Delivery Robots Begin to Look Real

On university and business campuses, getting lunch and dinner is becoming a lot easier as robot delivery units hit the pathways.

 As reported by GPS World: If you were a student or faculty member at the University of Wisconsin – Madison campus (UW) during the 2020 COVID lockdown, you might have experienced a novel way to reduce contact with others when ordering a meal. People on campus could avoid a trip to the store and interaction with a delivery person. They could place an order on a special app, and a Starship Technologies robot would pick up and deliver their food.

Of course, for a student, technology that saves a trip to the store, especially anytime of the day or night, would be popular.

From demo to full production

At first, the meal-delivery robots at UW and other campuses were a demonstration to showcase how useful the small bots could be.

But after I soaked up robot-tech news from all over, I learned these little guys have found their way into towns, cities and campuses around the world: specifically, the United States, United Kingdom,  Estonia, Germany and Denmark.

With 1,500 bots working every day, the demonstration phase is long over, and Starship robots are full production. Starship, based in San Francisco, has been in operation since 2014. Its robots now make more than 1,000 deliveries each day. They have made more than 2.5 million deliveries to date, and make 100,000 road-crossings each day.

In the United States alone, 16 states have approved delivery robots, including Virginia, Idaho, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, Utah, Arizona, Washington and Texas. At UW, three Starship employees manage maintenance and recover units if they get stuck (while autonomous, the bots need help every now and then).

To have a robot come to visit, UW users download the Starship Food Delivery app, select from a local store menu, pay and then indicate on a map exactly where the bot should deliver the order. The robot collects a minimal $2 delivery charge, which goes toward the $2,000 to $3,000 cost of the vehicle and its operation. (According to Starship, each unit costs the equivalent of a high-end laptop.)

The unit uses GNSS and computer vision to navigate detailed, stored maps. The on-site employees take the robots out on particular routes for their first test runs, and the bot learns each route. The on-board system also uses 12 cameras, ultrasonic sensors, radars and neural networks to form a collision-avoidance net around the vehicle. In this way, pedestrians, dogs and road vehicles (when the robots cross a road) can all be avoided.

When waiting to cross a road, the robot’s safety systems might prevent it from moving. In this case, the device will “phone home” for a support person come out and fix the issue.

What could go wrong?

So far, the robots have been welcomed on the university and industry campuses where they operate. People walk round them as they go about their business. Even better, students and other users have pulled the units out of snow mounds and other hang-ups, returning them to the sidewalk or making other small adjustments to send the bots on their way.

And no one has stolen a unit. That could be because a loud siren erupts if they are picked up.  Presumably the units are programmed to remain within the bounds of their rigorously mapped environments. In any event, the food compartment remains locked until the order is removed by the customer.

Disrupting Doordash

Will robots disrupt today’s car-based delivery services, such as UberEats, Grubhub or DoorDash? Only for the last-mile section of a delivery. In a pinch, Starship robots can travel as far as three miles from their base. As the bots take on more territory, the auto-based delivery companies may be pushed toward the longer routes.

Deliveries such as time-sensitive medical materials could benefit from robotic short-distance, small-package carriers. Other robot delivery services, including Amazon Scout and Roxo, the FedEX SameDay Bot, are also making waves as testing progresses toward last-mile delivery automation from warehouse hubs to customer homes.

Federal, state and local laws may need to be enhanced to allow these autonomous delivery robots to progress toward widespread deployment.

One selling point: Fast robot deliveries lead to fewer delivery trucks, reducing traffic congestion and lowering exhaust pollution. We might have to wait awhile to realize these benefits.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict Prompted U.S. to Develop Autonomous Drone Swarms, 1,000-Mile Cannon

 

As reported by Scientific American: When Russia annexed Crimea and meddled in Ukraine’s Donets Basin, or Donbas, region in 2014, its military revealed new technology, organization and tactics—and upended much of the U.S. military’s thinking about modern warfare. Now, as Moscow keeps U.S. and European leaders guessing about whether it will invade Ukraine again, the Pentagon is pushing forward with projects that reflect priorities set after the onset of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Technologies currently in development include futuristic-sounding projects such as swarms of autonomous drones and a supercannon that can fire a projectile to a distance of 1,000 miles. And perhaps the most staggeringly ambitious campaign aims to combine existing radar and communications with state-of-the-art cloud computing and artificial intelligence in order to create an automated system that coordinates operations across multiple combat areas.

