Lifeboat Foundation

From vehicle collision avoidance to airline scheduling systems to power supply grids, many of the services we rely on are managed by computers. As these autonomous systems grow in complexity and ubiquity, so too could the ways in which they fail.

Now, MIT engineers have developed an approach that can be paired with any autonomous system, to quickly identify a range of potential failures in that system before they are deployed in the real world. What’s more, the approach can find fixes to the failures, and suggest repairs to avoid system breakdowns.

The team has shown that the approach can root out failures in a variety of simulated autonomous systems, including a small and large power grid network, an aircraft collision avoidance system, a team of rescue drones, and a robotic manipulator. In each of the systems, the new approach, in the form of an automated sampling algorithm, quickly identifies a range of likely failures as well as repairs to avoid those failures.

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Blueshift Optics, owned by former Sandia employee Joey Carlson, is working to shift the way radioactive materials are detected, using technology that he helped create at Sandia National Laboratories.

Radiation detection has long been a critical aspect of national security and efforts to make the world safer.

“Agencies are trying to cast this wide net to catch nuclear smuggling, and this is one aspect of that effort,” said Sandia materials scientist Patrick Feng. “You could use this technology at a border crossing, in a handheld detector as someone enters a facility or fly it on a drone to map an area.”

The drones utilized large language models to engage with each other and their operator.

Marking a significant leap concerning drone technology, researchers in China have enabled unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to engage in “group chats” to discuss and assign work to one another, much like human teams.

The research work accessed by South China Morning Post (SCMP) was done by a team led by Li Xuelong at the School of Artificial Intelligence, Optics and Electronics at Northwestern Polytechnical University in China. According to them, the technology might improve security patrols, disaster relief, and aerial logistics.

The post included a demonstration video from the researchers, showing how a team of five drones successfully located a set of keys in an outdoor park.

“The drones showcased key abilities, including humanlike dialogue interaction, proactive environmental awareness and autonomous entity control,” the WeChat report said. Autonomous entity control refers to the drone cluster’s ability to adjust flight status in real time based on environmental feedback.

The technology equips each drone with a “human brain”, allowing them to chat with each other using natural language. This ability was developed based on a Chinese open-source large language model called InternLM, according to the report.

Everdrone’s advanced service promises to reduce the average response time to under 2 minutes.

Aiming to improve emergency response services, Swedish firm Everdrone has introduced a state-of-the-art drone that combines an advanced camera system as well as customizable medical kits.

Christened E2, the multi-purpose drone aims to revolutionize emergency dispatch by providing the ability to transmit live infrared and high-definition video along with emergency medical equipment supplies. Everdrone claims that E2 will help to lower average response times under two minutes.

A team of engineers from The University of Manchester has created and flown the world’s largest drone, made from a lightweight and eco-friendly material.

The Giant Foamboard Quadcopter (GFQ) is unlike any other drone worldwide thanks to its innovative design. It is made from foamboard, a cardboard type with a foam core and a paper skin.

A team of engineers from The University of Manchester.

Continue reading “World’s largest quadcopter drone made from foamboard takes flight” »

Hussam Amrouch has developed an AI-ready architecture that is twice as powerful as comparable in-memory computing approaches. As reported in the journal Nature Communications (“First demonstration of in-memory computing crossbar using multi-level Cell FeFET”), the professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) applies a new computational paradigm using special circuits known as ferroelectric field effect transistors (FeFETs). Within a few years, this could prove useful for generative AI, deep learning algorithms and robotic applications.

Intelligent robots are reshaping our universe. In New Jersey’s Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, AI-assisted robots are bringing a new level of security to doctors and patients by scanning every inch of the premises for harmful bacteria and viruses and disinfecting them with precise doses of germicidal ultraviolet light.

In agriculture, robotic arms driven by drones scan varying types of fruits and vegetables and determine when they are perfectly ripe for picking.

The Airspace Intelligence System AI Flyways takes over the challenging and often stressful tasks of flight dispatchers who must make last-minute flight pattern changes due to sudden extreme weather, depleted fuel supplies, mechanical problems or other emergencies. It optimizes solutions, is safer, saves time and is cost-efficient.

NASA engineers tested a half-scale version of the Dragonfly rotorcraft that will eventually explore the surface of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

NASA’s Ingenuity Mars helicopter is a massive success story, far exceeding its original mission goals.

Now, NASA is taking lessons from the first rotorcraft to fly on another planet and applying it to a larger machine exploring Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.