Physical Technology: Robotics, Automation, and 3D Printing

[LFC]

This thread is meant for clearly macro-physical technological advances as compared to, say, AI, various computer programs, wireless advances, etc. My first post starts out with a bit of ridiculousness.

Boston Dynamics’ robot dog Spot exists in two realities. In one, it’s a terrifying harbinger of a dystopian future when robots hunt and kill humans. In the other, it’s the plaything of YouTubers who teach this robot quadruped to “piss beer” on command.

The latter example comes from the talented, imaginative, piss-focused YouTuber Michael Reeves, who managed to get his hands on a unit before using his tech expertise and dirty mind to turn Spot into the ultimate drinking buddy. With some quick code and a few feet of tubing, Spot can identify cups on the floor, position itself over them, and release a stream of piss beer into the awaiting receptacle. It’s the future Isaac Asimov could only dream of.

As Reeves notes in the video, it’s hardly a polished product. “Piss bot is working flawlessly. 35 percent of the time,” he says. But it’s still an absolutely amazing thing to make.

But then the author gets a bit more serious.

Spot is definitely not easy to get a hold of. It costs $75,000 for one. But it’s plainly much more accessible than it was a year ago. That has the potential to not only create PR headaches for Boston Dynamics but also genuine enforcement issues. How much visibility does the company have over its robots and how they’re being used? What happens if someone uses it in the wrong way? This doesn’t have to be malicious for people to get hurt. I, for one, cringed watching Reeves grapple with Spot by putting his hands inside the machine’s joints at around the 12-minute mark. Those are called “pinch points” for a reason.

So right now, Spot exists in two realities: as a threat and as a joke. What happens if the line between them blurs?

Much like drones once this general technology becomes readily available how long will it be before people will use it for stupid but dangerous stunts, malicious mischief, crime, terror, and warfare?

[LFC]

More effort is being put into properly training "smart" robots. Ford used their analysis to speed up their assembly lines.

At a Ford Transmission Plant in Livonia, Mich., the station where robots help assemble torque converters now includes a system that uses AI to learn from previous attempts how to wiggle the pieces into place most efficiently. Inside a large safety cage, robot arms wheel around grasping circular pieces of metal, each about the diameter of a dinner plate, from a conveyor and slot them together.

Ford uses technology from a startup called Symbio Robotics that looks at the past few hundred attempts to determine which approaches and motions appeared to work best. A computer sitting just outside the cage shows Symbio’s technology sensing and controlling the arms. Toyota and Nissan are using the same tech to improve the efficiency of their production lines.

The technology allows this part of the assembly line to run 15 percent faster, a significant improvement in automotive manufacturing where thin profit margins depend heavily on manufacturing efficiencies.

“I personally think it is going to be something of the future,” says Lon Van Geloven, production manager at the Livonia plant. He says Ford plans to explore whether to use the technology in other factories. Van Geloven says the technology can be used anywhere it’s possible for a computer to learn from feeling how things fit together. “There are plenty of those applications,” he says.

AI is often viewed as a disruptive and transformative technology, but the Livonia torque setup illustrates how AI may creep into industrial processes in gradual and often imperceptible ways.

[LFC]

Nikola Tesla is like the Albert Einstein of engineering. His inventions continue to run the world and some apparently still aren't fully understood. They also aren't all to do with electricity. The Tesla Valve is f***ing brilliant.

Nikola Tesla has gone from overlooked genius to folk hero and the inventor modern engineers want to be associated with. Nevertheless his ideas were so diverse many are not well known, including what he called a “valvular conduit”. A study of this device to use vibrations to pump fuel or other fluids has found it has unrealized potential 101 years after its patenting.

Just as angled barbs allow a solid object to move one way, but obstruct its removal, the device now known as the Tesla Valve uses a series of loops to let fluid flow in one direction while hindering counter-flow. Having no moving parts, Tesla Valves are much more resilient than standard check valves. The original design has inspired many imitations, efforts at improvement, and Youtube videos explaining how it works, but it seems these may have not grasped the full extent of the apparently simple patent.

