As medical researchers rush to develop treatments and vaccines to deploy against the coronavirus, scientists and engineers are working on another type of weapon that could play an instrumental role in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic: robots.
"As epidemics escalate, the potential roles of robotics are becoming increasingly clear," an international group of researchers wrote last month in the journal Science Robotics.
And there's much more robots could do if engineers concentrated their efforts on the greatest needs, researchers said.
This may worth something:
Starship Technologies is sending its autonomous robots to more cities as demand for contactless
Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing traditional restaurants to close and placing more pressure on gig economy workers, Starship Technologies has an opportunity to accelerate that growth.
Tempe isn’t the only new areas added amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Starship added a grocery delivery service in Washington, D.C in late March and expanded to Irvine, Calif. It also expanded its service area in Milton Keynes, U.K., where it has been operating since 2018. The company said it plans to add more cities in the coming weeks.
Robots take contact-free delivery to the next level
Tech companies have spent the past several years developing task masters to take on the drudgery of everyday chores (like vacuuming or grocery shopping). Thanks to social distancing, delivery machines are the hot bots on the block.
* * *
The R2 looks like a space-age Volkswagen and is designed to ferry orders directly to customers, who unlock its storage compartments by entering a code on a touchscreen.
Udelv's driverless delivery vans feature individual cargo compartments, which make it possible for a single vehicle to make multiple deliveries. Udelv's CEO recently announced it would offer its service for free in areas under strict quarantine orders.
Scientists can 3D print insect-like robots in minutes | Engadget
It might soon be relatively trivial to make soft robots — at least, if you have a 3D printer handy. UC San Diego researchers have devised a way to 3D-print insect-like flexible robots cheaply, quickly and without using exotic equipment. The trick was to print “flexoskeletons,” or rigid materials 3D-printed on to flexible and thin polycarbonate sheets.
Each flexoskeleton component takes about 10 minutes to print, and a completely assembled bot should be ready in less than two hours. An individual part costs less than $1 — the processing power, sensors and battery are likely to be the most expensive parts.
Quite a lot has been going on:
Robots deliver food in Milton Keynes under coronavirus lockdown | UK news | The Guardian
Starship Technologies, an autonomous delivery startup created in 2014 by two Skype cofounders, has been testing its beer cooler-sized robots in public since 2015. The small, white, six-wheeled vehicles trundle along pavements to bring small deliveries to residents and workers of the neighbourhoods in which they operate, without the need for a human driver or delivery person.
Sam Crooks, the mayor of Milton Keynes, said: "I've got a fairly young demographic in my ward, and they love it. There was obviously a burst of use at the beginning, because of the novelty, but already it's just a part of people's routines.
Full Page Reload
Robots welcome to take over, as coronavirus pandemic accelerates automation | The Seattle Times
The recycling industry was already struggling before the pandemic. Now, an increasing number of cities are suspending recycling services, partly out of fear that workers might contract the coronavirus from one another while sorting through used water bottles, food containers and boxes.
* * *
Since the coronavirus took hold in the United States last month, AMP Robotics has seen a "significant" increase in orders for its robots that use artificial intelligence to sift through recycled material, weeding out trash.
Arizona pizzeria practices social distancing by using robots to deliver food
A pizza place in Arizona is testing a new form of social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak: Instead of sending people out on deliveries, the restaurant has been using robots.
The Venezia's New York Style Pizza location in Tempe, Ariz., teamed up with Starship Technologies to bring the future to pizza delivery, Fox 10 reports. The robots are able to make deliveries within a half-mile radius.
“We have our own delivery drivers, third-party delivery and now robot delivery drivers… we have everything covered during this pandemic,” restaurant manager Renny Mitchell told Fox 10. Mitchell added that the new robot “is making it easier than ever before to social distance.”
Happening on Twitter
Meet April 6th's UNHINGED Democrat: Dem lawmaker wants Trump prosecuted at international court for 'crimes against… https://t.co/ErfVahyhAU SteveGuest (from Washington, DC) Mon Apr 06 13:00:18 +0000 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment