Daewoo Shipyard workers test out robot suits in South Korea

Credit: Daewoo

Industry leaders looking to see how automation and product ion will behave on the next levels will see two technology paths, robots offered as replacements for human labour and robotic technologies that will not replace humans but instead improve the ability of humans to perform their tasks.

A ship-building company in South Korea is interested in the latter path in the form of robotic suits that can support workers' tasks.

Their progress indicates how workers building the world's biggest ships could use exoskeletons to great advantage.

A report in New Scientist has been making the rounds this week about just such an idea that has been put to the test.

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) last year conducted the trial at a shipyard in Okpo-dong in South Korea.

The workers in wearable robotics carried large hunks of metal, pipes and other objects.

The suited-up workers were pleased that the exoskeleton allowed them to lift the heavy objects repeatedly without strain, but they also relayed feedback that they wanted to move faster and have the suits support heavier loads.

Gilwhoan Chu, lead engineer for the firm's research and development arm, and his team are working on improvements.

The goal is for the prototypes to turn into suits for regular use in the shipyard. New Scientist said among the challenges to be worked out now involve operating on sloping and slippery surfaces and tasks with twisting motions.

The exoskeleton fits anyone between 160 (about 5 feet 2) and 185 (6 feet) centimeters tall; it has a 28-kilogram frame (62 pounds) of carbon, aluminium alloy and steel but the suit supports itself, engineered to follow the wearer's movements.

A system of hydraulic joints and electric motors running up the outside of the legs, said New Scientist, links to a backpack, which powers and controls the rig.

It can lift objects with a mass of up to 30 kilograms (66 pounds) and has a three-hour battery life,

The world's top three shipbuilding firms are South Korean, Daewoo, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung Heavy Industries, and their shipyards are already recognised for their level of automation, said New Scientist.

DSME, according to the company's site, operates its R&D center for product design, production technologies and other fundamental technologies related to shipbuilding and offshore construction.

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SOFIA Airborne telescope: Makes its first observations - New Scientist

Airborne telescope makes its first observations - space - 28 May 2010 - New Scientist

SOFIA snapped this composite infrared image of Jupiter (right) during its first flight as a working observatory. The white stripe shows a region of relatively transparent clouds that reveal the planet's warm interior (Image: NASA)

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A jet with a large telescope built into its side has snapped its first in-flight images of the night sky. The flight begins a new phase for the infrared observatory, called SOFIA, which was once in danger of cancellation due to cost overruns.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) is a Boeing 747 jet that has been modified to carry a 2.5-metre telescope provided by the German Space Agency. The observatory is designed to fly at an altitude of about 12 kilometres.

That altitude is above more than 99 per cent of the atmosphere's water vapour, which obscures the sky at infrared wavelengths. That means SOFIA will receive roughly 80 per cent of the infrared light that hits orbiting space telescopes. It can be used to study phenomena such as star and planet formation in the Milky Way.

The telescope took off on Wednesday from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California, for its first in-flight night observations. Images taken during the six-hour flight are sharp enough for the telescope to perform "front-line astronomical research", SOFIA project scientist Pam Marcum said in a statement.

SOFIA, which cost more than $1 billion to develop, was nearly cancelled due to delays and cost overruns. NASA decided to restore funding to the project in 2006, after criticism from astronomers and a technical review that said the project faced no insurmountable challenges.

NASA aims to fly SOFIA several times a week for about 20 years.

Pain - The Weapon of Choice for the US Police? Portable pain weapon in police hands - New Scientist

Portable pain weapon may end up in police hands - tech - 30 September 2009 - New Scientist

HE Pentagon's efforts to develop a beam weapon that can deter an adversary by causing a burning sensation on their skin has taken a step forward with the development of a small, potentially hand-held, version. The weapon, which is claimed to cause no permanent harm, could also end up being used by police to control civilians.

The idea of the weapon is to "create a heating sensation that repels individual adversaries", according to the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) in Quantico, Virginia, which develops less-lethal weapons for the US military and coastguard.

Tests with a rifle-mounted infrared laser, carried out at a US air force lab near Dayton, Ohio, have determined a combination of laser pulse power and wavelength that causes an alarming, hot sensation on the skin, but which stops short of causing a burn, says JNLWD project engineer Wesley Burgei.

"We have established the minimum irradiance to cause a sensation and have characterised where thermal injury begins," he says. "But the exact operating irradiance which balances a useful military effect with a conservative margin of safety has not been nailed down yet."

That's something that will have to be done before the weapon is deployed, as too powerful a laser beam could permanently blind someone if fired at their eyes. Weapons that do this are banned under the UN Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons.

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Illegal toxic waste spotted from space - environment - New Scientist

Illegal toxic waste spotted from space - environment - New Scientist

MOVE over Erin Brockovich. Today's environmental detectives can use radar, helicopters and even satellite images to help them spot illegal toxic waste dumps and help catch those responsible.

Ironically, the tightening of restrictions on waste disposal and the enforcement of new recycling laws have made illegal dumping more likely, turning it into big business for the criminals involved.

The trouble is digging up suspect dumps to investigate their contents can release toxins into local water supplies. But with new remote-sensing techniques, such as ground-penetrating radar (GPR), you can find toxic trash without disturbing the soil. Instead, you bounce microwaves off buried materials and the strength of returning signals provides clues to what they are.

Alastair Ruffell, a forensic geologist at Queen's University, Belfast in the UK, has used GPR in 17 cases for the environment agencies of Scotland, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Most are ongoing, however three have resulted in the culprits being jailed and fined.

Ruffell's latest research shows that geophysical techniques can be used to characterise the waste (Environmental Forensics, DOI: 10.1080/15275920903130230). GPR surveys suggested the presence of a highly conductive waste such as farmyard slurry in a peat bog in Northern Ireland, simply because the suspect pocket in the bog reflected no microwaves.

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