The Latest Drones and UAVs of 2021, Autonomous Robotic Cars in Space

Drones robo boats, and robot subs, autonomous cars, space robots, and other key high-tech news in today's one issue.

 

Drone Robotic

Drones are being used for more and more tasks, for example the norwegian company nordic unmanned introduced the stalker drone for railroad inspections. The multicopter with four railroad wheels rides the rails as long as they are clear and takes off when a train approaches. The drone reportedly has a speed of 20 kilometers per hour and ranges of 200 kilometers stalker uses cameras and other sensors to inspect the tracks. UAV Factory has created a drone that can stay in the air for more than 14 hours.

The Penguin CMK2

The Penguin CMK2 vertical takeoff and landing drone takes off with four propellers and then retracts them inward. This reduces drag when flying horizontally and allows the drone to stay in the air 20 percent longer. The weight of the drone with the two beams of composite material is 32 kilograms the permissible payload at this point is 4.5 kilograms.

The Penguin CMK2 can fly in 15 meter per second winds at a temperature range of negative 40 to 50 degrees celsius. It is possible to change the battery of the drone in just two minutes. Some recent news in Russia a drone first saved a drowning man by dropping a life jacket which allowed the exhausted man to wait for the boat of rescuers. It should be noted that for the first time drone rescuers have been on duty on the beaches of Russia this year and now this project has no analogs in the country yet, but it seems that this is temporary.

 

Albatross S. Capabl

Turkish Company Aslan, introduced its autonomous surface robot Albatross S. Capable of working alone or forming a swarm with other robots. The Robocator is just over seven meters long and has a displacement of almost 2 tons including a 250 kilogram payload. A diesel engine allows the robot to reach speeds of up to 40 dots and operate for at least 10 hours. In the pack a salon is able to share data from its sensors with other robots to collectively correct course and avoid collisions. Bedrock invites everyone to explore the ocean and map its bottom with its autonomous electric submarine. 

The underwater robot can collect and process information on its own to then upload it to mosaic's cloud-based platform. At the moment, 80 percent of the ocean 4 remains unexplored and the study of one of its areas can take up to 12 months. Bedrock engineers claim that they can speed up the process by a factor of 10 providing data with a resolution 50 times higher than the best publicly available maps. Unfortunately, no technical details of the underwater robot have been reported or released at this time.

 

Hydrogen Tractor Robotic

The startup Gossen has officially unveiled an autonomous 100 hydrogen tractor equipped with a robotic arm. It's designed for trucks and logistics and e-commerce. ATM Autonomous knows how to connect and disconnect the connectors, connecting the trailer and the body by itself. The vehicle does not need a driver or an operator, however Robavito can work only on closed territories.

 

Autonomous Trucks

Waymo announced a plan to deploy a hub for Autonomous Trucks in Texas. The center will become a site for hosting and maneuvering hundreds of level 4 and level 5 autonomous trucks which are now actively being tested. The center's location allows it to serve interstate highways and it's scheduled to launch in 2022.

Waymo has also announced it will allow individual passengers to use robo taxis in san francisco. The Waymo 1 trusted tester program is research oriented and allows San Francisco Residents to take an autonomous ride in a Jaguar I-Pace Waymo all-electric car with a 5th generation autopilot, and with that said the first passengers must sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevents them from publicly sharing details about their experience.

 

V247 Bigilant Tilt-Rotor Drone

Bell helicopter is set to begin production of its V247 Bigilant Tilt-Rotor Drone in 2023. The vertical takeoff and landing drone has the characteristics of an aircraft type impact drone and it can reach speeds of up to 560 kilometers per hour, climbed to altitudes of nearly 8 kilometers and stay in the air for up to 15 hours and operate at ranges of more than 800 kilometers and with the support of a tanker aircraft.

The drone will be able to cover 2.5 000 kilometers and stay in the air 17 hours carrying on board almost a ton of payload. a modular design will allow to take on board lidar, sonar buoys missiles and torpedoes. It can be launched from helicopters and destroyer decks as well as from a transport aircraft.

 

Astro B Robots

Astro B Robots will search for lost astronaut socks. Scientists have decided to entrust them with keeping the space station clean and operational. In the future, Nasa expects to orbit the permanent gateway station around the moon. It will not be a place of residence, but only a transit point for astronauts and that's why robots are needed to maintain it. During testing Astro B has proven they can navigate autonomously around the international space station, find and recognize objects and inspect equipment. But can such babies even if equipped with robotic arms handle all the problems on the station.

Nasa is hoping that Robonaut 2 which as it turns out the agency still hopes to return to the ISS for more testing will help them do just that and there are other robots that could potentially join the project one of which we'll talk about below.

The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has delivered a new robot to the ISS. it's the S1 Robotic arm developed by space robot startup Gitai Japan incorporated. The robot must prove its dexterity and microgravity inside the pressurized bishop airlock.

Gitai Technical Director Toyota Kazuki said in a press release that the robot could become an inexpensive and safer source of labor in space opening the door to the true commercialization of space and on earth. It could be used to assist in natural disasters or nuclear emergencies where sending people to help could be very dangerou.

Alibaba has developed ALICE mind a machine vision algorithm that can recognize images with an 81.26 accuracy, whereas humans can only recognize at 80.83 percent. The new algorithm was presented at the visual question answering challenge 2021 where it won first place. During the competition they used more than 250 000 images which algorithms studied and then had to answer 1.1 million text questions about what they saw. The developers are confident that they can further improve ALICE mine's performance in the future.

Boston Dynamics Spot Robot arrived at the Ontario University of Technology Engineering building to participate in a three-year mars lab research project. Personally, we like the coloring of the robot but what do you think of its new costume. Deep robotics has unveiled a new version of its Robot Dog Yu Yang X20.

The robot can work in any weather for four hours it can self-charge see its surrounding in 360 degrees carry loads of 20 kilograms of cargo and move at speeds of 12 kilometers per hour. It's noteworthy that the casing's degree of protection stated on the company's website is ip66, which corresponds to complete protection against dust and storm proof against weather. The robot can carry a robot arm and climb stairs. 

Engineers at Mit at Shanghai Zhao Tong University have developed a soft lightweight and potentially inexpensive upper limb neural prosthesis. The first pilots of the new invention said that they were able to perform everyday activities such as zipping up a suitcase pouring juice from a package or petting a cat just as well and in some cases better than with current neuroprosthesis.

What do you think of the idea of employing retired industrial robots as workers in community gardens. Zen Gardens in Japan are traditionally tended by Buddhist Monks who have turned their simple art of raking pebbles into an act of meditation. But, British artist Jason Brujay decided that robots could do it too. Four industrial manipulators replicate paintings designed by a neural network. The algorithm analyzes the position of the limbs of athletes performing at the Tokyo Olympics simplifies their movements and creates unique design.