TECHNOLOGY

5 Industries Which Need Robots that Handle Extreme Environments

Published

1 year ago

April 8, 2023

5 Industries Which Need Robots that Handle Extreme Environments

It’s not a secret that robotics make particular industries much easier to work in.

From construction to manufacturing and even health care, automated processes make every sector safer and more efficient.

This is more true than in industries requiring workers to perform under punishing conditions. In these jobs, robots working in extreme environments significantly reduce the risk of injury or worse, due to environmental hazards. Here are a few examples of industries that need robots that can handle harsh conditions.

1. Space Exploration

When it comes to extreme environments, it doesn’t get more extreme than space. Although the final frontier has much for humans to discover, it holds just as many dangers. From the lack of oxygen to extreme temperatures, there are many hazards astronauts need to overcome before they even think about setting foot on another planet.

Robots that operate in extreme environments are the perfect proxy for human explorers. Beyond not requiring oxygen to survive, robots can be developed to withstand all kinds of harsh conditions. Because of their capabilities, robots have travelled further across space than any human can hope to in the 21st century.

Some famous examples of robot astronauts include the Mars Rovers and satellite probes. NASA is also constantly developing new robots for different kinds of missions. The Buoyant Rover for Under Ice Exploration — or BRUIE for short — was designed to explore planets that are mostly water. These planets are the ones that are most like Earth, so collecting data from them could be invaluable to understanding it.

2. Ocean Exploration

Speaking of water, the surface of the Earth is estimated to be made of at least 71% of it. Next to space, the ocean is considered the most hostile working environment for humans. The reasons are simple — humans are not aquatic creatures. From the lack of oxygen to intense pressure, there are seemingly endless hazards for people working in or near the ocean.

This is where robots come in once again. Like in space, robots in extreme environments in place of humans allow for complete exploration without risk. These robots come in many shapes and sizes and can be completely autonomous or remote-controlled by an operator. They can explore areas of the ocean humans cannot and record findings that have never been seen.

3. Maritime Industry

Robots in extreme environments are helping humans make discoveries in the ocean. However, their usage isn’t limited to just exploration. Industries such as deep sea mining use robots to mine for precious resources such as cobalt and nickel.

Natural caches of these resources exist in some of the deepest parts of the ocean, where no human can stay for very long without risk to their health. Batteries use these and other metals for their construction — and these materials have become increasingly scarce as the world becomes more dependant on computer technology.

These mining robots extract these metals while affecting the surrounding environment as little as possible. This ensures these mining activities do not disrupt the ocean’s ecosystem.

One of the most dangerous jobs in the maritime industry is working on oil rigs. Operating complex machines and handling very volatile materials are all common on rigs, and one mistake or malfunction can cause a disaster.

Using robots for some of the most dangerous tasks in place of humans can significantly reduce the chances of a workplace accident or injury. When paired with human operators, these robots can increase the rig’s efficiency while keeping workers out of harm’s way.

4. The Firefighting Industry

Being a firefighter is a perilous job. Whether it’s a domestic fire or a forest wildfire, firefighters are constantly battling extreme environments to save lives.

Not only are they in immediate danger from high temperatures and smoke inhalation, but constant exposure to toxic chemicals also heightens the chance of developing cancer. In addition, firefighters can develop mental health concerns due to major stress and trauma.

Robotics companies recognise the dangers firefighters face to save lives and have designed several kinds of robots to help mitigate these dangers. These robots can serve various purposes, from locating and dousing the source of fires with precision to carrying hoses and water supplies to firefighters in need.

While a significant concern is how the extreme heat of a blazing fire will affect a robot’s power system, these robotic firefighters are hardy enough to stand with their human counterparts.

Drone robots in particular have found a niche in helping to prevent and control wildfires. They quickly starve a wildfire of fuel by helping to get rid of dry brush and plants. This will prevent it from growing further, giving human firefighters better control of the wildfire.

5. The Nuclear Industry

While nuclear power plants provide much of the world’s electricity, they also create highly radioactive byproducts. Exposure to these is a significant risk workers in this industry have to face on a regular basis. Being in contact with ionising radiation can cause a considerable number of health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.

While numerous protections are in place to contain this dangerous radiation, a particularly hazardous job in the nuclear industry is decommissioning power plants and disposing of radioactive waste. Inspecting and dismantling a nuclear plant means workers will be potentially exposed to any lingering radiation in the area.

