🤖 British Army to get ‘world’s most capable’ bomb disposal robots, MIT's control algorithm for limbless robots, and gravitational forces squeezing lava on distant planet

The British Army is turning to advanced bomb disposal robots to neutralize threats, including explosives and hazardous materials.

The £21 million deal signed with L3Harris Technologies will see 50 of the “world’s most capable [medium-sized] robots for operations in crowded and difficult environments” help soldiers attend callouts all over the country.

Notably, the US Air Force had placed orders for over 100 of L3Harris’ larger T7 robots. Find more details in today’s Must-Read.

🔥Today’s job of the day as featured on jobs.interestingengineering.com:

> Security Engineer III - Penetration Tester
> Senior Developer Technology Engineer - AI

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MUST READ

🤖 British Army to get ‘world’s most capable’ bomb disposal robots

The British Army will receive 4 of L3Harris Technologies’ T4 explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) robots before the end of 2024.

These robots boast impressive capabilities, including a runtime of over 7 hours, the ability to climb stairs, and multiple cameras for enhanced visibility.

Moreover, the T4 is the first medium-sized robot featuring haptic feedback, which enables operators to precisely sense what the robotic arm encounters or grasps.

🧠 MIT’s new AI tech could make limbless, slimy, squishy robots a reality

MIT researchers have taken the wraps off a control algorithm that can automatically learn how to move, stretch, and shape a reconfigurable robot to accomplish a given task.

Although reconfigurable soft robots are still in their early stages, researchers say that this method may make shape-shifting general-purpose robots a reality.

When tested in a simulation environment dubbed “DittoGym,” the team found their algorithm to work better than baseline approaches. Remarkably, it was the only approach capable of finishing multistage assignments which required several shape modifications.

🌋 Planetary neighbors squeeze molten lava from a distant planet: Study

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has spotted a rocky exoplanet in the star system HD 104067, about 66 light-years away from our Sun.

Named TOI-6713.01, this flaming planet has an extreme surface temperature of 2,600 degrees Kelvin— hotter than many known stars. Additionally, it is larger than Earth and resembles Jupiter’s moon lo, given the presence of numerous active volcanoes.

Gravitational forces are behind the continuous volcanic outbursts in this fiery world, explained Stephen Kane, an astronomer at the University of California, Riverside, who discovered the exoplanet. This phenomenon, tidal energy, is also why volcanoes erupt constantly on lo.

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