Self-learning swarm robots

Robot swarm, COCORO

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Speak of harbingers of replicators! (Fans of Stargate know what I'm talking about.)

Gizmag announced today that Swarming robot boats demonstrate self-learning. According to the article,

Instead of using a central computer or programming each robot individually, the swarm operates on what the team calls a Darwinian approach. In other words, each robot is equipped with a neural network that mimics the operations of a living brain. The robots are given a simple set of instructions about how to operate in relationship to one another as well as mission goals.

The robots are then allowed to interact with one another in a simulated environment and those that display successful mission behavior are allowed to proceed. The "fittest" robots from the simulations are then tested in the real world.

Swarm robotics has been attracting attention, especially for military applications. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under the U.S. Department of Defense) is responsible for the development of emerging technology for use by the military; it had an ongoing Robotics Challenge from 2012 to 2015. The site War on the Rocks has a 6-part series, titled The Coming Swarm, on the topic.

Science Direct published a research paper on Research Advance in Swarm Robotics that looks at how scientists are using observations of swarms in nature to advance understanding of swarm intelligence. For more information on swarm intelligence, take a look at a report on the European project called COCORO (Collective Cognitive Robots) in COCORO: robot swarms use collective cognition to perform tasks.

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Examples of swarming behavior in nature, ScienceDirect

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And for you entertainment, here's a video from the Stargate SG1 Channel of our dauntless heroes battling the replicators.

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-- Marge

Science: 4 new elements found

Periodic Table with new elements, 2016, Science Alert

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News coming across the virtual wire is Four new elements confirmed. The numbers given them are 113, 115, 117, and 118; and they complete the 7th row of the periodic table. According to Gizmag these elements do not exist in nature, but were "confirmed to have been created for the first time."

My question is: are the real atoms with 113, 115, 117, and 118 protons lurking somewhere in nature, to be discovered sometime in the future, or are we making things up as we go along. Quoting the Gizmag article:

Element 113, for example, was created by using a linear accelerator to bombard a thin layer of bismuth with zinc ions travelling at about ten percent of the speed of light in hope that, in rare instances, the bismuth and zinc atoms would fuse to form a element. The resulting super-heavy atom of 113 would then decay and turn into other unstable radioactive isotopes, which would decay nearly as fast.

The result was that the scientists who created the new element had to spend years tracing back the event through a labyrinth of isotopic breakdowns to prove that they descended from the new element. Then, the JWP of the IUPAC had to review the literature to make sure no mistakes were made.

Fundamental as chemistry is to science, it has a kind of mystical aura to it. Russian chemistry professor Dmitri Mendeleev pieced together the periodic table in 1869 "to correct the properties of some already discovered elements and also to predict the properties of eight elements yet to be discovered." In Mendeleev's time 60 elements were known. Later in the Wikipedia article about Mendeleev, there's this:

As he attempted to classify the elements according to their chemical properties, he noticed patterns that led him to postulate his periodic table; he claimed to have envisioned the complete arrangement of the elements in a dream.

Another possible case of a chemist dreaming a solution (pun alert!) is August Kekule who suggested the structure of the benzene ring. His dream of a snake biting its tail has become famous; it was notably cited by Carl G. Jung in support of his ideas on alchemy. However, according to a piece in the New York Times, the story may not be true.

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Currrent atomic model, Newcastle School, SCIENCE-esl

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Other elements have been added in modern times. Here's a summary of the current periodic table's contents:

A total of 94 elements occur naturally; the remaining 20 elements, from americium to copernicium, and flerovium and livermorium, occur only when synthesised in laboratories. Of the 94 elements that occur naturally, 84 are primordial. The other 10 naturally occurring elements occur only in decay chains of primordial elements. No element heavier than einsteinium (element 99) has ever been observed in macroscopic quantities in its pure form, nor has astatine (element 85); francium (element 87) has been only photographed in the form of light emitted from microscopic quantities (300,000 atoms).

For more information on the new elements, check out Four elements have just earned a permanent spot in the periodic table at Science Alert.


-- Marge

Science: Becoming bionic

microfluidics platform, Nature

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While chips about the size of a glass microscope slide are not exactly what come to mind when talking about bionic humans (I'm thinking the Bionic Man and RoboCop), the chips described below are the real McCoy.

