/ News
'Yeti' Robot Finds Cracks in Antarctic Ice
Meet Yeti, a faithful rover of the robotic kind that sniffs out dangerous crevasses for convoys crossing the glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland, explores ice caves on an active volcano and finds old buildings buried under the polar ice.
This southern summer, Yeti trundled ahead of the bright orange tractors that deliver supplies to research outposts throughout Antarctica. Towing a ground-penetrating radar, the rover alerts drivers to hidden breaks in the ice. Snow often bridges the fissures, obscuring hazards, but the little robot is light enough (150 pounds, or 68 kilograms) to ford the breaks if not stopped in time.
"It's not likely to fall through, and there's no danger to the robot except losing the robot," said Laura Ray, an engineer at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., who led the robot's development. (Watch Yeti guide a tractor in Greenland)
Preventing injuries and equipment damage is crucial in Antarctica, where rescue operations are dangerous for both the injured and the rescue crews.
But Yeti offers more than protection for polar researchers. In December 2012, scientists mapped ice caves on Mount Erebus, an active volcano, with the radar. The robot also helped find abandoned, long-buried buildings from the original South Pole research station in December 2011. The structures were demolished after a tractor fell through ice atop one of the buildings. The robot also aids convoys in Greenland.
Yeti isn't the first robot to ply the Antarctica ice, but it is the smallest now roving on the continent's frozen surface. Researchers are also peering at buried glacial lakes with micro-submarines or mapping the seafloor with remotely operated vehicles. Earlier robotic explorers include the spiderlike Dante, sent into Mount Erebus in 1992; the Nomad rover, which hunted for meteorites in 2000; and a robotic rover tested by Kansas University in 2005.
Ray thinks Yeti or similar robots can further complement polar research, for example, by finding buried streams and rivers. A robot will handily finish a survey of gridded points that would be tedious for people, she said.
"I do hope there's more of this because it's so costly to do science in these regions. Whatever you can do to reduce the cost enables you to do more science," Ray told OurAmazingPlanet.
Logistical costs — moving people — account for about 70 to 75 percent of most research budgets in Antarctica, Ray said. A National Science Foundation (NSF) report put the total cost of transportation and support even higher, at 90 percent of the polar science research budget. With the median NSF research grant at $125,000 in July 2012, any cost-savings in logistics frees up money for science. The Yeti-led supply convoys across the ice to McMurdo Station in Antarctica save $2 million annually over plane trips, the NSF estimates.
The Yeti robot, conceived and built by Dartmouth engineering students, cost about $25,000, Ray said. The Mars Curiosity Rover cost $2.5 billion to design, construct and land on another planet.
Constructed from off-the-shelf parts and batteries sturdy enough for very low temperatures, the rover has been a popular addition to the United States polar science program.
"It's always in the field or in transit," Ray said. "I would love to make a second or a third robot, or transfer this technology to a company so we can get them into more hands."
Source: http://news.discovery.com/earth/yeti-rover-antarctica-130306.htm
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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