"It's remarkable that this 100-year-old invention is still not completely understood and may be useful in modern technologies in ways not yet considered," Dr Leif Ristorph of New York University said in a statement.

Ristorph led a series of experiments on a prototype built to match Tesla's original design as closely as possible, attempting to pass liquids in both directions at different speeds and liquid viscosities. In Nature Communications Ristorph and co-authors report at low flow rates fluids move through the Valve equally easily each way. However, reverse flow above a certain speed is almost impossible, while flow rates can go much higher in the forward direction if the pressure is right.

"Crucially, this turn-on comes with the generation of turbulent flows in the reverse direction, which 'plug' the pipe with vortices and disrupting currents," Ristroph explained. "Moreover, the turbulence appears at far lower flow rates than have ever previously been observed for pipes of more standard shapes - up to 20 times lower speed than conventional turbulence in a cylindrical pipe or tube.”

Many technologies operate well in steady flow environments, but fail in the face of oscillating forces, part of the reason so many innovative ideas for harvesting wind or wave energy fail in the real world. The Tesla Valve is the reverse, actually working better when the fluid entering it comes in pulses, converting varying inputs to a steady output.

"We think this is what Tesla had in mind for the device, since he was thinking about analogous operations with electrical currents," Ristroph said. "He in fact is most famous for inventing the AC motor as well as an AC-DC converter."

[LFC]

From Vox: Robots were supposed to take our jobs. Instead, they’re making them worse. It goes beyond the issues with job replacement and looks at job surveillance.

But we often spend so much time talking about the potential for robots to take our jobs that we fail to look at how they are already changing them — sometimes for the better, but sometimes not. New technologies can give corporations tools for monitoring, managing, and motivating their workforces, sometimes in ways that are harmful. The technology itself might not be innately nefarious, but it makes it easier for companies to maintain tight control on workers and squeeze and exploit them to maximize profits.

“The basic incentives of the system have always been there: employers wanting to maximize the value they get out of their workers while minimizing the cost of labor, the incentive to want to control and monitor and surveil their workers,” said Brian Chen, staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project (NELP). “And if technology allows them to do that more cheaply or more efficiently, well then of course they’re going to use technology to do that.”

Tracking software for remote workers, which saw a bump in sales at the start of the pandemic, can follow every second of a person’s workday in front of the computer. Delivery companies can use motion sensors to track their drivers’ every move, measure extra seconds, and ding drivers for falling short.

Automation hasn’t replaced all the workers in warehouses, but it has made work more intense, even dangerous, and changed how tightly workers are managed. Gig workers can find themselves at the whims of an app’s black-box algorithm that lets workers flood the app to compete with each other at a frantic pace for pay so low that how lucrative any given trip or job is can depend on the tip, leaving workers reliant on the generosity of an anonymous stranger. Worse, gig work means they’re doing their jobs without many typical labor protections.

In these circumstances, the robots aren’t taking jobs, they’re making jobs worse. Companies are automating away autonomy and putting profit-maximizing strategies on digital overdrive, turning work into a space with fewer carrots and more sticks.

[goldenvalley]

Bionic arms and blue-eyed bots: How Russia aims to nurture a tech hub in its Far East.

This is the photo at the top of the article:

[andydp]

The article about computers tracking everything a worker does is spot on.

I left the USPS in 2016. It was starting to get rough. My primary example. The package sorter I worked on was expanded by about 50 more postal zones. That’s great for efficiency. Someone doesn’t have to sort three different zip codes.

Problem is, management didn’t program HOW that mail was going to go from the machine to the outgoing truck. When I left there were still only two assigned rows, way more holdouts (zones) but they didn’t negotiate for more workers. Either that or set up a new tray delivery method that brought the mail to the appropriate truck.

Glad I left when I did.

[LFC]

3D printing is still alive and well. "Bioprinting" is one of the more advanced technologies.

The hype around 3D printing shows no signs of waning anytime soon, and for good reason: It’s a fast, inexpensive way to manufacture all kinds of different objects and structures, especially when conventional building materials are unavailable. A few scientists have a radical idea for what the next big leap in 3D printing could be: making things using living microbes.

