Open ROV: Crowd-Funded Open Source Robotic Undersea Exploration Platform
It all started with a kid who wanted to explore a cave that was rumored to contain sunken treasure.
OpenROV is an open source underwater robot for exploration and education. We’re a community of DIY Ocean Explorers committed to developing open source technology to empower more people to explore and study underwater environments…
We want this to be a sustainable adventure. Our plan is to get user feedback from people who build and operate OpenROV’s to make the design even better and more fitted toward the community’s needs. We plan to continue selling OpenROV Kits (and assembled OpenROVs) on our website as well as payloads and accessories for specific uses. We also hope that by building a strong community of people who understand the hardware and its applications, we’ll be able to develop ways of doing better science and exploration in more remote and interesting places.
(via OpenROV - The Open Source Underwater Robot by OpenROV — Kickstarter ht BoingBoing)
After Multiple Windows Security Fails, US Navy Turns to Linux for Drones
First, Chinese Keyloggers PWN the USAF drone program, then Flame malware writes its own security certificates. Looks like it’s curtains for Windows in the US Military.
The U.S. military is not new to Linux, and has learned from past problems with less-reliable operating systems.
“While the US military has been a growing user of Linux, the contract might also have something to do with the swabbies learning from the mistakes made by the flyboys and girls in the US Air Force,” The Register wrote.
“After a malware attack on the Air Force’s Windows-based drone-control system last year, there has been a wholesale move to Linux for security reasons.” At the same time, the U.S. Department of Defense is also prepared for the Linux integration, and has put out guidelines on how its agencies can use open-source code.
“The US government can directly combine GPL and proprietary/classified software into a single program arbitrarily, as long as the result is never conveyed outside the U.S. government, but this approach should not be taken lightly,” the guidelines state. “When taking this approach, contractors hired to modify the software must not retain copyright or other rights to the result (else the software would be conveyed outside the US government.)”
(via U.S. Navy turns to Linux to run its drone fleet | Cutting Edge - CNET News)
Open-Source Will Transform Robotics and AI:
The reason for these open platform successes is not because they were free (although free does increase adoption), but because the open platform produced a superior product.
Using closed-source as a form of economic protectionism for individual companies is not the solution. It just ensures competitors will advance faster.
The reason we haven’t seen even greater amateur participation in robotics and AI, up until this point, has been because of the cost: whether it’s the $400,000 to buy a PR2, or $3 million dollars to replicate IBM’s Watson. This too is about to change.
(via The Future of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Is Open - IEEE Spectrum)
Open-Source Surgical Robot More Portable, Costs 88% Less Than Name Brand:
Robot-assisted surgery today is dominated by the da Vinci Surgical System, a device that scales down a surgeon’s hand movements in order to allow him to perform operations using tiny incisions. That leads to less tissue damage, and thus a quicker recovery for patients. Thousands of da Vincis have been made, and they are reckoned to be used in over 200,000 operations a year around the world, most commonly hysterectomies and prostate removals.
But the da Vinci is far from perfect. It is immobile and weighs more than half a tonne, which limits its deployability, and it costs $1.8m, which puts it beyond the reach of all but the richest institutions. It also uses proprietary software. Even if researchers keen to experiment with new robotic technologies and treatments could afford one, they cannot tinker with da Vinci’s operating system.
None of that is true of the Raven. This device—originally developed for the American army by Dr Hannaford and Jacob Rosen of the University of California, Santa Cruz, as a prototype for robotic surgery on the battlefield—is compact, light and cheap (relatively speaking) at around $250,000. More importantly for academics, it is also the first surgical robot to use open-source software. Its Linux-based operating system allows anyone to modify and improve the original code, creating a way for researchers to experiment and collaborate.
(via Surgical robots: The kindness of strangers | The Economist)
