got to keep tight-lipped, I can say that you can expect innovations from us in 2016.

And the best news: Camera technology and drone technology are on converging courses. I’ve had people from popular high-end (unnamed, sorry) camera companies tell me that Solo-class consumer drones have created a whole new market for their sensors. To meet this demand, these companies are trying to strip away as much of the housing as possible to drop the weight of their cameras essentially to just the sensor.

This obviously augurs well for Solo’s future. If and when that camera technology is ready, your Solo will be ready.

The post Solo’s Camera Potential: The Swiss Army Drone appeared first on 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology.

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3DR CES 2016 Announcements

Welcome to Solo, season two.

We designed Solo to evolve. Since we launched, we’ve continued to create and deliver new features that will surprise and empower drone users and moviemakers of every experience level and interest. This latest software release is a big one, and does what we want all our releases to do: It makes every Solo out there a better Solo.

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From the beginning we focused on providing a great user experience, helping you quickly and easily capture the exact shots you want, every time you fly. The new Smart Shot functionality in this release — Multipoint cable cam and Follow with Freelook — enhances the platform’s existing Smart Shots. (For the uninitiated, Smart Shots are 3DR’s breakthrough computer-assisted cinema technology that enables even beginners to capture Hollywood-quality aerial video from day one.) We’ll release the new software this spring to all Solo users in a free wireless update.

Multipoint Cable cam

Multipoint cable cam extends cable cam’s original design: Now you can create cable shots that run between an unlimited number of keyframes. Set keyframes from multiple points in space, looking in any direction you want. Solo automatically adds spline curves to each keyframe for a smooth approach and exit, so your video will feel professional and polished.

How it works

Fly to the point in space that you want and take your time with the camera to set the perfect keyframe, using your live HD feed to guide you. Press A to save it, then fly to the next one, repeating for as many frames as you want (your flight doesn’t have to be straight line). The Solo companion computer has a photographic memory that takes an internal snapshot of each keyframe, and when you’re done it connects the dots with a virtual cable.

Now engage in three ways:

1) Work the camera freely while Solo flies on the cable from frame to frame;

2) Fly Solo along the cable yourself, while Solo does what no other drone can, automatically handling camera pointing and tilt to capture a smooth narrative from one frame to the next;

3) Or just press “play” and let Solo handle both the flying and the camerawork, perfectly capturing a complex, twisting, tunneling multi-keyframe shot.

The cable cam update will include some interior features, too. Solo will save every cable cam that you create right to your app. Browse by date, location or names you give them.

Return to fly your favorites at any time, or quickly and easily switch between shots at the same location.

Cable cam also has a new enhanced time control feature. Adjust the time of your cable flight in the app to put the camera where you want it, when you want it there. Now that you know exactly where your camera will be, you can turn your attention to directing and synchronizing your shots and scenes.

Follow with Free Look

3DR developed the first “follow me” drone. The new Free Look feature turns Follow into an interactive filming experience. In Follow, Solo follows a subject and keeps the camera trained on it wherever it goes. When you enter Free Look the copter keeps following the subject, but you have full control of the camera. Pan and tilt the camera to look around freely while remaining completely confident in the copter’s position and directional heading. It’s like the Hollywood motion control of a camera boom on the back of a truck:

Virtually leash Solo to one subject, then swivel and tilt the camera manually to track even the most spontaneous movements of another subject.

Updated Safety Features

New software will also include air safety zone information integrated with the Solo app. 3DR was the first drone company to announce a collaboration with an airspace information company — AirMap.io — which will enable the Solo app to pull flight zone information in real time. This helps users make safe and informed decisions about where they fly. Read more about AirMap for Solo here.

We’re also launching another educational software tool, the Solo flight simulator app. The app connects to your controller so that the “sim Solo” you see on your screen responds to your control stick movements just like the copter would in flight. Get a good feel for both flight and camera control without putting your Solo in the air. Plus, you don’t need to connect to Solo to use the simulator; all you need is the app and the controller. Practice flying anywhere.

