Tag Archives: Carnegie Mellon University

CMU to Host Innovation in Health Care Technology Conference

Posted on by Jonathan Kersting

healthcare confIncreasing health care costs and demand for health care services resulting from an aging and ailing population has made health care unaffordable and has undermined U.S. businesses’ competitiveness in the global economy.

Recently enacted health reforms aim to increase access to health care, decrease costs, and improve the quality of care. Innovation in health care technology—ranging from the implementation and use of HIT to the development of new medical devices—will change business models, improve efficiencies, and prove critical to the advancement of low cost, high quality health care.

Carnegie Mellon University’s Innovation in Health Care Technology Conference  will explore the role of innovation in health care technology in achieving an improved health care system. The conference is set for April 5. Get all of the details right here.

Anglo American PLC and Carnegie Mellon sign master agreement for Robotics Development

Posted on by theprossman

Carnegie Mellon University has signed a five-year master agreement with one of the world’s largest mining companies, London-based Anglo American PLC, to develop robotic technologies for mining.

CMU’s Robotics Institute (RI), through its National Robotics Engineering Center (NREC) and Field Robotics Center (FRC), will design, build and deploy mining robots, robotic tools and autonomous technologies in partnership with Anglo American’s Technology Development Group.

“We are excited that Anglo American selected CMU as its partner for developing innovative mining robotics,” said Tony Stentz, NREC director.

“This agreement will break new ground in mining technology,” said Dimi Apostolopoulos, principal investigator and senior systems scientist at NREC. “We will apply robotics to underground mining tasks that are perilous and extremely challenging for humans. Our robotic solutions will improve productivity through innovations in processes and technologies.”

The RI will build upon its track record of successful mining automation projects to develop advanced perception, electromechanical and robotic systems for Anglo American. It will partner with Anglo American engineers to put the NREC’s and FRC’s field-proven technologies to work in the company’s mining operations. The immediate applications include robotic mining machinery, mine mapping and automated inspections. Anglo American and the RI also will explore other applications under this master agreement.

“We will work hard to get production robotics in place as soon as possible,” Apostolopoulos said.

Automating the most difficult, costly and dangerous mining jobs will improve safety and increase the productivity and efficiency of Anglo American’s operations. Advances in robotics will allow the mining of hard-to-reach ore deposits that cannot be economically extracted under existing methods and mine layouts.

Anglo American’s master agreement with CMU is part of its strategic plan for advancing mining technologies. The company has worldwide operations, producing such commodities as iron ore, metallurgical coal, thermal coal, copper, nickel, platinum and diamonds.

“Working with top robotics experts is essential to our technology and innovation programs,” said Donovan Waller, who leads automation and remote control technology development for Anglo American. “Our agreement with Carnegie Mellon University will allow us to rapidly deploy new systems in our platinum mines and develop technologies that will shape our future operations.”

Astrobotic Technology Assembles Prototype of Lunar Water-Prospecting Robot

Posted on by Jonathan Kersting

Astrobotic Technology’s Polaris

From our friends at Carnegie Mellon University:

Astrobotic Technology Inc. has completed assembly of a full-size prototype of Polaris, a solar-powered robot that will search for potentially rich deposits of water ice at the moon’s poles. The first of its kind, Polaris can accommodate a drill to bore one meter into the lunar surface and can operate in a lunar regions characterized by dark, long shadows and a sun that hugs the horizon.

Astrobotic, a Carnegie Mellon University spinoff that develops robotics technology for planetary missions, is developing Polaris for an expedition to the moon’s northern pole. It would launch from Cape Canaveral atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The company, in partnership with CMU, seeks to win the Google Lunar X Prize of more than $20 million.

Polaris is a flight prototype, but has the same configuration as the rover that will eventually land on the moon. This will enable Astrobotic team members to spend the coming months testing and improving the robot’s computer vision, navigation and planning software, and software that can plot the rover’s position on the moon within 10 feet. It includes a number of flight-worthy components, including wheels and chassis beams constructed of light, but tough composite materials.

