Led by marine research organization ProMare, a global consortium of partners is building an unmanned, fully-autonomous ship that will cross the Atlantic on the fourth centenary of the original Mayflower voyage in September 2020.
IBM has joined that consortium, and the Mayflower Autonomous Ship (MAS) will utilize IBM’s artificial intelligence (AI), most powerful servers, cloud and edge computing technologies to autonomously navigate and avoid ocean hazards as it travels from Plymouth, England to Plymouth, Massachusetts.
If the voyage proves successful, MAS will be one of the first self-navigating, full-sized vessels to cross the Atlantic Ocean.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence
Eureka Robotics unveils robot with the precision and dexterity of a human hand
Eureka Robotics has unveiled Archimedes, a new robot capable of picking up delicate optical lenses and mirrors with the care and precision of a human hand.
A robotics technology start-up from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), Eureka says Archimedes can slot lenses and mirrors of different sizes into a custom loading tray to prepare them for coating.
Archimedes features a six-axis robot arm controlled by algorithms that use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to plan its motion and how much force to exert in its grip, creating a system that can mimic the dexterity of human fingers and the visual acuity of human eyes.
Boeing Australia announces partnership aimed at creating smarter unmanned systems through AI tech
In an effort to create smarter unmanned systems for global forces, Boeing Australia and Australia’s Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre (DCRC) will collaborate on the development of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
According to Boeing Australia, equipping unmanned systems with machine learning techniques will help them better understand and react to threat environments.
Recogni seeks to make autonomous vehicles a reality with low-power AI processing
A company called Recogni Inc. that designs a vision-oriented artificial intelligence (AI) platform for autonomous vehicles has emerged from stealth with the announcement of $25 million in Series A financing.
MIT, U.S. Air Force launching program to advance artificial intelligence
In an effort to make “fundamental advances” in artificial intelligence (AI) that could improve Air Force operations, while also addressing broader societal needs, MIT and the U.S. Air Force have signed an agreement to launch a new program called the MIT-Air Force AI Accelerator.
Leveraging the expertise and resources of MIT and the Air Force, the effort will be used to conduct fundamental research directed at “enabling rapid prototyping, scaling, and application of AI algorithms and systems.”
Building off of its five-decade relationship with MIT, the Air Force plans to invest approximately $15 million per year in the effort.
AMP Robotics launches dual-robot system for recycling industry
AMP Robotics Corp. (AMP), a developer of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics for the recycling industry, has launched its new AMP Cortex dual-robot system (DRS), which focuses on material recovery in Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), Electronic Waste (E-waste), and Construction and Demolition (C&D).
Expanding on AMP’s existing product line of high-speed recycling robotics, the AMP Cortex DRS uses two high-performance robots that quickly sort, pick, and place materials at a speed of 160 pieces per minute, which creates optimum productivity, AMP says.
Speakers: Unmanned systems technology is changing lives, but public acceptance is key
As AUVSI President and CEO Brian Wynne introduced Tuesday’s keynote speakers at Xponential 2019, he first pointed out that the biggest challenges facing the professionals in the audience involve convincing a generally skeptical public that the new technologies they are fostering will improve their quality of life.
Wynne called for “complete agreement that the number one thing we need to work on is pubic acceptance.”
With that, speakers with divergent backgrounds expounded on how unmanned technology is fostering a cultural revolution of sorts, which is changing nearly every aspect of human existence and will continue to do so.
Researchers from MIT and Microsoft uncover "blind spots" of artificial intelligence systems
Researchers from MIT and Microsoft have developed a model that identifies instances where autonomous systems have “learned” from training examples that don’t match what’s actually happening in the real world.
The researchers say that this model could be used by engineers to improve the safety of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as driverless vehicles and autonomous robots.
According to the researchers, AI systems that power driverless cars are thoroughly trained in virtual simulations to prepare the vehicle for nearly every event on the road. Sometimes, though, the car makes an unexpected error in the real world because an event occurs that should, but doesn’t, change the car’s behavior.
CyPhy Works becomes Aria Insights, an AI drone company
CyPhy Works has leveraged its tethered drone technology and morphed into a new company, Aria Insights, to harness the data collected by drones by integrating AI and machine learning into its hardware.
Aria Insights, or AI, will provide customers with intelligent, autonomous drones that collect and analyze data to create actionable insight, thus speeding decision time.
“After 10 years of innovating and redefining drone technology, the team at CyPhy saw the limitations facing the industry — namely the complications and risks of retrieving and analyzing data,” says Lance Vanden Brook, CEO of Aria Insights.
Xilinx and ZF Friedrichshafen partner to enable automated driving applications
With enabling automated driving applications in mind, Xilinx Inc., which specializes in adaptive and intelligent computing, has announced a new strategic collaboration with German car parts maker ZF Friedrichshafen that will result in Xilinx’s technology powering ZF's highly-advanced artificial intelligence (AI)-based automotive control unit known as ZF ProAI.
Xilinx’s Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC platform is being used by ZF to handle real-time data aggregation, pre-processing, and distribution. The platform is also being used to provide compute acceleration for the AI processing in ZF's new AI-based electronic control unit.