Technologies currently in development include futuristic-sounding projects such as swarms of autonomous drones and a supercannon that can fire a projectile to a distance of 1,000 miles. And perhaps the most staggeringly ambitious campaign aims to combine existing radar and communications with state-of-the-art cloud computing and artificial intelligence in order to create an automated system that coordinates operations across multiple combat areas.

“We are at an inflection point, and we have strategic competitors that are out there that have large militaries,” says General James McConville, chief of staff of the U.S. Army. He notes that the U.S. military has focused on counterterror operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. But a potential fight against Russia—or China, which the Pentagon now regards as the U.S. military’s preeminent threat—would require it to shift focus to a different set of technologies. “In order to deter strategic competitors,” McConville says, “we need to be able to do large-scale combat operations.”

MULTIDOMAIN OPERATIONS

“We are at an inflection point, and we have strategic competitors that are out there that have large militaries,” says General James McConville, chief of staff of the U.S. Army. He notes that the U.S. military has focused on counterterror operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. But a potential fight against Russia—or China, which the Pentagon now regards as the U.S. military’s preeminent threat—would require it to shift focus to a different set of technologies. “In order to deter strategic competitors,” McConville says, “we need to be able to do large-scale combat operations.”

This technology project would quickly coordinate combat across multiple fronts. Much like the way a ride-sharing app combines data on location, distance and travel time to determine the best match for a specific driver and passenger, JADC2 aims to pool all U.S. military intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in a data cloud and to use artificial intelligence and algorithms to match the best weapon against a given target. This coordination would ideally integrate the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines into a single fighting force, within which any sensor could connect with any shooter. For instance, if the radar equipment on an F-16 fighter jet spotted an enemy target, and JADC2 determined that a submarine was best positioned to take the shot with a land-attack cruise missile, then that calculus—which might currently take hours or days to coordinate across the air and maritime domains—could be executed in near real time.

“This spring’s prospect of a major Russian attack on Ukraine may give us a case study of what high-end, multidomain attack looks like,” says Melanie Marlowe, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The combination of [uncrewed aerial vehicles], missiles, electronic attack and various ground forces will be a huge challenge.” The idea is that a capability such as JADC2 could tackle that challenge by helping U.S. forces and their allies simultaneously stage attacks across multiple domains, including land, maritime, air, space, cyberspace and electronic warfare. This would hopefully present a closely matched adversary, such as Russia or China, with new dilemmas at a pace it cannot match. “What we look for is speed, range and convergence in our systems so we will have overmatch,” McConville says, using a Pentagon term for dominance. “We are looking for an edge, looking for an advantage, and we’re doing it working together ... as a combined force with allies and partners.”

SWARMING DRONES

Earlier this month the Pentagon unveiled new priorities that aim to drive innovation in 14 “critical technology” areas. Among the key fields are artificial intelligence and autonomy because science and research in such categories are needed to support weapon systems for fighting over well-defended territory: swarms of drones.

In order to penetrate highly defended and contested environments, such as those the U.S. military would face if fighting China or Russia, Washington, D.C., would need a specific set of technologies, says Heidi Shyu, U.S. undersecretary of defense for research and engineering. Shyu says that when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin asked her, in an initial meeting last year, what those technologies would be, she responded, “Make sure that we penetrate with attritable, low-cost unmanned systems.” (Attritable systems are designed to have a limited life: these drone swarms would be deployed with the assumption that they would not return.) “To be able to do that, I believe that we need trusted AI and trusted autonomy to be able to operate without GPS,” Shyu explains. She says she wants to combine artificial intelligence and engineering in order to automate fleets of robotic aircraft, ground vehicles, and both surface and underwater marine vessels. If all these can perform tasks with limited human intervention, even in an environment where satellite navigation tools no longer work, then they can carry out missions such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and target attack.

