AirBurr UAV Navigates By Crashing Into Things
Zothecula writes "If you've ever watched a fly trying to find its way around a house, you might have noticed that it didn't take a particularly graceful approach – it probably bounced off a lot of windows and walls, until by process of elimination, it found a route that was clear. Well, researchers at Switzerland's EPFL Laboratory of Intelligent Systems are taking that same approach with the latest version of their autonomous AirBurr UAV – it's built to run into things, in order to map and navigate its environment."
airburr
elimination
environment
epfl
laboratory
switzerland
uav
version
zothecula
Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Slashdot
BigDog Robot Grabs, Lifts, and Throws Cinder Blocks With Its New Arm
cylonlover writes "Boston Dynamics' BigDog may have already been replaced by the beefier LS3, but that doesn't mean it's totally obsolete. Today the company unveiled a version of the quadruped equipped with an arm where a head (or tail) would go. As can be seen in a slightly disquieting video, it's powerful enough to lift and toss a heavy cinder block. Key to this work, funded by the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, is that BigDog uses the dynamic forces of its whole body to help it throw the cinder block. It begins by taking several steps to the side before quickly accelerating as it swings its arm, temporarily launching itself into the air in the process. This approach is similar to the way an athlete winds up before throwing a discus, for example, and greatly enhances the robot's throwing power. Since few robots are as capable as BigDog when it comes to balance, it's an excellent platform to test these sorts of strenuous actions."
action
arm
balance
bigdog
boston
enhance
grabs
laboratory
version
Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Slashdot
New Process Takes Energy From Coal Without Burning It
rtoz writes "Ohio State students have come up with a scaled-down version of a power plant combustion system with a unique experimental design--one that chemically converts coal to heat while capturing 99 percent of the carbon dioxide produced in the reaction. Typical coal-fired power plants burn coal to heat water to make steam, which turns the turbines that produce electricity. In chemical looping, the coal isn't burned with fire, but instead chemically combusted in a sealed chamber so that it doesn't pollute the air. This new technology, called coal-direct chemical looping, was pioneered by Liang-Shih Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Ohio State's Clean Coal Research Laboratory"
combustion
electricity
laboratory
liang-shih
ohio
reaction
technology
version
Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Slashdot
ROSA releases Desktop.Fresh 2012
ROSA Laboratory has released ROSA Desktop.Fresh, a version of its Mandriva-based ROSA Desktop distribution that includes up-to-date packages and boots twice as fast
distribution
laboratory
mandriva-based
rosa
version