/ News
Team Designs Robots to Build Things in Messy, Unpredictable Situations
Researchers at Harvard University and SUNY at Buffalo are designing robots to function outside of ideal, predictable environments such as warehouses or factories and instead work in places where there may be unexpected obstructions, and where predictive algorithms can’t be used to plan several thousand steps ahead. The goal for such “builder bots,” which are designed to handle inconsistent and malleable building materials, is to be deployed as disaster relief agents.
Radhika Nagpal, a professor of computer science at Harvard, and Nils Napp, an assistant professor of computer science at SUNY at Buffalo and a former postdoctoral fellow in Nagpal’s lab, have designed two robots: one that deposits expandable, self-hardening foam and another that drags and piles up sandbags.
Robots built for construction can usually handle only discrete materials, such as blocks or bricks. The materials these new robots build with are useful in a range of real-world environments, but they are highly unpredictable. The foam can stick to most surfaces and expand to fill holes, but it starts off as a liquid, so it’s impossible to know exactly how far it’ll run before it hardens; sandbags are frequently used in disaster relief as retaining walls, but the granules inside them have a tendency to shift around when manipulated.
To combat this unpredictability, Nagpal and Napp’s robots are equipped with an infrared sensor that takes scans and assesses the environment in between laying down a building material. The scan is integral to making the bots so adaptable.
“These robots need to continuously monitor and replan while they work,” says Napp. “That’s something that animals do, and that robots often don’t do.”
Using an algorithm that functions as a loop—scan, assess the environment, lay the material, scan again, assess the changes to the environment, lay more material, etc.—the robots are able to iteratively build as they go, taking into account any changes in the environment as well as any changes to the material they’re using.
The team is currently focusing this adaptable system on building ramps, a relatively simple structure with practical applications: they can be used to connect two points, and they also have a lot of flexibility in design.
The system is applicable for any climbing, manipulating robot that’s using any unpredictable materials, not just foam or sandbags. Nagpal also says that the system can work with multi-robot teams. Because the algorithm is adaptable, it doesn’t matter whether the uncertainty that a robot confronts comes from the environment, a material, or another robot’s behavior.
The researchers are just starting to test out the system in increasingly unpredictable environments. The next stage will be to configure a robot to build in situations where it doesn’t know what materials will be available.
Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/540156/team-designs-robots-to-build-things-in-messy-unpredictable-situations/
/ About us
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”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru