Daily Archives: January 11, 2022

Dublin, Jan. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Global Next-Generation Surgical Robotics Market 2020-2030" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global next-generation surgical robotics market will reach $356.9 million by 2030, growing by 42.4% annually over 2020-2030 considering the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. The market is driven by technological breakthroughs, advantages of robotic-assisted surgery, the increasing prevalence rate of chronic disorders, and highly increasing adoption of innovative surgical robots.

This report is based on a comprehensive research of the entire global next-generation surgical robotics market and all its sub-segments through extensively detailed classifications. Profound analysis and assessment are generated from premium primary and secondary information sources with inputs derived from industry professionals across the value chain. The report is based on studies on 2017-2019 and provides estimate for 2020 and forecast from 2021 till 2030 with 2019 as the base year because 2020 is not appropriate for research base due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

In-depth qualitative analyses include identification and investigation of the following aspects:

The trend and outlook of global market is forecast in optimistic, balanced, and conservative view by taking into account of COVID-19. The balanced (most likely) projection is used to quantify global next-generation surgical robotics market in every aspect of the classification from perspectives of System Component, Technology, Application, End User, and Region.

For each region and country, detailed analysis and data for annual revenue ($ mn) are available for 2019-2030. The breakdown of all regional markets by country and split of key national markets by System Component, Technology, and Application over the forecast years are also included.

The report also covers current competitive scenario and the predicted trend; and profiles key vendors including market leaders and important emerging players.

Key Topics Covered:

1 Introduction

2 Market Overview and Dynamics2.1 Market Size and Forecast2.1.1 Impact of COVID-19 on World Economy2.1.2 Impact of COVID-19 on the Market2.2 Major Growth Drivers2.3 Market Restraints and Challenges2.4 Emerging Opportunities and Market Trends2.5 Porter's Five Forces Analysis

3 Segmentation of Global Market by System Component3.1 Market Overview by System Component3.2 Robotic Systems3.3 Instruments and Accessories3.4 System Services

4 Segmentation of Global Market by Technology4.1 Market Overview by Technology4.2 Miniaturized Surgical Robotics4.3 Autonomous Surgical Robotics4.4 Teleoperated Surgical Robotics

5 Segmentation of Global Market by Application5.1 Market Overview by Application5.2 General Surgery5.3 Gynecology Surgery5.4 Urology Surgery5.5 Cardiology Surgery5.6 Neurosurgery5.7 Aesthetic Surgery5.8 Other Surgeries

6 Segmentation of Global Market by End User6.1 Market Overview by End User6.2 Hospitals6.3 Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs)6.4 Other End Users

7 Segmentation of Global Market by Region

8 Competitive Landscape8.1 Overview of Key Vendors8.2 New Product Launch, Partnership, Investment, and M&A8.3 Company Profiles

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/hhgfeh

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The Worldwide Next-Generation Surgical Robotics Industry will Reach $356.9 Million by 2030 - GlobeNewswire

Nominations are now open for companies and groups to apply for the 2022 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards. Categories include 1) Business and Management Innovation, 2) Technology, Services, and Research Innovation, or 3) Application and Market Innovation.

By RBR Staff | January 10, 2022

For over a decade, Robotics Business Reviews RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards have highlighted the most creative and influential innovations from around the world that have advanced the state of robotics. Robotics Business Review is currently seeking nominations for the 2022 Robotics Innovation Awards.

Many Innovation TypesRobotics innovation can take many forms technological, business, market, and investment that act individually, or in confluence, to accelerate robotics sector growth. The sources for robotics innovation can be technology, product, and services providers, but also academics and researchers, governmental and private business development groups, and the investment community.

How to ApplyThe editors of Robotics Business Review are seeking submissions from companies, research and development organizations, business development and investment groups, and others for consideration for the 2022 RBR50 awards.

Three Categories

Business and Management InnovationEntries should describe business and management initiatives or practices that enhance a companys commercial standing, foster robotics sector growth, or improve society. Innovative business and management categories include:

Research, Product Technology, and Services InnovationSubmissions should describe innovative technologies or services that entered the commercial market after January 2021.

