Important Innovations

  AI Breakthrough                              Source:  USAF Dragon Lady Spy Plane Historic Flight For the first time in history, a robot has co-piloted a US Military plane.  The robot fully shared control of the plane and the test mission with a human pilot.  The artificial intelligence algorithm, called ARTU from Star Wars fame, took charge of the navigation and sensors of a U-25 Dragon Lady spy plane.  The flight in mid December 2020 was successful, historic and a first.  The spy plane is based at the USAF 9th Reconnaissance Wing at Beale Air Force Base in California. ARTU The artificial intelligence system, ARTU, was developed by the Air Combat Command U-2 Federal Lab.  It was trained for the test flight to search for enemy missile launches during a simulated attack, while the human pilot searched for aircraft.  They used the same radar.  ARTU was in complete control for its part of the mission. For instance, the robot made final decisions on devoting radar to search for missile la

Turning Brain Activity to Text Source:  Stock Image of the Brain 97% Accuracy Rate Researchers at the University of California San Francisco have created a new artificial intelligence system that literally reads the mind with 97% accuracy.  The AI translates brain activity into complete sentences.  This is a huge breakthrough in innovation.  Nothing has come close to this AI system.  Previous systems attempting to "read your mind" were only 70% intelligible.   Machine Translation The researchers developed their system by mimicking machine translation.  They realized there are strong parallels between translating brain signals to text and machine translations between languages using neural networks. Machine translation does an entire sentence at once.  They designed their  new  AI system to convert brain activity into full sentences.  In fact, it can translate from human brain waves 30 to 50 sentences that use basic vo

GymCam Source:  Carnegie Mellon University New Smart Camera, New Algorithm, New Exercise Tracking Carnegie Mellon University engineers have developed a smart fitness tracker for the gym and for your home exercise area.  The GymCam system scans the crowds in a gym to automatically identify exercises and count the number of repetitions. All that's needed is a stationary camera with the new algorithm in a gym to detect exercise, the type of exercise and reliably count the number of repetitions. In your home for personal use, it can do the same functions.  It works with a smartphone for a person to record and track their workouts at home.  CMU says a number of companies are expressing interest in the system for in-home exercise. Vision Based System with New Algorithm This is a vision based system that employs a new algorithm to detect repetitive motion.  The CMU inventors say it goes beyond wearable sensors like smart watches, which they say don't track all exercises equa

MIT's Roboats Source:  MIT Roboat Test World's First Bridge Composed of Autonomous Boats This is the world's first bridge composed of autonomous boats that disconnect and reassemble into various configurations.  It's the invention of engineers and other scientists at MIT and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions.  The city of Amsterdam has big plans for them in their canals to reduce busy traffic on congested city streets. Amsterdam Deployment Amsterdam wants the roboats to cruise its 165 canals to transport people and goods, collect trash and self-assemble into popup platforms like bridges and stages as needed. The roboats are equipped with sensors, thrusters, GPS modules, cameras, microcontrollers and other hardware.  They are far less expensive and far more versatile than traditional bridges. New Algorithm Upgrade The roboats have just been upgraded with a new control algorithm that enables them to be "shapeshifting", auto

Robot Explorers Enabled by MIT Algorithm to Calculate Risks vs. Opportunities Source:  MIT Breakthrough New Algorithm for Intelligent Robot Explorers MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute engineers have just created an algorithm that enables marine robots to calculate the risks versus the opportunity of exploring remote ocean regions for scientific research.  This is groundbreaking science.  The researchers believe it could enable fleets of explorer robots to pursue discoveries in the ocean, space and on earth, all the while calculating whether the risks are worth taking.  For a great news blog on this, go to Important Innovations Collection: MIT's New Robot Explorers Calculate Risk : Daring Bands of Robot Explorers for Ocean, Space and Earth Source:  MIT Algorithm Breakthrough by MIT and Woods Hole Oceanograp...

Robots Navigating Like Humans Photo:  Courtesy of  MIT Going from A to B with a Motion Plan MIT researchers have developed a way to enable robots to navigate environments in the same way that humans do.  In simulations the robot moves through a crowded room by exploring the environment, observing what others are doing and exploring what it's learned from other situations. Robot with Hybrid Brain They've done this by combining a  planning algorithm with a neural network that learns to identify paths to best outcomes and uses the knowledge to guide the robots actions.   It's a novel motion planning model.  Until now, robots have struggled with navigational concepts. CSAIL & McGovern Brain Institute Research The MIT researchers are from the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and the McGovern Institute for brain, mind and machine research.  They just presented their discoveries to the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Syst

Thwarting Bird Strikes on Planes Miracle on the Hudson Caltech, Imperial College London & South Korean scientists have just developed an autonomous flying drone that herds birds out of airspaces.  They investigated the problem of flocking birds hitting aircraft, which happens daily, putting passenger lives in danger.  They've developed a robotic aerial device - a robo bird that herds.  Their research was inspired by the "Miracle on the Hudson" - the US Air jet hit by birds that the pilot landed on the Hudson River. Robo Bird Just one of the new drones can redirect an entire flock of birds.  It has a new herding algorithm.  The algorithm enables a flying drone to herd a flock of birds away from an airspace without hurting them or breaking their formation.  The scientists and engineers created the algorithm by carefully observing flock dynamics and how the flock interacts with flying objects. Successfully Tested The herding drone was successfully tested in So