Complete Guide to Artificial Intelligence in 2025: From Basics to Advanced Applications
Van Robotics ABii: The 100 Best Inventions Of 2020TIME
Robots fascinate Van Robotics CEO Laura Boccanfuso. But while getting her Ph.D. In computer science, she felt most were too expensive and technical for real-life applications. So she developed ABii, a robot tutor aimed at closing the math and reading proficiency gap for K-5 students. This is no mere toy: the 16-by-8-in. Device is designed to work with teachers—and, increasingly, parents now that so many children are learning from home—with a curriculum created by certified educators. Its edge: using a camera to detect changes in student attention and optimizing its tutoring approach to resonate with individual learners. "Schools more than ever need individualized learning help," Boccanfuso says. "[They] don't have enough teachers in the classroom." Schools that buy ABii for $999 receive 30 student licenses that come with lesson plans that are updated regularly to meet national standards; the home version ($599) offers the same features with just three licenses. —Nadia Suleman
Buy now: Van Robotics ABii
More Must-Reads from TIME
New Robot Vacuums For 2020Tom's Guide
Is one of your resolutions for this year making sure that your house or apartment is kept cleaner? A robot vacuum can help by sweeping and mopping your floors. Our list of the best robot vacuums do a great job at this, but there are a few new models coming in 2020 that look intriguing. Here are some of the robot vacs on our radar, including models from Eufy, iLife, Roborock and more.
Eufy RoboVac G30 Edge
The Eufy RoboVac G30 Edge is a big step up from the company's current lineup of robot vacuums. The G30 Edge has what Eufy calls Smart Dynamic Navigation, which lets it map rooms in real time. Unlike other robot vacuums, which let you create virtual boundaries within an app, the G30 Edge still relies on boundary strips and external sensors. However, the G30 Edge has a 100-minute runtime, and can automatically return to base and recharge itself when its battery runs low, and then resume where it left off. It can also be controlled using Alexa and Google Assistant.
Price: $319.99
You may likeAvailability: January 2020
iLife A10
iLife is introducing several new robot vacuums for 2020, but the A10 looks to be the most advanced. It's the company's first with laser navigation, which creates a 360-degree scan of its environment. Similar to several other of iLife's vacuums, the A10 is a combination vacuum cleaner and floor mopper; while we've found these combos to be less than effective, the A10 takes a different approach. If you want to mop, you have to replace the dustbin with a water tank. The A10's tank also vibrates and has three water flow levels, which the company says should help loosen stains on the floor.
Price: UnknownAvailability: First half of 2020
Narwal
While iRobot and Shark both have self-cleaning robot vacuums, the Narwal looks to be the first mopping robot vacuum that can rinse its own pads. A base station has two buckets—one for clean water and one for dirty water—and holds enough liquid for a 2,000-square-foot house. The Narwal also works as a robot vacuum for cleaning rugs, and a suite of sensors—Lidar, collision, and obstacle avoidance—help it navigate your rooms and create a map of your home. The vacuum can be controlled by an app, though the company is still working on integrating smart assistants.
The one thing to note about the Narwal is that it's currently a Kickstarter and Indiegogo project; on Indiegogo, you can currently preorder a Narwal for $599, with expected delivery in February.
Price: $599
Availability: February
Roborock S6 Pure
The Roborock S6 Pure has many of the same features as the $649 S6, which was launched last year: laser navigation, the ability to create virtual barriers, a 3-hour runtime, and a water tank that also lets you mop the floors. Though the Roborock app, you can also selectively choose which rooms you want to clean, too. However, the S6 Pure has a larger 180ml water tank (the S6's tank is 140 ml), which lets you mop a wider area. And, the S6 Pure will be $100 cheaper when it comes out in the second quarter of this year. The S6 Pure, like the S6, will also work with Alexa.
Price: $549
Availability: Q2 2020
Trifo Lucy
One of the recurring complaints about robot vacuums is that they can't recognize poop, so if your furry friend makes a mess on the floor, your robot vacuum might smear it all around your house. Trifo's Lucy robot vacuum uses a combination of cameras and AI to identify objects—even ones smaller than 1 inch in height—and avoid them on its rounds. In addition to floor nuggets, the Lucy can recognize people, and can even be set to a patrol mode when you're not home. According to the company, the Lucy has a 120-minute runtime, and a powerful 3,000 Pa vacuum.
Price: $799
Availability: Late Q1
Here Are The Best Robots And Robotics Projects Of 2020 - Digital Trends
It's hard to think of anyone who would consider 2020 to have been a brilliant year. Things are a bit different in the robotosphere, however. In fact, the past 12 months have given us no shortage of examples of breakthrough robots.
Objectively selecting which robots have made the biggest impact in the past year is difficult (not least because many of them have been around a few years already, but gained additional momentum in 2020.) Nonetheless, we have come up with seven of the best new robot projects that Digital Trends covered in 2020.
Meet the robo-barberMost roboticists would tell you they have faith in their creations. But when push comes to shove (or blade comes to neck), it takes a certain kind of person to willingly receive a straight-razor shave from a robot. John Peter Whitney, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at Northeastern University College of Engineering, is just such a person — and, based on the evidence, he has every right to have that kind of superhuman faith.