Application and Market InnovationThese RBR50 entries should feature newly developed applications for specific sectors that deliver value, provide entry to new markets, or improve performance over existing approaches by improving productivity, increasing quality, reducing costs, etc. Markets include:

Benefits for RBR50 HonoreesThe RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards presents technology, product, and services providers, along with researchers, business development organizations and investment groups, a unique branding, marketing and education opportunity. Benefits for RBR50 honorees include:

Examples

Questions?For questions regarding the 2021 RBR50 innovation awards, please contact editors Dan Kara or Steve Crowe

Submission Form for the RBR50 2022 Innovation Awards Please fill out the fields below to submit your company or organization for consideration in the RBR50 2022 Innovation Awards.

(www.yourcompanyname.com)

1-1011-5051-100101-500500+

Please Select 1 Among All Options

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

About WTWH MediaWTWH Media LLC is an integrated media company serving engineering, business, and investment professionals through more than 50 Web sites, five print publications, and many other technical and business events. The WTWH Network includes The Robot Report, Collaborative Robotics Trends, and Robotics Business Review, online technical, business, and investment news and information portals focused on robotics and intelligent systems. WTWH Media also produces leading in-person robotics conferences, including the Robotics Summit & Expo, RoboBusiness, and the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum, as well as the RoboBusiness Direct online webinar program.

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Nominations Open for the 2022 RBR50 Robotics Innovation Awards - Robotics Business Review

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Ouster, Inc. (NYSE: OUST) (Ouster or the Company), a leading provider of high-resolution digital lidar sensors, announced today that it has signed a strategic customer agreement with Vecna Robotics, an intelligent material handling automation company. The agreement includes a non-binding forecast for approximately three thousand OS digital lidar sensors through 2025 as Vecna Robotics scales production to meet increasing customer demand for warehouse and logistics automation.

Vecna Robotics plans to fuse Ouster lidar into its multi-sensor autonomy stack to equip self-driving pallet trucks, tow tractors, and lift trucks for high-capacity material handling operations. The lidar helps the system confidently navigate dynamic environments, safely detect and avoid obstacles while working alongside human operations and manually driven vehicles, and intelligently map its path through real-time topological reasoning.

We completed an exhaustive evaluation of all 3D lidar sensors on the market and found the Ouster OS0 to be our strong favorite, said Zachary Dydek, Chief Technology Officer at Vecna Robotics. We believe Ousters best-in-class customer service and proven scalability will enable Vecna Robotics to meet customer demand for high-volume production and further extend our technology leadership in the industrial AMR space.

Vecna Robotics works with some of the worlds leading distribution, warehousing, and manufacturing companies to alleviate global supply chain challenges through automated solutions that increase throughput and efficiency in material handling. Manufacturing and logistics companies rely on over four million human operators to move nearly two billion pallets in the U.S. each day and approximately five billion pallets worldwide. Currently, less than one percent of material handling vehicles are automated, representing a significant opportunity to capture demand for warehouse automation within the $2.5 billion total addressable market (TAM) estimated for the industrial lidar market by 2025.

Warehouse and logistics automation is critical to improving supply chain operations. Businesses are facing unprecedented shipping delays, labor shortages, and price inflation and the demand to safely automate key aspects of the value chain is only accelerating, said Ouster CEO Angus Pacala. We are excited to partner with Vecna Robotics as they scale to serve the market opportunity for intelligent material handling equipment.

About Vecna Robotics

Vecna Robotics is an award-winning flexible intelligent material handling automation company with solutions engineered for seamless work between autonomous mobile robots (AMR) and the labor, equipment, facilities, and systems that make business go. Our self-driving fork trucks, pallet trucks, and tuggers powered by proprietary Pivotal orchestration software and our 24/7/365 command center help distribution, warehousing, and manufacturing organizations automate their most critical workflows, maximize throughput and scale operations fast. For more information, visit http://www.vecnarobotics.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Ouster