“It is the first rover developed specifically for drilling lunar ice,” said William “Red” Whittaker, Astrobotic CEO and founder of the Field Robotics Center at CMU’s Robotics Institute. Other robots built by the Field Robotics Center have developed technologies necessary for lunar drilling, but none of those machines was ever meant to leave Earth. “What Polaris does is bring those many ideas together into a rover configuration that is capable of going to the moon to find ice,” he added.

Get more info right here.

Carnegie Mellon Computer Scientist Luis von Ahn Receives Presidential Research Award

Posted on by Jonathan Kersting

Luis Von Ahn

U.S. President Barack Obama named Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Luis von Ahn as a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Von Ahn, 33, is the A. Nico Habermann Associate Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon. He was one of 96 PECASE recipients announced by the White House and was one of 20 recipients nominated by the National Science Foundation. The PECASE program recognizes scientists and engineers who, early in their careers, show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge.

Another CMU faculty member, John Kitchin, associate professor of chemical engineering, also is a PECASE recipient. Kitchin was nominated for the award by the Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy.

“Discoveries in science and technology not only strengthen our economy, they inspire us as a people,” President Obama said. “The impressive accomplishments of today’s awardees so early in their careers promise even greater advances in the years ahead.”

Von Ahn was cited “for innovative research in human computation applied to complex tasks that advance the field of machine translation while simultaneously helping people learn a second language, and for outstanding teaching and mentoring as well as successful efforts to translate scientific discovery into beneficial commercial products.”

His research enables humans and computers to work together to solve problems that neither humans nor computers could solve alone. He launched his most recent innovation, Duolingo.com, just last month. The free website, which he created with Severin Hacker, a Ph.D. student in computer science at CMU, teaches users a foreign language; as those users practice their new skills, they are translating online texts and thus making the Web accessible to more people worldwide. The site features computer tools that enable these foreign language learners to translate text as well as a professional.

“Luis von Ahn has had a string of spectacular successes in developing computer-based systems that combine the efforts of many (even hundreds of millions) people to do useful work, ranging from digitizing books to translating Web pages,” said Randal E. Bryant, dean of Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science. “We are very proud of his accomplishments and the recognition he is receiving via the PECASE award.”

In 2007, von Ahn used his crowdsourcing approach to create the online puzzles known as reCAPTCHAs, which reduce spam and protect websites from automated, malicious programs. When people solve the puzzles, they simultaneously digitize words from pre-computer-age books and periodicals. So far, more than a billion Internet users have solved reCAPTCHA puzzles and millions of books have been made suitable for search and for reading on any digital device.

He also created Games with a Purpose, which harness human gameplay to tackle challenging problems beyond the current capability of computers, such as image recognition.

Von Ahn, earned his doctorate in computer science at Carnegie Mellon in 2005 and joined the faculty of its Computer Science Department in 2006. He currently holds the Habermann Development Chair in Computer Science, which is awarded every three years to a junior faculty member of unusual promise in Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science.

He has received numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 2006, a Packard Fellowship and Sloan Research Fellowship in 2009, and the Association for Computing Machinery’s Grace Murray Hopper Award earlier this year. Last year, Spanish Foreign Policy magazine named him the most influential new thought leader of Latin America and Spain.

Unlocking Investment and Innovation in the Digital Age:
The Path to a 21st Century FCC

Posted on by theprossman

Federal Communications Commission

On July 18, 2012, Commissioner Ajit Pai of the Federal Communications Commission will give his first major speech since taking office. The event will take place at the Carnegie Mellon University Center and will begin at 10:00 AM. Commissioner Pai’s visit is being organized by the Pittsburgh Technology Council.

Commissioner Pai is coming to Pittsburgh to discuss how the federal government can help accelerate economic growth and enhance job creation in the communications sector, both in southwestern Pennsylvania and the nation as a whole. In particular, Commissioner Pai will examine how the FCC can modernize its regulatory approach to remove barriers to infrastructure investment and technological innovation. Given the rapidly changing communications marketplace, he will explain why the agency cannot continue to embrace twentieth-century solutions to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

The event is being recorded by Council member BXVideo. Click here to listen to the live podcast.