Shyu’s new efforts will build on existing commercial and U.S. military work in this area. For instance, the Pentagon has already demonstrated the ability to deploy 3-D-printed swarming micro drones from planes. This would help fighter pilots avoid taking the risk of loitering over hostile territory.

DEEP STRIKE

In early January the U.S. Army disclosed plans to test-fire a prototype supercannon as soon as 2024. This “long-range cannon” is envisioned to be able to strike targets 1,000 miles away, a range that would utterly dwarf the 25-mile reach of today’s artillery.

One of the key lessons from Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine was a need for the U.S. Army to extend its long-range strike systems. Now the Army is on track to field a number of new long-range missiles by 2023. The long-range cannon is not yet part of the weapons roster. It is what senior leaders call a “big bet” in their science and technology plan because it shows promise but still must prove its maturity before it is built for real-world missions. The idea is that this weapon would be used in tandem with the Army’s new Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, a truck-launched system that fires missiles at hypersonic speeds. This combination could punch through dense, sophisticated enemy air defenses and create an opening for U.S. military forces to break through. Even on its own, the cannon would be a much cheaper alternative to the estimated $106-million-per-shot tab of the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon.

In 2020 Congress, curious about the practicality of what lawmakers have called an “imaginative concept,” directed the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct an independent review of the cannon project and report on its feasibility. That study’s findings have not yet been published, but the panel has briefed Army leaders—and key service officials say they are optimistic. “The expert bodies that we’ve had look at it come away saying, ‘Yeah, you can do this,’” says Brigadier General John Rafferty, Army Futures Command’s director of developing new long-range missiles and cannons. “There are certainly challenges associated with it.... But it’s about the only investment that’s looking at doing anything like this mission in a more affordable way.”

A rocket launcher shoots missiles during tactical and special exercises with scouts of the Guards Tank Army of the Western Military District at the Golovenki training ground in the Moscow region, Russia, on January 28, 2022.

SpaceX Loses up to 40 Satellites to Geomagnetic Storm after Starlink Launch

 SpaceX had to ditch most of its latest batch of Starlink satellites because they were disrupted by a geomagnetic storm after being launched from the Falcon 9 rocket. Up to 40 of the 49 satellites will re-enter the atmosphere or have already done so because they were unable to reach their intended orbits.

In an update posted yesterday, SpaceX said that on February 3, the Falcon 9's second stage deployed 49 "satellites into their intended orbit, with a perigee of approximately 210 kilometers above Earth, and each satellite achieved controlled flight." SpaceX initially deploys satellites into lower altitudes than they ultimately orbit in "so that in the very rare case any satellite does not pass initial system checkouts, it will quickly be deorbited by atmospheric drag," the company said. SpaceX has licenses for altitudes of 540 km to 570 km and 335 km to 346 km.

Last week's geomagnetic storm hit a day after launch, SpaceX explained:

Unfortunately, the satellites deployed on Thursday were significantly impacted by a geomagnetic storm on Friday. These storms cause the atmosphere to warm and atmospheric density at our low deployment altitudes to increase. In fact, onboard GPS suggests the escalation speed and severity of the storm caused atmospheric drag to increase up to 50 percent higher than during previous launches. The Starlink team commanded the satellites into a safe-mode where they would fly edge-on (like a sheet of paper) to minimize drag—to effectively "take cover from the storm"—and continued to work closely with the Space Force's 18th Space Control Squadron and LeoLabs to provide updates on the satellites based on ground radars.

Preliminary analysis shows the increased drag at the low altitudes prevented the satellites from leaving safe-mode to begin orbit-raising maneuvers, and up to 40 of the satellites will re-enter or already have re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. The deorbiting satellites pose zero collision risk with other satellites and by design demise upon atmospheric re-entry—meaning no orbital debris is created and no satellite parts hit the ground.

SpaceX touted its systems for minimizing space debris, saying last week's "unique situation demonstrates the great lengths [to which] the Starlink team has gone to ensure the system is on the leading edge of on-orbit debris mitigation."

