Eagles trained to intercept drones in the french military

These sorts of projects make really cool headlines (at least, until the arrival of drones with defensive capabilities).

On an earlier post, we had seen already the Dutch working on the same idea. Check out this video for more advanced apparatuses.

My colleague is a robot

    

   This is a very interesting book written recently by Valéry Bonneau. It showcases a number of representative robots from various domaines of applications (from agriculture, to services, industry, entertainment, etc) and pinpoints, in a tone that combines humour, pessimism and severity at the same time, how robots are steadily starting to replace humans, and in turn, render obsolete a variety of professions / jobs. 

    It is very up to date with respect to the state-of-the-art in robotics technology and could be very easily read by audiences of all ages and backgrounds. As a professional in the domain, as well as an individual, i highly recommend it to potential readers (currently only francophones as i guess it has not yet been translated).

   

Personal gardening robot

FARM-BOT (Open-source)

Wi Vi: Using wifi signals to sense human presence and activity

Abstract:

Wi-Fi signals are typically information carriers between a transmitter and a receiver. In this paper, we show that Wi-Fi can also extend our senses, enabling us to see moving objects through walls and behind closed doors. In particular, we can use such signals to identify the number of people in a closed room and their relative locations. We can also identify simple gestures made behind a wall, and combine a sequence of gestures to communicate messages to a wireless receiver without carrying any transmitting device. The paper introduces two main innovations. First, it shows how one can use MIMO interference nulling to eliminate reflections off static objects and focus the receiver on a moving target. Second, it shows how one can track a human by treating the motion of a human body as an antenna array and tracking the resulting RF beam. We demonstrate the validity of our design by building.

Link to paper:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/papers/wivi-paper.pdf

Link to project web-page:

http://people.csail.mit.edu/fadel/wivi/

From 3D printing to robot tattooing

Tattoo robot "made in France", yes Sir. Visual servoing people rejoice!

Spot Mini

Introducing robots in the train stations of France

This is a cleaning robot that will shortly be deployed in the Gare de Lyon. I wander how this is considered from the socialist party of François Hollande. Of course, cleaning jobs will be shortened but engineering posts will be opened, but in the end, what is the real (economic and societal) cost for the introduction of such robotic technology?

On the other hand, a robot "valet" that carries your suitcases and follows you, is indeed within the french culture and in my opinion should have no problem to be accepted as technology...