Ouster (NYSE: OUST) is building a safer and more sustainable future through its high-resolution digital lidar sensors for the automotive, industrial, smart infrastructure, and robotics industries. Ousters sensors offer an excellent combination of price and performance with the flexibility to span hundreds of use-cases and enable revolutionary autonomy across industries. With a global team and high-volume manufacturing, Ouster supports approximately 600 customers in over 50 countries. Ouster is headquartered in San Francisco, CA with offices in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East. For more information, visit http://www.ouster.com, or connect with us on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding Ousters strategic partnerships, its ability to meet supply requirements, the scalability of its production, and its strategy and market positioning. Forward-looking statements give Ousters current expectations and projections relating to its financial condition, competitive position, future results of operations, plans, objectives, future orders and business. You can identify forward-looking statements by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. These statements may include words such as anticipate, estimate, expect, project, plan, forecast, intend, believe, may, will, should, can have, likely and other words and terms of similar meaning in connection with any discussion of the timing or nature of future operating or financial performance or other events. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expected, including: Ousters limited operating history and history of losses; the negotiating power and product standards of its customers; fluctuations in its operating results; cancellation or postponement of contracts or unsuccessful implementations; the adoption of its products and the growth of the lidar market generally; its ability to grow its sales and marketing organization; substantial research and development costs needed to develop and commercialize new products; the competitive environment in which it operates; selection of its products for inclusion in target markets; its future capital needs; its ability to use tax attributes; its dependence on key third party suppliers, in particular Benchmark Electronics, Inc., and manufacturers; ability to maintain inventory and the risk of inventory write-downs; inaccurate forecasts of market growth; its ability to manage growth; the creditworthiness of customers; risks related to acquisitions; risks related to international operations; risks of product delivery problems or defects; costs associated with product warranties; its ability to maintain competitive average selling prices or high sales volumes or reduce product costs; conditions in its customers industries; its ability to recruit and retain key personnel; its use of professional employer organizations; its ability to adequately protect and enforce its intellectual property rights; its ability to effectively respond to evolving regulations and standards; risks related to operating as a public company; risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic; and other important factors discussed in the Companys final prospectus dated August 19, 2021, and in other reports the Company files with or furnishes to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any such forward-looking statements represent managements reasonable estimates and beliefs as of the date of this press release. While Ouster may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, it disclaims any obligation to do so, other than as required by law, even if subsequent events cause its views to change.

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Ouster Signs Strategic Agreement with Vecna Robotics as Material Handling Automation Accelerates - Business Wire

Dont miss Fenix Group on Dawn of Drones Wednesday, January 12 at 11:00 AM EST. Dawn speaks with Savanna Horan, Senior Robotics Engineer, on whats next for drones and robotics. Stream below:

Join Dawn and Senior Robotics Engineer Savanna Horan of the Fenix Group Inc, leaders in creative applied intelligence as they discuss the Mobile Robotic LTE Network and the future of commercial & military robotics, drones and networked communications.

Savanna Horan has an MS in Robotics Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and has worked for a variety of companies from the Department of Navy to iRobot. Savanna also has her A&P and Remote Pilot certifications from the FAA, and is a volunteer with the Women in Technology (DC area) mentor/protege program, and with AUVSIs Grassroots Advocacy Network.

With her current company, Fenix Group Inc, Savanna has a patent pending for a robotic concept called MRLN (Pronounced like the wizard Merlin). Savanna is a proponent of continual learning, collaboration and over-communication for humans and robots, and believes the future of robotics is heterogenous multi-domain teaming, to include teaming with humans. Robots are useful tools that can help humanity to continue moving forward, says Horan.

Missed the last Dawn of Drones episode? Catch up here: Draganfly CEO Cameron Chell, the record-breaking FAA and NASA episode, and the Best of 2021 show!

Join our Dawn of Drones community on Discord and connect with the speakers: https://discord.gg/EDSmNuKw4y

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Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.For drone industry consulting or writing,Email Miriam.

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Fenix Group on Dawn of Drones this Week! - DRONELIFE - DroneLife

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HAI ROBOTICS and Voyatzoglou System Join Forces to Offer Smart Warehousing Solutions in E. Europe - Brazosport Facts

(TNS) As with all the Ivy Tech Community College campuses throughout the state, Andersons also offers the Smart Manufacturing and Digital Integration coursework in an effort to support emerging needs of local manufacturers.

Christina Collins, executive director of Ivy Tech-Andersons Career Coaching Employer Connections, said the campuss first cohort of students already completed the coursework and earned certification during the fall semester.

We are building our course programming and updating our lab to be able to deliver the full SMDI pathway, she said. Based on industry demand, we are also growing our Advanced Automation and Robotics Technology program, which the SMDI certificate stacks to at the associate level.

Courses offered this spring include key principles of advanced manufacturing plus technology in advanced manufacturing, both of which are offered through traditional in-person classroom settings and online.

