Prof. Emeritus Rodney Brooks speaks to Scientific American’s Mary Randolph about humanoid robots interacting with the real world. “When you see a performance of an [artificial intelligence] system or a robot on one thing,” says Brooks, “that fools us into thinking that it has the same general competence as a human. And that’s a mistake people make.”
Ben Armstrong, executive director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center, speaks to The New York Times reporter Jack Ewing about humanoid robots being deployed to work in car factories. “Humanoids are a million-dollar solution to a one-hundred-dollar problem,” says Armstrong. “The prospect of humanoids to change the game in automotive is quite small.”
Prof. Raphael Zufferey and his research group developed a winged robot that can swim underwater and fly through the air like a diving bird and “could one day be used to monitor and ultimately help protect the ocean,” reports Tom Page for CNN. “We’re really trying to understand better how birds do this,” says Zufferey. “The other reason we’re doing this is we’re hoping that this becomes (a) future tool for oceanography.”
Smithsonian Magazine reporter Margherita Bassi highlights a new robot developed by Prof. Raphael Zufferey that mimics aquatic birds’ ability to fly and swim underwater. “Our dream vision is for oceanographers, marine biologists and members of coastal communities to launch this robot from a boat or from shore, and it would fly close to the area of interest, such as an iceberg or a port facility or over a pod of whales,” Zufferey says. “It would dive into the water to take a measurement or collect a sample and fly back to deliver the data at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods.”
Researchers from MIT and Toyota Research Institute developed SceneSmith, a system that allows robots to practice everyday tasks and action plans in over 1,300 AI generated environments before entering a real home or workplace, writes Fox News’ Kurt Knutsson. “SceneSmith's ability to combine realistic design with usable physics gives the project its strongest advantage,” notes Knutsson.
Prof. Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL, joins Hakeem Oluseyi, host of GBH’s “Particles of Thought,” to discuss the lab’s work utilizing AI to enhance robots’ ability to move, reason, and act like humans. “The objective is to bring AI’s ability to understand text, images, and other online information to make physical machines intelligent, and if we achieve this then AI will not just reside in our computers—it will drive, it will walk it will fly, it will interact with us in the physical world.”
Graduate student Peter Zhi Xuan Li speaks to Tech Briefs’ Andrew Corselli about his team’s work developing a new chip that allows small, autonomous robots and other battery-limited devices to construct detailed 3D maps of their environments using a fraction of the power required by other systems. “Today, a robot uses separate, incompatible internal representations for different jobs: one for mapping, another for tracking its own motion, another for rendering what it sees, and every conversion adds memory footprint and energy,” says Li. “Our goal is a single shared representation.”
Prof. Raphael Zufferey joins Ania Lichtarowicz, host of Somewhere on Earth: The Global Tech Podcast, to discuss his new winged robot, inspired by aquatic birds, that can fly and dive underwater. “The first thing we looked at is the flapping frequency [of aquatic birds] – the amount of strokes per second that wings use when in flight and when swimming,” says Zufferey. “This was a very good starting point to know how to design these systems in robotics.”
Alumnus Vikas Enti ‘20, founder of Reframe Systems, speaks to Boston 25 about his company’s work aimed at lowering the time and costs of home building with their new system that they used to robotically fabricate a residential building in Somerville. “We went from starting foundation work to handing keys over to our customer in about 180 days,” says Enti. “It would typically take about 18 months to build a structure like this in cities like Somerville—it's almost three times faster. Our units also cost 20% lower than traditional construction costs.”
Prof. Raphael Zufferey and his colleagues developed a winged robot that can swim underwater and fly through the air, writes New York Times reporter K.R. Callaway. The robot was inspired by data from nearly 100 species of diving birds. “There was a very good chance that this [design] would have not been possible at all,” says Zufferey. “I took that risk because I believed that if birds could do it, with good engineering we might also be able to.”
An article by ZME Science reporter Jordan Strickler showcases FAAV, the flapping-wing aerial-aquatic vehicle, by Assistant Prof. Raphael Zufferey that can dive underwater and take flight like an aquatic bird in order to take underwater measurements and samples. “Our dream vision is for oceanographers, marine biologists, and members of coastal communities to launch this robot from a boat, or from shore, and it would fly close to the area of interest, such as an iceberg or a port facility, or over a pod of whales,” says Zufferey.
NPR’s Ari Daniel features a new, winged robot by Assistant Prof. Raphael Zufferey that can swim and fly like a diving bird. "Thinking of a wing that could operate in both [air and water] somewhat efficiently seems implausible," Zufferey recalls thinking. He plans to use the robot for a range of applications, including monitoring harmful algal blooms, fish stocks, and coastal erosion.
Writing for Forbes about efforts to improve air travel safety, Tanya Eves highlights the Air-Guardian system, an eye-tracking monitor for pilots developed by CSAIL researchers that assists when attention wavers. “In tests, it reduced flight risk and improved navigation success rates,” writes Eves. “It's a model for how the virtual co-pilot relationship should work: not replacement, but a seamless, intelligent partnership that understands when to act and when to stay silent.”
Writing for Forbes, contributor Ron Schmelzer highlights Describe Anything, Anywhere, at Any Moment (DAAAM), a new system developed by MIT researchers that could enable robots to capture details of objects they see while exploring an environment. In the future, the system could allow factory workers to send robotic assistants to find items. DAAAM “lets a robot build a detailed map of a space, attach descriptions to objects in that map, and answer plain English questions later,” Schmelzer explains.
Boston Globe reporter Robert Weisman spotlights how MIT is “working to drive artificial intelligence forward in sectors where the region is strongest, from biotechnology and robotics to defense and clean energy. It’s also trying to broaden entrepreneurship through a ‘dorm-to-startup’ push, creating a pipeline of support services — from hack-a-thons to venture funding — to help students to start companies between classes.”