Lifeboat Foundation

Researchers who created a soft robot that could navigate simple mazes without human or computer direction have now built on that work, creating a “brainless” soft robot that can navigate more complex and dynamic environments. The paper, “Physically Intelligent Autonomous Soft Robotic Maze Escaper,” was published Sept. 8 in the journal Science Advances.

“In our earlier work, we demonstrated that our soft robot was able to twist and turn its way through a very simple obstacle course,” says Jie Yin, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at North Carolina State University. “However, it was unable to turn unless it encountered an obstacle. In practical terms this meant that the robot could sometimes get stuck, bouncing back and forth between parallel obstacles.

Continue reading “‘Brainless’ robot can navigate complex obstacles” »

In an effort to create robots capable of controlling their own life-cycles, researchers have developed squishy little devices that can melt themselves into a puddle of goo.

“We have mimicked death in a life cycle where the robot could end itself,” Seoul National University engineer Min-Ha Oh told Peter Grad at Tech Xplore.

This ‘death’ is triggered by internal ultraviolet LEDs that destabilize the chemical composition of the robot. This process takes about an hour though, so it’s likely we have a few decades before we’ll see robots being employed as the kinds of vanishing spies proposed by the researchers.

GE Aerospace has demonstrated a worm-like robot that could one day inspect and repair jet engines. The Sensiworm (Soft ElectroNics Skin-Innervated Robotic Worm) is designed to serve as “extra sets of eyes and ears” for service operators as they examine the insides of aircraft. GE says the soft robot can minimize downtime and perform less invasive inspections and, in the future, make repairs itself.

The company compares the Sensiworm’s role in aerospace engineering and repairs to how soft robotics have allowed for minimally intrusive patient surgeries. “These technologies are enabling less invasive inspection and repair of jet engines on the wing to reduce downtime,” the company wrote. GE says the worm-like machine could give operators “virtually unfettered access” to inspect engines without disassembling them.

Resembling an inchworm, the Sensiworm (remote-controlled by operators) can crawl across various engine parts, including rotating wind turbine blades. It can sense and avoid obstacles automatically, reach places where gravity may stop other tools (thanks to its suction-cup feet) and measure the thickness of thermal barrier coatings. GE says it can even sniff out gas leaks. “With their soft, compliant design, they could inspect every inch of a jet engine, transmitting live video and real-time data about the condition of parts that operators typically check,” the company wrote.

Parent of Facebook and Instagram wants artificial-intelligence system to be as capable as OpenAI’s most advanced model.

An area known as Thacker Pass on the Nevada-Oregon border is home to clay that contain tens of millions of tons of lithium.

This program is designed to develop a means of distributing energy wirelessly around the globe through airborne power transfer. First dreamed up by Nikola Tesla almost 100 years ago, if successful, this would be the most significant change to energy transfer since the first rollout of electrification almost 150 years ago.

Alongside the launch of its new AI assistant Copilot, Microsoft announced new copyright protections for its users.

(NewsNation) — Researchers at the University of Rochester transferred a longevity gene from naked mole rats to mice, calling it a “groundbreaking endeavor.”

According to the University of Rochester, naked mole rats have long captured the attention of scientists for their lengthy lifespans and resistance to age-related diseases.

A world-beating deposit of lithium along the Nevada–Oregon border could meet surging demand for this metal, according to a new analysis.

An estimated 20 to 40 million tonnes of lithium metal lie within a volcanic crater formed around 16 million years ago. This is notably larger than the lithium deposits found beneath a Bolivian salt flat, previously considered the largest deposit in the world.

‘If you believe their back-of-the-envelope estimation, this is a very, very significant deposit of lithium,’ says Anouk Borst, a geologist at KU Leuven University and the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, Belgium. ‘It could change the dynamics of lithium globally, in terms of price, security of supply and geopolitics.’