/ News
UC San Diego shake table, robot win Best of What's New awards
The biggest outdoor shake table in the world and a robot designed to move along utility lines have received Best of What's New awards from Popular Science, the world's largest science and technology magazine. The two projects are featured in the magazine's December issue, now on newsstands.
The Large High Performance Outdoor Shake Table can handle structures weighing up to 2200 tons without height restrictions. The table's powerful hydraulic actuators—piston-like devices—can move at up to six feet per second, creating realistic simulations of the most devastating earthquakes ever recorded.
SkySweeper, designed in the Coordinated Robotics Lab at the University of California, San Diego, is a robot made of off-the-shelf electronics and plastic parts printed with an inexpensive 3D printer. The prototype could be scaled up for less than $1,000, making it significantly more affordable than the two industrial robots currently used to inspect power lines.
"The Best of What's New Awards is our magazine's top honor, and the 100 awardees are selected from a pool of thousands," said Cliff Ransom, executive editor of Popular Science. "Each winner is handpicked and revolutionary in its own way. Whether they're poised to change the world or simply your living room, the Best of What's New awardees challenge us to the see the future in a new light."
SkySweeper, a robot to inspect utility lines
SkySweeper is V-shaped with a motor-driven "elbow" in the middle. The ends of the robot's arms are equipped with clamps that open and close to move it down a line in an inchworm motion. The clamps can also release from the line one at a time and swing in a hand-over-hand motion. This will allow the robot to swing past cable support points.
"This project is a stellar example of how, leveraging modern technologies, clever mechanical designs and control algorithms can be used to achieve important and complex goals with simple and inexpensive robotic systems," said Thomas Bewley, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego. In the future, SkySweeper could be outfitted with induction coils that would harvest energy from the power line itself, making it possible for the robot to stay deployed for weeks, or months, at a time. It could also be equipped with a camera, which would transmit images to an inspection crew. Other sensors could detect frayed cables, branches tangled in the line, and other issues.
Nick Morozovsky, a Ph.D. student in Bewley's lab, introduced the robot at the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), from Nov. 3 to 8 in Tokyo. His paper was titled "SkySweeper: A Low Degree of Freedom, Dynamic High Wire Robot."
"The revolutions in low-cost microcontrollers and 3D printers have enabled rapid prototyping of complex robotic systems, such as SkySweeper, that can take novel dynamics and controls problems from simulation to reality," Morozovsky said.
Source: http://phys.org/news/2013-11-uc-san-diego-table-robot.html
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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
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• 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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