After decades of sending work overseas, Collins said, many companies now are nearshoring because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the well-documented supply chain and labor shortage issues it has caused.

Though some have expressed concerns about potential job availability shortages in manufacturing caused by automation, Collins said the situation often is the opposite. Smart manufacturing will allow for fewer employees who can maintain the supply chain.

Its actually growing at a higher rate than health care. It actually mans more opportunity.

Additionally, the certifications offered through the smart manufacturing program are not industry-specific and can be used nationwide, Collins said.

It allows our students to have a nationally recognized certification, regardless of which type of sector they are going into. Employers will know the level of competency our students have.

2022 The Herald Bulletin (Anderson, Ind.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Ivy Tech-Anderson Expanding Advanced Automation and Robotics - GovTech

I have always been very interested in building objects and creating robots, but who isn't? Robots are the coolest. I've always thought they were great and wanted to work on them, but it took me a while to get to robotics.

I was very interested in the arts early on and in high school I was more focused on computer graphics and photography. But when I went to college I began to wonder how good at art I really was and whether it was perhaps more of a hobby, so I fell back on math. I then worked for three years as a data scientist for an insurance company. That is not exciting; there are no robots there!

At 25, I went back to school and studied computer science and robotics. It was what I had always wanted to do but it took me a while to realize that I could do it. It seems kind of daunting, like you must have to be a child prodigy at coding. That's not trueat least I hope it's not!

I built my first robot in graduate school, when I was in my late 20s. It was a soft robot made from rubber, which was something I was interested in during my PhD studies.

What makes a robot different from your laptop computer is that robots move themselves through the world like animals. Just like animals, robots can come in all matter of shapes and sizes, depending on what they are designed to do and what materials they are made of.

One of the characteristics of animals is that they are created from soft materials, but we normally build robots out of metal or plastics. Unfortunately, those aren't so great because eventually they break and become trash and pollution. I began to think about how we could make robots out of a material that is biodegradable and biocompatible. Perhaps it is naive, but a solution seems to be to build robots out of the same things animals are built out of, which is cells.

My colleagues and I at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University began thinking that there could be a lot of advantages to soft robots; perhaps they could interact better with humans and be safer? Or, maybe they could be more intelligent or perform certain tasks better because they could use soft materials like animals do? But soft robots can be difficult to design so we use AI and computers to help understand what they should look like.

Normally you have an objective for a robot: you want it to walk or clean your floor, for example. Then comes the questions of what to make it from, what it will look like and how it is going to perform the task. "What should my robot look like?" is a question that most of my work has been trying to address.

Building robots out of cells really arose spontaneously out of a collaboration. I knew we had Xenopus Laevis frogs in our biologist collaborator, Doug Blackiston's lab at University of Vermont, Tufts University. These eggs are used for all kinds of important developmental biology, and in 2018, Doug bet me we could build robots out of them, so I dove into it full time.

The two simplest to use were skin cells and heart muscle cells and the ethics behind it are really sound. You take one day old frog eggs but there's nothing in that egg, there aren't neurons in there and it can't feel pain. A lot of times they are thrown away before they develop into anything. Doug developed all the biology methods to build robots out of cells, which are simple enough that I can follow them without previous biology training, and we then asked how we could get this robot to do what we wanted it to do.

That's where an AI comes into this, it's like a collaborator and design tool. It offers up all these different ways to put these cells together to create a robot that does what you want; walking, for example. It's very much like using Lego blocks, but the Legos are cells and tissues.

The computer puts the cells together in random ways and determines which of these configurations does more or less of what we want the robot to do. As you can imagine, a random conglomeration of cells is probably not going to do what you want. Some won't move at all, but some might fall down, which is a little closer to walking or moving along. The computer takes those good designs, modifies them and deletes the bad designs.

Once we showed that we could design living robotswhich we have called Xenobotsto behave in specific ways, we were then able to observe that they can do all these amazing things that it's not so easy for regular robots to do.

The Xenobots can self-heal, which is amazing from a robotics standpointthough maybe not so surprising to a biologist, because we all self heal. You can cut this robot almost in half and it just zippers up and starts moving as it was before. No other robot can do that. Some of these behaviors that seem obvious to biologists become really amazing ideas and perspectives to roboticists.

