Lifeboat Foundation

FedEx is the latest company to join the delivery robot craze.

The company said Wednesday it will test a six-wheeled, autonomous robot called the SameDay Bot in Memphis, Tenn. this summer and plans to expand to more cities.

It’s partnering with major brands, including Walmart, Target, Pizza Hut and AutoZone, to understand how delivery robots could help other businesses.

Continue reading “FedEx turns to Segway inventor to build delivery robot” »

A team of researchers at The University of Cambridge has recently introduced a unique experimental testbed that could be used for experiments in cooperative driving. This testbed, presented in a paper pre-published on arXiv, consists of 16 miniature Ackermann-steering vehicles called Cambridge Minicars.

“Using true-scale facilities for vehicle testbeds is expensive and requires a vast amount of space,” Amanda Prorok. “Our main objective was to build a low-cost, multi-vehicle experimental setup that is easy to maintain and that is easy to use to prototype new autonomous driving algorithms. In particular, we were interested in testing and tangibly demonstrating the benefits of cooperative driving on multi-lane road topographies.”

Continue reading “Researchers develop a fleet of 16 miniature cars for cooperative driving experiments” »

Boeing has revealed its latest aircraft, an autonomous jet aircraft capable of flying combat missions, as well as other roles.

Without humans to cause accidents, 90% of risk is removed. Insurers are scrambling to prepare.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants to send its first passengers to space as soon as this year. Bezos spoke during a private event at the Yale Club in New York City, Business Insider reports.

“This year. This is the first time I’ve ever been saying, ”this year.” For a few years, I’ve been saying, ”next year,” Bezos told Jeff Foust, senior staff writer at Space News, during the event.

The billionaire’s private space tourism company Blue Origins has been making some big strides towards that goal in recent years. Its flagship suborbital vehicle New Shepard reached the so-called Kármán line (62 miles or 100 km), widely agreed to be the edge of outer space, for the first time during a test flight in 2015.

“One way or another, this technology is coming. These cars are already being tested in cities,” Richard Ezike, the lead author of the study, said in an organization-published press release. “If we do not plan and set out thoughtful policies, driverless cars could exacerbate the challenges we see in transportation today — especially for underserved communities.”

Take the Bus

The researchers argue that cities that introduce autonomous vehicles should also invest in public transit, to make sure that those who have longer commutes and would get stuck in the newly-introduced congestion can still find and make it to their jobs.

Phinergy is a leading developer of breakthrough, absolutely zero emission, high energy density systems based on metal air energy technologies, mainly Aluminum-Air and Zinc-Air. Unlike conventional batteries that carry oxygen, these batteries freely breathe oxygen from the ambient air to release the energy contained in metals.

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Category: Innovation

Continue reading “Say Goodbye to Arab Oil and Hello to Israel’s Car That Runs on Air and Water” »

An ice-penetrating robotic system to transport an exploration AUV.

TheTeredo IceShuttle is a robotic probe which is capable to transport a payload through an ice-shield towards an environment located beneath the ice. The System is developed in context of the project Europa-Explore r. For that project, a set of robots are developed to model the exploration of the hypothesized ocean on Jupiters icy moon Europa by an analog mission on earth. Within the scenario the IceShuttle transports an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) as its payload. (image below)

This 3D-printed concept wheel by tyre manufacturer Goodyear uses living moss to absorb moisture from the road, before converting it into oxygen through photosynthesis.

The Oxygene tyre was revealed at this year’s Geneva Motor Show that officially kicked off yesterday, 8 March 2018.

The concept is a response to research conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that revealed more than 80 per cent of people who live in urban areas are exposed to air quality levels deemed to be unsafe.

Continue reading “Goodyear’s ‘living’ car tyre converts carbon dioxide into oxygen” »