Therefore, robots that help with these critical tasks have become vital. These specialised robots can help speed up dismantling the power plant while keeping humans away from hazardous materials.

In addition, robots can also help mitigate the effects of nuclear accidents and investigate the causes of those accidents. Remote-controlled robots can show investigators precisely what went wrong with a power plant to help make sure it does not happen again

Robots in Extreme Environments are Saving Lives

By using robots to brave extreme environments, humans can accomplish more than they could have on their own. Robots are helping explorers make discoveries and working alongside people to help keep them safe in the most dangerous working conditions. As robotic technology advances, companies will find more uses for robots in extreme environments.

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TECHNOLOGY

Next-gen chips, Amazon Q, and speedy S3

Published

5 months ago

December 1, 2023

Max

AWS re:Invent, which has been taking place from November 27 and runs to December 1, has had its usual plethora of announcements: a total of 21 at time of print.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the huge potential impact of generative AI – ChatGPT officially turns one year old today – a lot of focus has been on the AI side for AWS’ announcements, including a major partnership inked with NVIDIA across infrastructure, software, and services.

Yet there has been plenty more announced at the Las Vegas jamboree besides. Here, CloudTech rounds up the best of the rest:

Next-generation chips

This was the other major AI-focused announcement at re:Invent: the launch of two new chips, AWS Graviton4 and AWS Trainium2, for training and running AI and machine learning (ML) models, among other customer workloads. Graviton4 shapes up against its predecessor with 30% better compute performance, 50% more cores and 75% more memory bandwidth, while Trainium2 delivers up to four times faster training than before and will be able to be deployed in EC2 UltraClusters of up to 100,000 chips.

The EC2 UltraClusters are designed to ‘deliver the highest performance, most energy efficient AI model training infrastructure in the cloud’, as AWS puts it. With it, customers will be able to train large language models in ‘a fraction of the time’, as well as double energy efficiency.

As ever, AWS offers customers who are already utilising these tools. Databricks, Epic and SAP are among the companies cited as using the new AWS-designed chips.

Zero-ETL integrations

AWS announced new Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL, Amazon DynamoDB, and Amazon Relational Database Services (Amazon RDS) for MySQL integrations with Amazon Redshift, AWS’ cloud data warehouse. The zero-ETL integrations – eliminating the need to build ETL (extract, transform, load) data pipelines – make it easier to connect and analyse transactional data across various relational and non-relational databases in Amazon Redshift.

A simple example of how zero-ETL functions can be seen is in a hypothetical company which stores transactional data – time of transaction, items bought, where the transaction occurred – in a relational database, but use another analytics tool to analyse data in a non-relational database. To connect it all up, companies would previously have to construct ETL data pipelines which are a time and money sink.

The latest integrations “build on AWS’s zero-ETL foundation… so customers can quickly and easily connect all of their data, no matter where it lives,” the company said.

Amazon S3 Express One Zone

AWS announced the general availability of Amazon S3 Express One Zone, a new storage class purpose-built for customers’ most frequently-accessed data. Data access speed is up to 10 times faster and request costs up to 50% lower than standard S3. Companies can also opt to collocate their Amazon S3 Express One Zone data in the same availability zone as their compute resources.

Companies and partners who are using Amazon S3 Express One Zone include ChaosSearch, Cloudera, and Pinterest.

Amazon Q

A new product, and an interesting pivot, again with generative AI at its core. Amazon Q was announced as a ‘new type of generative AI-powered assistant’ which can be tailored to a customer’s business. “Customers can get fast, relevant answers to pressing questions, generate content, and take actions – all informed by a customer’s information repositories, code, and enterprise systems,” AWS added. The service also can assist companies building on AWS, as well as companies using AWS applications for business intelligence, contact centres, and supply chain management.

Customers cited as early adopters include Accenture, BMW and Wunderkind.

Want to learn more about cybersecurity and the cloud from industry leaders? Check out Cyber Security & Cloud Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

TECHNOLOGY

HCLTech and Cisco create collaborative hybrid workplaces

Published

5 months ago

November 29, 2023

Max

Digital comms specialist Cisco and global tech firm HCLTech have teamed up to launch Meeting-Rooms-as-a-Service (MRaaS).

Available on a subscription model, this solution modernises legacy meeting rooms and enables users to join meetings from any meeting solution provider using Webex devices.

The MRaaS solution helps enterprises simplify the design, implementation and maintenance of integrated meeting rooms, enabling seamless collaboration for their globally distributed hybrid workforces.