But the way the Xenobots reproduce was surprising to both roboticists and biologists. Every single organism on the planet that we know of, reproduces either sexually or asexually. Reproduction involves parents or a parent organism giving part of itself, and from that small part, or parts, a baby or offspring grows.

We saw there was something really amazing that Xenobots could do. If we sprinkle loose stem cells in their dish Xenobots will move around in the dish, pushing those cells together into piles that develop into more Xenobots. They are able to reproduce in an entirely different waythis was more like Xenobots building other Xenobots.

When we gave their children more cells to build with, they sometimes produced grandchildren. But then reproduction stopped. So, we wanted to see if it could last longer.

We asked our computer what we could do to amplify the reproduction and make it last longer, and the most successful alteration was changing the shape of the parent Xenobots. You can carve them into any shape you want, even a little dog! But after weeks of trying different shapes, it gave us a very simple design that looks like Pac-Man. This Xenobot has a "mouth" carved out and moves around, and because of that, it traps cells in there and is better at being a snowplow; pushing cells into larger piles. These larger piles are more likely to develop into offspring and this process of self-replication lasts longer.

In 2020, we had discovered we could build robots out of cells and started to see early evidence of this self-replication. But it took a while to make sure it wasn't just chance and to prove that Xenobots really were really building other Xenobots, so we didn't release our findings until the end of 2021.

It's much simpler than most people realize, and it's probably important to emphasize that. A Xenobot is not the most complicated and useful robot, there's a lot it cannot do and there are lots of conditions that have to be perfect. However, roboticists all recognize that this is a robot and a kind of self-reproduction. It's not a robot dancing on the internet or doing construction outside, it's very limited, but our description is accurate.

People ask if the Xenobots are going to take over the world? We are very confident that this technology is safe because they can't reproduce unless they're in a petri dish and we keep giving them more cells to build with. Even if we do that, the self-replication stops after about five rounds. And even that took months; it was a lot of effort and there are still humans in the loop. It's also extremely safe because it's just frog skin cells. Frogs shed their skin all the time in lakes and streams and we don't really care about that. This is contained within a lab and there are very strict policies here. But, I think it's healthy for people to be skeptical of this kind of science and about technologies getting out of control. I also understand there is something about it that might bother people; it's a robot made of frog skin. But I think if you dig a little deeper, you can see how simple it is and how much potential good it can do.

We've only been building robots made entirely out of living cells for three years now, but in many ways they are already much better than robots we've been making since the 1940s. These are self-healing, biodegrading and self-replicating robots.

Right now, Xenobots have to be in an aquatic environment. So, if they're going to be useful robots they will probably have underwater applications. Maybe they will end up cleaning up lakes, streams and oceans, because there are many small contaminants in waterways that are difficult to see. We know the Xenobots are very good at making piles, and they are also self powered. They come pre-loaded with fat and protein that they burn. They live off that energy for about two weeks and then they biodegrade.

Science isn't easy, most experiments do not work out as expected. You fail 100 times in a row, then the 101st experiment goes really well and the world may take notice, which happens sometimes and that's amazing. It's really rewarding. At first it's overwhelming, but of course I'm very thankful for all this support and interest. A lot of science research goes without any recognition, which is sad.

My hope is that this is exciting for people. In particular, we've seen young people getting extremely excited about Xenobots. I get dozens of emails every month from students aged from middle school through to undergraduate and I'm very passionate about getting the next generation involved in this work. We have been creating soft robot kits for the classroom and more recently we've been trying to do the same with the Xenobots. We hope to make a really simple kit so that many people can see first hand that this is not something to be worried about because they built one in their biology class.

There's a lot you can learn from this, and who knows what the next generation will do with it. Probably way more than I can imagine now.

Sam Kriegman PhD is a computer scientist with a joint postdoctoral appointment at the Wyss Institute at Harvard and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts. His work on Xenobots has been developed with senior scientist Doug Blackiston PhD. You can follow Sam on Twitter @Kriegmerica.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

As told to Jenny Haward.

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'We Created Living Robots That Self-Replicate' - Newsweek

The longstanding relationship between art and technology has evolved in the last few decades to the point where many artists today are making groundbreaking work using robots and artificial intelligence. Where the crossover field of art and robotics was once somewhat of a tech art niche, the capacity for artists to harness technology means that the field is expanding to a broader number of players.

