Category Archives: Robotics

Robotic surgery systems are used in thousands of hospitals around the world. A decade ago they were clunky machines built to assist with routine procedures. Today, theyre capable of conducting end-to-end surgeries without human aid.

Recent leaps in the field of deep learning have made difficult tasks such as surgery, electronics assembly, and piloting a fighter jet relatively simple. It might take a decade to train a human in all the necessary medical knowledge required for them to perform brain surgery. And that cost is the same for each subsequent human surgeon thereafter. It takes about the same investment for every human surgeon.

But AI is different. The initial investment to create a robotic surgery device might be large, but that all changes once youve produced a working model. Instead of 8-12 years to create a human specialist, factories can be built to produce AI surgeons en masse. Over time, the cost of maintaining and operating a surgical machine one capable of working 24/7/365 without drawing a paycheck would likely become trivial versus maintaining a human surgical staff.

Thats not to say theres no place for human surgeons in the future. Well always need human experts capable of informing the next generation of machines. And there are some procedures that remain beyond the abilities of modern AI and robotics. But surgery, much like any other precision-based endeavor, lies well within the domain of modernAI.

Surgery is a specific skill and, for the most part, robots excel at automating tasks that require more precision than creativity. And thats exactly why robot surgeons are commonplace, but were likely decades away from a fully-functioning AI-powered nurse.

And this is exactly why AI didnt have a huge impact during the pandemic. When COVID-19 first hit, there was a lot of optimism that big tech would save the day with AI. The idea was that companies such as Google and Microsoft would come up with incredible contact-tracing mechanisms that would allow us to tailor medical responses at an extremely granular level. This, we collectively figured, would lead to a truncated pandemic.

We were wrong, but only because there wasnt really anything for AI to do. Where it could help, in aiding the rapid development of a vaccine, it did. But the vast majority of our problems in hospitals had to do with things a modern robot cant fix.

What we needed, during the last patient peak, were more human nurses and PPE for them. Robots cant look around and learn like a human, they have to be trained for exactly what theyll be doing. And thats just not possible during giant emergency situations where, for example, a hospitals floor plan changes to accommodate an increase in patients and massive quantities of new equipment is introduced.

Researchers at John Hopkins university recently conducted a study to determine what well need to do in order for robots to aid healthcare professionals during future pandemics. According to them, modern robots arent up to the task:

A big issue has been deployability and how quickly a non-expert user can customize a robot. For example, our ICU ventilator robot was designed for one kind of ventilator that pushes buttons. But some ventilators have knobs, so we need to be able to add a modality so that the robot can also manipulate knobs. Say you want one robot that can service multiple ventilators; then youd need a mobile robot with an arm attachment, and that robot could also do plenty of other useful jobs on the hospital floor.

Thats all well and fine when things are going perfectly. But what happens when the knob pops off or someone brings in a new kind of machine with toggles or a touch-screen? Humans have no problem adapting to these situations, but a robot would need an entirely new accessory and a training update to compensate.

In order for developers to create a nurse robot, theyd need to anticipate everything a nurse encounters on a daily basis. Good luck with that.

AI and machines can be adapted to perform certain tasks related to nursing, such as assisting with intake or recording and monitoring patients vital signs. But there isnt a machine in the world that can perform the day-to-day routine functions of a typical hospital staff nurse.

Nurses spend the majority of their time responding to real-time situations. In a given shift, a nurse interacts with patients, sets up and breaks down equipment, handles precision instruments, carries heavy objects through people-filled spaces, solves mysteries, keeps meticulous notes, and acts as a liaison between the medical staff and the general public.

We have the answer to most of those problems individually, but putting them together in a mobile unit is the problem.

That Boston Dynamics robot that does backflips, for example, could certainly navigate a hospital, carry things, and avoid causing injury or damage. But it has no way of knowing where a doctor might have accidentally left the chart it needs to update its logs, how to calm down a scared patient, or what to do if an immobile patient misses the bedpan.

Published March 30, 2021 17:58 UTC

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Why robots make great surgeons and crappy nurses - The Next Web

Hundreds of thousands of oil and gas jobs globally could be replaced by robots, according to a new report from Rystad Energy.

The oil and gas consulting firm said that the positions could be filled using existing technology, saving billions of dollars on reduced labour costs by 2030.

Drilling is one area that could see enormous savings. The process is both highly labour intensive and, especially in offshore environments, dangerous.

In addition, Rystad noted that inspection, maintenance, and repair (IMR) operations had much to gain from replacing human workers with robots.

Currently, numerous companies offer subsea remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) for offshore work, saving divers from having to work in particularly treacherous conditions. However, the use of drones has become more common in recent years, being used to inspect the outside of rigs as well as offshore wind farms.

By applying current supplier specs, Rystad Energy estimated that robotic drilling systems can potentially reduce the number of workers required on a drilling rig, or in operational support, and maintenance, by 20-30%.

Figures for 2019 estimated that over 30,000 people are currently directly employed in the UKs offshore oil and gas industry, with indirect and induced employment bringing the total up to 269,000. As such, Rystad believes the UK could potentially shed 20,000-30,000 jobs over the next decade, with the majority coming from support roles.

Despite the huge potential of robotics, operators should be aware that these savings will be partially offset by the considerable investments required for the adoption of these solutions, which may vary depending on the cost structure and whether the robots are owned or leased, said Rystad Energy Energy Service Analyst Sumit Yadav.

