Robotics World

John Deere Readies Fully Autonomous Tractor for Large-Scale Production

John Deere has announced a fully autonomous tractor that is ready for large-scale production. The new system combines Deere’s 8R Tractor, TruSet-enabled chisel plow, GPS guidance system and other advanced technologies. The tractor, expected to be available to farmers later this year, has six pairs of stereo cameras, enabling 360-degree obstacle detection and the calculation of distance. Images captured by the tractor’s camera are sent through a deep neural network, which classifies each pixel in approximately 100 milliseconds, determining if the machine continues to move or stops, depending on whether an obstacle is detected. Deere said the tractor also continuously checks its position relative to a geofence, ensuring that it operates where it is supposed to, with accuracy within less than an inch.

Intel’s Mobileye division has announced the EyeQ Ultra, a system-on-chip (SoC) designed for autonomous driving applications. Unveiled during CES 2022, the EyeQ Ultra maximizes effectiveness and efficiency at only 176 TOPS, which the company said makes it the industry’s leanest autonomous vehicle (AV) chip. The first silicon for the EyeQ Ultra SoC is expected at the end of 2023, with full automotive-grade production in 2025. Mobileye said it designed the EyeQ Ultra after having first built an AV to understand exactly what a self-driving vehicle needs to operate at a very high meantime between failures. This approach allowed the company to find an optimum balance of performance across different accelerators and general-purpose processors in an extremely efficient power-performance envelope.

Labrador Systems, which is developing a new generation of assistive robots to help individuals live more independently, has announced the Labrador Retriever, a personal robot that provides practical, physical assistance with everyday activities in the home. The mobile robot provides users with “an extra pair of hands” to help move large loads from place to place, as well as bring critical items within reach. The company also announced raising an additional $3.1 million in seed funding, led by Amazon’s Alexa Fund and iRobot Ventures. The company said it plans to have the Retriever in full production by the second half of 2023, with beta units available earlier. The company opened early reservations for the Retriever on its website.

UBTECH Robotics has announced the market availability for the newest addition to its portfolio of robots at CES 2022. The ADIBOT-A autonomous UV-C Disinfection Robot combines disinfection technologies with the latest hardware and artificial intelligence software to provide solutions for creating cleaner and safer spaces, the company said. ADIBOT-A is the evolution of the company’s launch into the UV-C disinfection robot space – in 2021 the company launched a stationary version of the robot. ADIBOT-A can be programmed and mapped with UBTECH’s proprietary U-SLAM software to independently navigate one or multiple floor plans to disinfect against harmful pathogens, bacteria and viruses, including COVID-19.

Munich, Germany-based Blickfeld, a startup developing high performance and mass-producible lidar sensing technology, has announced the launch of its perception software, Percept, along with a new all-in-one smart lidar system, the Qb2. The company said it plans to demonstrate the new products at this week’s CES 2022 event in Las Vegas. Designed for Blickfeld’s Cube sensor range, the Percept software includes features such as movement-based detection and tracking of objects, object classification and counting, zone occupancy detection, and zone entry detection with integrated alarm generation. The company said Percept is suitable for several applications, including crowd analytics, traffic management, smart industry, and security offerings.

DroneSense, which develops operational and management platforms for unmanned aircraft systems, has announced its new Magic Video Link feature, which provides easier sharing of critical, real-time information regarding drone operations. The technology lets drone operators and managers provide information sharing to users who do not have DroneSense accounts. This can include everyone involved in emergency response situations, from first responders on-site to command center experts.When enabled in the administrative settings of the DroneSense web app, the Magic Video Link generates a link or QR code to activate a mission in DroneSense OpsHub, allowing access to all video feeds within a mission without requiring a DroneSense account.

China’s YouiBot Raises $47.1M for Mobile Robot Expansion
Shenzhen, China-based YouiBot, which develops industrial mobile robots, has announced it completed two rounds of Series B financing, with an accumulated amount exceeding $47.1 million (RMB 300M). The company said it will focus on precision electronic manufacturing and energy by means of its core strengths in scenarios, algorithms, software/hardware and large-scale development, as well as expanding its scenario experience into new markets and quicken the pace of overseas market expansion.
Voyant Photonics Raises $15.4M to Expand Chip-Based Lidar
Voyant Photonics, which fabricates optical systems optimized for FMCW lidar using low-cost semiconductor chips, has announced it raised $15.4 million in a Series A funding round, led by UP.Partners with participation of earlier investors LDV Capital and Contour Ventures. The company’s lidar system, which contains thousands of optical components fabricated on a single semiconductor chip. Lets customers integrate an effective and exponentially more scalable lidar system than possible to date. Lidar is enabling 3D vision across many industries, including transportation, robotics, industrial automation, and consumer electronics. Voyant said developer kits are now available for select customers on its waiting list.
Sweden’s Everdrone Says Drone Saved Life of Cardiac Arrest Patient
Everdrone AB, a Swedish autonomous drone and service provider, has announced that its drone played a crucial part in saving a life during a sudden cardiac arrest. The incident took place in Trollhättan, Sweden, when an Everdone autonomous drone delivered a defibrillator to help save the life of a 71-year-old man. The company said its Emergency Medical Aerial Delivery service (EMADE) was put to the test during the morning of Dec. 9, 2021. The man was shoveling snow in his driveway when he suffered an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). The company said thanks to the combination of an immediate emergency call, the quick actions of Dr. Mustafa Ali, and the delivery of an Automated External Defibrillator (AED), lifesaving measures could be initiated before the arrival of the ambulance. Everdrone said the time from the alarm until the AED was safely delivered at the doorstep of the incident address was just over three minutes. After initial treatment, the patient was rushed to a hospital, and is today fully recovered, Everdrone said.
Unitree Technology Adds Robot Arm to Qudruped Design
China’s Unitree Technology has announced the launch of its robotic arm Z1, which can be installed on the head of a quadruped robot. At a company event, Unitree showed a video in which the robot can smoothly complete actions such as pick up objects, open and close doors, pour wine and automatically fasten screws. The company said the robot arm being added to the quadruped robot opens up different application requirements for industrial and consumer applications.