SpaceX has about 1,900 Starlink satellites in orbit. SpaceX has Federal Communications Commission permission to launch nearly 12,000 satellites and is seeking a license to launch an additional 30,000.

In a First, an ‘Atomic Fountain’ Has Measured the Curvature of Spacetime - Could provide an alternative to GPS in the future

 

As reported by Scientific American: In 1797, English scientist Henry Cavendish measured the strength of gravity with a contraption made of lead spheres, wooden rods and wire. In the 21st century, scientists are doing something very similar with rather more sophisticated tools: atoms.

Gravity might be an early subject in introductory physics classes, but that doesn’t mean scientists aren’t still trying to measure it with ever-increasing precision. Now, a group of physicists has done it using the effects of time dilation—the slowing of time caused by increased velocity or gravitational force—on atoms. In a paper published online today (Jan. 13) in the journal Science, the researchers announce that they’ve been able to measure the curvature of space-time.

The experiment is part of an area of science called atom interferometry. It takes advantage of a principle of quantum mechanics: just as a light wave can be represented as a particle, a particle (such as an atom) can be represented as a “wave packet.” And just as light waves can overlap and create interference, so too can matter wave packets.

In particular, if an atom’s wave packet is split in two, allowed to do something, and then recombined, the waves might not line up anymore—in other words, their phases have changed.

“One tries to extract useful information from this phase shift,” Albert Roura, a physicist at the Institute of Quantum Technologies in Ulm, Germany, who was not involved in the new study, told Space.com. Roura wrote a “Perspectives” piece about the new research, which was published online in the same issue of Science today.

Gravitational wave detectors work via a similar principle. By studying particles in this way, scientists can fine-tune the numbers behind some of the key workings of the universe, such as how electrons behave and how strong gravity really is—and how it subtly changes over even relatively small distances.

It’s that last effect that Chris Overstreet of Stanford University and his colleagues measured in the new study. To do this, they created an “atomic fountain,” consisting of a vacuum tube 33 feet (10 meters) tall ornamented with a ring around the very top.

The researchers controlled the atomic fountain by shooting laser pulses through it. With one pulse, they launched two atoms up from the bottom. The two atoms reached different heights before a second pulse shot them back down. A third pulse caught the atoms at the bottom, recombining the atoms’ wave packets.

The researchers found that the two wave packets were out of phase—a sign that the gravitational field in the atomic fountain wasn’t completely uniform.

“That … in general relativity, can be understood, actually, as the effect of space-time curvature,” Roura told Space.com, referring to one of Albert Einstein’s most famous theories.

Since the atom that went higher was closer to the ring, it experienced more acceleration thanks to the ring’s gravity. In a perfectly uniform gravitational field, such effects would cancel out. That isn’t what happened here; the atoms’ wave packets were out of phase instead, and thanks to the effects of time dilation, the atom that experienced more acceleration was ever so slightly out of time with its counterpart.

The result is a minuscule change, but atom interferometry is sensitive enough to pick it up. And since the scientists can control the placement and the mass of the ring, Roura told Space.com, “they are able to measure and study these effects.”

Although the technology behind this discovery—atom interferometry—might seem arcane, atom interferometry may one day be used to detect gravitational waves and help us navigate better than GPS, researchers have said. 

Tesla Semi in Limited Production

 As reported by Teslarati: Back in November, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta remarked that his company was expecting its first Tesla Semi deliveries in the fourth quarter. This was a surprise to electric vehicle enthusiasts, as Tesla CEO Elon Musk noted during the 2021 Annual Shareholder Meeting that the Class 8 all-electric hauler would be hitting volume production in 2023. Yet if recent sightings at the Giga Nevada area are any indication, it appears that the Semi is now in limited production — and Tesla is doing some interesting tests with its freshly made trucks.

The Semi’s new video, which was shared on YouTube by Tesla advocate Sawyer Merritt, was shot last Friday near Gigafactory Nevada. The truck in the footage was reportedly manufactured in a production facility that has been constructed near Tesla’s massive battery plant. While the Semi in the footage looked quite similar to the white painted, updated prototypes that have been spotted several times this year, the new truck reportedly did not have any stickers from the Department of Transportation, nor did it have manufacturer plates. 