Within the realm of robotic art, one of the early pioneers was Nam June Paik, who used radios and television monitors to create his Bakelite Robot (2002), a humanoid sculpture made from nine vintage Bakelite radios. Among other early proponents are Angela Bulloch, who began her ongoing Drawing Machine series in 1990, and Michael Landy, who developed moving sculptures described as robotic saints for an exhibition at Londons National Gallery in 2013.

Today, more artists are experimenting with bespoke technology to make installations and sculptures. Indeed, Anicka Yis current installation for the Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern, In Love With The World, involves machines based on ocean-life forms and mushrooms, which the artist calls aerobes, floating around the museums Turbine Hall.

We spoke to five artists using robots in their work to give us an idea of how it works, the costs involved, and their top tips for others hoping to experiment with technology.

ORLAN, ORLANode (2018), installation in the Artists & Robots exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Who: The French multi-media artist ORLAN, famous for filming her surgery-performances in 19901993, has forged her career by making avant-garde works that interrogate the body. Ive always been interested in innovation and societal phenomena, and as soon as I heard about artificial intelligence, I looked into it, asking myself how I could say something important and in what way, she said. It was important for me to conceive a sculpture in my image, and that this moving, animated body could talk. To find the budget, I needed to find a well-known infrastructure to invite me to create an artwork.

Referring to Luc Julia, author of There is no such thing as Artificial Intelligence, ORLAN added. For me, artificial intelligence doesnt exist, at least not yet; one could rather talk about augmented intelligence or auxiliary intelligence.

What: In 2018, ORLAN was commissioned by Laurence Bertrand Dorlac and Jrme Neutres, curators of the exhibition Artists & Robots at the Grand Palais in Paris, to create ORLANode,a self-resembling robotic sculpture programmed to speak with her voice. I recorded 22,000 words that we put into separate MP3 players, ORLAN said about ORLANode, which spoke and interacted with video images from her performances.

To make ORLANode, ORLAN collaborated with the French fabrication company Animatronix and with Nicolas Gaudelet from Voxels Productions. Following the exhibition, ORLANode has been to Science Gallery Dublin, part of Trinity College Dublin, whose experts installed new features. ORLANode is now capable of translating live everything I say into English. I could therefore take it with me as my translator whenever I go to give a conference, ORLAN said. Id welcome other AI experts giving ORLANode further competences.

Cost: ORLANode cost more than 140,000 ($158,000) to make. There were people who worked [pro bono] as well as my interns and technicians at the Grand Palais, ORLAN said.

Top Tip: An artist shouldnt make a robot just to make a robot and be on trend, ORLAN said. Its about inventing something singular, not just researching the best technology, but developing a position and discourse on this technological phenomenon of society.

Ai-Da. Image Courtesy Aiden Mellar.

Who: Aidan Meller is a gallery director based in Oxford who has worked with the estates of Camille Pissarro, Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall. Branching out from the historical western canon, he created Ai-Da, a humanoid, robotic artist with artificial intelligence in 2019. Meller collaborated on the project with Engineered Arts in Cornwall as well as PhD students from Oxford, Birmingham and Leeds, bringing together an international team of more than 30 people.

What: Meller commissioned bespoke algorithms to enable Ai-Da to draw, paint, write, speak and see; Ai-Da can draw thanks to having cameras in her eyes and a robotic arm. Two years ago, Ai-Da had a solo show, Unsecured Futures, at the Barn Gallery at the University of Oxford. Other exhibitions include Londons Design Museum earlier this year, where Ai-Da made a self-portrait using mirrors. The Design Museum hailed her as the worlds first convincing humanoid robot capable of creating artworks.

Cost: Meller said he was unable to provide information on the cost of the project due to non-disclosure agreements made with the companies that he collaborated with.

Top Tip: Meller encourages more artists to get involved in the remarkable area of artificial intelligence. For a cross-disciplinary project to be successful, communication is key, he said. Meller is emphatic about the need to consider the impact of technology. Philosophical and ethical questions are so important, he insisted. As Ai-Da was detained when entering Egypt recently, we know technology is feared. Its very wise to question it so that we have a safer world.

Sougwen Chung, Exquisite Corpus (2019).

