New Mars Forums

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,392

Opportunity in a Time of Crisis

This topic in Science, Technology, and Astronomy is offered for those of an optimistic inclination.

The US Government used to have a Blue Sky Request For Proposals.

A quick search of Google revealed a Wikipedia entry that does not include mention of the US Government program. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_skies_research

The NewMars forum is chock full of proposals that would qualify according to the Wikipedia definition.

This topic is offered with the hope that members will contribute ideas/visions that could actually be accomplished in a human lifetime.

Ideally, whatever is proposed could be developed and turned into a successful business in ten Earth years or so.

After all, there is plenty of recent history showing that 10 years is enough time for a company go grow from the kitchen table discussion to a massive enterprise.

I'll start things out in this new topic with a letter I sent (via the contact form) to the leadership of a major American company with a long history of innovation.

(th)

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,392

Re: Opportunity in a Time of Crisis

Call for Development of Teleoperation/Telepresence/Telerobotics systems for Corona Virus Economy Restart

The following text was submitted (twice ... draft followed by update) to the contact form of a major American corporation known for innovation:

Thank you for continuing to provide helpful, useful and encouraging news about current product offerings by [company name]

As a reminder, I specifically asked for updates on development of remote telepresence/teleoperation systems the company ** must ** be developing.

Now is a perfect time to design, build, test and deploy work-from-home systems that include:

a) An air conditioned, comfortable work cabinet/trailer, set in a space outside the worker's home, with access to power and communications via fiber or sky Internet

b) A fully functional waldo system for deployment on the customer site.

There is current news to the effect that meat producers in the US are closing down plants due to coronavirus concerns.

That is ** exactly ** the kind of high-priority plant that should be converted (permanently) to teleoperation at the fastest possible rate.

The "Atlas" robot being developed on the East Coast is a model for what is needed, but the meat factory version need not be as strong.  It ** does ** need to be agile.

It should be designed to permit user/operator programming/training for repetitive steps.  This would be a solution that would keep the workers of this country employed, but safe from on-the-job harm, and in a position to steadily improve productivity by partnering with their waldo.

(th)

A courteous automated reply arrived in the next day's email.  Chances a real human will see the message or do anything with it are vanishingly small , but as an optimist, I have to believe they are not zero.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-04-14 07:44:57)

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,392

Re: Opportunity in a Time of Crisis

Here is a step in the right direction:

Product name: Moxi
Company: Diligent Robotics

Apparently the company is concentrating on the hospital field.

I've written to them via their contact form, asking if Moxi is a teleoperated system, or a pure robotic system.

(th)

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,392

Re: Opportunity in a Time of Crisis

The link below offers a pdf on the subject of teleoperation. The citation is dated March of 2020:

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio … ction_Line

The aim of our research is to develop an industrial internet telecontrol architecture for robots in an active production line. The main objective is to realize teleoperation and telemaintenance tasks, which on the one hand meet user needs of the industry partners and can on the other hand be performed over the common Internet. The involved research fields are human supervisory control, networked control systems and bandwidth management. This report describes the results of some preliminary studies carried out in different test beds and the real plant. Furthermore, it outlines the resulting teleoperation architecture which is an application of current robotics and control research.

(th)