NASA's robotic mission to capture asteroids gets a "go-ahead"

NASA is that much closer to snatching an asteroid after the robotic half of its two-part Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) passed a key program review. The mission to retrieve an asteroid and move it into lunar orbit for study can now proceed to the next phase of design and development ahead of a planned launch in late 2021.

NASA's manned and unmanned mission to move an asteroid into either lunar or cislunar orbit isn't just a cosmic rock collecting trip. The space agency regards it as a major demonstration of the technology and methods that may one day allow it to send astronauts to Mars.

The first robotic phase of the mission will demonstrate the capabilities of a number of key technologies, such as an advanced, high-power, high-throughput solar-electric propulsion system, the ability to carry out autonomous high-speed proximity operations near an asteroid, and the capability of touching down on one.

In addition, NASA hopes to try out advanced robotic systems for grappling with an asteroid and a gravity "tractor beam" technique that uses the mass of a spacecraft to steer a large object in space. ARM will test advanced solar-electric propulsion systems.

NASA says that the target for the robotic phase won't be selected until 2020, but that it will be a near-Earth asteroid similar to asteroid 2008 EV – a primitive carbonaceous asteroid that may be rich in volatiles, water, and organic compounds. It's hoped that ARM will be able to recover core samples of such an asteroid that will not only reveal more about the origin of the Solar System, but also the commercial viability of asteroid mining.

The Key Decision Point-B review was carried out in July and approved on August 15. It's the latest in a series of development milestones leading to the mission liftoff. In this case, the milestone has to do with mission content, costs, and schedules for phase B of the project. The objective is to provide a baseline mission for risk, cost, and scheduling analysis for an independent review.

As part of the advancement to the next stage, NASA will be inviting government, private, and international participants to help in developing the robotic phase of the mission and selecting payloads. NASA says that it will provide spacecraft integration services, power, data storage, and payload telemetry. In addition, an ARM Investigation Team will provide technical expertise for the next three to five years for both the manned and unmanned phases of the mission.

Based on the most recent reviews, NASA has pushed back the launch date to December 2021 and the budget has been increased to US$1.4 billion for the prelaunch phase of the mission. The manned mission, which is pencilled in for 2026, is still in the concept phase.

Source: NASA, New Atlas

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Towards a DIY-driven curriculum . . .

DIY or Do-It-Yourself is a cultural movement that has its roots dating back to the post-World War II era when the entire world rebuild itself after the devastating effect of the world wars. To overcome for the shortage of high demand labour, people took up activities of building homes, furnishing carpentry and painting by themselves. This in-turn drove an industry where products were made more modular to ease their assembly. Important commodity such as furniture, household appliances, domestic implements were all designed in such a way that users could buy them in knocked down kits and then easily assemble them in the confines of our homes and use them without much ado. Some of the best loved products in the industry made their name by catering to the creative and constructive spirit in humans where the users did not just enjoy a particular product but also took home the satisfaction of assembling the product themselves thereby feeling one with it. This aspect of the commodity reached out to a primal instinct in us. When we talk of such commodities (read furniture), a certain Danish conglomerate comes to our mind. With their DIY-styled furniture and highly impressive meatballs, IKEA did more than just sell the furniture for homes. It made users feel at heart the utility of every component in the product. 

Moving on, one actually wonders how this act of assembling products or components makes us feel better compared to purchasing an off-the-shelf product. The reason for this lies in our childhood and our constructive upbringing. We as humans love to see things take shape. It is always wonderful to see things evolve from random components and objects into things with definite form and functions. Kids who love playing with building blocks and play-doh or adults who fix motorcycles as a hobby can relate to this primal spirit where they are both creating and learning at the same time. Such activities awaken the less explore cognitive skills of creativity and right-brain thinking in us.

What if such an instinct is used not only for activities of play or fun? What if we could put such strong energies to some good use? Only if there were a curriculum that supported our innate creative spirit and incorporated the same into the courseware as a part of the mainstream education. Such a way of learning would be one that can always harvest our creative and keep our learning processes sharp because it is one we as children would pay attention to and be entertained by.

Team Kidobotikz has always given impetus to the creative and the constructive mindset of children as an untapped potential. Our Kits which aim at providing a fun-filled learning experience to students has always given back more than what it took from the student- the zeal to learn and the desire to innovate. Every student who ever was associated with us not only took back home the knowledge of robotics, but rubbed his creative spirit and potential on to the trainers as well. As an organization this has galvanized our efforts to make the experience of our kits available to all. We look forward to a day where every school going kid who gets back home switches on a maker board rather than a TV show.

Happy Roboting ! !

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Robots defeat humans on the foosball table

A bar, club or community space favorite, table soccer – or foosball – is fast and fun for players of all ages. But if you don't have enough people to get in on the spin action, a development platform at the Swiss École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) may come in handy. The blue shirts are controlled by human players, while robotics powers the whites. And the robots are winning.