Reports of these chips that may augment and assist the human body and even act as functioning organs are beginning to appear with more frequency. Some of these chips are currently being used and some are years away from application. Terms for you to use when tracking development of these and similar devices are microfluidics, biochip, and organ-on-a-chip. Interesting discussions about transmuting nature to hardware that can repair or strengthen human capabilities are available at IEEE's Spectrum.

Gizmag reports on the heart-on-a-chip and other organs being chipified.

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heart-on-a-chip, gizmag

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Harvard's Wyss Institute reports that three ‘Organs-on-Chips’ are ready to serve as disease models and drug testbeds.

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ogan-on-chip, Wyss Institute

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Bionic eye implants show promise for restoring vision to the blind.  TheScientist explains how this might work in The Bionic Eye.

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Bionic Eye, TheScientist

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Great advances have been made in prosthesis. TryEngineering offers a Bionic Arm Design Challenge that can be approached as a game in which you will "virtually design and test a robotic arm, and learn how engineers create working artificial arms."

-- Marge

Technology: Visions of holodecks

Researchers have used projected ultrasound to create floating 3D shapes that can be seen and felt in mid-air (Photo: University of Bristol), gizmag

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Haptic is the magic word today, specifically haptic technology or haptics. At root the word means:

adjective: of or relating to the sense of touch, in particular relating to the perception and manipulation of objects using the senses of touch and proprioception--the reception of stimuli produced within the organism.

Tactile is a related term and a number of groups are working on making devices that offer tactile experience.

Researchers at the University of Bristol have coined the word ultrahaptics to describe their project. This article from gizmag, New ultrasound research creates holographic objects that can be seen and felt, describes their current efforts. Here's a video that explains more.

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If you would like to track the University of Bristol's Interaction and Graphics (BIG) projects, here's the BIG home page URL.

Disney Research (Disney does research?) has a video about tactile rendering of 3D features on touch surfaces, from a project by the Pittsburgh research team. Their approach uses an electro-vibration based friction display. Here's the video published on the DisneyResearchHub channel.

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Stuff, the magazine, reports on a prototype by Fujitsu that also uses ultrasonic haptic feedback, as does BIG's project.

Meanwhile MIT's Tangible Media Group is working on surfaces that actually change dimensionally. This video was published about six months ago on the MIT Media Lab channel.

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The metaverse awaits.

-- Marge

Science: combing the universe for planets

David A Aguilar (CfA), hypothetical world with 2 moons, UniverseToday

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That's right, literally combing with an astro-comb to find planets outside our solar system. Currently scientists are just looking for Venus to test the technology and make sure it works (Gizmag: Astronomers use astro-comb to seek Earth-like exoplanets).

The Walsworth Group reports:

We have developed a new technique using laser frequency combs to improve the accuracy and stability of wavelength calibration of astrophysical spectrographs by up to two orders of magnitude. This "astro-comb" will provide a key advance in the resolution of changes in astrophysical Doppler shifts and redshifts, and thus may allow the discovery of Earth-like planets and new measurements of astrophysical dynamics relevant to cosmology.

Both of the leading techniques to find exoplanets rely on the planet's very small effect on its star. The radial velocity technique measures the star's "wobble" (and hence Doppler shift) due to the planet's gravitational pull as it circles; while the transit technique measures the dimming of a star's light as a planet passes in front of it. With current technology, both of these techniques can identify relatively large planets that have a noticeable effect on their star. Detection of the very small Doppler shifts (<10 cm/s) induced by smaller, rocky planets, like Earth and Mars, will require improved wavelength calibration that can only be provided by astro-combs.

For Physics.org's report on the topic, take a look at this article.

Another group, Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG), has published images of their setup and reports on the TNG+Harps-N system.

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astro-comb laser setup, TNG

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-- Marge

DIY: build your own battery

Environmentally compatible organic solar cells (in development), Physics.org

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Home installation of solar panels is growing fast:

A new solar-power system is now installed on an American roof every three or four minutes, often through leasing deals that require no money down and lock in lower electric bills for years. Wall Street behemoths like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are pouring cash into rooftop solar, as are giant corporations like Walmart and Google, while a range of new financing mechanisms are making solar investments even more attractive. The installer SolarCity has begun to bundle customer leases into solar-backed securities, which could be as transformative (though hopefully not as dangerous) as mortgage-backed securities. And while the panels are now amazingly cheap–down from more than $75 per watt 40 years ago to less than 75¢ per watt today–the solar industry is just starting to drive dramatic reductions in “soft costs” like permitting, marketing and installation. (The Green Revolution Is Here, Michael Grunwald, Time Magazine)

But, unless you want to use environmentally unfriendly batteries that must be replaced and require maintenance, such as the ones sold by Wholesale Solar, you have to connect to the grid. If you decide to build or purchase a battery bank, be aware that there is a risk of explosion and the bank must be scaled to your system.

