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Category: robotics/AI – Page 2310

Cortical pathways to the adrenal medulla. Cortical areas on the lateral surface and the medial wall of the hemisphere are the source of neurons that influence the adrenal medulla. Gray shading: cortical motor areas; blue shading: medial prefrontal areas. (credit: Richard P. Dum et al./PNAS)

Neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh have identified the neural networks that connect the cerebral cortex to the adrenal medulla — the inner part of the adrenal gland, located above each kidney, which is responsible for the body’s rapid response in stressful situations.

These findings, reported in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS), provide evidence for the neural basis of a mind-body connection. They also shed new light on how stress, depression, and other mental states can alter organ function, and show that there is a real anatomical basis for psychosomatic illness.

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Aircraft manufacturing company Airbus is looking to the skies for a solution to the growing traffic problem. They intend to send out a prototype for their self-flying taxi by next year.

For those of us who live in crowded cities, rush hour traffic is a daily struggle we aren’t likely to get used to. The past few years have seen an ever-lengthening travel time in different cities all over the world.

Nobody is immune, not even the most innovative minds of the world. Aircraft manufacturing company Airbus notes the irony that techies in Silicon Valley come up with all sorts of innovation every day, yet none of them has solved one of their own biggest problems: traffic congestion. “Silicon Valley may pride itself on speed, but during rush hour, everything around the IT Mecca grinds to a halt,” they wrote on their website. “The situation is even worse in cities such as Mumbai, Manila, or Tokyo,” they added. In the Philippines, an estimate says PHP 2.5 billion ($57 million) of potential income is lost to traffic every day, and will rise to P6 billion daily by 2030. In the US, this loss is estimated at $160 billion a year.

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Alrobot would not be the first robot to hit the sands of Baghdad, but it might become the first to actually fire a weapon.

Back in 2007, the U.S. Army deployed three armed ground robots called the Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System, or SWORDS, from weapons maker Foster-Miller (now owned by Qinetiq). SWORDS basically consisted of a Foster-Miller TALON robot armed with a machine gun. But the SWORDS were pulled off the battlefield before they were able to take a single shot.

Kevin Fahey, the Army’s program executive officer for ground forces, explained why the following year at a RoboBusiness Conference in Pittsburgh: “The gun started moving when it was not intended to move.”

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More on China’s race on Space. Last Tuesday, China launched the 1st Quantum Satellite. In 2017, China is planning to be the dominant force in mining of Space. First stop — mining the dark side of the moon. Given China’s own history with environmental pollution plus mining’s damaging effects to the environment when not properly managed; etc. one must ponder how will space and Earth itself be impacted by such mining.

Before this decade is out, humanity will go where it’s never gone before: the far side of the moon. This dark side — forever facing away from us — has long been a mystery. No human-made object has ever touched its surface. The mission will be a marvel of engineering. It will involve a rocket that weighs hundreds of tons (traveling almost 250,000 miles), a robot lander, and an unmanned lunar rover that will use sensors, cameras, and an infrared spectrometer to uncover billion-year-old secrets from the soil. The mission also might scout the moon’s supply of helium-3 — a promising material for fusion energy. And the nation planting its starry flag on this historic trip will be the People’s Republic of China.

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Wild stuff.

Somewhere on the other side of the sun, almost directly opposite to Earth, a NASA spacecraft has drifted aimlessly through the void since Oct. 1, 2014, unable to establish contact with our planet.

At least that was the depressing situation until Sunday night.

In a statement posted Monday (scroll down for the full version), the space agency says it has finally contacted the STEREO-B solar observatory — an identical twin of another sun-monitoring robot, called STEREO-A — after nearly 2 years of effort.

Continue reading “A lost spacecraft is talking to NASA again after nearly 2 years in the void” | >

A first step in establishing repair standards on satellite in space; wonder could we eventually see a version of the EPA or in space.

SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Defense Research Projects Agency plans to establish a consortium to discuss standards and practices for on-orbit satellite servicing as a corollary to Robotic Servicing of Geostationary Satellites (RSGS), an effort to develop robotic spacecraft to inspect, repair and move other satellites.

“Our fear was that we would create a robotic servicing capability through RSGS and when our industry partner went to Lloyds of London for insurance, someone would say, ‘You have no authority to conduct that mission,’” said Brad Tousley, director of DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office.

Through the construction and operation of the International Space Station, the international community has established laws and regulations concerning government spacecraft conducting rendezvous and proximity operations with other government spacecraft as well as government spacecraft conducting rendezvous and proximity operations with commercial spacecraft.

Continue reading “DARPA to establish satellite-servicing consortium to discuss on-orbit repair standards” | >

Dean Radin, Ph.D. and Chief Scientist of IONS, the Institute for Noetic Sciences, recently introduced the results of a series of experiments that may provide the missing link between consciousness and matter, turning the tables on materialism and asserting consciousness as a fundamental component of reality itself. Using a variation of the famous double-slit experiment, he and his team hypothesized that the conscious intent of a human mind might be able to collapse a quantum wave function without direct interaction. Simply by concentrating they postulated, meditation might be able to affect and influence quantum particles – the smallest components of matter that form our physical universe. .

Initial experiments used participants 2 meters away from the device. Alternating between asking participants to concentrate on the apparatus, then removing their attention showed astounding results. Fearing that temperature differences or other variables might have influenced the test, they offered the experiment to participants online. Using several thousand robotic control sessions to ensure that a determination could be made for the factor of human consciousness, the results were likewise astounding, with initial trial results of greater than 5 sigma.

Dr. Radin’s video from the April 2016 conference introducing the results from this experiment is available online through the IONS channel. I highly recommend watching the video in its entirety to get a full understanding of the experiment results, research protocols, variables, controls and the results from other labs and researchers who have replicated these results.

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When the Holiday season kicks off next fall (2017); I have a feeling that I may end up buying a Penny Robot or a BMI controlled drone for my niece & nephews.

The post is also available in: Hebrew :הכתבה זמינה גם ב

A new research out of Arizona State University with DARPA funding.

Using a skullcap fitted with 128 electrodes wired to a computer, researchers are able to control multiple drones using human thought and vision to guide the quadcopters wirelessly. The device records electrical brain activity and measures the movement of the drones based on parts of the brain that light up. This signal is monitored and sent to another computer that transmits a signal to the drones, making them move. Panagiotis Artemiadis, director of the Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab and an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, has been working with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and U.S. Air Force to develop this technology. Artemiadis has been working on brain-to-machine interfaces since 2009, but only recently made the leap to controlling more than one device.

Continue reading “Farewell Remote Controllers, Hello Brain Controlled UAV’s” | >

Want to be the next Captain Kirk or Spock; we’re getting more close of being a Star Trek & Star Wars world with drones and fighter jets with death lasers, cyborgs with BMI technology, sabers being developed, and now the Star Trek phaser is being developed.

Every year Star Trek’s futuristic sci-fi technology comes closer to just being “technology.” We live in a world where video chats, communicators, and real-time translators are normal, where androids are becoming more and more realistic and food replicators are almost here thanks to 3D printing. The next step? Phasers!

Next month the Smithsonian Channel will air a two-hour Star Trek special to celebrate the show’s 50th Anniversary, which will take a look at some of the technologies the show predicted. In this just-released segment of Building Star Trek, future phaser use is predicated by laser scientist Rob Afzal of Lockheed Martin who, let’s be honest, has one of the coolest titles in the world. (“What do you do?” “I’m a LASER SCIENTIST.”)

Continue reading “Scientists are working on a real-life Star Trek phaser” | >

Among others, the Pentagon is funding the Lockheed Martin Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) program; the Raytheon Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) and the Raytheon/Lockheed Tactical Boost Glide (TBG) program.

HTV-2 is a multiyear research and development effort to increase the technical knowledge base and advance critical technologies to make long-duration hypersonic flight a reality. The Falcon HTV-2 is an unmanned, rocket-launched, maneuverable aircraft that glides through the Earth’s atmosphere at Mach 20.

HAWC is a joint DARPA/ Air Force effort to develop and demonstrate critical technologies that enable an effective and affordable air-launched hypersonic cruise missile. It will pursue flight demonstrations to address three critical technology challenges: air vehicle feasibility, effectiveness, and affordability.

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