Tag: Robots

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Olis will lend a hand with Maxar’s lunar robotic arm

Maxar robotic arm
An artist’s conception shows the SAMPLR robotic arm working on the moon. (Maxar Technologies Illustration)

Seattle-based Olis Robotics says it’s been selected by Maxar Technologies to provide software that will prepare operators on Earth to control a robotic arm on the moon.

The software will be used in connection with a robotic-arm experiment known as SAMPLR (Sample Acquisition, Morphology Filtering and Probing of Lunar Regolith).

SAMPLR is one of a dozen payloads chosen by NASA to fly on commercial lunar landers in support of the space agency’s Artemis program to send astronauts to the moon by 2024.

The robotic arm is a flight spare left over from NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity. Both of those rovers landed on the Red Planet back in 2004, and the mission was brought to a close this February.

SAMPLR will be attached to a lander to be named later, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. It’ll be NASA’s first robotic  arm sent to the moon in more than 50 years.

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Tech titans face scrutiny over killer-robot tech

SpotMini and Marc Raibert
Boston Dynamics’ four-legged SpotMini robot may look scary as it shares the stage with company founder and CEO Marc Raibert at Amazon’s re:MARS conference in Las Vegas in June. But a report published this month praises Boston Dynamics’ owner, SoftBank, for confirming that it won’t develop technologies that could be used for military purposes. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

Dutch activists are voicing concerns about technologies that could open the way for lethal autonomous weapons – such as AI software, facial recognition and swarming aerial systems – and are wondering where several tech titans including Amazon and Microsoft stand.

So are some AI researchers in the United States.

A report issued by Pax, a Dutch group that’s part of an international initiative known as the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, calls out Amazon, Microsoft and other companies for not responding to the group’s inquiries about their activities and policies in the context of lethal autonomous weapons.

“Why are companies like Microsoft and Amazon not denying that they’re currently developing these highly controversial weapons, which could decide to kill people without direct human involvement?” the report’s lead author, Frank Slijper, said this week in a news release. “Many experts warn that they would violate fundamental legal and ethical principles and would be a destabilizing threat to international peace and security.”

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Olis and Tethers Unlimited team up on space robots

Robot arm and Refabricator
An artist’s conception shows a Mantis robotic arm at work on Tethers Unlimited’s Refabricator 3-D printer and recycler. (Tethers Unlimited / Olis Robotics Illustration)

Two space tech companies that are headquartered in the Seattle area, Olis Robotics and Tethers Unlimited, are joining forces to create a new kind of remote-controlled robotic system that could be used on the International Space Station or other off-Earth outposts.

The companies say they’ve signed an agreement to explore further development of the system, in an arrangement that follows up on past collaborations.

Seattle-based Olis Robotics’ software platform allows robots to perform some tasks autonomously and reduce operator workload on other tasks. The platform makes it possible for robots in remote locations to execute their prescribed tasks safely even if their links with remote operators are subject to time delays or data dropouts.

That’s just the kind of resiliency that’s required for space operations, Olis CEO Don Pickering said. “Our variable autonomy software platform allows operators anywhere in the world to command new levels of precision, safety and efficiency in remotely operating robotics in space,” he explained in a news release.

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Jeff Bezos gets a kick out of robotic arms

Jeff Bezos with robotic arms
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos raises his arms (and the robotic arms they’re linked to) at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ handshake is at least as firm as a robotic hand’s grip.

I found that out for myself today at Amazon’s inaugural re:MARS conference, when Bezos tried out the touch-sensitive, dexterous robotic arm set up in an exhibit hall at the Aria Resort and Casino here in Las Vegas.

Like the annual invitation-only MARS conference, re:MARS is designed to focus on the frontiers of Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space. And robots were the stars of the show when Bezos popped in.

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Amazon unveils two new breeds of robots

Brad Porter
Brad Porter, vice president of robotics at Amazon, introduces new breeds of robots at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas. (GeekWire Photo / Alan Boyle)

LAS VEGAS — Amazon says there are now 200,000 robots working alongside 300,000 people at its distribution facilities around the world, and there’s more to come.

Brad Porter, vice president of robotics at Amazon, took the virtual wraps off two new types of robots during today’s keynote session at the first-ever re:MARS conference here in Las Vegas.

