Research

Building next generation autonomous robots to serve humanity

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 23:13:22 +0000

Building next generation autonomous robots to serve humanity Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/17/2023 - 16:13

One thousand feet underground, a four-legged creature scavenges through tunnels in pitch darkness. With vision that cuts through the blackness, it explores a spider web of paths, remembering its every step and navigating with precision. The sound of its movements echo eerily off the walls, but it is not to be feared – this is no wild animal; it is an autonomous rescue robot.

Initially designed to find survivors in collapsed mines, caves, and damaged buildings, that is only part of what it can do.

Created by a team of University of Colorado Boulder researchers and students, the robots placed third as the top US entry and earned $500,000 in prize money at a Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency Subterranean Challenge competition in 2021.

Going Futher

Two years later, they are pushing the technology even further, earning new research grants to expand the technology and create new applications in the rapidly growing world of autonomous systems.

“Ideally you don’t want to put humans in harm’s way in disaster situations like mines or buildings after earthquakes; the walls or ceilings could collapse and maybe some already have,” said Sean Humbert, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Robotics Program at CU Boulder. “These robots can be disposable while still providing situational awareness.”

The team developed an advanced system of sensors and algorithms to allow the robots to function on their own – once given an assignment, they make decisions autonomously on how to best complete it.

Advanced Communication

A major goal is to get them from engineers directly into the hands of first responders. Success requires simplifying the way the robots transmit data into something approximating plain English, according to Kyle Harlow, a computer science PhD student.

“The robots communicate in pure math. We do a lot of work on top of that to interpret the data right now, but a firefighter doesn’t have that kind of time,” Harlow said.

To make that happen Humbert is collaborating with Chris Heckman, an associate professor of computer science, to change both how the robots communicate and how they represent the world. The robots’ eyes – a LiDAR sensor – creates highly detailed 3D maps of an environment, 15 cm at a time. That’s a problem when they try to relay information – the sheer amount of data clogs up the network.

“Humans don’t interpret the environment in 15 cm blocks,” Humbert said. “We’re now working on what’s called semantic mapping, which is a way to combine contextual and spatial information. This is closer to how the human brain represents the world and is much less memory intensive.”

High Tech Mapping

The team is also integrating new sensors to make the robots more effective in challenging environments. The robots excel in clear conditions but struggle with visual obstacles like dust, fog, and snow. Harlow is leading an effort to incorporate millimeter wave radar to change that.

“We have all these sensors that work well in the lab and in clean environments, but we need to be able to go out in places such as Colorado where it snows sometimes,” Harlow said.

Where some researchers are forced to suspend work when a grant ends, members of the subterranean robotics team keep finding new partners to push the technology further.

Autonomous Flight

Eric Frew, a professor of aerospace at CU Boulder, is using the technology for a new National Institute of Standards and Technology competition to develop aerial robots – drones – instead of ground robots, to autonomously map disaster areas indoors and outside.

“Our entry is based directly on the Subterranean Challenge experience and the systems developed there,” Frew said.

Some teams in the competition will be relying on drones navigated by human operators, but Frew said CU Boulder’s project is aiming for an autonomous solution that allows humans to focus on more critical tasks.

Although numerous universities and private businesses are advancing autonomous robotic systems, Humbert said other organizations often focus on individual aspects of the technology. The students and faculty at CU Boulder are working on all avenues of the systems and for uses in environments that present extreme challenges.

“We’ve built world-class platforms that incorporate mapping, localization, planning, coordination – all the high level stuff, the autonomy, that’s all us,” Humbert said. “There are only a handful of teams across the world that can do that. It’s a huge advantage that CU Boulder has.”

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CU Boulder leading $5.9 million marine carbon dioxide removal monitoring effort

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 16:22:59 +0000

CU Boulder leading $5.9 million marine carbon dioxide removal monitoring effort Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/14/2023 - 09:22

Mechanical engineering's Greg Rieker is part of the team developing a system of optical underwater sensors utilizing broadband lasers and Raman spectroscopy to sense and measure dissolved carbon compounds, with the goal of advancing marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) techniques.

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Mechanical engineering entrepreneurs take home prizes in 2023 Lab Venture Challenge

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 15:44:19 +0000

Mechanical engineering entrepreneurs take home prizes in 2023 Lab Venture Challenge Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/13/2023 - 08:44

Five of the winning teams include students or faculty from the Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering. LVC grants are funded by the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade Advanced Industries Program, as well as Venture Partners at CU Boulder and the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund.

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CU Engineering earns top 20 ranking from U.S. News & World Report

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:54:53 +0000

CU Engineering earns top 20 ranking from U.S. News & World Report Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/25/2023 - 12:54

CU Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science held steady as a top 20 undergraduate engineering program in U.S.