While existing technology could be used to replace jobs, next-generation robotics solutions offer considerable savings on operating costs. One example is perpetually underwater robotics solutions, which would replace conventional ROVs, which need to surface. This would save time and money on having to hire a vessel to operate topside during operations.

While many of the new robotics solutions will replace human operators, technology is available to support and protect staff. Rystad pointed to wearable safety technology from Transocean that alarms crew if they come too close to drilling equipment.

However, Rystad noted that the long-term reliability of robotics in complex environments common in the energy industry has yet to be tested, meaning that full-scale adoption is still years away. Furthermore, introducing regulations needed to ensure robots can operate safely, both with humans and with each other, will cause further delays.

For oil and gas staff, the energy transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy is putting further pressure on the industry. While many oil and gas workers have skills transferrable to the renewables sector, many robotics solutions in oil and gas can also apply to renewables.

Since the 2014 crash, oil prices have struggled for years to return to previous highs around the $100-mark. Having taken a historic dive into the negatives in spring last year, oil prices remain stubbornly in the $40-60 band as the pandemic depresses economic activity.

As such, many oil and gas companies, especially upstream and services companies, have found their margins tightened and costs needing cut. Replacing expensive human staff with robots provides an obvious way of reducing expenses.

The role of robotics in the energy industry will be a key area of discussion at the upcoming Digital Energy 2021 Virtual Summit on April 22nd.

Hear from leading experts from across the energy industry and explore the crucial issues.

Register your free place now at: https://www.digitalenergysummit.com/

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Robots Could Replace Thousands of North Sea Oil and Gas Jobs - DIGIT.FYI

Boston Dynamics is a cutting-edge robotics company that's spent decades behind closed doors making robots that move in ways we've only seen in science fiction films. They occasionally release videos on YouTube of their life-like machines spinning, somersaulting or sprinting, which are greeted with fascination and fear. We've been trying, without any luck, to get into Boston Dynamics' workshop for years, and a few weeks ago they finally agreed to let us in. After working out strict COVID protocols, we went to Massachusetts to see how they make robots do the unimaginable.

From the outside, Boston Dynamics headquarters looks pretty normal. Inside, however. it's anything but. If Willy Wonka made robots, his workshop might look something like this. There are robots in corridors, offices and kennels. They trot and dance and whirl and the 200-or-so human roboticists, who build and often break them, barely bat an eye.

That is Atlas, the most human-looking robot they've ever made.

It's nearly 5 feet tall, 175 pounds, nd is programmed to run, leap and spin like an automated acrobat.

Marc Raibert, the founder and chairman of Boston Dynamics doesn't like to play favorites, but definitely has a soft spot for Atlas.

Marc Raibert: So here's a little bit of a jump.

Anderson Cooper: I mean, that's incredible. (LAUGH)

Atlas isn't doing all this on its own. Technician Bryan Hollingsworth is steering it with this remote control. But the robot's software allows it to make other key decisions autonomously.

Marc Raibert: So really the robot is

Anderson Cooper: That's incredible--

Marc Raibert: You know, doing all its own balance, all its own control. Bryan's just steering it, telling it what speed and direction. Its computers are-- adjusting how the legs are placed and what forces it's applying--

Marc Raibert: In order to keep it-- balanced.

Atlas balances with the help of sensors, as well as a gyroscope and three on-board computers. It was definitely built to be pushed around.

Marc Raibert: Good, push it a little bit more. It's just trying to keep its balance. Just like you will, if I push you. And you can push it in any direction, you can push it from the side. (LAUGH)

Making machines that can stay upright on their own and move through the world with the ease of an animal or human has been an obsession of Marc Raiberts' for 40 years.

Anderson Cooper: The space of time you've been working in is nothing compared to the time it's taken for animals and humans to develop.

Marc Raibert: Some people look at me and say, "Oh, Raibert, you've been stuck on this problem for 40 years." Animals are amazingly good, and people, at-- at what they do. You know, we're so agile. We're so versatile. We really haven't achieved what humans can do yet. But I think-- I think we can.

Raibert isn't making it easy for himself, he's given most of his robots legs.

Anderson Cooper: Why focus on, on legs? I would think wheels would be easier.

Marc Raibert: Yeah, wheels and tracks are great if you have a prepared surface like a road or even a dirt road. But people and animals can go anywhere on earth-- using their legs. And, so, that, you know, that was the inspiration.

Some of the first contraptions he built in the early 1980s bounced around on what looked like pogo sticks. They appeared in this documentary when Raibert was a pioneering professor of robotics and computer science at Carnegie Mellon. He founded Boston Dynamics in 1992, and with CEO Robert Playter has been working for decades to perfect how robots move.

They developed this robot, called Big Dog, for the military as well as a larger pack mule that could carry 400 pounds on its back. Experimenting with speed, they got this cheetah-like robot to run nearly 30 miles an hour.

None of these made it out of the prototype phase. But they did lead to this. It's called Spot. Boston Dynamics made it not knowing exactly how it would be used.

But the inspiration for it isn't hard to figure out.

Hannah Rossi: So Spot is a omni-directional robot. So I can go forwards and backwards.

Anderson Cooper: This is crazy. (LAUGH)

Robert Playter: This is the real benefit of legs. Legs give you that capability.

