Robots Programmed to Work Like Ants Get Job Done

Robots Programmed to Work Like Ants Get Job Done Robots Programmed to Work Like Ants Get Job Done Robots Programmed to Work Like Ants Get Job DoneRobots have long borrowed from nature for locomotion. They fly like bees, run like cheetahs, and bounce like galagos. But as they advance and begin to work more closely together on certain tasks, robots will have to imitate natures industrious strategies as well, especially if we want them to perform as efficiently as possible.Only a certain number of robots work effectively in a narrow horizontal tunnel. Image Georgia TechFor instance, a swarm of robots expected to quickly dig a tunnel will need to know the ant method for staying out of each others way.Daniel Goldman, a professor of physics who runs the Complex Rheology and Biomechanics Lab(or Crab Lab) at the Georgia Institute of Technology noticed that even though ant tunnels are extremely narrow, they never get choked up with too many workers.We wanted to know what they do when theyre d igging, how they decide how to dig if theres no central leader, Goldman said.For You Racism Runs Deep,Even Against RobotsTo find out, the team gathered 30 fire ants, put dots of different colors on their abdomens, placed them in a container of wet glass particles, and watched them dig. The team presented its results in a recent issue of Science.The ants didnt play tag team, work in alternating groups, or take turns in any other fashion. In fact, their strategy was quite simple A handful of the ants (about 30 percent) did the work while the majority did nothing.Very few were doing any of the labor, Goldman said. Over 48 hours, with a group of thirty ants, half never came to the tunnel.When his team removed the five hardest working ants, five more stepped up to the plate to carry on the digging.The strategy of minority servitude served the ants so well that Goldman decided to try it on a group of robots.The robots, essentially oblong shells on wheels, resembled armadillos more than an ts. Researchers placed them in a narrow channel with plastic balls on one end that served as the soil. The robots would roll over to the balls with the intention of grabbing them, moving them, and releasing them with their gator-like jaws. Push switches on their shells would alert them to the presence of their fellow workers.Researchers programmed the bots to follow one of the three strategies for removing the balls eager, reversal, and lazy.Eager robots simply tried go to the dig site as much as possible without interference from their comrades, regardless of how many other robots were already there. That strategy generated a lot of besucherzahlen jams. When we applied the eager strategy, the robots would grind against each other and suffer a lot of breakage, Goldman said.Reversal bots would turn around and leave the site if they encountered other workers, but would soon return to try again. Lazy robots were largely inactive and would only head to the site to dig occasionally.When reversal-minded robots approached the balls and found another robot already at work they would turn around. This proved a relatively efficient scheme with no grid lock, but the work progressed slowly. The lazy, ant-imitating robots, however, proved to be the fastest at completing the task.That strategy could be essential for tomorrows hordes of rescue bots. Future swarms of robots that are moving through a complex environment after a natural disaster, or when a building has collapsed, will be getting in each others way, Goldman said. This is a story about how to work with uncertainty and unpredictability.In theory, robots that talk with each other could take turns or replace robots that lose power or wear out. But then you have to know what everyone else is doing, Goldman said. This would require the technology and the programming for higher levels of communication. (As it happens, no one knows how ants chose which 30 percent does the work.) But having lazy, autonomous robots, could keep things lean and efficient.Michael Abrams is an independent writer. Read More Submersible Robot Harpoons Reef-Damaging Lionfish Sensors Allow Robots to Feel Sensation Robots Use Environmental Clues to Build Structures For Further Discussion Over 48 hours, with a group of thirty ants, half never came to the tunnel.Prof. Daniel Goldman, Georgia Tech