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Tethers Unlimited works on satellite servicing robot

An artist’s conception shows the LEO Knight space robot at right, working on a small satellite in orbit. (Tethers Unlimited Illustration)

Bothell, Wash.-based Tethers Unlimited works on space technologies ranging from radios to robotic arms, but the company is planning to put all those pieces together to create a space robot called “LEO Knight.”

“LEO Knight is a microsat-class system intended to support in-space servicing, in-space assembly and in-space manufacturing activities,” Tethers Unlimited CEO Robert Hoyt told GeekWire in an email. “Likely timeline for the first mission is 3-4 years from now.”

The robot takes advantage of technologies that Tethers Unlimited has been developing under the terms of NASA and Defense Department contracts, plus some internally funded projects.

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Olis Robotics will lay out plan for space robots

Satellite-servicing robot
An artist’s conception shows one satellite extending its robotic arm to grasp and refuel another satellite in orbit. (NASA / Goddard Illustration)

Seattle-based Olis Robotics says it has received a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Air Force to lay out a plan for using its AI-driven software platform to control satellite-servicing robots in orbit.

The initial Small Business Innovative Research grant could set the stage for as much as $1.5 million in future Air Force funding, depending on how the plan is received.

Olis, formerly known as Bluhaptics, is a five-year-old spinout from the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory. It specializes in the development of semi-autonomous control software that’s suitable for underwater remotely operated vehicles as well as space robots.

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Robotic ostrich handles box-stacking tasks

Boston Dynamics Handle robot
Boston Dynamics’ Handle robot picks up and stacks boxes. (Boston Dynamics via YouTube)

Boston Dynamics’ latest robo-creature may be cuter than its creepy robot dogs, but its potential application could nevertheless make warehouse workers wary.

The Handle robot, demonstrated in a YouTube video posted on March 28, is a long-necked robot that looks a lot like a two-wheeled mechanical ostrich. The robot’s “head” features an arrangement of suction cups that can pick up boxes from a pallet, and then release them to make a neat stack.

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Robo-dragonfly (almost) steals the MARS show

Jeff Bezos and robo-dragonfly
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos prepares to unleash the robo-dragonfly. (Jeff Bezos via Instagram)

Find someone who looks at you the way Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos looks at the robotic dragonfly that’s buzzing around his head at this week’s MARS conference.

MARS is Amazon’s annual invitation-only event focusing on Machine learning, Automation, Robotics and Space. This year’s attendees range from researchers and entrepreneurs in all those fields to celebrities like “Star Wars” legend Mark Hamill and veteran astronauts including Mike Massimino and Story Musgrave. (Astronauts attend for free.)

This week marks the fourth annual MARS gathering, which has now given rise to an open-to-the-public spinoff called “re:MARS.” The first re:MARS conference is planned for June 4-7 in Las Vegas, with a $1,999 admission charge.

Lots of weighty subjects are addressed at MARS, but Bezos says the most important metric for judging success is to “have some fun.”

He certainly seems to follow that precept in the clip from last night that he shared on Twitter and Instagram.

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Research robots survive a year under Antarctic ice

Seaglider deployment
Researchers deploy a Seaglider underwater drone from the South Korean icebreaker Araon in January 2018. (Paul G. Allen Philanthropies / UW APL / Columbia LDEO)

It’s been a year since a squadron of underwater robots was sent out to monitor the underside of Antarctica’s Dotson Ice Shelf, and researchers report that the whole squad has survived the harsh southern winter.

Except for one unfortunate battery-powered drone, that is.

“The one that hasn’t come back, it could be any number of things,” said Jason Gobat, a senior principal oceanographer at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory. Maybe something broke, or maybe it got stuck in the silt at the bottom of the sea.

The good news is that two other Seaglider drones are continuing to transmit data via satellite. Four free-floating EM-APEX probes have been heard from as well.

Craig Lee, another senior principal oceanographer at the UW lab, said getting useful scientific data from the robo-squadron amounts to mission success for the research project known as Ocean Robots Beneath Ice Shelves, or ORBIS.

The experiment, supported with nearly $2 million in funding from Seattle’s Paul G. Allen Philanthropies, has shown that the robots can use acoustic signals to navigate their way under the ice shelf, monitor the water that flows into and out of the ice shelf’s subsurface cavity, and keep operating for a whole year.

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