That's Robert Playter, the CEO, and Hannah Rossi, a technician who works on Spot.

Hannah Rossi: I'm not doing anything special to let it walk over those rocks. There you go.

The controls are easier to use than you might expect.

Anderson Cooper: Does it have to come in, straight on?

Hannah Rossi: You don't have to be perfect about it drive it close to wherever you want to go and the robot will do the rest.

Anderson Cooper: Wow. In some ways it's like driving a very sophisticated remote control car. What makes it different?

Robert Playter: Spot is really smart about its own locomotion. It deals with all the details about how to place my feet, what gait to use, how to manage my body so that all you have to tell it is the direction they go to.

And in some cases, you don't even have to do that. When signaled, Spot can take itself off its charging station and go for a walk on its own -- as long as it's pre-programmed with the route.

It uses five 3D cameras to map its surroundings and avoid obstacles.

Atlas has a similar technology, while we were talking in front of Atlas, this is how it saw us.

Marc Raibert: This is inside Atlas's brain. And it shows its perception system. So, what looks like a flashlight is really the data that's coming back from its cameras. And it-- you see the white-- rectangles, that means it's identifying a place that it could step. And then once it identifies it, it attaches those footsteps to it, and it says, "Okay, I'm gonna try and step there." And then it adjusts its mechanics so that it actually hits those places when it's-- running.

All of that happens in a matter of milliseconds.

Marc Raibert: And so it's gonna use that vision to adjust itself as it goes running over these blocks.

Atlas cost tens of millions of dollars to develop, but it's not for sale. It's used purely for research and development.

But Spot is on the market. More than 400 are out in the world. They sell for about $75,000 a piece, accessories cost extra. Some spots work at utility companies using mounted cameras to check on equipment. Others monitor construction sites and several police departments are trying them out to assist with investigations.

Anderson Cooper: Let's talk about the the fear factor, When you post a video of Atlas or Spot doing something, a ton of people are amazed by it and think it's great. And there's a lot of people who think this is terrifying.

Robert Playter: The rogue robot story is a powerful story. And it's been told for 100 years. But it's fiction. Robots don't have agency. They don't make up their own minds about what their tasks are. They operate within a narrow bound of their programming.

Anderson Cooper: It is easy to project human qualities onto these machines.

Robert Playter: I think people do attribute to our robots much more than they should. Because you know, they haven't seen machines move like this before. And so they-- they want to project intelligence and emotion onto that in ways that are fiction.

In other words, these robots still have a long way to go.

Anderson Cooper: I mean, it's not C3PO. It-- it's not-- a thinking--

Marc Raibert: Yeah. So let me tell you--

Anderson Cooper: Okay.

Marc Raibert: About that. There's a cognitive intelligence and an athletic intelligence. You know, cognitive intelligence is making plans, making decisions-- reasoning, and things like that.

Anderson Cooper: It's not doing that?

Marc Raibert: It's mostly doing athletic intelligence--

Anderson Cooper: Okay--

Marc Raibert: Which is managing its body, its posture, its energetics. If you told it to travel in a circle in the room it can go through the sequence of steps. But if you ask it to-- go find me a soda, it's-- it's not doing anything like that.

Just picking an item off the floor can sometimes be a struggle for Spot. Enabling it to open a door has taken years of programming and practice and a human has to tell it where the hinges are.

Kevin Blankespoor: Each time we add some new capability-- and we feel like we've got it to a decent point, that's when you push it to failure to figure out, you know, how good of a job you've really done.

Kevin Blankespoor is one of the lead engineers here, but at times, he prefers a very low-tech approach to testing robots.

Anderson Cooper: You're pretty tough on robots.

Kevin Blankespoor: We think of that as-- as just another way to push them out of the comfort zone.

Failure is a big part of the process. When trying something new, robots, like humans, don't get it right every time. There might be dozens of crashes for every one success.

Anderson Cooper: How often do you break a robot? (LAUGH)

Marc Raibert: We break them all the time. I mean, it's part of our culture. We have a motto, "Build it, break it, fix it."

To do that, Boston Dynamics has recruited roboticists with diverse backgrounds - there's plenty of Ph.D's, but also bike builders, and race car mechanics. Bill Washburn is part of that pit crew.

Anderson Cooper: They all look pretty dinged up.

Bill Washburn: Yeah.

Anderson Cooper: How often do these need to get repaired?

Bill Washburn: The biggest-- kinda failures for me are, like, the bottom part of the robot breaks off of the top part of the robot. (CHUCKLE) And it's like--

Anderson Cooper: That seems like a big-- big failure. (CHUCKLE)

Bill Washburn: And the hydraulic hoses are the only thing holding it together.

Recently, Raibert and his team decided to push their robots in a way they never had before.

Marc Raibert: We spent at least six months, maybe eight, just preparing for what we were gonna do. And then we started to get the technical teams working on the behavior.

The behavior was dancing. All their robots got in on the act. The movements were cutting edge, but the music and the Mashed Potato were definitely oldschool.

Anderson Cooper: There are some people who see that and say, "That can't be real."

Marc Raibert: Nothing's more gratifying than hearing that.

Anderson Cooper: What's the point in proving that the robot can do the Mashed Potato?

Marc Raibert: This process of, you know, doing new things with the robots lets you generate new tools, new approaches, new understanding of the problem-- that takes you forward. But, man, isn't it just fun?

