Sony Corporation and NTT DOCOMO Inc. have announced that they will test Sony's conceptual driverless vehicle, the New Concept Cart SC-1, which utilizes 5G mobile technologies for a number of different remotely controlled functions.
The test will be conducted using the trial network in DOCOMO 5G Open Lab GUAM, providing DOCOMO-constructed test facilities and an outdoor verification environment, which will be operated by DOCOMO PACIFIC Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of DOCOMO.
Technology
Technology
FarmWise, Roush collaborating to develop autonomous vegetable weeders
FarmWise, a developer of adaptive robots for agriculture, has announced a collaboration with Roush, a full-service product development supplier, to develop and test autonomous vegetable weeders in Michigan.
As part of the initial contract between the two, FarmWise and Roush will develop a dozen prototypes of the self-driving robots this year, with plans to scale to additional units in 2020.
“These are many of the key ingredients we need to manufacture and test our machines,” says Thomas Palomares, co-founder and chief technology officer of FarmWise.
University of Nebraska and partners prepping for UAS-based investigation of severe storms
A UAS-based investigation of severe storms is set to launch in a few weeks.
Known as Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS of Supercells (TORUS), the project will be a collaboration between the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and three partner institutions, including Texas Tech University, the University of Colorado Boulder, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Severe Storms Laboratory.
The project will start on May 15, and fieldwork for the project will continue until June 16, covering a 367,000-square-mile area of the Great Plains from North Dakota to Texas, Iowa to Wyoming and Colorado.
UPS, Matternet delivering medical samples in North Carolina using drones
UPS has announced a partnership with Matternet to use drones to deliver medical samples in North Carolina, marking the “first FAA sanctioned use of a drone for routine revenue flights involving the transport of a product under a contractual delivery agreement,” the companies say.
From Unmanned Systems Magazine: Simulations spur self-driving cars
Self-driving cars often grab headlines because of their on-road activity, such as when Alphabet’s Waymo recently launched its Waymo One taxi service in the Phoenix area, or when a Volvo serving as an Uber test vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, last year. But much of the effort to turn driverless cars into reality takes place out of public view, in the virtual world.
RE2 Robotics uses its RADR robotic applique kit to preform robotic disaster cleanup in Florida
RE2 Robotics has announced that a commercially available telehandler equipped with its Rapid Airfield Damage Recovery (RADR) robotic applique kit performed teleoperated disaster clean-up at the Air Force Civil Engineering Center (AFCEC) in Florida.
Located at Tyndall Air Force Base, AFCEC was badly damaged during Hurricane Michael in October 2018.
“Tyndall Air Force Base sustained catastrophic damage during Hurricane Michael,” says Jorgen Pedersen, president and CEO of RE2 Robotics.
“When we were asked to use the Air Force-funded RADR robotic retrofit kit technology to assist with the clean-up efforts, we deployed our team without hesitation.”
L3 Technologies and Sonardyne equip AUVs with 6G capability
L3 Technologies has announced that its commercial autonomous vessel product range will be equipped with 6G capability, thanks to a collaboration with Sonardyne International Ltd.
L3 says that its C-Stat 2 and C-Cat 3 autonomous vessels will be equipped with Sonardyne’s 6G range of Ranger 2 Ultra-Short BaseLine (USBL) tracking and communications systems.
According to L3, these distinctive platforms and sensor combinations have shown themselves capable of delivering optimized options for data gathering and subsea positioning tasks during inshore and offshore operational scenarios.
PrecisionHawk uses drone technology to hunt for buried treasure in the Philippines
Buried treasure is often the stuff of legend, but that didn’t stop PrecisionHawk from recently traveling more than 7,000 miles to hunt for buried treasure in the Philippines left by the Japanese during World War II.
Working alongside the History Channel on a show called Lost Gold of World War II, a production company called Ample Entertainment approached PrecisionHawk in June 2018 because it needed a partner that could use lidar-equipped drones to penetrate the deep vegetation in order to map ancient trade paths across more than 70 acres of rainforest in the Philippines.
Kraken Robotic Systems to deliver ThunderFish 300 AUV to Canadian government
The government of Canada has awarded Kraken Robotic Systems Inc. a $1 million contract for the company’s ThunderFish 300 autonomous underwater vehicle.
Kraken’s ThunderFish 300 AUV, which was initially pre-qualified in April 2018 under the Canadian government’s Build in Canada Innovation Program, is expected to be delivered to Kraken's test partner, Defense Research and Development Canada, in Halifax in the second quarter of 2019.
Elizabeth City State University and Sinclair partner to enhance UAS training and research
Elizabeth City State University (ECSU) and the Sinclair College National UAS Training and Certification Center have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance training and applied research for UAS.
As part of their Memorandum of Understanding, ECSU and Sinclair will host a joint exercise in June, bringing together their campuses through the use of Simlat’s UAS training software housed within both institutions, as well as the Live, Virtual, Constructive (LVC) capabilities that Simlat and Sinclair have developed over the past few years, to help enable the integration of participants in Ohio and North Carolina.
