Robots galore | The Press

At the factory, in the warehouses, soon at home, and eventually on the roads. The XXI^and century will be robotic or it will not be, to paraphrase André Malraux. Here are some recent advances in the field.

Mathieu Perreault
The Press

A bird robot

Inspired by the parrot, engineers at Stanford University have designed legs that allow drones to perch on the most diverse supports. Their “stereotypical nature-inspired aerial grabber” (SNAG) converts some of the energy created by hitting the branch into electricity used by the motors in each of the legs. In Science Robotics At the end of November, the Californian researchers described the tests which validated the concept, with a drone fitted with larger SNAG legs, similar to those of the falcon.

Housekeeping at Google

Robots that have been cleaning since 2019 at Google in California can now learn a new task in less than a day, with a 90% success rate in completing that task, according to a statement released in mid-November. by Alphabet. This is the “Everyday Robots” program of X, the special projects division (moonshot) of Alphabet. Robots don’t just vacuum, they clean tables, replace chairs in cafes, pick up dishes and dust desks. In comparison, in 2016 it took four months to teach this robot a new task, with a success rate of 75%.

The unmanned truck

Alphabet is also testing self-driving trucks on a three-and-a-half-hour highway trip in Texas, as part of a pilot project by its Waymo division, launched in mid-November. These UPS package delivery trucks travel from Dallas to Houston and back, with a driver on board (ready to drive in case of an emergency) and an IT person. Waymo has been testing self-driving cars (always with a driver in case of emergency) since late 2020 offering taxi service in Phoenix, and has just launched its robo-taxi service in San Francisco. Robot taxis could appear in New York in 2022.

The charging problem…

Since 2009, phone chargers from Israeli company Powermat have been popping up in airports and cafes across the United States. In the past year, Powermat has moved into contactless chargers for home and industrial robots. These are charging stations that can restore the batteries of a household drone, for example, from a distance of 15 cm. Powermat has notably joined forces with Jetson, a robotic company that cleans solar panels installed on the roofs of buildings.

… and that of the propellers

How to ensure that an aerial drone inspecting a building does not injure a person with its propellers? By enclosing them in a shell, according to the American company Cleo. The Boston firm has just launched the Dronut X1 for use by police forces (hence its cost of US$9,800, beyond the reach of most individuals). This drone can also inspect tight spaces, such as attics, tanks and crawl spaces, using LiDAR sensors to detect obstacles, then send videos.

cybernetic reproduction

Last year, Harvard biologists designed the first “biological robot”, made up of 3,000 cells of an African frog, Xenopus smooth, assembled in a sphere. The “xenobot” can now “replicate”: when assembled into a Pac Man-like sphere shape, it is able to bring together other xenopus cells and produce identical copies of xenobots. The American researchers who announced their discovery in November in the journal PNAS think xenobots could be used to pick up plastic debris from the oceans or clean up oil spills.