Robotics

The development of the first ever FSWBot, Friction Stir Welding Robotic Crawler for internal repair and refurbishment of pipelines, is designed to transform the way industries deal with pipeline issues.

Italy-based company Predict Life Care created Aphel, a humanoid robot designed to assist patients and healthcare professionals in hospital.

IDTechEx spoke to Brainlab about Loop-X, a robotic imaging platform for intra-operative cone beam CT scanning. It generates 2D and 3D images of the area of interest. Loop-X is designed to facilitate surgical procedures for scoliosis, trauma and screw implantation because it enables surgeons to perform imaging during surgery without having to transfer the patient to radiology.

IDTechEx interviewed AmCad BioMed, a Taiwan-based company that developed a robotic platform for the rapid detection of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). OSA is vastly undiagnosed, with reports saying up to 85% of people with the condition are not aware they have it.

IDTechEx interviewed French company Wandercraft. Its product, Atalante, is a robotic rehabilitation exoskeleton for stroke victims and other people who have lost the ability to walk.

Brainlab was exhibiting Brainlab Curve, a needle guidance system for spinal interventions such as screw implantation. Pre-operative computed tomography (CT) scans are conducted to obtain images of the patient's spine. During surgery, the patient wears markers on their back to enable the system to position the CT images in relation to the rest of the patient's body.

Founded in 2014, ExoAtlet is a Russian company engaged in the development, production and commercialisation of exoskeletons. Its headquarters recently moved from Moscow to Luxemburg in order to pursue the European market more aggressively.

Medrobotics was demonstrating its Flex Robotic System, a surgical robot that navigates through complex anatomy with HD 3D visualisation capabilities.

Zeiss' Kinevo 900 was on display at Arab Health 2020. The platform enables surgical microscopy for neurosurgery by providing a detailed view of the surgical site.

At Arab Health 2020, Storz was demonstrating a protype for a new project regarding the robotic manipulation of Storz endoscopes during surgery.

The Kalamazoo, Michigan-based medical technology company Stryker had its Mako Robotic-Arm Assisted Surgery system on show at Arab Health 2020. Its three core functions help achieve functional implant positioning for knee and hip surgery.

AKTORmed {#ndash} based in Barbing, Germany {#ndash} was exhibiting SoloAssist II, a robotic laparoscope holder. It is the second generation of SoloAssist, which first launched in 2007.

EarthSense first robot—TerraSentia—improves the quantity, accuracy, cost and speed of in-field plant trait data collection, especially for under-canopy traits that cannot be obtained by other technologies.

In engineering and science, the race for faster is well known. It spans from 5G streaming videos in seconds to Hyperloop and space tourism. However, if we are to have the envisaged tens of billions of Internet of Things nodes deployed, they must cost under two cents each and work on a whisper of electricity. No. We must go even further in redefining the problem.

Masterclasses are the ideal way to train staff on emerging technologies. Bracketing the IDTechEx show in Berlin, the IDTechEx masterclasses on 12th and 15th May 2020 will contain the latest insights and analysis on their chosen topics.

Snakes live in diverse environments ranging from unbearably hot deserts to lush tropical forests. But regardless of their habitat, they are able to slither up trees, rocks, and shrubbery with ease. By studying how the creatures move, a team of engineers have created a snake robot that can nimbly and stably climb large steps.

Significance of Alphabet Exiting Giant Drones Including Airborne Wind Energy. Alphabet/ Google and Facebook exiting large drones does not mean such aircraft are a failure. In Alphabet, a sister company of Google, was acquisition Makani in California and later Hawaii trialling a huge drone with eight propeller-generators and a 70 meter wingspan.

For the first time researchers have enabled a soft robotic arm to understand its configuration in 3D space, by leveraging only motion and position data from its own "sensorized" skin.

Volocopter and Grab announced that they will conduct a joint feasibility study on urban air mobility as part of a Memorandum of Understanding to explore the prospect of urban air mobility solutions in the region's megacities.

Engineers have made a jump in using machine learning to teach robots to perform complex tasks, a framework that could be applied to a host of tasks, like identifying cancerous spots on mammograms or better understanding spoken commands to play music. But first, as a proof of concept—they've learned how to prepare the perfect hot dog.