Sightings of the Tesla Semi have been going on for some time, but what makes last Friday’s footage quite special was that it showcased a clear tire-shredding acceleration run from the Class 8 all-electric truck. The footage was brief, lasting only two and a half minutes, but it was enough to show just how quick the Semi really is when it accelerates at full speed. Granted, the Semi was not pulling a trailer when it was captured on video, but it’s still remarkable to see such a large all-electric vehicle run like a sports car on the road. 

Also quite interesting was the Semi’s incredibly tight turning radius. After running the length of the production facility near Giga Nevada, the Semi simply took a U-turn to head back. The vehicle then proceeded to showcase its turning circle several more times, and just like its acceleration, the Semi’s turning radius is pretty remarkable. This bodes well for the Semi’s maneuverability, which would likely help it stand apart from its more conventional, more traditional competitors.  

If recent reports are accurate and the Tesla Semi has indeed entered limited production, it would suggest that the company might be working with some of its first customers as part of its efforts to refine and finalize the Class 8 hauler. Considering CEO Laguarta’s statements last November, PepsiCo could very well be one of these first customers. PepsiCo has been dropping hints about its upcoming Tesla Semi fleet as of late, after all. Earlier this year, the company noted that it was expecting to receive 15 units of the Semi by the end of 2021. PepsiCo has also received a permit for a Tesla Megacharger at its Modesto, California facility. 

Russia issues threat to US GPS Satellites

 As reported by GPS World: The Kremlin warned it could blow up 32 GPS satellites with its new anti-satellite technology, ASAT, which it tested Nov. 15 on a retired Soviet Tselina-D satellite, according to numerous news reports.

Russia then claimed on state television that its new ASAT missiles could obliterate NATO satellites and “blind all their missiles, planes and ships, not to mention the ground forces,” said Russian Channel One TV host Dmitry Kiselyov, rendering the West’s GPS-guided missiles useless. “It means that if NATO crosses our red line, it risks losing all 32 of its GPS satellites at once.”

The International Space Station (ISS) Flight Control team was notified of indications of a satellite breakup, causing 1,500 pieces of debris to threaten the station. “Due to the debris generated by the destructive Russian Anti-Satellite (ASAT) test, ISS astronauts and cosmonauts undertook emergency procedures for safety,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

“With its long and storied history in human spaceflight, it is unthinkable that Russia would endanger not only the American and international partner astronauts on the ISS, but also their own cosmonauts,” Nelson said. “Their actions are reckless and dangerous, threatening as well the Chinese space station and the taikonauts on board. All nations have a responsibility to prevent the purposeful creation of space debris from ASATs and to foster a safe, sustainable space environment.

“Russia has demonstrated a deliberate disregard for the security, safety, stability and long-term sustainability of the space domain for all nations,” Gen. James Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command, said. “Russia’s tests of direct-ascent anti-satellite weapons clearly demonstrate that Russia continues to pursue counterspace weapon systems that undermine strategic stability and pose a threat to all nations.”

The Navy is Testing a GPS-like Device That Doesn’t Require Satellites

 As reported by Task & Purpose: The Navy is researching a new technology that could help sailors and Marines navigate in places where the Global Positioning System just doesn’t work.

Unlike GPS signals, cosmic ray muons are a natural source of radiation that can pass through rock, buildings and earth and can be used at high latitudes north of the Arctic Circle, where GPS satellites do not work well due to their orbital constraints, the Office of Naval Research wrote in a press release on Tuesday.

In September, ONR and the U.S. Army Development Command co-funded a group of international researchers who want to show that muons can work as an alternative to GPS and still deliver the same level of precision. They have nine months to show their stuff, and if it works, it could be a game-changer for the military.

“The ability to navigate in polar regions will be of increasing importance in the coming decades as climate change is opening up Arctic waterways to commercial and military activities,” said Dr. Charles Eddy, the lead ONR Global science director for the muon project. “This project, which uses cosmic relativistic particles that continuously impinge on the Earth’s entire surface, offers an innovative approach to the challenge of navigation at high latitudes with little or no GPS service.”

