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Kerala Startup Partners with UK Firm to Supply 150 Robots

Equipped with advanced robotic arms, the robots function like human hands and fingers. They are primarily used to figure out mobile, space, defence, banking, and sophisticated equipment defects…reports Asian Lite News

Sastra Robotics, a startup nurtured by Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM), has forged a partnership with a leading UK-based IT company to provide a batch of 150 AI-driven robots. These robots are specially designed for conducting quality testing tasks that are beyond the capabilities of human workers.

Equipped with advanced robotic arms, the robots function like human hands and fingers. They are primarily used to figure out mobile, space, defence, banking, and sophisticated equipment defects.

Aronin Ponnappan, co-founder and CEO Sastra Robotics, said the robots developed by our nascent firm have added another feather to projects like ‘Made in Kerala’ and ‘Make in India’. “ Also, for a Kerala startup to get such a big contract can be scripted as the first-ever in the robotics sector. It has allowed showcasing our technological prowess in the field of robotics in Britain,” said Ponnappan.

The robots, wholly designed and developed in Kerala, will reduce human intervention in discovering hardware and software failures in electronic smart devices with touch screens, besides predicting the reasons for those failures by deploying AI technology. KSUM is the nodal agency of the Kerala government for entrepreneurship development and incubation activities in the state.

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Mind-control robots could be a reality

A new study outlining the technology has just been published in the peer-reviewed journal ACS Applied Nano Materials. It shows that the graphene sensors developed at UTS are very conductive, easy to use and robust…reports Asian Lite News

Researchers from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have developed biosensor technology that will allow you to operate devices, such as robots and machines, solely through thought control.

The advanced brain-computer interface was developed by Distinguished Professor Chin-Teng Lin and Professor Francesca Iacopi, from the UTS Faculty of Engineering and IT, in collaboration with the Australian Army and Defence Innovation Hub. As well as defence applications, the technology has significant potential in fields such as advanced manufacturing, aerospace and healthcare — for example allowing people with a disability to control a wheelchair or operate prosthetics.

“The hands-free, voice-free technology works outside laboratory settings, anytime, anywhere. It makes interfaces such as consoles, keyboards, touchscreens and hand-gesture recognition redundant,” said Professor Iacopi.

“By using cutting edge graphene material, combined with silicon, we were able to overcome issues of corrosion, durability and skin contact resistance, to develop the wearable dry sensors,” she said.

The hexagon patterned sensors are positioned over the back of the scalp, to detect brainwaves from the visual cortex. The sensors are resilient to harsh conditions so they can be used in extreme operating environments.

The user wears a head-mounted augmented reality lens which displays white flickering squares. By concentrating on a particular square, the brainwaves of the operator are picked up by the biosensor, and a decoder translates the signal into commands.

The technology was recently demonstrated by the Australian Army, where soldiers operated a Ghost Robotics quadruped robot using the brain-machine interface. The device allowed hands-free command of the robotic dog with up to 94% accuracy.

“Our technology can issue at least nine commands in two seconds. This means we have nine different kinds of commands and the operator can select one from those nine within that time period,” Professor Lin said.

“We have also explored how to minimise noise from the body and environment to get a clearer signal from an operator’s brain,” he said.

The researchers believe the technology will be of interest to the scientific community, industry and government, and hope to continue making advances in brain-computer interface systems. (ANI)

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