Important Innovations Collection

Drones with Nail Guns Just Nailed It New Autonomous Roofers in Town University of Michigan engineers and roboticists have invented a drone that can put a new roof on your house and do it autonomously.  The drone nails shingle to a rooftop and decides in flight where to target the nails.  The aerial vehicle is autonomous, positions the nail gun on a nailing point, places the nail and then moves on to the next point without any human intervention.  It's a cutting edge example of drones being capable of what can be dangerous construction work for humans. Octocopter The drone is a DJI S1000 octocopter equipped with a standard nail gun.  The drone uses a system of cameras and markers to cover test roofs with asphalt shingles.  The roofs have a range of slopes. Machine Vs. Human Right now, the University of Michigan team says the drone is less effective than a human roofer.  But they think the system will be improved by a power tethered system. ...

Teaching Self-Driving Cars to Predict Pedestrians' Next Moves Source:  University of Michigan Ford-Funded Predictive System Developed at University of Michigan Researchers at the University of Michigan are developing a new predictive system that enables self-driving cars to anticipate pedestrian movements.  The purpose is better defensive driving by driverless cars.  Ford is underwriting the research. Catalogs of Video The system starts with videos from a combination of cameras, lidar and GPS shot from a self-driving car recording how people move in a busy city intersection.  It records in 3D and determines motions that indicate the pedestrian's next move, such as a person focused on texting not crossing a street. High Predictive Success Rate According to the Michigan team, the system's results are spectacular.  It offers a median prediction translate error of only 80cm after just 6 seconds, as opposed to 7 meters of error with other metho...