Designed as a Bachelor's and Master's research platform, students are challenged with developing a computerized platform for table soccer. The robotic foosball table has been in use for several years, but recent upgrades have given the system a speed, accuracy and power boost. So much so that EPFL students reckon that human players with an average skill level have been beaten by the robotic table soccer player.

The robotic system keeps track of play courtesy of a 300 fps camera positioned under the table's transparent playing field. High dynamic linear motors, of the kind found in manufacturing, quickly bring the robot team's players into striking position, then another motor is given the task of rotating the player to shoot. The developers reckon that the millimeter precision and high speed acceleration of the system gives the robots a winning advantage.

But despite the recent upgrades, the system is only able to make use of a very simple strategy. The control software detects the ball as it's served through a hole in the side of the table, it then instructs the appropriate robot arm to stop it at a player's "feet" and then shoot it toward the goal, relying on its speed and power to win the day.

"At this stage, the system is like a bodybuilder with a tiny brain," project coordinator Christophe Salzmann quipped. "But in addition to being strong, we want the robot to be able to fake out the opponent, steer clear of the opponent, and predict the ball's path and the opponent's position."

To these ends, the student team has started to install a laser tracking system that detects the position of the human opponents' handles. The developers are also looking to introduce competitions purely between robot players, with the aim of testing various strategies loaded into the system control software.

The robot foosball system is overviewed in the video below.

Source: EPFL, NewAtlas

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Robotics: Gen Knowledge for Gen Z

“Personally, I’m not afraid of a robot uprising. The benefits far outweigh the threats.” 

The aforementioned quote was said by Daniel H. Wilson, a New York Times best selling author, a and an armchair expert on robotics. In every sense of the written word, the above quote holds up. All along the evolution of robotic technologies, there have been fans as well as naysayers. The community of naysayers have always held a paranoia towards the growth of robotics and it’s supposed taking over the world through artificial intelligence. While what may happen in the future is as good as anybody’s guess, if current trends are any indication, robotics as a field of study or as a branch of technology is definitely gonna revolutionize the way we live. Especially when one considers the fact that the access to core concepts of robotics have now trickled down to the younger generation. Placing the know-how of a technology in the hands of tomorrow’s generation is only going to expedite the process of bringing future to the present.

The new generation of children who were born after the global paranoia of Y2K or the dot com bubble or the 2008 financial crisis probably had parents who shielded them from the consequences of these global events which spread the fear of unemployment and career uncertainty to the youth who witnessed them. The world has come a long way from such crises and stabilized now. Children who were probably toddlers back then are now in their teens. These teens, the perspectives of whom now spans the entire globe thanks to phenomenon like smart phones and high speed internet, have resources and time of abundance that their seniors were not blessed with until a decade ago. 

These young netizens, who today are blessed with luxury of instant access to knowledge, should be given the right set of skills for them to become the right beneficiaries of such luxuries. When facts such as that of History and other social sciences are available at instant clicks, it no longer makes sense to spend considerable time on memorizing them. It makes more sense for them to spend their energies on concepts that are dynamic and ever changing. Concepts of science and technology which are evolving everyday thanks to endless research, need to be given more attention to. The subjects of programming and algorithm on which the entire information age runs are more vital than history and art. It is imperative that students learn these important subjects at a younger age in a manner that they can use throughout their lifetime. It is prudent that these concepts are packaged in a manner that students of a younger age can comprehend. Robotics which is at the crossroads of all the aforementioned subjects of importance should be included in the curriculum of children. It will have an immense impact on their scholastic performance. Learning robotics will not just equip them for their academic year, it will equip them with a skillset for their lifetime. 

Happy Roboting ! !

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Drones take medical samples to the sky in Madagascar

Many of the remote villages in the Ifanadiana district of Madagascar aren't linked to the outside world by decent roads. Among other things, this means that it can be very difficult getting medical samples to labs in a timely fashion. That's where a project led by New York-based Stony Brook University comes in. It's been using autonomous drones to get biological samples from those villages to a central testing center, where they can be checked for diseases such as tuberculosis.

The GPS-guided drones were made by project partner Vayu, Inc. They take off and land vertically, like a helicopter, but switch to faster and more efficient fixed-wing flight once they reach altitude.

Starting on July 27th, they began transporting blood and stool samples from the villages to Stony Brook's Centre ValBio research station, located on the edge of Madagascar's Ranomafana National Park. There, the samples could be properly stored and analyzed. A previous study has indicated that blood samples aren't affected by being transported in a drone.

"The flights to and from villages in the Ifanadiana district ushers in a new era in bringing healthcare to people living in really remote settings," said Dr. Peter Small, the Founding Director of Stony Brook's Global Health Institute. "In this context, drones will find innumerable uses such as accelerating the diagnosis of tuberculosis and ensuring the delivery of vaccines."