Anderson Cooper: But, I mean, it's-- it costs a lotta money. It took 18 months of your time.

Marc Raibert: I think it was worth it. (LAUGHTER)

Whether it'll be worth it to Boston Dynamics' new owners is less clear.

The South Korean carmaker, Hyundai, has agreed to buy a majority stake for more than a billion dollars. It'll be Boston Dynamics' third owner in eight years. There's pressure to turn their research into revenue.

And Boston Dynamics hopes this new robot will help. It's called Stretch and it's due to go on sale next year. This is the first time they've shown it publically.

Kevin Blankespoor: Warehouses is really the next frontier for robotics.

Stretch may not be that exciting to look at, but it's built with a definite purpose in mind. It's got a seven-foot arm and they say it can move 800 boxes an hour in a warehouse and work for up to 16 hours without a break. Unlike many industrial robots that sit in one place, stretch is designed to move around.

Kevin Blankespoor: You can drive it around with a joystick. And at times, that's the easiest way to get it set up. But once it's ready to go in a truck and unload it, you hit go and from there on it's autonomous. And it'll keep finding boxes and moving 'em until it's all the way through.

Robert Playter: This generation of robots is gonna be different. They're gonna work amongst us. They're gonna work next to us-- in ways where we help them but they also take some of the burden from us.

Anderson Cooper: The more robots are integrated into the workforce, the more jobs would be taken away.

Robert Playter: At the same time, you're creating a new industry. We envision a job-- we-- we-- we like to call the robot wrangler. He'll launch and manage five to 10 robots at a time and sort of-- keep them all working.

Anderson Cooper: Is there a robot you've always dreamt of making (LAUGH) that you haven't been able to do yet?

Marc Raibert: A car with an active suspension essentially legs like w-- like a roller skating robot. And a robot like that, you know, could go anywhere on earth. That's one thing that maybe we'll do at some point. But, you know, really, the sky's the limit. There's-- there's all kinds of things we can and will do.

As with so many things Boston Dynamics does. It's hard to imagine how that would work, but then again, who'd have thought a bunch of metal machines would one day show us all how to do the Mashed Potato.

Produced by Nichole Marks. Associate producer, David M. Levine. Broadcast associate, Annabelle Hanflig. Edited by Sean Kelly.

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Boston Dynamics: Inside the workshop where robots of the future are being built - 60 Minutes - CBS News

The Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp aims to support both employers and professionals by bridging the training gap through an accelerated 12-week bootcamp. Elizabeth Melville, SAE International

WARRENDALE, Pa. (PRWEB) March 30, 2021

SAE International announced today the new 12-week Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp for recent graduates and/or entry-level mechanical, electrical and computer science engineers joining the industry to support autonomous vehicle (AV) system development. In partnership with Clemson University and Argo AI, SAE designed the rigorous, hybrid (virtual and in-person) workforce development experience to provide participants with an in-depth technical understanding of how to build autonomous systems.

Companies can spend upwards of 10 months onboarding entry-level AV positions, which in this fast-moving industry can directly hinder the development and deployment cycles. The Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp aims to support both employers and professionals by bridging the training gap through an accelerated 12-week bootcamp, said Elizabeth Melville, director of learning at SAE International. SAE International is the world leader in professional training for the mobility engineering field, and with the addition of this new bootcamp, were expanding our robust training offerings and preparing new employees to enter the AV field.

With coursework conducted by leading experts from industry and academia, bootcamp participants will learn by programming a mobile robot through hands-on approaches using ROS, Gazebo and Python. Additionally, participants will apply software engineering principles such as SLAM; Localization; Navigation/Path Planning; Perception: LiDAR, Cameras & Vision and Visual Intelligence; and Machine Learning.

The Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp will be led by:

The program will run three times per year, with the initial all-virtual offering occurring between May 14-June 30, 2021. Participants can register for the course individually or as part of a team.

To learn more about SAE Internationals Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp, visit: https://discover.sae.org/robotics-bootcamp-ctrl.

About SAE InternationalSAE International is a global association committed to advancing mobility knowledge and solutions for the benefit of humanity. By engaging nearly 200,000 engineers, technical experts and volunteers, we connect and educate mobility professionals to enable safe, clean, and accessible mobility solutions. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering professionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our philanthropic SAE Foundation, including award-winning programs like A World In Motion and the Collegiate Design Series. More at http://www.sae.org.

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SAE International Reduces Onboarding and Training Time with New Robotics for Autonomous Vehicle Systems Bootcamp - PR Web

Oil-and-Gas-Robotics-Market

Latest research on Global Oil and Gas Robotics Market report covers forecast and analysis on a worldwide, regional and country level. The study provides historical information of 2016-2021 together with a forecast from 2021 to 2026 supported by both volume and revenue (USD million). The entire study covers the key drivers and restraints for the Oil and Gas Robotics market. this report included a special section on the Impact of COVID19. Also, Oil and Gas Robotics Market (By major Key Players, By Types, By Applications, and Leading Regions) Segments outlook, Business assessment, Competition scenario and Trends .The report also gives 360-degree overview of the competitive landscape of the industries.

Moreover, it offers highly accurate estimations on the CAGR, market share, and market size of key regions and countries. Players can use this study to explore untapped Oil and Gas Robotics markets to extend their reach and create sales opportunities.