Yes, it sounds weird as hell and not just a little creepy, but stay with us here. A group of researchers in the U.S. have just proved it's possible to create 3D printed structures using E. coli. These “living materials,” illustrated in a new Nature Communications paper, could pave a path for more sustainable construction of objects that could also be programmed to help improve people’s health or remove toxins from the environment.

“Our group has always been interested in engineering biology to make materials,” Northeastern University chemist and study co-author Neel Joshi told The Daily Beast. “In the same way that a seed has a set of genetic instructions to produce a tree, we want to provide biological cells with a set of genetic instructions that program them to make material structures with prescribed properties.”

[LFC]

Autonomous farm equipment is getting to be a larger and larger market. The new equipment is being supplied by both the big boys like John Deere and smaller startups, some of which are targeting smaller farmers. The questions for the future of course swirl around affordability for small farms and the impact on the millions of farm workers that exist.

In crop-lined fields across the United States, the long-promised age of autonomous technology appears to have finally arrived.

Already, a growing list of agriculture tech companies have developed self-piloting machines to, say, disperse seeds for crops, or harvest grapes, or pick apples, or distribute fertilizer. That innovation has brought with it some major investment: According to venture capital firm AgFunder’s most recent data, farm robotics ventures received a total of $491 million in investment during the first half of the 2021 business year, a 40 percent increase over the same period in 2020.

Of course, all the attention paid to those budding companies pales in comparison to the January announcement by heavy farming equipment mainstay John Deere that it would be releasing an autonomous version of its 8R tractor later this year. Given that a majority of all farm machinery sold in the U.S. is manufactured by John Deere, its entry into the world of driverless tractors all but guarantees that autonomous tech is here to stay.

“A lot of the progress is made by startups,” said University of Nebraska advanced machinery systems professor Santosh Pitla. “If you look at John Deere, they actually have products on the market.” In other words, decades of experience has helped the agriculture giant command a lion’s share of the public’s attention—even if not everyone is necessarily optimistic about the tech.

Here's where it might help the smaller or perhaps at least mid-sized farms.

Yet, as enticing as the 8R might be for large farms, it could be too costly and impractical for smaller operations. That’s where the smaller companies come in. Take Advanced Farm, a California-based company behind the TX Robotic Strawberry Harvester, which—as the name suggests—uses a robotic gripper to pick ripe strawberries from in-soil beds. The TX harvester is 12 feet wide and clocks in at 3,000 lbs., making it more feasible for a smaller farm than John Deere’s mega-tractor (weight: around 28,000 lbs).

“We have re-designed the tractor from the ground up to be much more energy-efficient and, as a result, cost efficient,” said Advanced Farm co-founder Kyle Cobb. “While we can’t do tasks that require a heavy load, we could do a number of tasks that don’t require all the steel and horsepower from traditional tractors.”

[LFC]

3D printing is getting more micro. This is an experiment on how small they can go.

Much of the technical progress in the world of 3D printing sees the technology being pushed to its max, with super-sized printers churning out everything from houses to boats. One YouTuber has gone in the other direction, with what looks like an impossibly tiny 3D printer churning out even tinier 3D prints with a surprising level of detail.

We assumed 3D printers couldn’t get much smaller than Sean Hodgins’ 3D-printed Christmas ornament, which also happens to double as a fully-functional miniature 3D printer that creates even smaller ornaments. But if there’s a record to be broken, it’s always safe to assume that there’s another YouTuber diligently working to break it.

There aren’t too many practical uses for the incredibly tiny 3D printer that YouTuber My N Mi has created, but that’s not the point: the fact that it even exists at this scale is what’s impressive. Measuring in at just 0.67-inches tall, the printer is no taller than a wooden matchstick, but is somehow still fully functional—although without all the bells and whistles you’d find on even a standard home 3D printer.

Instead of going the extrusion route, which would require the printer to wrangle considerably more hardware and melt plastic filament (which would probably be far too thick for this machine to handle anyway), My N Mi’s machine uses the stereolithography approach. In this approach, a liquid resin is injected into a small chamber and hardened, layer by layer, by an array of UV LEDs at the bottom.

