In the not so distant future, robots may very well be a major component of modern human life. Whether we look at the driverless revolution to the use of drones, we can expect to see these machines to inhabit the space around us fairly soon. Multi-robot situations will become an increasingly common occurrence, and so engineers will need to ensure they can exist in the same space without hindering each other. In the scenario of drones, the machine needs to be capable of making instant decisions to adjust its trajectory to prevent an accident, whilst also making sure it doesn't lose the target destination. These sorts of changes need to be made in seconds whilst also recognising that the situation may change as a result of a movement from the other drone.

In a new short video that has surfaced on TikTok, apes have been spotted flying drones. The drone is an Autel Robotics Evo and the apes are located in a Myrtle Beach Safari in South Carolina. The video was taken by photographer Nick B. and shows two apes flying a drone. One is standing up using the drone's controller while the other sits beside him holding the drone's case. The video is particularly impressive as the ape seems very much in control of the drone.

Last week, researchers of the University of Sherbrooke presented the Sherbrook Multimodal Autonomous Drone (S-MAD) at the Living Machine 2017 conference at Stanford University, where it won the "Best Robotics Paper Award." According to NewAtlas, the Createk Design Lab and Sherbrooke researchers looked to birds and their last-minute perching instincts and abilities and infused those into their unmanned aerial vehicle. Not only that, but the company went with a fixed-wing approach--again, hewing closer to a bird's anatomy as opposed to the typical rotor-based drone design. Makes sense, as the Living Machine conference is all about the symbiotic relationship between nature and machinery, rewarding those companies most creative and effective in their designs. The Sherbrooke researchers apparently tested thousands of aerodynamic model simulations in order to perfect the design's flight and perching capabilities, before actually succeeding in developing a capable fixed-wing drone with the proper thrust and pitch required to pull the aforementioned behavior off correctly.

Iraq cancelled a ministerial visit and summoned Turkey's ambassador on Wednesday as it blamed Ankara for a drone attack that killed two high-ranking Iraqi military officers. Iraqi officials called the attack a "blatant Turkish drone attack" in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, where Turkey's military has for weeks raided positions of fighters it considers "terrorists". Two border guard battalion commanders and the driver of their vehicle were killed on Tuesday, the army said in a statement, marking the first Iraqi troop deaths since Turkey launched the cross-border operation in mid-June against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels. Iraq's foreign ministry - which already summoned the Turkish envoy twice over the military action on its soil - said the ambassador would this time be given "a letter of protest with strong words" rejecting the offensive. The ministry also confirmed the Turkish defence minister would no longer be welcomed for a planned visit on Thursday.

A former NASA engineer braved shark infested waters to finally uncover if these'ruthless killers' prefer the taste of human or fish blood. Now a YouTuber, Mark Rober setup the gruesome experiment by placing human blood and that from a fish on two modified surfboards. The liquids were pumped into the ocean over the course of an hour while Rober and his team stood by counting the number of visits to each board. Using a drone, Rober and his team calculated the fish blood board was approached 134 times by the sharks, making it the winner. A former NASA engineer braved shark infested waters to finally uncover if these'ruthless killers' prefer the taste of human or fish blood.

The Iraqi army says two senior security officials have been killed in a "blatant Turkish drone attack" in the country's north, where Ankara has for weeks been raiding positions of fighters it considers "terrorists". The drone targeted a vehicle belonging to the Iraqi border guards in the Bradost area, north of Erbil, the military said in a statement on Tuesday. The strike caused the deaths of the two border guard battalion commanders and the vehicle's driver. There was no immediate statement by Turkey. The deaths announced by the military marked the first time members of the regular Iraqi forces have been killed since Turkey launched a cross-border ground and air operation in mid-June against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the mountainous terrain of northern Iraq.

Matt Carlson is the Vice President of Business Development at WiBotic Inc, a company that provides reliable wireless power solutions to charge aerial, mobile and aquatic robot systems. Why are wireless charging solutions so important to the future of robotics? Robots need the ability to autonomously charge for most applications. It simply isn't cost effective to hire a staff of workers to manage battery charging or battery swapping. However, most autonomous charging today is done using docking stations that require physical mating of electrical contacts.

Pre-departure flight plan scheduling for Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and cargo delivery drones will require on-demand scheduling of large numbers of aircraft. We examine the scalability of an algorithm known as FastMDP which was shown to perform well in deconflicting many dozens of aircraft in a dense airspace environment with terrain. We show that the algorithm can adapted to perform first-come-first-served pre-departure flight plan scheduling where conflict free flight plans are generated on demand. We demonstrate a parallelized implementation of the algorithm on a Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) which we term FastMDP-GPU and show the level of performance and scaling that can be achieved. Our results show that on commodity GPU hardware we can perform flight plan scheduling against 2000-3000 known flight plans and with server-class hardware the performance can be higher. We believe the results show promise for implementing a large scale UAM scheduler capable of performing on-demand flight scheduling that would be suitable for both a centralized or distributed flight planning system

Robotics technology has become a key driving force for a whole new generation of autonomous systems and devices. It has the potential to transform every aspect of life and business, enable an enhanced level of service delivery and improve efficiency. From diverse industry verticals to personal use at home, robotics is set to become an effective technology revolutionizing the way we live and work. At the same time, it is driving a heightened demand for the skilled professionals. Credit to its nature to assist humans in every condition such as manufacturing, precision agriculture, and disaster recovery, among others, organizations are actively looking for robotics professionals for their business innovation and growth, which is leading to a rise of jobs in this field. According to salary estimations from Glassdoor, the average salary of a Robotics professional in India is INR 16,82,582.

Japan will ban the flying of drones over 15 U.S. military facilities next month without advance permission as a measure against potential terrorist acts, the Defense Ministry said Friday. The 15 sites include Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo and the U.S. Marines' Camp Schwab on Okinawa. The restrictions, based on a law enacted last year, will be implemented on Sept. 6 following a notice period but have triggered concerns from media organizations over the potential disruption to news-gathering activities. Drone pilots will be barred from flying within 300 meters of the boundary of the designated sites, including the Henoko coastal district in Nago, Okinawa, near Camp Schwab where landfill work is underway to replace the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma despite local opposition. Police and the Self-Defense Forces are permitted to seize or destroy drones if they are flown near the designated zones without permission, and violators face up to a year in prison or a maximum fine of ¥500,000 ($4,700).