Robotic Tumor Treatment, Flying Car Airports and AI that knows which song you are listening to.

February 11

This week we will look at a new robotic tumor treatment, a flying car airport and AlphaBot, Walmart’s new robotic grocery picker. We also discover a new technique for making wood transparent and an AI that tell which song you are listening to by analyzing your brainwaves.

Robotic Tumor Treatment

We have seen a growing number of robotic applications in medicine. German robotics company Kuka, has released their latest high precision robotic instrument for tumor treatment.

The CyberKnife (developed by Accuray) is a virtual knife that is an alternative to conventional radiotherapy. The high precision robot uses image guided irradiation to treat tumors anywhere in the body, from the brain to the spinal column to various organs such as lungs, kidneys or the prostate.

The system is able to provide irradiation of the tumor with much greater precision than previous methods. The integration of the image guidance system with the robotic technology allows accuracy of less than a millimeter. Used in treatments of small to medium sized tumors, patients are able to return to work the day following the procedure.

Flying Car Airport

We have previously mentioned some of the many VTOL (Vertical TakeOff and Landing) vehicle projects underway around the world. These projects are coming closer and closer to fruition. Once VTOLs are approved to fly and transport passengers they will need somewhere to takeoff and land.

Urban-Air Port and Hyundai have teamed together to build the first Flying Car Airport in Coventry in the UK.

An Urban Air Port is 60% smaller than a traditional heliport and can be installed in a matter of days. The infrastructure can support any electric VTOL and can rapidly deploy any sized drones to transport supplies, emergency equipment and people.

AI can tell what song you are listening to from your Brainwaves

Researchers at Deft University in The Netherlands and the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, have trained an AI to be able to determine which song (out of a list of 12) that you are listening to by analyzing your brainwaves.

20 volunteers were asked to listen to 12 songs in a dimly lit room whilst blindfolded (to reduce other external stimulation). Each person’s brainwaves were recorded using an electroencephalography (EEG) cap that detects electrical activity. A mixture of Western and Indian songs were used. This output was used to train an AI. The AI showed an 85% accuracy rate when tested on data it had not seen before.

This is not the first time an AI has been trained to recognize brainwaves. In 2018 researchers at the University of Toronto used a similar approach to the read brainwaves that occurred after a test subject was shown an image of a face. The researchers were able to digitally recreate the faces based upon the brain waves recorded. Prior to this researchers used changes in blood flow in the brain, measured via an MRI, to try and understand what the brain is thinking. The EEG technique is more portable, inexpensive and can deliver greater levels of detail in milliseconds.

Transparent Wood

Scientists have made wood transparent previously. This was achieved by removing the lignin from the wood by using a range of chemicals. The process was very time consuming and produced excessive excess waste. The lignin in wood gives the wood its’ strength. The resulting product was weak and brittle.

Researchers at the University of Maryland have developed a new technique that results in a transparent wood that is 50 times stronger than the previous method. The researchers were able to change the lignin molecule, rather than remove them, by simply applying hydrogen peroxide to the woods surface and then leaving it in the sun. The wood was then soaked in ethanol to clean it and a transparent epoxy was applied to make it smooth.

The resulting product allows 90% of the light through. The end product looks like glass but it has the strength and flexibility of wood. The new transparent wood is likely to be used in energy efficient buildings, solar installations and touch panels.

AlphaBot

Walmart has announced an expansion of their AlphaBot based warehouses. The AlphaBot automatically picks online grocery orders and delivers them to an assistant who checks and bags the order ready for delivery. The bot currently operates in 20,000 square foot warehouses which are now being expanded nationally in the US. Many of these warehouses will be established within or next to, existing stores. Orders will be available for drive through pick up and delivery.

The carts can move horizontally and vertically without any conveyors or lifts thus reducing space constraints. Real time data sharing will allow for more intelligent restocking. The way that we are buying groceries is changing and there is much more change to come.

Paying it Forward

If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.

If you have any questions or comments please email me via my website craigcarlyon.com or comment below.

I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.

Till next week.