[LFC]

A 3D printed rocket.

After securing a launch license, Relativity Space is eager to see its Terran 1 rocket get off the ground. The California-based company opted to skip a final engine test and set a launch date for the inaugural flight of its groundbreaking 3D-printed rocket.

On Wednesday, Relativity Space announced that it had secured its launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration and is ready to blast its Terran 1 rocket into space. Terran 1 is scheduled for launch on March 8 during a three-hour launch window that opens at 1 p.m. ET from Launch Complex 16 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, according to Relativity Space.

The mission, aptly titled “Good Luck, Have Fun,” is meant to test the expendable lightweight rocket on its first attempt to reach orbit. Terran 1 is a two-stage, 110-foot-tall (33 meters) rocket that’s 85% 3D printed, making it the “largest 3D printed object to exist and to attempt orbital flight,” according to the company. Relativity Space is working towards its goal of making the rocket 95% 3D printed. The rocket has nine Aeon engines on its first stage and one Aeon Vac on its second stage, and uses liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas as propellant.

Rocket manufacturers have used 3D printing technology to make rocket parts before but never on this scale. The rocket’s debut will put Relativity Space’s proprietary 3D printing process to the test, which uses 3D metal printing, artificial intelligence, and autonomous robotics to create its rockets.

That the rocket will succeed on its inaugural flight is no guarantee, given that Relativity Space has never accomplished this feat, and because it’s attempting to do so with such an experimental rocket. Hopefully, Terran 1 will survive the turbulence and g-forces experienced during take off and not fall to pieces.

[LFC]

Robot or drone? I'd say both.

Insect-size robots could have numerous useful applications, for instance, aiding search and rescue (SAR) missions, simplifying the inspection of infrastructures and speeding up agricultural processes. Despite the advantages associated with their size, these robots can be very difficult to build, as their fabrication involves assembling several tiny components.

To overcome these limitations, researchers at the University of Washington have recently created RoboFly, a 74-mg flapping-wing robot that can move in the air, on the ground and on water surfaces. The new robot, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, was built using fewer components than those generally used to build insect-size robots, which greatly simplifies its fabrication.

"RoboFly is a flapping-wing micro-robot inspired by flying insects," Yogesh Chukewad, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. "These insects can fly, walk, and some of them can also skim on the water surface. The goal of our research was to develop a robot that mimics its biological counterpart by performing multi-modal locomotion, which includes aerial, ground, and water surface locomotion."

The tiny robot created by Chukewad and his colleagues is an adaptation of RoboBee, a flying micro-robot prototype that Sawyer Fuller, senior author and principal investigator on the study, helped to develop at Harvard University before he started working at the University of Washington. A key improvement of RoboFly is that it has fewer components, as the researchers found that assembling too many parts made its fabrication overly complex.

"The way RoboBee was designed made it really difficult to build," Chukewad explained. "Currently, most insect-size robots are built under a microscope, assembled carefully by hand, as they have many separate microscopic parts. If you accidentally drop a part the size of a sesame seed in a busy lab, you're never going to see it again!"

To simplify RoboFly's fabrication, the researchers created a new design, in which the robot's chassis is comprised of a single, folded laminate sheet. One can thus build the robot without having to assemble many microscopic parts. The chassis is also lower and thus closer to the ground, which enables three different types of locomotion.

"RoboFly makes use of its two flapping wings driven by piezoelectric actuators to fly and hover, like some insects do," Chukewad said. "It can also move and steer on the ground by making use of the same set of flapping wings. Because of its light-weight property, if modified with a set of three foot-like appendages it can land on water surfaces. Once it landed, the robot can then move and steer on water using the same principle that is used to move on the ground."

The fact that it can fly, walk and drift on water makes RoboFly unique, setting it apart from other insect-size robots. The robot could be far more effective than existing ones in avoiding obstacles, as it can simply switch to a different mode of locomotion (e.g. flying or moving on water if it detects obstacles on the ground).

[andydp]

Closest I could find to weaponry.  

New M1 Abrams tank version coming down the pike.  It will have hybrid drive for 50% greater fuel efficiency, multi fuel capability.

