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Robot Ants Invade Factories to Boost Efficiency
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2012-03-07 15:50:55, 조회 : 2,519 |
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Robot Ants Invade Factories to Boost Efficiency
Robotic vehicles at the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML, in Dortmund, Germany, can mimic the thinking of ants, almost. Multishuttle Moves®, as the machines are known, use processors modeled after ants’ brains and body systems to independently navigate a warehouse, identify items to pick up, and coordinate with each other to carry each item to its designated picking station.
Each vehicle knows what to carry and where to carry it, based on installed software that crunches “ant algorithms,“ which emulate the actual behavior of ants searching for food. The vehicles’ software programs notify them when an order comes in, and then each vehicle interacts with the others through W-LAN to determine which vehicle will take on which task and where. The fleet increases or decreases its activity as the demands fluctuate throughout the workday.
Their on-board navigation systems also enable each vehicle to move freely without crashing into any objects or, for that matter, other vehicles. And via their scanners for location, acceleration, and distance, the vehicles independently calculate the shortest routes to any destination.
Fraunhofer’s researchers, who built a fleet of 50 of these robots in partnership with robotics firm Dematic, said that this suite of capabilities makes them far more efficient and economical than traditional, human-driven vehicles. Following further testing and development, the researchers said, autonomous vehicles like them could be clearing inventory in warehouses throughout Germany and beyond.
Source: Fraunhofer
Dispatch from the Big Data Frontier
More than 2,500 data scientists, business executives, and number crunchers gathered in Santa Clara, California, last week for the O’Reilly Strata conference. Speakers included Jonathan Bruner of Forbes, Ed Kohlwey of Booz Allen Hamilton, Coco Krumme of the MIT Media Lab, and Hal Varian, chief economist of Google, among many others. A full brief is available on THE FUTURIST magazine blog. Some key highlights and insights include:
Query volume on the term “Sign up for unemployment“ can predict future unemployment claims with a high degree of accuracy one week before official numbers are released from the U.S. government, according to Google’s Hal Varian.
David Vogel and his “Market Makers“ team won the second milestone competition (as well as the first funding round last fall) in Dr. Richard Merkin’s Heritage Health Prize. The competition “challenges participants to train algorithms to predict the likelihood of a patient being hospitalized in the next year, based on that patient’s medical records.“
Coupon and rebate search queries are an excellent predictor of weak economic times ahead, a Google study found.
Jonathan Gosier’s MetaLayer site (in private beta) won the start-up showcase. MetaLayer aims to help people with little training create interesting visualizations (charts and graphs) from large public data sets such as Twitter trends.
“The exabyte age will bring with it the twin challenges of information overload and overconsumption, both of which will require organizations of all sizes to use the emerging toolboxes for filtering, analysis and action. To create public good from public goods — the public sector data that governments collect, the private sector data that is being collected and the social data that we generate ourselves — we will need to collectively forge new compacts that honor existing laws and visionary agreements that enable the new data science to put the data to work,“ said O’Reilly’s Alex Howard in a white paper, “Data for the Public Good,“ timed to go out with the conference.
Sources: Learn more about the conference and watch videos here.
Download the free white paper, Data for the Public Good here
Read THE FUTURIST magazine brief: “The Three Things You Need to Know About Big Data, Right Now“ here
Generation “Always On”
The Internet may be a mixed blessing for younger generations, whose brains are being irrevocably altered by their relationship with the medium, warn more than half of the respondents to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.
While fleetly multitasking and instantly gratifying every info-whim—simultaneously posting Facebook updates, texting their sweethearts, researching history assignments, streaming live concerts, and Skyping friends—today’s average teenagers may be turning themselves into shallow thinkers and impatient adults, warn some of the experts surveyed.
On the other hand, “quick-twitch“ thinking may become a key survival skill for this hyperconnected, “always on “ generation, others believe.
“The essential skills [of 2020] will be those of rapidly searching, browsing, assessing quality, and synthesizing the vast quantities of information, “ said Microsoft researcher Jonathan Grudin. “In contrast, the ability to read one thing and think hard about it for hours will not be of no consequence, but it will be of far less consequence for most people. “
These responses came from the fifth “Future of the Internet “ survey of more than 1,000 Internet experts and other users, fielded by Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center and the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
Source: “Millennials Will Benefit and Suffer Due to Their Hyperconnected Lives “ by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie, Pew Internet.