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Bruns teams up with Rihanna’s tattoo artist to make smarter ink

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 15:08:32 +0000

Bruns teams up with Rihanna’s tattoo artist to make smarter ink Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/22/2023 - 09:08

Bruns started a company with tattoo-artist-to-the-stars Keith “Bang Bang” McCurdy, along with a former doctoral student. Early next year, they plan to release their first product, Magic Ink, to a group of handpicked artists.

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Innovations from faculty brought to market by new deep tech startup creator Embark

Anonymous — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 16:02:10 +0000

Innovations from faculty brought to market by new deep tech startup creator Embark Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/15/2023 - 10:02

Embark aims to connect business minds outside the university with breakthrough inventions emerging from CU Boulder’s research labs to bring them to market and unleash the full impact of CU Boulder’s research into the world.

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Revolutionary Company Point Designs Offers Innovative 3D-Printed Finger Prosthetics

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:32:27 +0000

Revolutionary Company Point Designs Offers Innovative 3D-Printed Finger Prosthetics Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/31/2023 - 11:32

Point Designs, a revolutionary company, is using cutting-edge technology to help the healthcare industry by providing finger prosthetics.

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Researchers are developing injectable ‘smart tattoos’ that could someday monitor your health

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:03:53 +0000

Researchers are developing injectable ‘smart tattoos’ that could someday monitor your health Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/31/2023 - 11:03

Researchers believe the next generation of tattoos will be about more than just markings – by helping keep tabs on our health.

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3D display could soon bring touch to the digital world

Anonymous — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 16:25:59 +0000

3D display could soon bring touch to the digital world Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/31/2023 - 10:25

A team of engineers from CU Boulder have created a one-of-a-kind, shape-shifting display made from a 10-by-10 grid of soft robotic “muscles.”

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Physicist-turned-engineer earns international recognition for quantum contributions

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 21:20:42 +0000

Physicist-turned-engineer earns international recognition for quantum contributions Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/13/2023 - 15:20

Michael Lock Swingen

While the first quantum revolution gave us new rules that govern physical reality at its smallest scales, the second quantum revolution will take these rules and use them to develop new technologies with everyday applications.

Research Professor Svenja Knappe, who is a physicist by training but calls the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering home, is an ideal person to be at the center of a growing cluster of quantum researchers who are ushering in the second quantum revolution on campus and abroad.

At CU Boulder, Knappe is part of a cohort of researchers at the CUbit Quantum Initiative and the Quantum Engineering Initiative, which are hubs that maximize an interdisciplinary approach to quantum research by bringing physicists, engineers and industry partners together in close collaboration.

“We are finding ways to take these amazing discoveries in quantum physics out of the research lab and into the hands of an end user,” Knappe said. “At these hubs, you have a physicist on one end, an end user on the other and an engineer in between.”

Knappe is one of those engineers in between, translating quantum technology into devices with real-world applications.

In her research, Knappe focuses on the development of a quantum sensor called an optically pumped magnetometer, or OPM, which contains a group of atoms that change their spin orientation in response to the electromagnetic fields around them. Knappe uses the OPM to measure the electromagnetic field in a human brain, or brainwaves.

Current methods for collecting maps of the brain’s activity, otherwise known as magnetoencephalograms (MEGs), require the sensors to be cryogenically cooled in liquid helium Dewars that are housed in room-sized, stationary machines. A patient must sit still for a long period of time for an MEG to map out the brain activity accurately, limiting the kind of activity that it can detect.

In contrast, OPMs are about the size of two sugar cubes. And they can be placed directly on the head.

“This is a huge step forward,” Knappe said. “You can start measuring under paradigms that weren’t possible before. You can start studying the brain while a human moves or during a social interaction.”

Knappe and her colleagues have developed a helmet that contains 128 of these sensors and is customizable for different sizes of the human head. Knappe founded the Boulder-based company FieldLine and has begun to bring these sensors to market. In the not-so-distant future, they could aid in the diagnosis and treating of a wide range of neurological ailments like epilepsy, autism and traumatic brain injuries.

Recently, Knappe was awarded the prestigious Carl Zeiss Humboldt Research Award. The award is given to researchers who have had a lasting effect on their discipline beyond their immediate research area, wish to collaborate with specialist colleagues in Germany and contribute to promoting diversity in the STEM disciplines.

“If you put more diverse people in leadership positions,” said Knappe, “it will create a critical mass that will have a self-sustaining effect.”

Knappe will be based at the University of Freiburg and the Fraunhofer IPM in her native Germany for half a year, where she will be again part of a wide network of quantum researchers who are ushering in the second quantum revolution.

“Quantum engineering is an exciting area right now,” Knappe said. “It’s a really fast-moving field.”

Research Professor Svenja Knappe is at the center of a growing cluster of quantum researchers who are ushering in the second quantum revolution on campus and abroad.

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