Some of the key manufacturers operating in this market include: iRobot Corporation, ABB Ltd, Fanuc Corporation, Delaval Group, Lely Group, Kuka AG, Yaskawa Electric Corporation and More

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Oil and Gas Robotics market competitive landscape offers data information and details by companies. Its provides a complete analysis and precise statistics on revenue by the major players participants for the period 2021-2026. The report also illustrates minute details in the Oil and Gas Robotics market governing micro and macroeconomic factors that seem to have a dominant and long-term impact, directing the course of popular trends in the global Oil and Gas Robotics market.

Product Type Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Major Company of Product Type etc.): Remotely Operated Vehicles Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Uavs & Unmanned Ground VehiclesApplication Coverage (Market Size & Forecast, Different Demand Market by Region, Main Consumer Profile etc.): Inspection Monitoring & Surveillance Others

Regions Covered in the Global Oil and Gas Robotics Market:1. South America Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers Colombia, Brazil, and Argentina.2. North America Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers Canada, United States, and Mexico.3. Europe Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia.4. The Middle East and Africa Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa.5. Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Robotics Market Covers Korea, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, and India.Years Considered to Estimate the Market Size:History Year: 2015-2021Base Year: 2021Estimated Year: 2021Forecast Year: 2021-2026

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Oil and Gas Robotics Market Will Increase Demand In Forecast By 2026 |iRobot Corporation, ABB Ltd, Fanuc Corporation, Delaval Group, Lely Group, etc ...

A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins discussed how the COVID-19 crisis has accelerated new advances in automation, while also unveiling bottlenecks in the rollout of robotic systems in health care settings.

They argue that advances in human-robot interactions like enhancing robots' capabilities for touch, feeling, and decision-making will decide whether tomorrow's robots will help hospitals keep their lead on the encroaching pressure of the next global pandemic, according to an article shared on Nature Machine Intelligence.

The research team observed three ways robots have significantly advanced both patient care and provider safety amid the COVID-19 crisis. Robotic technology minimized contact between patients who had contracted the virus and health care workers, while also reducing the need for PPE, and also freed up time for health care workers to devote more attention to other crucial tasks. But the team of researchers looked forward, anticipating how advances could be leveraged to further adapt and enhance the reliability of robots for similar health calamities of the future.

Involved in the discussion were commentary authors Russel Taylor and Axel Krieger of the Whiting School of Engineering, along with Director Brian Garibaldi of the Johns Hopkins Biocontainment Unit.

"You go into a pandemic with the robots you have, not the robots you wish you had," explained Taylor, in the Nature Machine Intelligence article. "We can't build a fleet of robots for an emergency and put them in a warehouse. Not only is that not economically viable, but by the time you need them, they could be obsolete." This means advances in robotics and automated services surrounding health care require new "core capabilities into deployed systems that can be easily adapted for the challenges of the moment."

When the pandemic hit hospitals, there were already robots capable of delivering meals and taking a patient's temperature, explained Taylor. "Now we are talking about much more sophisticated systems that can do serious cleaning, that can perform nursing tasks, that can do many things beyond just delivering supplies." But these new capabilities create serious engineering challenges.

One of the major challenges revolves around deployability and how rapidly non-expert users can adapt and customize the robot for specialized scenarios. "For example, our ICU ventilator robot was designed for one kind of ventilator that pushes buttons," said Taylor. "But some ventilators have knobs, so we need to be able to add a modality so that the robot can also manipulate knobs."

"Say you want one robot that can service multiple ventilators; then you'd need a mobile robot with an arm attachment, and that robot could also do plenty of other useful jobs on the hospital floor," Taylor said.

"The pandemic has shown some of the current limitations of robotic systems to robustly work and adapt in difficult, changing environments at large scales," said Krieger, toNature Machine Intelligence. The greater degree of uncertainty and chaos surrounding the unexpected in hospitals is taxing on any system, robotic or not. One strategy for overcoming this is implementing health care robots with shared autonomy, "which combines the knowledge of medical experts with the capabilities of robots."

Unlike human health care workers, robots don't need to wear fresh PPE every time they move close to an infectious patient and this "frees up valuable supplies and time for human providers," said Garibaldi, in theNature Machine Intelligence article.

However, a major point of potential improvement for robots lies in advancing their ability to execute fine motor tasks, so they can offer more comprehensive health care service, like "placing an IV, intubating the trachea, or inserting central lines," explained Garibaldi. "Other potential tasks could include basic room cleaning, phlebotomy, and ventilator and monitor management and manipulation."

However, there are some tasks for which patients will prefer human health providers for the foreseeable future. In addition to the moral support and empathy offered by a living, breathing human, there are instances when caregivers will still say "I'm not sure I can trust a robot to do that," said Taylor. "Engineers need feedback on how these systems really work in the wild."

The research team is exploring ways of enhancing ICU robots with an emphasis on "higher accuracy and higher fidelity operation of ventilators," said Krieger. Future health care robots might also carry out lung ultrasound imaging via 3D cameras and force sensors in addition to advanced autonomous surgical robotic procedures (like suturing). With a more efficient feedback loop between deployment, implementation, and development of robot and automated systems, the next generation of health care robots could eventually prove a match tothe logistical chaos of pandemics, move for move.

