With 2018 on the horizon, and so much development and innovation in Robotics, keeping up with the latest news can be overwhelming. Even harder is knowing where the best sites are for informed coverage on Robotics. Thankfully, many excellent resources for Robotics exist within IEEE and online, from industry websites to reference tools and communities, all designed to make the task of understanding the complex and diverse world of Robotics just a little bit easier and more effective.
We’ve scoured the Internet to share some of the best of these resources, and we hope you’ll find lots of valuable content and tools through these incredibly useful links on Robotics that you are encouraged to add to your reading list and which will enhance the content of this month’s E-Magazine. These sites are wholly devoted to covering the news, trends and issues within the robotics community. Some of them only look at specific aspects of robotics, such as investment or business, but most of them cover a wide range of robotic news stories from industry to the latest research projects, conferences, and standards. Enjoy!
About IEEE
This video provides a brief overview of the broad mission of the IEEE. IEEE and its members inspire a global community to innovate for a better tomorrow.
IEEE develops standards that nurture and advance global technologies and innovations. IEEE members are developing a technology that can help give people all over the world access to modern energy.
Standards
With an increase in artificial intelligence technology being integrated into our world, the IEEE Standards Association has created three new projects that focus on the well being of humans in the creation of autonomous and intelligent technologies.
The mandate to provide technologists with a pragmatic guide to deal with the pressing ethical considerations of AI/AS.
What responsibilities do we have for the technologies we create?
What does it mean to Advance Technology for Humanity?
Engineers, technologists and other project stakeholders need a methodology for identifying, analyzing and reconciling ethical concerns of end users at the beginning of systems and software life cycles.
A core ontology that specifies the main, most general concepts, relations, and axioms of robotics and automation (R&A) is defined in this standard.
The purpose of the standard is to provide a robot task ontology for knowledge representation and reasoning in robotics and automation.
The purpose of the standard is to extend the CORA ontology to represent more specific concepts and axioms that are commonly used in Autonomous Robotics.
Don Wright, President of both the IEEE Standards Association and Standards Strategies LLC, speaks about enabling communications through standards. These standards for industry cover power and energy, computation, healthcare, Internet and even Artificial Intelligence.
Articles
Embodied Intelligence wants to use AI and VR to teach robots new skills, like how to manipulate wires, much faster.
TEGA, a social robot built to teach children
Billed as a “Replacement for Man,” the Hughes Mobot combined strength with a delicate touch
Reports on the scope, goals, and initiatives of the IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems.
The next big goal in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is to make them fully autonomous
Aside from research by NASA, who is investigating the feasibility of harnessing energy from antimatter reactions, powering a robot on the scale of science fictional characters like the Iron Giant or Voltron is nearly impossible.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have partnered with the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) trade group to set standards for industrial robotics.
In “Slaughterbots,” a film created by a group of academics concerned about lethal autonomous weapons, swarms of explosive-carrying microdrones are used to kill thousands of people.
With the increase in occurrences of natural disasters like hurricanes, tornados and fires, there is a real need for technology that can help with relief efforts.
While robots are being taught all sorts of crazy skills to help humans, graduate students at the University at Antwerp in Belgium have designed a robotic arm that can perform sign language.
Tiny humans aren’t the only ones entering a classroom for the first time in the fall.
In conventional industrial automation, robots are programmed to perform very specific tasks, such as on an automobile assembly line. More recently, machine learning has emerged to help robots and self-driving cars to react more flexibly to their environments.
Cobots are now so integrated into business that it’s something of a cliche to compare this new generation of automation to the clumsy, cage-bound robotics common two decades ago.
Robotics businesses shouldn’t be deterred by the hype and consumer focus, though; some robotics and AI trends emerging here will apply across industries in the coming year.
Silicon Valley veterans are ditching fast-track careers and going all-in with their time and money as they reimagine education for their children.
Ocado’s warehouse technology would probably make Jeff Bezos green with envy.
Call for Papers
From Intelligent Control to Smart Management of Cyber-Physical-Social Systems: A Celebration of 70th Anniversary of Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener
IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems
Special issue on: “Introspective Methods for Reliable Autonomy”
Submission deadline: 31 January 2018
Robotics is the ultimate interdisciplinary field, and Ubiquitous Robots invites contributions from the entire foundational spectrum—design, perception, manipulation, interfaces, mobility, intelligence—and application domains—industrial, social, transportation, medical, rehabilitation, healthcare, agriculture, construction, security, disaster, and other applications.