Supporting the project were the Madagascar government and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The drones can be seen in action, in the video below.

Source: Stony Brook University, NewAtlas

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Geek Speak: Kanishk

Why do kids spend their time in learning ? Could it be because we make them to? Or could it be because their school curriculum forces them to? Or could it be because they want to just try learning to pursue excellence? The answer could lie anywhere between the three reasons. They could even be learning to gain an upper hand among peers. But, not so often do kids learn to maintain a creative edge and replicate the same in the form of a concept that they’d look at as a masterpiece. However, at Kidobotikz, this is usually the prevailing attitude. Kids here learn robotics for myriads of purposes. But the general reason usually is to make sure that they always have a creative edge that churns out interesting concepts and makes them the envy of their peers.

Meet Kanishk, a next gen roboticist. He is in his class 9 at Chettinad Vidyashram. Back at Kidobotikz, he pursues his Advanced level. He has taken part in several robotic competitions to prove his mettle and he has been successful at a few of them as well. Some of his recent successes include taking part in the Singapore Robo Games. He was among a very few students from Kidobotikz who made it to SRG and considers it a proud accomplishment. Back at Kidobotikz, his accomplishments are immense. As recently as April, he contested in Kidobotikz’s triannual robotics extravaganza- Kidobotikz Robo Games. His participation was a resounding success with him taking part in several events such as Robo Sumo, Robo Race etc. He finished 2nd in the Robo Race- an impressive feat considering the fact that it’s the most prestigious event at KRG with hundreds of students participating in it. And since it is an open event, he is likely to have contested against pros and won it in style. While his roboting past is truly illustrious, he is not one to sit back and bask upon it. He is already gearing up for the next edition of KRG.

The August edition of KRG, which is about to happen by the end of this week will feature some of the brainiacs in Chennai schools. These young warriors who will ride into the event on the success of their robot designs will truly throw a tough fight for any pro. Kanishk is gonna be up against them and try to establish his dominance yet again. For the same he is planning to take part in the project display event. He has designed a robot that can be controlled using just gestures. This robot which features a receiver can be controlled via an accelerometer board that can be fitted on to the palm. By just moving the arms around the robot can be controlled. The robot will be controlled using just one hand. For developing the same, Kanishk has taken guidance under Vignesh, a distinguished trainer and Kidobotikz and an integral cog of the training team that is helping students brainstorm their ideas and develop new concepts for display at KRG. Vignesh, who himself is a veteran in robotic events, has won close to 20 robotic event around the city. Here at Kidobotikz, he shares the core vision of democratizing the technology of robotics so that young students can learn them and apply them in their lives. He is happy teaching his students a trick or two that he applied back in his college days. Vignesh, for whom robotics is very close to his heart, is all praise for his protege who he feels is very sharp and has a knack for coming up with out of the box ideas. 

Happy Roboting ! ! 

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SwagBot farming robot rolls through streams and rounds up cattle

With the sheer amount of labor involved in things like inspecting crops, removing weeds and counting yields, it is perhaps no surprise that farmers are looking to automate certain tasks. And they may soon have a new tool at their disposal, with researchers in Australia developing a durable robot that can navigate difficult terrain, round up cattle and possibly even keep an eye on their health.

The Australian Centre for Field Robotics at the University of Sydney has a bit of experience when it comes to agricultural robots. Headed by Professor Salah Sukkarieh, Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, the team has been busy preparing for a future of automated farming in Australia by building machines that do things like patrol orchards and map and classify different crops.

Its latest baby is called SwagBot and it is designed to take care of monitoring and interacting with crops and plants, along with animals roaming about the farm. The omni-directional, all-wheel drive electric robot is built to withstand rugged terrain and can even take trailers along for the ride. The team recently let SwagBot loose on a cattle farm where it towed a trailer, interacted with horses, rolled across fallen logs and powered through streams.

"So far SwagBot has only been remote controlled," Mark Calleija, a technical officer at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics, explains to New Atlas. "Next steps will involve fitting various sensors and adding software on-board so SwagBot can do these tasks autonomously. After this we will look at environment interaction such as weeding."

This first field test also put SwagBot face to face with a herd of cows, where it slowly encroached on the animals' space and shuffled them off in the desired direction. While this herd dog-like behavior was also controlled remotely, the team hopes more data and advances in sensor technology will allow them to improve SwagBot's ability to control, and even assess the health of the animals and their environment, on its own.

"For example, we can determine the volume and gait of the cattle using vision, lasers etc." says Calleija. "We can determine the temperature using infrared etc. We may be able to detect the volume and health of pasture using vision, infrared and ranging sensors either on the ground or aerial robot."

The SwagBot team is currently one year into a three-year project, and will use upcoming field tests to further develop the machine's autonomy. You can see it do its thing in the video below.

Source: Australian Centre for Field Robotics, NewAtlas

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