"Straight-razor shaving is extreme in [its] demands," Whitney told Digital Trends. "We require the ability to provide high stiffness in some directions and very low stiffness in other directions, and these directions are changing continuously as the position and orientation of the blade changes. In addition, we need the ability to have a fast 'reflex' to pull away if safety limits are violated. The only way to achieve this is to build a system in which every single joint is extremely light and extremely low friction."
The TL;DR version? Whitney and Ph.D. Student Evelyn Mendoza created a robot setup that allowed Whitney to be shaved by a robot that was remotely controlled by a barber. And amazingly, it didn't end up looking like a scene from a Nightmare on Elm Street movie.
Robot tour guideHastings contemporary robot default 2
With museums and art galleries closed due to coronavirus this year, an enterprising gallery in the United Kingdom elected to continue letting visitors check out their exhibitions — by teaming with the Bristol Robotics Laboratory to offer real-time, Zoom-style guided tours with the aid of two-wheeled telepresence robots.
"Our initial idea was to help people who lived in places like care homes to have access to the gallery," Will Barrett, communications and marketing manager at Hastings Contemporary, told Digital Trends. "When the pandemic first started to roll around, we thought it would be good to bring this forward and accelerate the use of it."
Robot turbine inspectorsThere's a good chance you've never given too much thought about the best way to inspect and maintain wind turbines. The folks at BladeBUG have not only thought about it; they've built a freaking suction cup-equipped robot insect to help make it easier.
"This opens the door to autonomous inspection and repair of wind turbines, improving the efficiency of the blades and reducing risk for rope access technicians," Chris Cieslak, founder and director of BladeBUG, told Digital Trends. "[Our robot] uses a patent-pending six-legged design with suction cup feet, which means each of the legs can move and bend independently. This is significant because it enables the robot to walk on the blade's changing curved surface, as well as inside the blade, tower, or hub of the turbine."
Disney's freaky staring robotThe House of Mouse isn't best known for scaring the bejesus out of people. So why exactly did it build a robot with glaring human-looking eyes staring out of a skeletal robot face complete with rows of gritted teeth in a lipless mouth? No, it's not to haunt the dreams of anyone who wrote nasty things about the new Star Wars movies on the internet. Instead, it's a piece of research that could one day result in more realistic animatronic robots for Disney theme parks.
"Eye gaze is a significant part of the interactions between people; quite a bit of information is conveyed through movements of the eyes," Matthew Pan, a postdoctoral associate at Disney Research, told Digital Trends. "We wanted to try to emulate this communication on a robot by designing eye-gazing behaviors using principles of animation. We have layered these behaviors using a subsumption architecture proposed over 30 years ago by Rodney Brooks to create complexity and realism."
Robot masseuseAfter the year we've all had, who wouldn't welcome a relaxing massage? And what with social distancing and all, we might just have to make do with the masseuse in question being a tad on the robotic side. Created by researchers from the U.K.'s University of Plymouth, this robot masseuse is built using the KUKA LBR iiwa robotic arm.
The arm can be taught a variety of motions, with joint torque sensors that let it detect contact and reduce the levels of force and speed instantly. Because no one wants a massaging robot that, like some kind of aromatherapy candle-smelling Terminator, won't stop, ever, until you're relaxed.
"If the force sensor of the robotic arm detects a force value we defined in advance, the entire system will stop working," Chunxu Li, lecturer at Plymouth's School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, told Digital Trends. "In addition, the stiffness value of each joint of the robotic arm can be set in the interactive interface to ensure the output of force."
All hail the robo-omelet makerCan robots make omelettes?
Once you're up from your robo-massage, wearing your monikered robe and a pair of comfy slippers, what could be better than chowing down on an omelet, made just the way you like it? (By a robot of course.) Created by researchers from the U.K.'s University of Cambridge, this omelet chef robot can do everything from cracking the eggs to shaking the salt and pepper containers to handling the frying pan to plating up a finished dish. This involves an assortment of challenges in robot manipulation, computer vision, sensing, and human-robot interaction.
"We did this project as [a] collaboration with kitchen appliance company Beko to [explore] the future of kitchens and the use of robots in this context," Fumiya Iida, a researcher from Cambridge's Department of Engineering, told Digital Trends. "There are many ways these technologies can be exploited for commercial products in the near future — from intelligent kitchen appliances [to] assistive technologies for elderly [people and those with disabilities.]"
Robot dolphinWithout diminishing the great conservation work many zoos do, keeping animals in captivity purely for the benefit of a viewing public seems, well, kind of wrong. What's the answer? According to San Francisco-based engineering firm Edge Innovations, the answer is robot animals. With that in mind, Edge has developed an 8.5-foot long, 550-pound robot dolphin that can swim for up to 10 hours on a single charge, and looks and acts almost eerily like its real-world inspiration. It can operate in either autonomous "exhibition" mode or a "show" mode in which it's controlled using a joystick.
"A woman in the audience ran out of the pavilion, through an emergency exit, setting off an alarm, and used her cell phone to call the Orlando [Florida] police and the Orlando SPCA, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," Roger Holzberg, creative director at Edge Innovations, told Digital Trends, concerning an early robot dolphin test run. "[She told them] that Disney had put a real dolphin in the Living Seas Pavilion, that they had bolted a camera to its head, ran a wire to it, and put it in a costume — and that someone needed to come down there now and arrest people for cruelty to this animal."
Believe it or not, things have gotten significantly more advanced on the robot front since then.
Comments
Post a Comment