The question of how to preserve navigation capability is a big one these days, especially as countries like the U.S., Russia and China develop new ways of disabling the satellites that GPS is based on.

“The most important thing that the Space Force supports, from the perspective of a civilian, is the fact that we have GPS,” said Capt. Natalia Pinto, a space operations officer, in a Space Force commercial in August. “That is something that is leveraged by an individual, companies, banks, all sorts of financial institutions. So from the outside looking in, that’s probably the most important thing that we rely on.”

The military uses GPS every day for guiding ships, planes, bombs and so many other things where they need to go. But those signals are easily disrupted by jammers, which block GPS signals, and spoofers, which take them over and feed the user false information, National Defense Magazine wrote in February. Enter, spoof-proof muon technology.

If you’re like me and have never heard of muons before now, have no fear. Muons are one of the fundamental subatomic particles, kind of like electrons but much heavier, according to the Department of Energy. Muons on Earth result from particles in the Earth’s atmosphere colliding with cosmic rays, which are high-energy photons and atomic nuclei coming from the sun or other solar systems or galaxies. Muons exist for only 2.2 microseconds, but they are created constantly in the atmosphere, hitting every inch of the Earth’s surface and passing through nearly any substance at almost the speed of light. 

Penetrate nearly any substance you say? Well that’s helpful in case you need to figure out where you are underground or underwater. 

“Cosmic-ray muons (or atmospheric muons) are ubiquitous and universal,” researchers wrote in a study of muons published in the journal Nature in 2020. “[B]y utilizing this universality and relativistic nature, cosmic muons have a potential to be used for positioning the receiver detector located underwater or underground three dimensionally with a great accuracy.”

The same goes for navigating north of the Arctic Circle. The Navy-funded research into the use of muons for navigation is led by Dr. Chris Steer of the British company Geoptic Infrastructure Investigations Limited. Steer explained that “like echolocation, the timing difference between ‘pings’ — the signals from a crossing muon in our detectors — can allow the user to measure the distance from one detector to another with multiple detectors allowing location by triangulation.” 

Researchers have already tested the system in a large water-immersion tank in the United Kingdom. Now the project will move to Finland, specifically into an Arctic lake covered with a meter of ice, the press release said. 

“At these high latitudes, conventional GPS measurements are problematic due to their orbital constraints,” ONR wrote.

To make it work, researchers will need a set of highly-synchronized clocks that can work partially underwater in a freezing Arctic environment. But if it does work, it would be a big step up for military navigation.

“The sea is broadly transparent to cosmic ray muons, so we expect there to be a number of scientific subsea navigation opportunities,” Steer said. “Similarly, as cosmic ray muons are highly penetrating and able to pass through many tens to hundreds of meters of rock, it is possible to see that this technology also has strong opportunities in tunnels and other underground settings.”

Muon tech is not the only alternative to GPS for figuring out where you are in the world. For example, the Navy has started teaching good ol’ celestial navigation using a sextant and the stars again in recent years.

“That’s an oldie but goodie,” said Richard Mason, a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation. The military could also automate systems to keep track of celestial navigation for service members, Mason suggested.

At a higher-tech level, the military may be close to using quantum science as a ‘hacker-proof’ alternative to GPS, Defense One reported earlier this month.

“These inertial sensors can be used wherever there is a need for position or navigational information, and where a GPS outage is unacceptable or GPS is unavailable,” Peter Schwindt, a scientist at Sandia National Labs, which is researching quantum navigation, told Defense One. “Civilian applications such as aviation and autonomous vehicles are areas where momentary outages of the GPS signal is not acceptable. GPS is decidedly not available underground or underwater so inertial navigation is very important for these operational environments.”

Between quantum science and muons, navigation in the military is becoming much more sci-fi than simply reading a map. But as complicated as it sounds, scientists are excited about what might happen next.

“The future is extremely bright for this line of research,” ONR wrote.