A team of roboticists and divers used an AI-powered drone to explore underwater caves farther than humans ever have.
Category: robotics/AI – Page 2,192
Inside the Lab That’s Turning Moon Water Into Rocket Fuel
The moon’s water could serve as a precious resource for deep space exploration, but how do we actually turn it into rocket fuel?
»Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker
»Watch more Focal Point | https://bit.ly/2s0cf7w
» Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com
To be a space miner, there are a few things you might need: the sun, some lunar soil, a pretty powerful mirror, and the perfect angle.
Mining for resources on the Moon is no longer the subject of science fiction, instead it is becoming a central focus for the space industry today. In order to explore further in space, it is pertinent we find ways to extract and utilize space resources.
In a recently revealed exploration manifest for the Artemis program, NASA laid out a prospective timeline to establish a sustainable lunar outpost by 2028. And a key technique that’ll help make this whole vision possible is ISRU, or in situ resource utilization.
ISRU means taking and using the resources or the building blocks that already exist in space instead of launching resources on a rocket from Earth.
The roadmap to a future propellant depot starts with testing out robotic sampling and drilling systems. And that’s where Honeybee Robotics, a team of space engineers, comes in.
Elon Musk is recruiting for Tesla: I ‘don’t care if you even graduated high school’
Elon Musk is recruiting for his AI team at Tesla, and he says education is “irrelevant.” The team members will report “directly” to Musk and “meet/email/text” with Musk “almost every day.” Musk will also throw a “super fun” party at his house with the Tesla artificial intelligence and autopilot teams.
Lawrence Livermore researchers release 3D protein structure predictions for the novel coronavirus
Amid mounting concern about a novel coronavirus spreading from China, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers have developed a preliminary set of predictive 3D protein structures of the virus to aid research efforts to combat the disease.
The models are based on the genomic sequence of the novel coronavirus and a protein found in the virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which closely resembles the new virus.
The researchers plan to use the models to accelerate countermeasure design, using a combination of machine learning, biological experiments and simulation on supercomputers.
As global concern continues to rise about a novel coronavirus spreading from China, a team of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researchers has developed a preliminary set of predictive 3D protein structures of the virus to aid research efforts to combat the disease.
The team’s predicted 3D models, developed over the past week using a previously peer-reviewed modeling process, are based on the genomic sequence of the novel coronavirus and the known structure of a protein found in the virus that causes Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), also a coronavirus that closely resembles the new virus.
“A major part of the value of these new structural models is that they present the predicted protein in complex with SARS-neutralizing antibodies,” said Adam Zemla, an LLNL structural biologist and mathematician. “This can be thought of as the first step for the global research community to identify and model how therapeutic antibodies can be designed to fight the novel coronavirus.”
This exoskeleton will obey your brain
Roboticists at the California Institute of Technology launched an initiative called RoAMS, which uses the latest research in robotic walking to create a new kind of medical exoskeleton. With the ability to move dynamically, using neurocontrol interfaces, these exoskeletons allow users to balance and walk without the crutches. Learn more in the latest IEEE Spectrum article! https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8946313 #RoAMS #exoskeletons
Bipedal robots have long struggled to walk as humans do-balancing on two legs and moving with that almost-but-not-quite falling forward motion that most of us have mastered by the time we’re a year or two old. It’s taken decades of work, but robots are starting to get comfortable with walking, putting them in a position to help people in need.
How Drone Swarms May Save Urban Warriors
In the future of urban warfare, swarms of autonomous drones and ground vehicles will win battles before they even begin.
DARPA’s OFFensive Swarm-Enabled Tactics (OFFSET) program recently tested a swarm of 250 unmanned vehicles in a mock city at Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center in Mississippi.
USAF set to field StormBreaker on F-15E
The US Air Force (USAF) is expected to declare an initial operating capability (IOC) with the Raytheon Missile Systems GBU-53/B StormBreaker glide munition on the Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle multirole combat aircraft in the first half of this year, following compliance with a Required Assets Available (RAA) milestone, which is anticipated in the next few weeks.
The StormBreaker RAA is the pre-IOC benchmark capability to arm 12 USAF F-15Es with two, fully-loaded (four weapons) BRU-61/A carriage systems each for 1.5 sorties (144 assets total).
Optimised to address moving battlefield targets, StormBreaker — formerly designated ‘Small Diameter Bomb II’ — is a 250 lb-class, air-launched unpowered glide weapon system furnished with a unique tri-mode seeker, which combines millimetre wave (MMW) radar, imaging infrared (IIR), and semi-active laser (SAL) sensors with a GPS/inertial navigation system (INS) autopilot (the provider for which is undisclosed) for precision accuracy in adverse weather conditions. The seeker’s optical dome is protected by a clamshell shroud, which is jettisoned before the seeker is activated. A Rockwell Collins TacNet bi-directional dual-band datalink enables Joint Tactical Information Distribution System (JTIDS) connectivity with aircraft and an ultra-high frequency (UHF) link with a ground designator.
AI-formulated medicine to be tested on humans for the first time
The drug, known as DSP-1181, was created by using algorithms to sift through potential compounds, checking them against a huge database of parameters, including a patient’s genetic factors. Speaking to the BBC, Exscientia chief executive Professor Andrew Hopkins described the trials as a “key milestone in drug discovery” and noted that there are “billions” of decisions needed to find the right molecules for a drug, making their eventual creation a “huge decision.” With AI, however, “the beauty of the algorithm is that they are agnostic, so can be applied to any disease.”
We’ve already seen multiple examples of AI being used to diagnose illness and analyze patient data, so using it to engineer drug treatment is an obvious progression of its place in medicine. But the AI-created drugs do pose some pertinent questions. Will patients be comfortable taking medication designed by a machine? How will these drugs differ from those developed by humans alone? Who will make the rules for the use of AI in drug research? Hopkins and his team hope that these and myriad other questions will be explored in the trials, which will begin in March.
A robot is my Wingman
In a recent IEEE Spectrum article, read how autonomous fighter jets will accompany human-piloted planes. This self-piloted airplane may be the first experiment to truly portend the end of the era of crewed warplanes. #autonomousplane #autonomousfighterjet
If you drive along the main northern road through South Australia with a good set of binoculars, you may soon be able to catch a glimpse of a strange, windowless jet, one that is about to embark on its maiden flight. It’s a prototype of the next big thing in aerial combat: a self-piloted warplane designed to work together with human-piloted aircraft.
