In an effort to streamline the process of inspecting its aircraft, French aircraft manufacturer Airbus has started testing the use of drones to accomplish the task. Airbus announced the news during the Farnborough Airshow in England
While drones and aircraft usually make for a dangerous combination, Airbus recently shared a video showing how drones could be of great use to the company in the future. The company announced the
Traditionally, aircraft inspections are done by human means. Inspectors walk around the aircraft and utilize small lifts to look inside the intricate nooks and crannies not viewable from the ground. This process usually takes around two hours to complete from beginning to end.
By utilizing its custom-made drones, Airbus is able to cut that time down to 10 minutes. Not only does it save time, it could also help prevent on-the-job injuries that could occur to ground workers.
The drones Airbus uses for the inspections are AscTec Falcon 8 drones built by Ascending Technologies. They are autonomous throughout the inspection process thanks to Intel’s RealSense 3D technologies, but trained pilots keep an eye on them to ensure nothing goes wrong.
To capture the photographs for the inspection process, the drones carry a Sony a7R camera with a Sonnar T* FE 35mm f/2.8 ZA lens attached. The high-resolution capabilities of the camera help inspectors get a detailed look at any mechanical or cosmetic defects by capturing roughly 150 images. These images are then reconstructed into a 3D model for inspectors to look over.
Currently, Airbus is testing this process on its A350 family of aircraft. Nathalie Ducombeau, the company’s head of quality, expects the company will complete its testing before the end of 2016. If all goes as planned with the first phase of testing, the drone inspections will be tested on other aircraft in Airbus’ fleet.
San Francisco startup Dimensional advertised for people to walk robot dogs through city streets. The New York Times reported that the job could include carrying a roughly 33-pound robot back to the office if it overheated. A lift home is an awkward requirement for a labor-saving machine.
Keeping the hardware running is only one challenge. Anthropic's robotics tests found that language models mostly failed when controlling joints directly, but did better when directing trained controllers. Giving an AI agent a body doesn't teach it to handle ordinary household objects.
Soon, a mattress protector may be more than a bed cover. Australian medtech company Sleeptite and researchers at RMIT University have received a US patent for FlexiSense, a smart bedding technology that tracks body position and posture to help caregivers identify when older residents may be at risk of falling.
The technology is being developed for Sleeptite’s in-bed monitoring system, REMi, and was recently on display at The MedTech Conference in Boston. A peer-reviewed study in Flexible and Printed Electronics says the sensors can also be made at scale without sacrificing performance or durability.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.