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Category: robotics/AI – Page 1,999

US Navy deploys first anti-drone laser dazzler weapon

The US Navy has successfully installed its first Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) laser weapon aboard one of its warships. During dry-dock operations, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DDG 105) received the stand-alone laser system, which is designed to blind the sensors on Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).

The ODIN laser isn’t the first to be deployed on a US Navy warship. That honor goes to the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Laser Weapon System (LaWS), which was deployed on the USS Ponce (LPD-15) in 2014. However, this experience by the team behind LaWS at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren Division provided the expertise needed to complete the development of ODIN.

Unlike other laser weapons that are designed to destroy targets with blasts of concentrated laser light, ODIN is what is known as a dazzler laser. That is, it’s one of a class of lasers that are intended to blind or distract rather than destroy. Though the legality of using such lasers against human pilots restricts them to only distracting the person by acting like the glare of oncoming headlamps, such lasers can also disable or destroy delicate optical sensors on drones.

RAFT 2035: Roadmap to Abundance, Flourishing, and Transcendence, by 2035 by David Wood

I’ve been reading an excellent book by David Wood, entitled, which was recommended by my pal Steele Hawes. I’ve come to an excellent segment of the book that I will quote now.

“One particular challenge that international trustable monitoring needs to address is the risk of more ever powerful weapon systems being placed under autonomous control by AI systems. New weapons systems, such as swarms of miniature drones, increasingly change their configuration at speeds faster than human reactions can follow. This will lead to increased pressures to transfer control of these systems, at critical moments, from human overseers to AI algorithms. Each individual step along the journey from total human oversight to minimal human oversight might be justified, on grounds of a balance of risk and reward. However, that series of individual decisions adds up to an overall change that is highly dangerous, given the potential for unforeseen defects or design flaws in the AI algorithms being used.”

The fifteen years from 2020 to 2035 could be the most turbulent of human history. Revolutions are gathering pace in four overlapping fields of technology: nanotech, biotech, infotech, and cognotech, or NBIC for short. In combination, these NBIC revolutions offer enormous new possibilities: enormous opportunities and enormous risks.

Smarticle robots built from smaller swarming robots

Swarming 3D printed smarticles unlock new method of robot locomotion and may be able to form load-bearing structures

An accidental discovery about construction staples led to the development of the swarming robots. Nick Gravish, a doctoral student at Georgia Tech working on a project with the Army Research Laboratory, found that if these heavy duty staples were poured into a box with removable sides, they would self-assemble into tower structures that will stay standing even if the box was disassembled. This, he realised, meant that entangling simple structures could lead to the formation of a composite structure with mechanical properties well beyond those of the original structures.

Otto DIY — learn and build your own robot

Brings children and people closer to technology : learn the logical connection between code and action, and by assembling it they understand how its components, and electronics work.

Buy a Otto DIY Kit robot you will be able to build your own custom robot in as little as one hour with your kids!

Otto DIY is more than a robot: you will learn how robots works, you will build and code your own Otto and his personality!The robot is completely open source, Arduino compatible, 3D printable, and with a social impact mission to create an inclusive environment for all kids.

Otto DIY brings children and people closer to technology : learn the logical connection between code and action, and by assembling it they understand how its components, and electronics work.