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The Next Pandemic May Be in the Hands of...Human-Like Robots? - Interesting Engineering

Microscopic swimming robots that could navigate through the body to perform medical tasks such as delivery of targeted cancer therapies or surgeries are currently in development. In a study published March 24 in Science Robotics, scientists made magnetically controlled microrobots based on neutrophils, a type of white blood cell. In mice, these so-called neutrobots penetrated the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to deliver drugs to brain cancer cells.

This is a very cool idea, says Liangfang Zhang, a nanoengineer and bioengineer at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved with the study. I would say this paper is still an early proof-of-concept study, but I think that the overall concept is novel. Its interesting because its new thinking about how to send cargo to the brain.

A major hurdle in treating neurological diseases is getting drugs past the BBB, a highly selective boundary that denies most substances admission to the brain. But certain white blood cells are granted special access to deal with infections and inflammation, making them good trojan horses for getting drugs past this blockade. In previous studies, researchers have loaded brain cancer drugs into neutrophils and macrophages, which have a natural ability to scout out cancer because they swim toward higher concentrations of inflammatory chemicals released by diseased tissue.

But prior iterations of drug-ferrying immune cells have failed to completely treat mouse brain tumors, likely due in part to slow migration to the disease site. To improve speed and control, researchers have endowed microrobots based on sperm, bacteria, or red blood cells with magnetic material to externally guide them with magnetic fields, says Zhiguang Wu, a bioengineer at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China and a coauthor of the new study.

To treat glioma, a type of brain cancer, in mice, Wu and his colleagues designed neutrophil-based microrobotsneutrobotsthat could be controlled with a magnetic field. First, the team made nanoparticles from a gel embedded with magnetic iron oxide beads and the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel. Next, the nanoparticles were enrobed in E. colibacterial membrane. Disguised as harmful bacteria, the nanoparticles were engulfed by mouse neutrophils in vitro much more readily than bare nanoparticles. The bacterial cloak also prevented the premature leakage of drugs and made the particles less toxic to the neutrophils, the researchers found.

A transmission electron microscopy image of a single neutrobot. The yellow arrow indicates a cluster of nanoparticles containing iron oxide and paclitaxel, each enclosed by an E. coli membrane. The scale bar is 2 m.

The team tested the neutrobots navigation and drug-delivery capabilities in vitro. Under the control of a rotating magnetic field, the neutrobots reached a speed of 16.4 m per second, about 50 times faster than the speed of natural neutrophils. By monitoring the neutrobots via a microscope, the researchers could direct them to move in complex orientations on an artificial substrate.

To evaluate the neutrobots inflammation-seeking ability, the researchers placed them in a gel with a concentration gradient of an inflammatory factor. The neutrobots migrated toward higher concentrations of the chemical at a speed on par with natural neutrophils. And in a model BBB, neutrobots penetrated mouse cells grown on a membrane to access glioma cells and released their drug payload upon exposure to inflammation signals.

Finally, the researchers tested whether the bots could treat brain cancer in mice. First, they injected glioma cells into mouse brains. After 10 days, they performed surgery on some of the mice to remove a portion of the tumor in order to boost neutrophil-attracting inflammatory signals. The researchers injected neutrobots into the tails of all of the mice, and in a subset of mice, they used a rotating magnetic field to direct the neutrobots toward the brain. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), the team found that more neutrobots accumulated around gliomas in mice treated with both surgery and the magnetic field compared with mice that werent exposed to the magnetic field, didnt undergo surgery, or received neither. The doubly treated mice also survived longerevidence that the two interventions complemented one another. Transmission electron microscopy confirmed that neutrobots penetrated the BBB and entered glioma tissue.

All of the neutrobot-treated mice survived longer compared with animals treated with an injection of just saline or paclitaxel, indicating that neutrobots could still deliver drugs across the BBB in response to a weak inflammatory signal or a strong inflammatory signal without magnetic propulsion.

According to Zhang, the individual components of the studythe use of immune cells as drug carriers, magnetically controlled nanoparticles, and bacterial membranes as cloaksare not new. But what they did is integrate these common individual components together and assembled them into a new system, he says. They [developed] a very unique functionalitythat is, the long-range control of neutrophils.

Mariana Medina-Snchez, a bioengineer at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden in Germany who did not contribute to the research, says the study is valuable because it demonstrates effective treatment of tumors in vivo, a goal of many researchers in the field. [The study] is complete, its systematic, and there is strong evidence that what theyve developed is functioning, she says.

If you know the amount of the drug that you load per microrobot, you can control the drug dose by swarming these microrobots in a controlled way.

Mariana Medina-Snchez, Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden

But before microrobots can be used to treat cancer in people, there are still a number of challenges that need to be overcome. One of these is improving the percentage of microrobots that make it to the tumor. They had an accumulation of these neutrophil-based microrobots of about eleven percent in the disease site [in vivo]. So what happens with the others? says Medina-Snchez. Microrobots could accumulate in other organs or regions of the body, and the long-term side effects are unknown, she says. But this happens for every type of microrobot, not just for this particular work. This is a challenge for everyone to [overcome].

Once the microrobots arrive at the disease site, another hurdle is making sure they deliver enough of the drug. You need to increase the overall drug payload inside, and you also need to control premature drug release, says Zhang. It takes time for the neutrophil to get to the destination. You dont want to them to dump all the payload before they get to the destination.