3D Printing Glass on Demand

3D Printing Glass on Demand 3D Printing Glass on Demand 3D Printing Glass on DemandWhether its coupons, a midterm essay, or a flyer for a lost cat, paper and toner cover the vast majority of our 2D needs. But in the world of objects, different applications demand different materials. The plastic that feeds the majority of our 3D printers is bedrngnis going help us produce a kitchen knife or a car bumper, to say notlagehing of a window or a camera lens.Now researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have created a method for printing in that later category, glass.Anyone who has seen a glassblower at work might think that printing with glass would be fairly simple. Just melt the stuff to liquid form and build layer by layer as you would with any material. But to melt glass you need temperatures in the thousands, which means that whatever printer you tried to put it through would melt as well.Our idea was Why not try to make a process that gives the structure at room temperatur e? says Prof. Bastian Rapp, a polymer chemist at the institute. To keep the printing as simple as it would be with a polymer, Rapp and his colleagues kept the polymer. In essence they filled a polymer with high degrees of glass ground into a nano-powder.Liquid Glass can be structured by room-temperature replication using soft molds. Image NeptunLabIf you use classical 3D printing, to give this composite form, you have a 3D definable structure, a piece of plastic with a lot of glass particles, says Rapp. Then you put it in the oven and melt away the plastics. In the oven the glass particles are sintered, requiring a much lower temperature than if they were brought to their melting point.Thanks to the use of the polymer, it hardly matters what printer is used, and Rapp is quick to point out that they did not invent a new 3D printer. They also did not invent the idea of mixing glass particles with a polymer. But previous composites could only produce a milky white glass.The fact that p olymers tend to be hydrophobic and glass particles hydrophilic was to blame for the less-than-transparent product. So Rapp needed to either make a more hydrophilic polymer or a more hydrophobic glass particle. The latter was the simpler challenge. Its basically like pouring sugar into a hot glass of water or milk. If the milk is sufficiently hot, you can dissolve a lot of sugar, but if the milk is cold its very harda substantial amount of sugar will fall to the bottom.Rapps glass is as clear and pure as that produced by any other industry. So the applications run to the infinite. The first thing you think of is optics, says Rapp. All kinds of gadgets will soon be able to have high-grade lenses. Glass lenses tend to be more expensive than their plastic brethren thanks to the fact that they have to be ground by hand. That will no longer be the case. And they could even be printed with bulletproof glass.Architects are sure to love the new method. The windows in most buildings are flat, not because of some stylistic fashion, but because of the cost of producing and shipping curves. Now wavy, curvy glass will be able to be made on site for minimal cost. Corners will become obsolete. Cars could have panoramic tops. And the vases created by our sculptors can be more wondrous and accessible than ever before.You will have high-quality, scratch-resistant, maybe even bulletproof glass to protect against breakage, says Rapp. All these things have not been addressed in the past. It was just not feasible.Michael Abrams is an independent writer. For Further DiscussionYou will have high-quality, scratch-resistant, maybe even bulletproof glass to protect against breakage. All these things have not been addressed in the past. It was just not feasible.Prof. Bastian Rapp, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

These are the best and worst airports of 2018

These are the best and worst airports of 2018These are the best and worst airports of 2018We already know airports are disgusting places full of germs just waiting to get us sick, but there are definitely some airports and airlines that are better than others. Like there are some airports where you just regret leaving your house at all and there are others where you actually had a relatively pleasant time. How Tom Hanks ever lived in one for a whole movie, well never know.AirHelp, a company thatadvocates on behalf of air travelersfor compensation in cases of delays or cancelations, put together a ranked list of the 141 best and worst airports in the world. The rankings were based on on-time performance, quality of service, and online consumer opinions. So where do people just sit back and enjoy their airport experience and where do people try to crawl into a eckball and die?The 10 best airports of 20181. Hamad International Airport, Doha (DOH)2. Athens International Airport, Athens(A TH)3. Tokyo Haneda International Airport, Tokyo (HND)4. Cologne Bonn Airport, Cologne, Germany (CGN)5. Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore (SIN)6. Nagoya Chubu Centrair Airport, Nagoya, Japan (NGO)7. Viracopos International Airport, Campinas, Brazil (VCP)8. Amman Queen Alia Airport, Amman, Jordan (AMM)9. Guararapes-Gilberto Freyre International Airport, Recife, Brazil (REC)10. Quito International Airport, Quito, Ecuador (UIO)Sadly no U.S. based airports made the cut so that is a bummer but not too surprising.The only U.S. airport that it made it anywhere near the top 10 isSeattle-Tacoma in 33rd place.Ashley Raiteri, an industry adviser for AirHelp, told Bloomberg Different airports deal with different problems, noting that Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta has had many power outages, and airports in the Scandinavian bereich are often prone to bad weather.In some places, the local culture can leave people feeling cold, he added.On the plus side, no U.S. airports made the bottom 10 so thats somewhat uplifting.The 10 worst airports of 2018132. Eindhoven Airport, Eindhoven,Netherlands (EIN)133. Bordeaux Merignac, Bordeaux, France (BOD)134. Edinburgh Airport, Edinburgh (EDI)135. Boryspil International Airport, Kiev, Ukraine (KBP)136. Manchester Airport, Manchester, United Kingdom (MAN)137. Stockholm Bromma Airport, Stockholm (BMA)138. Paris Orly, Paris (ORY)139. LyonSaint-Exupry Airport, Lyon, France (LYS)140. London Stansted Airport, London (STN)141. Kuwait International Airport, Farwaniya, Kuwait (KWI)