Competitions
Starting in 2004, World Robot Olympiad has developed to a truly global competition. WRO tournaments are organized in more than 60 countries and each season new countries join the movement. The WRO international final in November is hosted by a different country each year.
Robothon is a robotics challenge sponsored by MINDS-I in the Seattle area. Its events include RoboMagellan, Line Following, Line Maze, Minisumo, and 3kg Sumo. Robothon is a national event that showcases the capabilities and technological developments in robotics from the amateur robotics community.
Innovation First International (IFI) founded the VEX VRC and VEX-IQ competitions for students at all levels. These programs are implemented largely in the education market. Educators and schools order robots and robotics products from VEX.
FIRA is most for above BA/BS level students and companies to develop their research in robotic field though robot soccer.
IROC is for students from under 8 to undergraduate students. It has been one of most popular robot competition for a decade.
Engineering is not just about taking the same parts as someone else and changing how they are put together. Engineering is about finding the materials and equipment that is best for the problem you are given.
Communities & Blogs
As the name suggests, Robohub is a hub for all things robotics. Blogs are posted several times a day. For anyone interested in reading about robotics from knowledgeable people within the industry, this is definitely a site to check out.
The Robotics Industries Association posts almost every day. They have a news stream, which releases the latest from the robotics industry, and an Industry Insights stream, where they take a considered look at some of the issues behind robotics.
News stories every week about robotics with the majority of coverage about collaborative robots and the technical issues surrounding robotics.
The IEEE Spectrum is the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The online Automaton blog also publishes frequent news stories relating to robotics and automation.
Conferences
Towards a Robotic Society| October, 1-5, 2018, Madrid, Spain
2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
The second IEEE International Conference on Robotic Computing (IRC 2018)
Interactive Content
The next generation of children — those born to Millennials — will have artificial intelligence (AI) technologies infiltrate nearly every aspect of their lives, from infancy to their golden years. Follow the IEEE AI timeline below to see how Generation AI will be impacted by technology in each stage of life, as they grow up and balance emotional independence with technological interdependence.
Interactive map of world robotics
Interactively explore AI in Hollywood movies
Learning Opportunities
Understand the role ethics plays in standards development and application as well as what questions to ask when deciding whether or not a decision is ethical.
This course covers the general area of Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). Initially the problems of localization, mapping, and SLAM are introduced from a methodological point of view.
Tutorial designed to introduce engineers who work in the fields of robotics and automation to ethical considerations and codes of ethics.
The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems released the first version of its document, Ethically Aligned Design (EAD) on 13 December 2016.
Podcasts
Is artificial intelligence likely to make humans extinct, or are we smart enough to control it?
What happens when Watson learns a million databases? RPI students and faculty hope to find out
Videos
If robots are going to drive our cars and play with our kids, we’ll need to teach them right from wrong
Surgical Robotics presentation 2014 IEEE/RSJ International Conference
Robotics presentation at IROS Conference 2014
Robotics presentation at IROS Conference 2014
Robotics presentation at IROS Conference 2014
Marine and space robotics presentation at IROS Conference 2014
From manufacturing and entertainment to driving, robotics is one of the most exciting and evolving fields of technology. While engineers have historically programmed robots to complete specific tasks, robots are now being taught to learn on their own.
Sophia, the humanoid robot, has been granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia.
Websites
The Robotics Industries Association releases the latest from the robotics industry, and an
, where they take a considered look at some of the issues behind robotics.
Presents quick roundups of the latest headlines in robotics and occasional posts, RoboGlobal covers robotics from an investment perspective. Primarily, the site tracks trends in robotics stocks, while their blog posts look at overall trends in robotics.
The Largest, most comprehensive online robotics news and information resource, which regularly posts about all aspects of the business of robotics.
Written by roboticist, Frank Tobe, cofounder of Robo-Stox, a tracking index for the robotics industry. Aims to follow the business of robotics and regularly reports on developments from all areas of the robotics industry.
The world’s largest nonprofit organization devoted exclusively to advancing the unmanned systems and robotics community.