Weekly Robotics #290

By Mat Sadowski
Issue 290

I recently attended a workshop on Nix, which focused on reproducible package builds that potentially target multiple architectures with minimal overhead. To say it’s promising for robotics is an understatement, and I’m really looking forward to finding time for a deeper dive. The initial results we had with ROS 2 were super promising! As usual, the publication of the week section is manned by Rodrigo.

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GITAI Successfully Demonstrates Robotics Construction Capabilities for Lunar Communications Towers

gitai.tech

GITAI performed some exciting demonstrations where robots autonomously built a moon-destined communications tower. If you watch the video, pay attention to the robot arms and how they can traverse the tower system using a series of ‘sockets’ the manipulator can attach to from either side.

Building a DIY Surgical Robot

youtu.be

Back in December, I featured this video of a teardown of these surgical instruments. That’s also when I learned that the end-effectors are disposable, and you can buy them cheaply online. This allowed Bennett Stirton to start reverse engineering a way to manipulate these manipulators and start building his system.

Rosie The Robot Runs For Real

hackaday.com

This article made me realize that there is a very high chance that Rosie is actually the first robot I’ve seen in my life. As for the build, it’s pretty interesting even though it probably would not fit in many houses.

Rust for Embedded Systems: Current State, Challenges and Open Problems

arxiv.org

Researchers from Purdue University conducted a study on Rust in Embedded systems. The team collected a dataset of 2,836 embedded software in Rust and surveyed 225 developers. If you are considering switching your embedded application to Rust, this paper can be a good entry point to get a feel for what that would entail and how much software support you should expect.

Learning to walk in confined spaces using 3D representation

youtube.com

Researchers from the Robotic Systems Lab at ETH Zurich taught a quadruped robot to crouch and traverse confined spaces.

Got To Go Fast: The Rise Of Super-Fast FPV Drones

hackaday.com

If you liked last week’s multirotor racing an F1 car, you might enjoy the video featured in this article, where Luke Maximo Bell is building an aerial vehicle to beat a world speed record.

Print My Drone

printmydrone.com

Since we are on the topic of drones, this website contains a range of 3D-printable multirotor frames you can 3D print yourself.

Karelics/task_manager

github.com

“Task Manager ROS 2 package is a solution to start, handle and track tasks from multiple different sources in a centralized way on a single robot”.

Publication of the Week - A Tricycle Model to Accurately Control an Autonomous Racecar with Locked Differential

arxiv.org

As an F1 enthusiast, I was captivated by the Indy Autonomous Challenge. This paper, authored by the TII Unimore Racing team, unveils a unique model predictive controller (MPC) tailored for a tricycle model with locked differentials, a crucial component of the racecars at the Indy Challenge. The MPC’s distinctive feature is its ability to push the vehicle to its limits, thereby maximizing the racecar’s speed potential. You can check the video of the fastest lap from the team racecar at Monza.

Business

Recycling automation startup Glacier brings in $7.7M

therobotreport.com

“Glacier has also announced that it will be collaborating with Amazon to enhance traceability and recovery processes for recyclables. Its latest funding round, totaling $7.7 million, also included participation from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), AlleyCorp, Overture Climate VC, and VSC Ventures”.

Hugging Face is launching an open source robotics project led by former Tesla scientist

venturebeat.com

“Hugging Face, the New York City-startup that maintains the popular open source repository of machine learning and AI code of the same name and the open source ChatGPT-rival Hugging Chat, is launching a new robotics project under former Tesla staff scientist Remi Cadene, according to a post from Cadene on X this morning”.

Events

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