MIT scientists train shape-shifting, slimy robots that can seamlessly squeeze through narrow spaces by contorting their bodies on command.
Category: transportation – Page 59
Global navigation jamming will only get worse. The U.S. needs to move fast
Jamming and spoofing attacks on GPS and other global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) are becoming increasingly common as geopolitical crises escalate, creating major challenges and risks for aviation, shipping and other critical services across the world.
Data from GPSJam.org has confirmed widespread GPS/GNSS interference across parts of Europe and beyond as an outcome of the war in Ukraine. Regions affected range from Finland and the Baltics to Poland, Romania and Bulgaria — in addition to the Black Sea, the Caucasus and Turkey. The Middle East is also being affected by interference stemming from Israel and Iran’s hostile activities in the region. Other interference efforts, albeit at a lower scale, are also regularly occurring in areas of Pakistan, India and Myanmar.
This interference can cause significant disruptions to airline take-offs and landings, leading to costly flight delays and flight plan changes. It also presents real risks for certain aircraft and airports. For instance, some airports rely solely on GPS signals for their method of approach —– this is why Russian GPS jamming forced Finnair to suspend flights to Estonia’s Tartu Airport earlier this year. In 2019, a passenger aircraft in Idaho nearly crashed into a mountain due to GPS disruption.
Humanoid robots are joining the Mercedes-Benz workforce
🚨 TECH NEWS: The automaker will deploy Apptronik’s “Apollo” robot at a Mercedes factory in Hungary. Details:
German automaker Mercedes-Benz is deploying Apptronik’s Apollo robots at a manufacturing plant in Hungary.
Tesla finally releases Autopilot safety data after more than a year
Tesla has finally decided to release its Autopilot safety data report after taking a break of more than a year.
For years, Tesla used to release a “Vehicle safety report” that tracked miles between accidents in its vehicles based on the level of Autopilot used or not used and compared it to the industry average.
The automaker used the report to claim that its Autopilot technology resulted in a much safer driving experience and that its vehicles would crash much less often than the average car in the US even without Autopilot.
NASA partner unveils the “iPhone” of robots
Apptronik, a NASA-backed robotics company, has unveiled Apollo, a humanoid robot that could revolutionize the workforce — because there’s virtually no limit to the number of jobs it can do.
“The focus for Apptronik is to build one robot that can do thousands of different things,” Jeff Cardenas, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told Freethink. “The best way to think of it is kind of like the iPhone of robots.”
The challenge: Robots have been automating repetitive tasks for decades — instead of having a person weld the same two car parts together 100 times a day, for example, an automaker might just add a welding robot to that segment of the assembly line.
FLO’s new Ultra DC fast chargers can charge EVs to 80% in 15 minutes
The first FLO Ultra DC fast chargers are rolling off the assembly line at the company’s Auburn Hills, Michigan, factory – and they’re pretty powerful.
The 320 kW FLO Ultra DC fast chargers feature a dual-port power configuration. The EV charging company designed them to comply with the federal government’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program (NEVI) standards and the Buy America Act, including 98% uptime. They can charge most EVs to 80% in just 15 minutes.
The FLO Ultra DC fast chargers feature the new FLO motorized cable management system. The EZLift system is designed to keep cables off the ground and provide extended reach, allowing the cable to reach EVs no matter where the port is located. The motorized system makes the cables feel lighter and easier to maneuver.
This ‘supercharger on wheels’ brings fast charging to you
Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility just launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”
Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.
“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.
Neural networks: What it takes to build brain-like computers
Although this is still an emerging area of research, a new study has announced a leap. Researchers from the Center for Neuromorphic Engineering at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have implemented an integrated hardware system consisting of artificial neurons and synaptic devices using hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) material.
They aimed to construct building blocks of neuron-synapse-neuron structures that can be stacked to develop large-scale artificial neural networks.
“Artificial neural network hardware systems can be used to efficiently process vast amounts of data generated in real-life applications such as smart cities, healthcare, next-generation communications, weather forecasting, and autonomous vehicles,” said KIST’s Dr. Joon Young Kwak, one of the study’s authors, in a press release.