Rakshit Ghura, senior VP and Global head of digital workplace services, HCLTech, said: “MRaaS combines our consulting and managed services expertise with Cisco’s proficiency in Webex devices to change the way employees conceptualise, organise and interact in a collaborative environment for a modern hybrid work model.

“The common vision of our partnership is to elevate the collaboration experience at work and drive productivity through modern meeting rooms.”

Alexandra Zagury, VP of partner managed and as-a-Service Sales at Cisco, said: “Our partnership with HCLTech helps our clients transform their offices through cost-effective managed services that support the ongoing evolution of workspaces.

“As we reimagine the modern office, we are making it easier to support collaboration and productivity among workers, whether they are in the office or elsewhere.”

Cisco’s Webex collaboration devices harness the power of artificial intelligence to offer intuitive, seamless collaboration experiences, enabling meeting rooms with smart features such as meeting zones, intelligent people framing, optimised attendee audio and background noise removal, among others.

Tags: Cisco, collaboration, HCLTech, Hybrid, meetings

TECHNOLOGY

Canonical releases low-touch private cloud MicroCloud

Published

5 months ago

November 28, 2023

Max

Canonical has announced the general availability of MicroCloud, a low-touch, open source cloud solution. MicroCloud is part of Canonical’s growing cloud infrastructure portfolio.

It is purpose-built for scalable clusters and edge deployments for all types of enterprises. It is designed with simplicity, security and automation in mind, minimising the time and effort to both deploy and maintain it. Conveniently, enterprise support for MicroCloud is offered as part of Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro subscription, with several support tiers available, and priced per node.

MicroClouds are optimised for repeatable and reliable remote deployments. A single command initiates the orchestration and clustering of various components with minimal involvement by the user, resulting in a fully functional cloud within minutes. This simplified deployment process significantly reduces the barrier to entry, putting a production-grade cloud at everyone’s fingertips.

Juan Manuel Ventura, head of architectures & technologies at Spindox, said: “Cloud computing is not only about technology, it’s the beating heart of any modern industrial transformation, driving agility and innovation. Our mission is to provide our customers with the most effective ways to innovate and bring value; having a complexity-free cloud infrastructure is one important piece of that puzzle. With MicroCloud, the focus shifts away from struggling with cloud operations to solving real business challenges” says

In addition to seamless deployment, MicroCloud prioritises security and ease of maintenance. All MicroCloud components are built with strict confinement for increased security, with over-the-air transactional updates that preserve data and roll back on errors automatically. Upgrades to newer versions are handled automatically and without downtime, with the mechanisms to hold or schedule them as needed.

With this approach, MicroCloud caters to both on-premise clouds but also edge deployments at remote locations, allowing organisations to use the same infrastructure primitives and services wherever they are needed. It is suitable for business-in-branch office locations or industrial use inside a factory, as well as distributed locations where the focus is on replicability and unattended operations.

Cedric Gegout, VP of product at Canonical, said: “As data becomes more distributed, the infrastructure has to follow. Cloud computing is now distributed, spanning across data centres, far and near edge computing appliances. MicroCloud is our answer to that.

“By packaging known infrastructure primitives in a portable and unattended way, we are delivering a simpler, more prescriptive cloud experience that makes zero-ops a reality for many Industries.“

MicroCloud’s lightweight architecture makes it usable on both commodity and high-end hardware, with several ways to further reduce its footprint depending on your workload needs. In addition to the standard Ubuntu Server or Desktop, MicroClouds can be run on Ubuntu Core – a lightweight OS optimised for the edge. With Ubuntu Core, MicroClouds are a perfect solution for far-edge locations with limited computing capabilities. Users can choose to run their workloads using Kubernetes or via system containers. System containers based on LXD behave similarly to traditional VMs but consume fewer resources while providing bare-metal performance.

Coupled with Canonical’s Ubuntu Pro + Support subscription, MicroCloud users can benefit from an enterprise-grade open source cloud solution that is fully supported and with better economics. An Ubuntu Pro subscription offers security maintenance for the broadest collection of open-source software available from a single vendor today. It covers over 30k packages with a consistent security maintenance commitment, and additional features such as kernel livepatch, systems management at scale, certified compliance and hardening profiles enabling easy adoption for enterprises. With per-node pricing and no hidden fees, customers can rest assured that their environment is secure and supported without the expensive price tag typically associated with cloud solutions.

Tags: automation, Canonical, MicroCloud, private cloud