PRE2018 3 Group4
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Introduction
The goal of this wiki page is to show a study/analysis/design/prototype of a robotic subject. This research is an assignment of the course Robots Everywhere (0LAUK0). For this project, students work in a group of 5 choosing a subject in the core of robotics to work on, thereby making sure the USE aspects are leading.
Group members
| Name | Student ID |
|---|---|
| Sander de Bruin | 1006147 |
| Jort de Bokx | 1050214 |
| Stijn Derks | 1008002 |
| Martin de Quincey | 1007047 |
| Nick van de Waterlaat | 1009357 |
Initial ideas
- Robotic surgery: With all the progress in robotics, we have now reached a stage in time where it is (almost) possible to let robots do surgery. There have been quite some recent breakthroughs, and it is also already applied to some scale in hospitals. However, there are some aspects to this robotic technology that need closer investigation.
- Medical rehabilitation with the help of robots: Many people suffer from injuries that may require long-term medical rehabilitation. This rehabilitation is typically complex and takes a lot of trained staff to help guide the patients through the process. Then there might be benefits for both the patients and the staff helping the patients with rehabilitation if robotics were to help the rehabilitation process.
- Drone interception: Between 19 and 21 December 2018, hundreds of flights were cancelled at Gatwick Airport, following reports of drone sightings close to the runway. The airport did not have any measures to prevent this issue. Many users of airlines were stranded and airlines (enterprises) lost. The airport only had detection and tracking devices, but no counter-drone mechanism. Just like birds, drones can cause enormous damage to aeroplane engines and are therefore illegal around airports. However, no[citation needed] airport yet has a fully working anti-drone defence mechanism, while most airports do have anti-bird systems, consisting of noise mechanisms to scare birds away.
- Drone pesticides: An important consequence of the increased global population is the demand for food. In order to meet these demands, farmers require the use of pesticides to ensure enough yield from their crops. However, the overuse of pesticides and fertilizer can have huge negative impacts on society. Hence we the use of drones to analyse the state of farmland and automatically apply fertiliser and pesticides as needed could make a farmer’s job easier, making the production more eco-friendly.
- Trading bot: Trading bots have been used on the stock market for quite some time already, but ever after the boom of cryptocurrencies, the usage of these bots has become ever more increasing. The stakeholders of these bots are people that are active in, for example, the stock market and cryptocurrency market. People could use such a bot in order to achieve a passive income. It would be interesting to design such a bot for interested parties. Furthermore, it would be interesting to consider the ethical discussion regarding the permission to use such trading bots in the stockmarket.
- Networking AI: Gridlock is problematic in large western cities, but also in many large cities with underdeveloped infrastructure in countries like Asia. It massively hinders any form of transport, and also unnecessarily increases pollution. Forms of AI in private cars, or forms of public transport such as buses of trains might help reduce this problem. On an abstract level, buses or trains could adjust their schedule or route such that they are deployed at places where passengers are waiting in real time, not where they are expected to be waiting. This way, one might prevent the case where 2 half-full buses are driving on similar routes. By sharing information and adapting to real time information, in this case only 1 bus would be necessary.
- Use drones to monitor and improve marine life: Due to climate change, many problems arise. A large part of these problems emerge in the seas and underwater. Examples include changes to the habitat of marine mammals, irreversible damage to coral reefs, and already endangered species being threatened quicker by their changing environment. A current use for them is flying through and capturing fluid samples of the exhaled fluids of whales, to monitor their health. Specific autonomous robots designed for underwater operation might help monitor the state of coral reefs, and introduce new coral to a reef to support its growth.
Chosen concept: Drone interception
Problem description
Between 19 and 21 December 2018, hundreds of flights were cancelled at Gatwick Airport, following reports of drone sightings close to the runway[1]. A total of 760 flights were distrupted on the 20th of December due to the drone. Naturally, this angered many people whose flight was delayed. The airport did not have any `good' measures to prevent this issue. Gatwick chief operating officer Chris Woodroofe said: `The police are looking for the operator and that is the way to disable the drone' [1]. Woodroofe further elaborates that the police had not wanted to shoot the devices down because of the risk from stray bullets. This is, of course, not something that is to be repeated as this caused a lot of inconvenience for many travelers. The airport itself only had detection and tracking devices, but no real counter-drone mechanisms available. Just like birds, drones can cause enormous damage to airplane engines and are therefore illegal around airports. However, no airport yet has a fully working anti-drone defense mechanism {Citation needed}, while most airport do have anti-bird systems. These anti-bird systems mainly consist of noise mechanisms to scare birds away, that do not work against drones. With the technology increasing each year, we can only expect more of these occurrences to take place. We should try our uttermost best to avoid these occurrences as much as possible as they result in angry travelers and a lot of expenses. Now, we argue that it is worth it to take a close look and see if there are smarter ways of going about anti-drone mechanisms