This Engineering Newswire looks at using drones to assess cyclone carnage, sword-fighting with robots and riding in the first compressed air-powered car.
Sword-Fighting Robot
Japan’s Namiki Laboratory has unveiled a sword-fighting robot. According to the lab, the system is controlled by a stereo high-speed vision system as an example of human-robot dynamic interaction systems. It works by recognizing the position of the robot’s sword and the human attempting to attack it.
This method of detecting the turning points is called ChangeFinder, which allows the robot to identify the moment when the human starts to move.
Zero Pollution Vehicle Costs $10K
Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM), the developer of the tiny car AIRPod, plans to produce and sell the first compressed air-powered car in the United States by the second half of 2015. The AIRPod, which is marketed as THE solution to urban pollution and urban mobility will be sold for around $10,000.
Each joy-stick controlled vehicle can reach 50 mph, and has a range of approximately 80 miles. According to the company, the 617 pound AIRPod can be filled with compressed air in less than five minutes and costs less than $2 to fill.
Unmanned Drone Assesses Devastating Cyclone Carnage
In March, Cyclone Pam devastated Vanuatu, a little island nation in the South Pacific Ocean. The disaster relief mission required an immediate and safe response under terrible conditions.
Appropriately named after the Latin verb for hunting and tracking, Indago is a small unmanned aerial system from Lockheed Martin that the Vanuatu Government called in to assess Pam's damage without straining limited resources.
Operated by the Australian company Heliwest, Indago is more drone than RC airplane. Over a two-week period, the quadcoptor provided 360-degree surveillance of a 3 mile radius for about 45 minutes at a time.
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