/ News
From manufacturing to space farming: meet Baxter, the multi purpose robot
Baxter was originally designed as an industrial robot for working alongside humans on factory floors, excelling at fast, repetitive manufacturing tasks.
Each with its own pair of chunky robot arms connected to a computer brain, hundreds of Baxters are already busily working away in factories and packing stations across the US.
First launched by Boston-based firm Rethink Robotics in 2012, Baxter is now being developed into more of a multi-purpose robot which can carry out a variety of activities, from treating patients to farming in space.
Jim Lawton, chief executive of Rethink Robotics, explained to Design News that the improvements were being made to Baxter's software. "We took the approach of putting the robot together as a platform so we could use the software to drive the usability of the robot," he told them. Baxter's platform upgrade, called Intera 3, was designed to make it easier for humans to work alongside and train Baxter, with a focus on memory and safety.
"With Intera 3, we double performance capability and expand Baxter's abilities," he said. "Our latest software makes Baxter work twice as fast, with twice the precision previously possible."
Training works by physically grasping the robot's arms and manoeuvring them into desired positions. Baxter can then mimic the movement and remember it for later occasions. "From the trainability perspective, you can train Baxter by demonstration," said Lawton.
"You can show Baxter how to put these items in a box, and then put the box over there. You can work with the robot because Baxter has a notion of what a box is."
According to the New Scientist, a team of scientists at the Rensselaaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, has been teaching Baxters to use electronic stethoscopes and carry out medical examinations while being remotely controlled by a doctor. A “master Baxter” is given direct instructions, which are then copied by an identical remote robot to carry out activities on the patient. All the while, the doctor watches via a video link.
An even grander ambition for Baxter comes in the form of space farming: tending to plants in space so that astronauts can have greater access to food and therefore spend longer away from Earth.
Nikolaus Correll from the University of Colorado in Boulder is being funded by NASA to work on Baxter so that it can do just this, and he believes that the $25,000 robot has huge potential.
"The veggie growth chamber was just launched to the International Space Station in April this year," he told the New Scientist. If all goes according to plan, Baxter's space farming skills will be put into action at the International Space Station soon.
Source: http://www.cityam.com/1406213701/manufacturing-space-farming-meet-baxter-multi-purpose-robot
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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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