Information briefs for the week check out AMRs readying to tackle Antarctic chilly, John Deere’s transfer into precision farming with ExactShot autonomous planter, Cobalt Robotics fielding safety patrols for Johnson Controls’ mega-size properties, and specialised cobot arm with glass finish effector is a breakthrough improve for biopsies and different subdermal procedures.
Cell robotic takes on excessive chilly
Winter arrives in August for Antarctica, the place temperatures at distant components of the excessive plateau might commonly drop beneath -90°C (-130°F). Summer season begins in January for Antarctica, the place the times common 6° C (43°F). Downright balmy.
Can autonomous cellular robots (AMRs) function in such extremes of climate? An AMR appropriately named Ice Dice was constructed to seek out out. As a check monitor, the newly-launched Ice Dice is being examined within the Norwegian Arctic, the place in Karasjok winter temperatures (in January) have slumped as little as −51.4 °C (−60.5 °F).
It is definitely not the extremes of Antarctica, however nonetheless mighty chilly. The typical human can solely survive -49 levels F (-45 levels C) for about thirty minutes. Therefore, an enormous cause why an AMR like Ice Dice is so essential.
“We will check a whole lot of issues in our lab, however not how the rover drives within the snow, how the photo voltaic panels deal with the snow and temperatures, and the way chilly it is going to get contained in the rover and the way shortly it turns into very chilly,” explains staff supervisor Laurenz Edelmann of Eindhoven College of Know-how within the Netherlands, the place Ice Dice was constructed.
Group Polar, as Edelmann’s group is named, need to create an alternate approach to do intensive environmental analysis within the coldest locations on our planet by creating an unmanned rover.
The staff started researching and constructing in 2018, and now, 4 years on, has its first working prototype working in Trondheim, Norway. Winter: -15.0°F (-26.1°C).
In keeping with Group Polar: “Earth is dealing with its largest drawback in centuries: local weather change. To fight it, we have to higher perceive the elements behind local weather change. It’s then essential to gather details about our planet in locations the place nature continues to be pristine, and kind of untouched by local weather change.”
ExactShot saves work, cash, and the surroundings
When planting, starter fertilizer is crucial in making new seedings flourish. Nonetheless, farmers use an excessive amount of when making use of a steady move of fertilizer to your entire row of seeds. John Deere’s newly-released ExactShot is a robotics-based fertilizer system that 
applies solely exact quantities of starter.
“What ExactShot allows us to do is definitely ship starter fertilizer precisely the place the seed is at,” says Madelyn Koester, senior product supervisor and soil well being lead at John Deere. “We truly cut back our fertilizer software by about 60% with this new system, which has large price financial savings for the farmer, but in addition has an enormous environmental impression, as a result of we’re placing that a lot much less fertilizer out, which reduces the possibilities for runoff and different issues which are negatively impacting the surroundings.”
The important thing to the system: ExactShot know-how makes use of sensors and robotics to ship out timed bursts of fertilizer that coat particular person seeds, leaving the areas between them fertilizer-free. (see video)
“Precision is vital in agriculture as a result of we’re working in large portions of acres and crops per acre,” mentioned Deanna Kovar, John Deere’s vp of manufacturing and precision agriculture manufacturing techniques. “Finally, we are going to actually deal with each plant on an acre of a subject in a different way primarily based on what we’re studying by our laptop imaginative and prescient and machine-learning tech.”
Cobot arm spurs improvement of glass finish effector
The medical hypodermic needle, used over 16 billion occasions yearly, has not modified in 150 years. Piercing the pores and skin and both 
injecting or withdrawing physique fluids is its main perform. Nonetheless, the system has confirmed itself to be inefficient when used for biopsy, which is a “process to take away a bit of tissue or a pattern of cells from a physique in order that it may be examined in a laboratory.”
For biopsies, when the hypodermic needle is used to supply histological and molecular tissue samples, as much as 34% of histological and as much as 50% molecular assessments fail or the harvests present inadequate pattern portions.
In a breakthrough for microfluidics, scientists at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) have developed a skinny glass needle (finish effector) that may be affixed to a novel cobot arm with 5-DoF. Ultrasonic oscillations of the glass needle permit medical personnel to pump and blend small quantities of liquid and entice particles for biopsies that in any other case can be inadequate for testing. Particles transfer towards the oscillating glass needle, the place they have a tendency to build up.
ETH Professor Daniel Ahmed and his staff are at present “integrating conventional microfluidics and robotics.” Making use of ultrasound, the gadget is “perfect for executing an in depth vary of duties in microfluidic and micro-robotic functions.”
Cobalt’s robotic guards on the job at Johnson Controls
Johnson Controls’ company actual property division, World WorkPlace Options (GWS), manages 1.2 billion sq. toes of facility house (430 sq. miles). That’s an area virtually as giant because the land space of Los Angeles, CA (469 sq. miles).
Patrolling and usually offering a safety perimeter for GWS is a formidable enterprise. Safety Gross sales & Integration’s Jason Knot writes about one of many latest traits in facility safety: “Dispatching AI robots from state-of the-art safety alarms goes to be the way forward for securing buildings in a a lot smarter, extra cost-efficient means.” Such dispatching is strictly the character of the settlement between GWS and Fremont, CA-based Cobalt Robotics, “a machine-learning firm that automates repetitive guide safety and facility duties with autonomous robots.”
Johnson Controls C•CURE 9000 entry management and occasion administration system is now built-in with Cobalt’s distant robotic guard service, which incorporates AI, robotics, machine-learning software program, and human oversight.
Mike LeBlanc, president and COO of Cobalt, mentioned of the settlement: “The built-in Johnson Controls and Cobalt answer can automate responses to main safety incidents from breaches and break-ins to dangers like open doorways. With companies struggling to seek out safety guards and hold prices beneath management, this built-in system is the best way to automate alarm response at a considerably lowered price.”
“For a lot of of our clients, hiring costly safety guards throughout a troublesome labor scarcity just isn’t an possibility,” mentioned Johnson Controls’ Rick Focke, director of product administration. “The safety workflow between our alarms and Cobalt’s robots is seamless, and all stories are routinely created and tracked so firms could make facility enhancements over time.”