MADE FOR SOLO ACCESSORIES

The Solo platform will also expand on the hardware side to include an official line of new accessories developed through 3DR’s Made for Solo partnership program. The open gimbal and accessory bays, together with the processing power of Solo, enable any company or individual to develop new hardware for the platform, efforts that 3DR encourages and supports with Made for Solo. New Solo hardware accessories in development include a Kodak 360-degree virtual reality camera; aerial lighting from Fiilex with lights that users can tailor in the Solo app; new Ribcage modified GoPro cameras and camera kits from Backbone with custom weight kits to work with the Solo Gimbal, and more.

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One-Eyed Bug Vision Helps Drones Land

How instability in a drone's path tells it about its height
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Drone wars: new UAV interceptor billed as net-firing solution to rogue flying

New capture and removal system could help in disarming unmanned aerial vehicles carrying explosive payload, without causing them to crash

What happens when you have a drone flying where it shouldn’t? You send a drone to capture a drone for a bit of mid-air “robotic falconry”, of course.

Michigan Technological University’s latest drone-catcher system deploys an octacopter armed with a gun that fires out a net to entrap and carry off rogue unmanned aerial vehicles flying where they shouldn’t be.

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Solo’s Camera Potential: The Swiss Army Drone

The Only Drone Optimized for GoPro

Additionally, any camera that fits a GoPro hard mount and has a micro HDMI input is compatible with Solo for aerial photography or FPV flight.

Why GoPro? Check out this blog for more info on why we went with GoPro and how to get the most of it.

The future

New cameras

Again, only Solo offers you this opportunity to expand the power of your original purchase as technology improves.

So what cameras and sensors can you expect your Solo to host? While we’ve got to keep tight-lipped, I can say that you can expect innovations from us in 2016.

This obviously augurs well for Solo’s future. If and when that camera technology is ready, your Solo will be ready.

The post Solo’s Camera Potential: The Swiss Army Drone appeared first on 3DR | Drone & UAV Technology.

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Elon Musk: Tesla cars will be able to cross US with no driver in two years

Model S software update allows owners to ‘summon’ car, which can drive off and park itself, but also curbs AutoPilot features for safety

Tesla’s chief executive and serial technology entrepreneur, Elon Musk, has said his company’s cars will be able to be summoned and drive autonomously across the US to pick up their owners within the next two years.

The electric car company has rolled out a new version of its Model S and Model X software which gives Tesla’s premium automobiles the ability to park in a space perpendicular to the road. They can already do parallel parking and park in a garage, including operating a garage door.

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Video Friday: Kicking a Robot, TV Drone Crash, and Supernumerary Lightsabers

Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos
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CES 2016 – Tech Weekly podcast

All the latest from the biggest tech event on the planet

This week Las Vegas’s usual parade of gamblers, newly-weds and Elvis tribute acts were joined by the biggest gathering of tech companies on the planet – 3200 of them.

They’re all there for CES 2016, with everything from smart bras to hoverboards vying for the attention of the 170,000 delegates who flock there from all over the world.

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Edward Snowden speaks at Consumer Electronics Show disguised as a robot

The whistleblower made a virtual appearance at Las Vegas tech convention with through Suitable’s Beam, a screen-on-wheels robot with subversive potential

There are lots of people pitching fancy gadgets at the Consumer Electronics Show this week here. Add to that list: Edward Snowden.

The former National Security Agency contractor, famous for handing over western government secrets to the Guardian and other publications, made made a virtual appearance at the Suitable Technologies booth here. This was possible because Snowden was speaking from Suitable’s Beam, a sort of roaming screen on wheels used for remote commuting and virtual meetings.

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Quanergy Announces $250 Solid-State LIDAR for Cars, Robots, and More

The S3 is, according to its maker, better than existing LIDAR systems in every single way
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