Because a single microrobot cant carry enough medication to treat a disease, researchers are also trying to understand how they move as swarmssimilar to the collective movements of groups of ants, fish, or birds. If you know the amount of the drug that you load per microrobot, you can control the drug dose by swarming these microrobots in a controlled way, says Medina-Snchez. So this is one of the challenges: how to transport multiple [microrobots] in a controlled manner and deliver them to a target location. Wu and his colleagues found that neutrobots formed chains of four in vitro, and these swarms swam about five times faster than individual bots did. But according to Medina-Snchez, other microrobot researchers are aiming for swarms of hundreds, thousands, or even millions. It depends on the target and location, she says. You may need just a few or millions of them.

Its not clear how the neutrobots swarmed in mice because current imaging techniques arent good enough to track individual or small chains of microrobots in real time at high enough resolution in vivoanother challenge for precise navigation of these tiny drug couriers in humans.

H. Zhang et al., Dual-responsive biohybrid neutrobots for active target delivery,Sci Robot,doi:10.1126/scirobotics.aaz9519, 2021.

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Microscopic Robots Deliver Drugs to the Brain - The Scientist

The research report on the Surgical Robotics and Navigation Market provides in-depth current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability by Data Bridge Market Research. The market study conducted in this report analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, and distributors in the industry. In addition, research report offers an all-inclusive assessment of the market. Our expert analysts studied the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the Surgical Robotics and Navigation Market. The global Surgical Robotics and Navigation analysis consists primarily of products that used an accurate deployment. The report further identifies the past, present, and future trends that are expected to influence the development rate of the market. Surgical Robotics and Navigation market consists of present as well as future data for the forecast period from 2021 to 2028, and also provides compounded annual growth rate (CAGR%), which is measured for regional markets and individual segment-wise.

Surgical robotics and navigation market is expected to gain market growth in the forecast period of 2020 to 2027. Data Bridge Market Research analyses the market to account to USD 4.20 billion by 2027 growing at a CAGR of 6.80% in the above-mentioned forecast period. The surgical robotics and navigation business is anticipated to develop at a strong pace due to an addition in the old aged community, acceleration in the selection of surgical navigation technology in minimally interfering operational methods, and large pervasiveness of chronic dysfunctions such as cerebrovascular diseases, strokes, andAlzheimers.

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The major players of the Surgical Robotics and Navigation market are:

Surgical Robotics and Navigation Market Segmentation:

By Type (Neurosurgery Navigation, Spinal Surgical Navigation, ENT Surgical Navigation, Orthopedic Surgical Navigation, Robotic-Assisted Spinal Surgery Systems, Robotic-Assisted Neurosurgery Systems, Robotic Radiosurgery Systems, Others)

By End Use (Hospitals, Ambulatory Surgical Centers, Others)

By Application (Child, Adults, Old Aged)

Research Methodology:

The research study Surgical Robotics and Navigation market regarding size, growth, opportunities and competitive analysis has been prepared with the help of primary research, secondary research and panel review. The secondary research includes: industry publications, industry reports, trade magazines, and other publications from government and trade associations, among others. Further, the analysis done through various news articles and press releases published on reliable news journals required for every market enthusiast, policymaker, investor, and market player. The Surgical Robotics and Navigation Market is also aids in developing counter approaches for major challenges faced by the industry. A reliable report is structured with the vigilant efforts of innovative, enthusiastic, knowledgeable and experienced team of analysts, researchers, industry experts, and forecasters.

Table of Content

Chapter 1: Introduction and Scope

Chapter 2: Key Company Profiles

Chapter 3: Surgical Robotics and Navigation Market Explanations, Share and Forecast across type, application and geography

Chapter 4: Surgical Robotics and Navigation Industry Consumption by Regions

Chapter 5: Market Explanation of Asia Pacific region

Chapter 6: Market Explanations of Europe region

Chapter 7: Market Explanation of Asia Pacific region

Chapter 8: Market Explanations of North America region

Chapter 9: Market Explanations of Middle East and Africa region

Chapter 10: Key Important features of the Surgical Robotics and Navigation market

Chapter 11: Key trends of the market and the market Opportunities

Chapter 12: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers

Chapter 13: Research Findings and Conclusion

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Global Surgical Robotics and Navigation Market Scope and Market Size

On the basis of type, the surgical robotics and navigation market is segmented into neurosurgery navigation,spinal surgicalnavigation, ENT surgical navigation, orthopedic surgical navigation, robotic-assisted spinal surgery systems, robotic-assisted neurosurgery systems, robotic radiosurgery systems, and others.

On the basis of end use, the surgical robotics and navigation market is segmented into hospitals, ambulatory surgical centers, and others.

On the basis of application, the surgical robotics and navigation market is bifurcated into child, adults and old aged.

Competitive Landscape and Surgical Robotics and NavigationMarket Share Analysis

The major players covered in the surgical robotics and navigation market report are Medtronic , Stryker, GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, Brainlab, B. Braun Melsungen AG, Johnson & Johnson Services, KARL STORZ SE & Co. KG, Zimmer Biomet, Fiagon AG Medical Technologies, XION GmbH, Collin SAS, Medrobotics Corporation, Titan Medical Inc., Verb Surgical Inc, among other domestic and global players. Market share data is available for global, North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA) and South America separately. DBMR analysts understand competitive strengths and provide competitive analysis for each competitor separately.

The key questions answered in this report:

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Surgical Robotics and Navigation Market Country Level Analysis

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One company built an autonomous vehicle to help haul crops, saving work and time. Others use drones and sensors to communicate with farmers.

