MIT has announced that for the first time, its researchers have leveraged just motion and position data from the “sensorized” skin of a soft robotic arm to enable it to understand its configuration in 3D space. MIT notes that soft robots made from highly compliant materials—similar to those found in living organisms—are being championed as safer, and more adaptable, resilient, and bioinspired alternatives to traditional rigid robots. Giving these deformable robots autonomous control is considered a “monumental task,” though, because at any given moment, they can move in a virtually infinite number of directions, which makes it hard to train planning and control models that drive automation.

To achieve large-scale commercialization of autonomous vehicles, a new generation of high-precision 3D environment sensing solid-state LiDAR technology products will be required to fulfill the industry’s strict requirements.   Q&A with Dr. Leilei Shinohara, VP of R&D

The Naval Sea Systems Command has awarded advanced technology company Mikros Systems Corporation a $150,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract for topic number N193‑A02: “Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) and Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) Autonomous Behavior Development.” Through this contract, Mikros Systems will develop a Sensor In-stride Diagnostic, Correction, and Confidence Component (SID3C) that can be installed on current and future USV and UUV vehicle platforms. SID3C will monitor shipboard sensors and sensor data to detect degradation or failures and correct recoverable sensors. The component will also help autonomy systems appropriately filter unreliable sensor data.

MIT researchers have developed a system that can sense tiny changes in shadows on the ground to help autonomous systems determine if a moving object is coming around a corner. This work, funded by the Toyota Research Institute, could one day help keep self-driving cars from hitting other cars or pedestrians or help guide robots through hospital hallways as they deliver medicine or supplies. MIT researchers conducted experiments with an autonomous vehicle driving around a parking garage and a self-driving wheelchair moving through hallways. in a paper presented at the International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, they said the new system bested traditional lidar systems by more than half a second — not a lot, but enough to forestall accidents.