Weekly Robotics #115
Image Credit: Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen
Last week, exactly 800 days after the first issue of Weekly Robotics, the newsletter had hit 2,000 e-mail subscribers. Many thanks to all of you enjoying WR! If you know anyone who might like the newsletter I would appreciate it if you could forward it to them. On another note, October issue of Monthly Robotics, a handpicked highlights from the past 4 newsletter issues is out for the newsletter supporters! The most clicked link last week was the Jetson based R/C robot car project with 13.7% opens.
Metal Spheres Swarm Together to Create Freeform Modular Robots
IROS 2020 wrapped up, hence I expect lots of interesting projects to make their way to the newsletter. In this one, the researchers from CUHK-Shenzhen developed swarm robots called FreeBOTs. The robots are inside a steel sphere, each containing two motors and a magnet.
Watch a Self-Driving Roborace Car Drive Directly into a Wall
A Roborace team, SIT Autonomous, recently had their autonomous car crash into the wall during a competition ((Twitch link)[https://clips.twitch.tv/ColdbloodedCredulousTriangleArsonNoSexy]). According to this follow-up article, the source of the problem was a locked steering wheel. Autonomous cars are hard!
Realistic and Interactive Robot Gaze
How realistic can an animatronic gaze be? It turns out it can be uncannily realistic. For more information about this research, you can check out Disney Research website.
Robot Dolphin – Which Could Be the End of Captive Animals at Theme Parks
While we are on the topic of animatronics; check out this animatronic Dolphin by Edge Innovations. This 2.5m long, 250kg robot covered in medical-grade silicone is surprisingly life-like, which should be expected given the price ($26M).
Autonomous Boats Could Be Your Next Ride
“Roboats” are in the news again! You might have seen this project mentioned in this newsletter in the issue #54, over 1 year ago. Since then the Roboat doubled in size, weighing around 50 kilogrammes, and is sporting navigation algorithms that utilize SLAM, GPS and IMU.
AgRob_PP
AgRob_PP is a set of three ROS based tools for agricultural robotics:
AgRob Vineyards Detector - a satellite image segmentation tool
AgRob Topologic - a tool to construct a topological map
AgRob Path Planning - A path planning framework for uneven terrains
released under GPLv3 licence. In the repository, you will find a video presenting this package.
Raptor-Inspired Drone with Morphing Wing and Tail
Researchers at EPFL had been developing a fixed-wing with morphing wing architecture to alter flight characteristics of the aircraft mid-flight. Neat concept!
Sponsored
Huge thanks to all of the Weekly Robotics supporters helping this project through Patreon and the following business partners:
Virtual Robotics Recruiting Event: November 13
https://rebrand.ly/rmzwqOne America Works connects high-growth technology companies with the talent they need to grow in cities across America. We are hosting a free, virtual Robotics Recruiting Event on November 13, featuring some of the fastest-growing robotics companies like Locomation, industry leaders like Honeywell, and research leaders like NREC. Attendees will interview one-on-one with up to 15 different companies for both internships and full-time roles. Register online or contact paige@oneamericaworks.org.
Announcements
Virtual ROS-Industrial Conference 2020
The 8th edition of ROS-Industrial Conference will be held as a virtual event. It is not only the annual community meeting for the European ROS-Industrial community but this year’s event is also the final event of the H2020 ROSIN project. The conference gives you the chance to see the newest technical developments and to meet people and companies, which are active in the ROS community.
The event will be accompanied by a video contest for ROS-based applications. Submit your video showing a cool robot application with a professional use case.