Image: iStock/lamyai

Farmers have long struggled with operational optimization and labor concerns. Finding enough labor to get the job done, as well as keeping workers safe is a constant struggle.

"There is an immediate need to improve efficiency and reduce costs, especially now that the pandemic has exposed just how fragile the supply chain is," said Suma Reddy, CEO of Future Acres, an agricultural robotics and artificial intelligence company. "We saw shortages in both production and more workers being put at risk when picking specialty crops on a daily basis that have really caused the industry to take a step back and re-examine how we can create greater resiliency in the food chain."

SEE: Natural language processing: A cheat sheet (TechRepublic)

One idea is to equip farms with a combination of AI and robotics that can "think through" as well as do some of the physical work of farming.

"We introduced Carry for that purpose," Reddy said. "It's an autonomous, electric agricultural robotic harvest companion to help farmers gather hand-picked crops faster and with less physical demand."

The Future Acres Carry helps transport harvested crops using AI.

Image: Future Acres

The self-driving Carry vehicle uses a combination of AI, automation and electric power to transport up to 500 pounds of crops. Reddy estimates that Carry can increase production efficiency by up to 30%, paying for the vehicle investment in 80 days.

"Our initial launch was targeted at customers at small- to medium-sized table-grape farms in the U.S. that are larger than 100 acres," Reddy said. "Grapes were the specialty crop we focused on initially, but the specialty crop market covers more than just grapes, and we believe that Carry can improve the harvesting of those types of crops as well."

Morder Intelligence estimates that the AI market in agriculture, valued at $766.41 million in 2020, will reach $2.5 billion by 2026. This is a compound annual growth rate of 21.52% between 2021 and 2026.

SEE: Smart farming: How IoT, robotics, and AI are tackling one of the biggest problems of the century (TechRepublic)

In this market, Carry is just one example of an array of autonomous technologies in agriculture that include AI, robotics and automation. Other examples are autonomous tractors and harvesters, as well as aerial drones that map fields and identify topography, soil types and moisture content from the air to provide input for prescriptive fertilizers that AI develops in order to optimize crop yields.

"In our case, we wanted to provide a robotic harvest companion that can transport up to 500 pounds of crops on all types of terrain and in all weather conditions," Reddy said. "To do this, we use machine learning and computer vision capabilities that enable the vehicle to avoid obstacles like trees and people, and to collect and apply data to further optimize precision and efficiency."

SEE: Future of farming: AI-enabled harvest robot flexes new dexterity skills (TechRepublic)

As with any technological advancement, trial-and-error proofs of concept are needed. Farming operational habits also need to be changed in order to take advantage of new technology.

What Reddy and others in the field have learned is that trialing AI and robotics in actual use cases offers the only true test of how well the technology performs. This is a universal truth for all types of AI and roboticsnot just the ones that find themselves in a farmer's field.

As a one-time Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, Reddy wanted to "build a better bridge between how we manage our resources and build a better future." Her company and others are now transforming agriculture with the help of big data, analytics and hardware, and it can't come too soon. The United Nations estimates that in 30 years, the global population will reach 9.7 billion people, and there will be a need to provide 50% more food by 2050.

Now is the time for AI and robotics solution providers to jump in.

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AI and robotics are helping optimize farms to increase productivity and crop yields - TechRepublic

On March 22, 2021, two companiesDaedalean and Reliable Roboticsannounced their new partnership to build advanced navigation and situational awareness (SA) systems for commercial aircraft operations. With the new certifiable technology, onboard or remote pilots will benefit from next-generation flight automation systems.The proprietary solution enables onboard pilots and remote pilots to make faster, better-informed decisions based on the advanced sensors provided by the system.

Reliable Robotics is a leader in aircraft automation. During the last months, they demonstrated pioneering capabilities of their systems byremotely piloting a Cessna 208 Caravan from a control centre in their headquarters over 50 miles away. In 2019, the company made aviation history operating a remotely piloted Cessna 172 Skyhawk over a populated region with no one on board and subsequently demonstrated a fully automated landing of the larger Cessna 208 in 2020 on the third day of flight testing.

Daedaleans systems can now feed this information about the aircraft position relative to the terrain with its obstacles and safe landing sites and relative to other traffic, to the Reliable Robotics flight control stack, which then has at its disposal an additional layer of safety and can use it to deal with multiple contingencies such as jammed or disabled GPS, non-cooperative traffic, or emergency landing scenarios.

The end product both companies foresee is a system that can operate in airspaces as a model citizen, that enables denser economic use of the airspace, at safety levels that are an order of magnitude above todays standards.

Reliable Robotics has the most credible system for remotely piloted operations with immediate applications for cargo operators, said Luuk van Dijk, Founder and CEO of Daedalean. Our team has developed advanced machine learning that can adapt to the inherent uncertainties in airspace and increasing levels of onboard autonomy. Bringing our core competencies together was a logical next step to jointly develop a solution set that makes aircraft safer.

Both companies have been built on the principle that certification is paramount from day one, said Robert Rose, Co-founder and CEO of Reliable Robotics. Daedalean is the recognized leader when it comes to developing machine learning systems within the required regulatory framework. This is not a domain where you build something first and then figure out how to certify it later.

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Daedalean reveals partnership with Reliable Robotics - sUAS News