WorldFuturist.net Seeks Input from Young Futurists
WorldFuturist.net, a Web site for future-focused kids aged 8-18, is seeking submissions in the following categories: future predictions, future scenarios, utopian visions, alternative lifestyles, science fiction, science fiction book reviews, science fiction video game reviews, science fiction movie reviews, science and technology news reports, scifi drawings, and futuristic videos according to the site's creator, FUTURIST magazine blogger and IEET managing director Hank Pellissier.
WorldFuturist.net is also looking for regular contributors aged 13-18 who want to be columnists, critics, and news reporters on topics ranging from Neanderthal studies to black holes.
All material published by WorldFuturist.net will include the author's name, photo, and biography. WorldFuturist.net is sponsored by the California registered non-profit, The Kids' Co-op, Inc. Official launch is April 15, 2012. Directors include Gabriel Rothblatt, Nikki Olson, and Hank Pellissier. To submit material or make inquiries, contact hankpellissier(at)yahoo.com
Source: IEET on Facebook
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Why Should You Book Your Registration for WorldFuture 2012 Today?
Don't miss your chance to meet visionaries and thought leaders shaping our understanding of the future such as Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project; Brian David Johnson, Intel Futurist; Geordie Rose, creator of the D-Wave One, the world's first commercial quantum computer, named Canadian Innovator of the Year for 2011 by the National Post; Edie Weiner, president of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., and co-author of Future Think; Naveen Jain, founder of Moon Express; Josh Schonwald, journalist and author of the forthcoming book The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food; and John Smart, head of the Accelerating Studies Foundation and the Brain Preservation Foundation.
Get up close and personal with inventions and inventors who are defining innovation for the new decade, such as the makers of the Life Technologies Ion Proton™ Sequencer (pictured), which can read your genome (all 3 million base pairs) in one day for $1,000.
Learn more or register today!
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What’s in THE FUTURIST magazine? (Members Only)
A selection of articles, special reports, and other future-focused material on our Web site that you might have missed. Members may sign in to read and comment. Not a member? Join now at http://www.wfs.org/renew.
Thriving in the Automated Economy
By Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Two management experts show why labor’s race against automation will only be won if we partner with our machines. They advise government regulators not to stand in the way of human–machine innovation. Read more.
A World Wide Mind: The Coming Collective Telempathy
By Michael Chorost
The Internet plus humanity equals hyperorganism, a merger of man and machine that may result in global mindfulness. Read more.
Nuclear Power's Unsettled Future
By Ozzie Zehner
A year after the Fukushima Daiichi disaster in Japan, prospects for the nuclear power industry worldwide are far from certain. An energy policy scholar assesses the key economic, environmental, political, and psychological hinges on which nuclear power’s future now swings. Read more
A Future of Fewer Words?: Five Trends Shaping the Future of Language
By Lawrence Baines
Natural selection is as much a phenomenon in human language as it is in natural ecosystems. An ongoing “survival of the fittest” may lead to continuing expansion of image-based communications and the extinction of more than half the world’s languages by this century’s end. Read more.
Visions: Toward Better Space-Weather Forecasts
By Cynthia G. Wagner
Scientists hope to help avert devastating impacts of solar outbursts. Read more.
World Trends & Forecasts:
The Road Ahead for Gasoline-Free Cars
In a few years, one out of every two cars on the road could be a hybrid or electric. Read more
Partnership for a Freer World
An alliance of established democracies helps newly emerging democracies take wing. Read more.
Growing Pains Ahead For China and India
Demographic change will challenge the world’s two most populous countries. Read more.
Dealing with \"Warning Fatigue\"
Given enough warning that a disaster is on its way—be it flood, fire, volcano, or storm—most people would heed the warning and take appropriate action. Or not. Read more.
Solving Renewables' Storage Problems
BrightSource Energy shows that storage can make solar power more viable. By Letha Tawney. Read more.
Book Review:
Renewing Prospects for American Prosperity
By Rick Docksai
Reenergizing social activism could put American progress back on track, says Jeffrey D. Sachs in The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity. Read more.
Books In Brief
After the Crime: The Power of Restorative Justice Dialogues between Victims and Violent Offenders
Techno-Fix
Time Travel and Warp Drives
Virtual Water: Tackling the Threat to Our Planet’s Most Precious Resource
Future Scope
Can Food Supply Meet Doubled Demand?
End-of-Life Indecision
Religious Awakening in China
Future Active
Atlas of European Values
Sustainable Arctic Development
What’s in THE FUTURIST magazine? (Public)
Rethinking “Return on Investment”: What We Really Need to Invest In
By Timothy Mack
Innovation means more than inventing new products for the world’s growing populations to consume. Innovation also means solving the problems created by consumption. By investing in sustainable innovation and creativity now, we will enhance our future returns. Read more.
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