The push is on to build a better battery and a promising concept is a water-based organic one being developed by a team of scientists at the University of Southern California (USC).

In the meantime here are some batteries you can build yourself.  Check out the aluminum can, saltwater and charcoal battery made by egbertfitzwilly with charcoal from the backyard barbecue. To demonstrate battery basics here are 3 ways to make a homemade battery from WikiHow.

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Hand-Powered Battery, WikiHow

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Similar and related projects are a gummy battery holder by Andrea and a USB travel charger from Electro-Labs.

Who knows?  Maybe you can beat the USC team to the goal of a better, rechargeable, scalable battery.

-- Marge

Eugene Goostman, the chatbot

Eugene Goostman, PrincetonAI

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Gizmag reports, "Eugene Goostman chatbot passes Turing Test." O.K.  Why does a chatbot have a full name and how did it pass such an important-sounding test?  Here's more on the Turing test.

The entry for Eugene in Wikipedia says:

Eugene Goostman is an artificial intelligence chatterbot. First developed by a group of three programmers; the Russian-born Vladimir Veselov, Ukranian-born Eugene Demchenko, and Russian-born Sergey Ulasen in Saint Petersburg in 2001, Goostman is portrayed as a 13-year old Ukranian boy in an effort to make his personality and knowledge level believable to users.

Time Magazine has published an "Interview with Eugene Goostman," in which the author notes:

Chatbot Eugene Goostman supposedly passed the legendary Turing Test on Sunday, tricking 33% of a panel of judges into believing he was a real boy during the course of a five-minute chat conversation.

The milestone conveniently occurred 60 years to the day after Alan Turing passed away; Turing bet that by the year 2000, computers would be intelligent enough to trick humans into thinking they were real 30% of the time.

You can talk with Eugene yourself by surfing to his homepage at Princeton ai (Artificial Intelligence).

Searching on 'artificial virtual assistant', you'll find a number of companies that offer their services.  IKEA features one, Ask Anna, on its Customer Service Contact Center page.

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Anna, Automated Online Assistant, IKEA

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-- Marge

Dancing, self-assembling robots and more

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Recently I discovered Gizmag and signed up for a subscription.  Today's email had this headline: "Self-assembling multi-copter demonstrates networked flight control." The article describes the self-assembling action thus:

The sequence starts with an arbitrary group of robots on the ground. Each robot has three omnidirectional wheels that allow it to rotate and drive in any direction. The robots are programmed to seek a common spot, for example, a brightly lit area. As the robots approach one another, one robot spins in a circle while the other drives around it in a pirouette. Interlocking tabs on the outside of the robots make a physical connection, while infrared light beams carry data between the modules.

Once all the modules in the area are connected, there is a brief calibration of sensors while nothing is moving, and then the entire group start their propellers in unison and take to the sky. Half the modules need to have clockwise propeller rotation, while the other half rotate counterclockwise, in order to cancel out torque.

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This illuminating statement was also in the article:

Professor D’Andrea has several similar groundbreaking projects on his very impressive resume. He is one of the founders of Kiva Robotics, the distributed mobile robots that help make Amazon.com warehouses efficient. A whole fleet of small robots go out into the warehouse and find product on shelves and bring it, shelf and all, to pickers – humans – who place items into boxes. The robots then take the shelves back to the warehouse. For efficiency, the most picked items are placed closest to the packers, making the warehouse self-organized for speed.

I was unable to find any information about the size of the self-assembling robots.  They look like 5-inch computer fans.

Another article asked "Could graphene switches lead to 100-times faster internet?." The answer is yes.  In the reading you'll get a nice description of  how a doped semiconductor works.
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And then there's the orange retro telephone -- "Retro telephone gets 21st century update."  It offers "rotating lights and sound effects during dialing."

No, I'm not an employee of Gizmag, just like to see innovative ideas.  The idea of self-assembling robots is a little scary, though....shades of Skynet!

-- Marge