Robots have been defined as machines that can carry out certain activities or actions without direct contact with them. However, this definition has been referred to as an old definition of robots because the definition actually made drones and other remotely controlled devices be referred to as robots. Many books consulted before writing this post, defined the robots as programmable machines that can carry out complex actions without any external control. This last definition can be attributed to the modern robots as compared to the earlier definition which included drones and early robots. Details obtained from the history of robots show that robots were initially referred to as any mechanized device that can make moves or perform a certain action when activated from a distance with rope or any linking mechanism and such is the belief of early centuries of human history.

The article presents a solution approach for the Torpedo Scheduling Problem, an operational planning problem found in steel production. The problem consists of the integrated scheduling and routing of torpedo cars, i. e. steel transporting vehicles, from a blast furnace to steel converters. In the continuous metallurgic transformation of iron into steel, the discrete transportation step of molten iron must be planned with considerable care in order to ensure a continuous material flow. The problem is solved by a Simulated Annealing algorithm, coupled with an approach of reducing the set of feasible material assignments. The latter is based on logical reductions and lower bound calculations on the number of torpedo cars. Experimental investigations are performed on a larger number of problem instances, which stem from the 2016 implementation challenge of the Association of Constraint Programming (ACP). Our approach was ranked first (joint first place) in the 2016 ACP challenge and found optimal solutions for all used instances in this challenge.

We consider the torpedo scheduling problem in steel production, which is concerned with the transport of hot metal from a blast furnace to an oxygen converter. A schedule must satisfy, amongst other considerations, resource capacity constraints along the path and the locations traversed as well as the sulfur level of the hot metal. The goal is first to minimize the number of torpedo cars used during the planning horizon and second to minimize the time spent desulfurizing the hot metal. We propose an exact solution method based on Logic based Benders Decomposition using Mixed-Integer and Constraint Programming, which optimally solves and proves, for the first time, the optimality of all instances from the ACP Challenge 2016 within 10 minutes. In addition, we adapted our method to handle large-scale instances and instances with a more general rail network. This adaptation optimally solved all challenge instances within one minute and was able to solve instances of up to 100,000 hot metal pickups.

Deep sea explorers sent a drone to the ocean floor to beam back stunning images of the USS Indianapolis, a naval gunship that lies three miles beneath the surface of the Philippine Sea 72 years ago, in a dramatic live broadcast on Wednesday. Findings from the footage enabled experts to piece together the final moments of the WWII ship, which was discovered by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen last month. The ship was sunk by a Japanese torpedo in the final days of World War Two, more than 18,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the Navy said. From the new drone footage, researchers have concluded that two Japanese torpedoes hit the ship, one of them striking an area near a chamber with crew members that likely would have died immediately upon impact. Researchers also discovered guns, torpedo remnants and parts of aircraft that were preserved thanks to the extremely cold temperatures at the bottom of the sea.

Twenty scientists and engineers aged 16 to 34 were challenged to "visioneer" a new generation of underwater craft. Their ideas drew heavily on marine life, feature surfaces that can shape-shift, and boast radical new propulsion technologies. The concepts aim to inspire new ideas for underwater combat in the future. Cdr Peter Pipkin, the Royal Navy's fleet robotics officer, said: "Today's Royal Navy is one of the most technologically advanced forces in the world, and that's because we have always sought to think differently and come up with ideas that challenge traditional thinking." In the 18th Century the Royal Navy began sheathing ships in copper - dramatically improving speed - and the dreadnought revolutionised naval warfare in the run up to World War One.

A picture has emerged on social media which claims to show a new military drone China is building. The unnamed aircraft, said to be a torpedo bomber, is able to skim the surface of the sea and carry out'lethal attacks' on warships, said a post on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter. In addition, the alleged drone would be able to avoid radar detection as it could fly at an extremely low altitude above the waters, according to Chinese news website Sina. Mysterious and powerful: Source suggested this is a new military drone being built by China. It's said to be a member of the CH drone series and can fly at a low altitude above the sea The picture, thought to be of China's new military drone, was first posted by a Chinese internet user on Weibo on May 3. The picture appeared to be a part of a brochure. The brochure claimed that the featured drone could attack large waterborne targets and carry out quick, long-distance strikes with air-dropped torpedoes.

The Seagull is an unmanned vehicle. The torpedo is a torpedo. A robotic ship fired a torpedo into the ocean without any humans aboard. Naval battles, for so long the domain of sailors fighting each other and the elements all at once, can now be in part delegated to machines. The vessel responsible is the Seagull Unmanned Surface Vessel, made by Israel's Elbit Systems.