Who: Sougwen Chung is a 36-year-old Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist based in New York. A former research fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she began programming and building robots named D.O.U.G. (Drawing Operations Unit Generation) in 2014. Together they have produced drawings and paintings in performances with the robots mimicking her gestures. In 2016, she won the Excellence Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival for her work. Last year, she live-streamed a robot collaboration to Srlandets Kunstmuseum in Norway, where it was exhibited as a video installation. And in October, she presented abstract paintings, sculpture, video and performance made in collaboration with robots during her exhibition Entangled Origins with Gillian Jason Gallery at Asia House in London. Developing new approaches to embodiment, memory and improvisation is what excites me about technology, she said.

What: Chung works with biosensors from Open BCI and Muse, and VR headsets such as Oculus and Vive, among other technologies. Were developing bio-inspired robots that can embody human traits, focus on collaboration, co-creation and care, and steward natural ecosystems with regenerative power sources, she said. Chung was invited by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation in Athens to perform the first phase of her multi-robotic system linking to bio feedback and satellite data at the Greek National Opera last August. Chung is also exploring links between machines and ecology in her project Floral Rearing Agricultural Network.

Cost: Chung writes bespoke software using a variety of robotic arms from Ufactory (which cost $10,999.00$11,999.00) and Kuka.

Top Tip: Start with a ritual, task or practice that means something to you like mark-making, dance, sculpting, or singing and try to find ways to invigorate that existing practice with robotic development, Chung said. Most of these technologies are designed for automated tasks but really beautiful and strange things can happen when you approach it like a human-machine duet. You need to let go of control and trust the process. However, the artist warned: Robots dont always do as theyre told.

Patrick Tresset, Human Study #1 (2011).

Who: Patrick Tresset is a Brussels-based artist with an MPhil in Arts and Computational Technologies from Goldsmiths College in London. He participated in the group exhibition Artists & Robots at the Grand Palais in Paris in 2018, and has shown his work at the Haus Der Kunst in Munich and Mori Museum in Tokyo, among other venues. He integrated robots into his practice in 2010 after becoming fascinated with new technologies. Tresset creates robots for his performative installations where robots take on the role of actors. For instance, in Human Study #1 (2011), based on a life-drawing class, several robots have sheets of paper on their desks and are tasked with sketching the human being sitting in front of them. The robots produce the drawings live, prompted by an assistant who twists their arm so they start drawing.

What: Tresset buys components, such as motors, from the Korean company Robotis, which enables him to create bespoke robots. The most complicated thing is writing the software, which I develop myself, he said.

Cost: Components from Robotis cost 50600 ($56$678). Costs to make a large installation with 20 robots can reach 20,000 ($22,600).

Top Tip: Be patient, focused and dont reinvent the wheel, Tresset said. Using robots takes a lot of time, far more than just developing software. Technical complications can arise, so testing and preparation is required. The first time that I exhibited robots in an art fair, they didnt work for the private view, Tresset recalled. However, the advantage is clear: Robots are always well received by audiences worldwide.

So Kanno, Lasermice Dyad installation (2021). Art Laboratory Berlin. Photo by Masashi Kuroha.

Who: Born in Japan in 1984, So Kanno has been based in Berlin since 2013. He began making digital art in the late 2000s and started developing robots six years ago when he recognized the potential for creative expression using sensors, motors, displays and speakers. After initially making interactive pieces, his interest shifted to generative and autonomous systems. His latest pieces are based on a swarm robotics system inspired by the synchronous behavior of insects like fireflies. At the group exhibition Swarms, Robots and Post-nature at Art Laboratory Berlin this year, he presented the installationLasermice Dyad (2021), involving several dozen small furry robotic creatures powered by electromagnets whose movements were illuminated by laser lights.

What: Kanno designed the robots himself after consulting the open-source platform Arduino and used Seeed Studio to produce the printed circuit boards (PCBs). I would love to collaborate with companies that produce social robots or toy robots, he said. Creating a mechanism such as an algorithm, and controlling its behavior by adjusting its parameters, is a unique experience.

Cost: The material cost of the 130 original boards produced for Lasermice Dyadwas around $7,000. The total material cost, including materials such as motors, lasers and printed plastic, was about $22,700, prior to developing costs.

Top Tip: Buy more components than necessary in case some of them stop working and cannot be replaced. Maintenance is a challenge and its often difficult to get the same parts a few years later, Kanno advised.

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5 Artists Who Work Extensively With Robotics Offer Tips on How to Do It (and Reveal How Much It Costs) - artnet News