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Submission + - Interview with Dario Floreano on acoustic sensing and multi-drone operations (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Dario Floreano (head of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL in Switzerland) talks about acoustic sensing, which can be used by swarming drones to perceive their fellow swarm members and coordinate their flight, or to locate objects on the ground, in a rescue scenario for example.

Submission + - Solving delivery robots as a service: Interview with Savioke CEO Steve Cousins (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: The newest Silicon Valley Robotics Case Study looks at service robots from a business model perspective, using Savioke's hotel delivery Relay robot as an example. In this interview, Savioke CEO Steve Cousins talks about his early customers and how robots fit into the hotel service model. Relay is now in five hotel chains and just raised $15M in series A investment.

Submission + - Lots of robocar news from CES 2016 (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: From autonomous concept cars from the major auto players, to heated up competition in the mapping space (watch out Google), to super computers for tomorrow's connected cars, there were lots of companies in the robocar space at CES again this year. Insightful piece by Brad Templeton.

Submission + - How friendly is your AI? It depends on the rewards (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: New research from the Computational Neuroscience Lab at the University of Tartu looks at what happens when multiple AI agents are competing or collaborating in the same environment. The research (built on some of the pioneering Deep Reinforcement Learning work done by Deepmind) shows that AI agents will tend to try to maximize their rewards. Leaves interesting questions about the role of researchers in defining these rewards clearly and ethically.

Submission + - How to design a robotics experiment (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Good experimental design is crucial in any field, but it's a particular challenge in robotics. Roboticist Alex Owen-Hill breaks it down into the basic steps. Great overview for teachers and students of robotics.

Submission + - 10 essential skills for roboticists (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Robotics isn't all about applied math and engineering (though those are essential skills). It's an incredibly multidisciplinary field that requires big picture thinking and the ability to collaborate and communicate with a lot of people in various sub disciplines.

Submission + - New insect-inspired vision strategy could hasten development of mini-drones (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: While it's usually ideal for indoor drones to be small, one of the limiting factors in their miniaturization has been the need to use sonar equipment onboard the drone (in addition to a camera) to help the drone perceive distances (perceiving distance is critical for safe landing). This research shows how indoor drones could do away with sonar, using a similar vision strategy found in insects like honeybees.

Submission + - IoT may be 2016's hot new trend, but in industrial robotics it's been around for (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: We've been hearings lots of news about the coming Internet of Things trend for consumer robotics — think smart home. But most people don't realize that this is a concept that's been in development for a decade now in the field of industrial robotics. Interesting article that covers the industrial robot companies that have been developing IoT technology, and why.

Submission + - Foxconn sends 30-person delegation to US to shop for robot manufacturers (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Foxconn, the company that is producing Softbank's Pepper robot, has sent a 30-person delegation to the US to scope out acquiring a robot manufacturer that can help it meet the demand for the 7000 Pepper robots it has sold so far. Foxconn has been releasing 1000 Pepper robots for sale each month, and they sell out within minutes of being offered.

Submission + - GM invests in $500M in Lyft. Does Uber need to watch out? (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Singularity faculty member and Robocar expert Brad Templeton always gives an insightful view into the world of Robocars. In this latest news roundup he talks about GM's recent partnering with ride hailing company Lyft. Does Uber need to watch out? Templeton points out that while GM's $500M investment in Lyft has pushed them to a $5.4B valuation, this is still a small fraction of Uber's valuation. Uber's market dominance is further boosted by the recent death of Sidecar, another ride share company that, though it was the third place player behind Uber and Lyft, struggled to find enough investment to survive. Templeton discusses the implications of all this on the future of autonomous car development.

Submission + - Co-bots will be driving innovation and sales growth in robotics (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Robotics investor Frank Tobe writes about why co-bots (also known as collaborative robots) are likely to be what drives innovation in the field of robotics in the next few years. The huge growth potential in the SME market, the growing demand for service robotics in hospitals, retail etc, and the development of force sensing safety features that let humans work side by side with robots are all key reasons.

Submission + - The future of robot off-line programming (robohub.org)

Submitted by Hallie Siegel
Hallie Siegel writes: Robot programming languages have been evolving pretty slowly, in large part because robot manufacturers need to offer backwards compatibility. But each manufacturer mostly has its own custom programming language, and there is no common programming language for industrial robots today. Roboticist Albert Nubiola suggests that some day robot programmers will be able to program any robot using a universal language like Python, allowing companies to move away from brand specific tools.

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