AbramsX: The U.S. Army’s New Tank Looks Like a Lethal Game Changer

Most recently, the SepV4 is the latest Abrams variant to reach the testing phase. According to the Army, the new technologies incorporated in the tank’s 4th iteration will enable crews to identify enemy targets more quickly than ever before. Additionally, the new Abrams “will integrate a color camera, Eye-safe Laser Range Finder, and a cross-platform laser pointer to facilitate multi-domain battle into the commander’s sight.

In addition to a lethality upgrade, the M1A2 SEPv4 will include full-embedded training to maximize crew proficiency of the system. This program began early enough to onboard any technology the Army deems critical to the future battlefield to include artificial intelligence, autonomy, APS, or advanced sensors.”

BUT, right around the corner...

The AbramsX is next level

Although the M1A2 Sepv4 Abrams is brand new, the Army is looking ahead to its eventual replacement. The release of the AbramsX variant is expected to sport even more cutting-edge improvements, including a hybrid electric drive – a propulsion system capable of enhancing fuel efficiency will ensure greater survivability with lower thermal and acoustic signatures.

In other words, this type of engine will let tank crew operate weapons and sensors without giving off easily detectable signatures.

Size-wise, the AbramsX will have a smaller frame, making it more mobile than its heftier predecessors. Its hybrid electric engine also makes the tank 50 percent more fuel efficient, according to General Dynamics. While the AbramsX will retain a 120mm cannon as its primary armament, its gun is expected to be replaced with the lighter XM360.

The new tank also sports a Kongsberg RS6 remote-controlled weapon station comprised of an XM914 30 mm cannon and a 7.62 coaxial machine gun.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/abramsx-the-u-s-army-s-new-tank-looks-like-a-lethal-game-changer/ar-AA18pQIb?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=b2424874587e4850ef8bc4afe7e1f2b9&ei=16

[LFC]

Virgin Orbit has crashed.

Houston, Virgin Orbit has a problem. The satellite launch company from British entrepreneur Richard Branson has announced that it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware.

Virgin Orbit announced the news in a press release this morning, and the company intends to use the filing to “maximize value” of its business while it seeks out a buyer. The company has received $31.6 million in Debtor in Possession (DIP) financing from Branson-owned Virgin Investments Limited that, when approved by the bankruptcy court, will provide Virgin Orbit with enough liquidity to eventually sell the company and its assets. For now, the company will be operating as is, and asked the Bankruptcy Court for permission to access its cash on hand and its DIP financing in order to maintain operations and pay its employees.

“While we have taken great efforts to address our financial position and secure additional financing, we ultimately must do what is best for the business,” said CEO Dan Hart in the press release. “At this stage, we believe that the Chapter 11 process represents the best path forward to identify and finalize an efficient and value-maximizing sale.”

Meanwhile SpaceX seems to soar.

Following months—if not years—of anticipation, Starship’s inaugural orbital test flight could soon be more than just a distant mirage for Elon Musk’s private space venture.

According to Ars Technica, SpaceX has transferred Starship’s Super Heavy booster onto a launch mount at the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, while engineers added shielding to the mount and tower to protect them against the heat produced by the upcoming liftoff of the rocket. What’s more, and as Ars also points out, NASA appears to have tentatively booked the use of its WB-57 aircraft for April 10 and 11; the space agency would use the high-altitude vehicle to track the megarocket during launch.

Additionally, live LabPadre video coverage from earlier today shows SpaceX’s “chopsticks”—giant mechanical arms attached to the launch tower—in position to lift Starship’s upper stage and stack it on top of the first stage to fully assembly the jumbo rocket.

Anonymous sources told Ars Technica that Starship could launch as early as Monday, April 10, adding that SpaceX may be getting its coveted launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) within the first two weeks of April. Until that coveted license is issued, however, this rocket ain’t going anywhere.

That caveat aside, it could finally be coming together for SpaceX and its fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle, one that the company has been eager to see fly for quite some time now. SpaceX has been striving to perform an orbital launch test of its megarocket since summer 2021, conducting a series of limited static fire tests of the booster’s engines.