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Providing Lifesaving, Cost-Saving Information
in Real Time through Rapidly Deployable Mobile Sensor Robots
for Disaster and Emergency Response.
Here's our current newsletter with the latest company information.
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Share the news in our February 2022 newsletter.
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Students Help Advance Company Research and Tech Development
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Researching and experimenting with the modalities and techniques for methane leak detection by fusing sensor, satellite, and artificial intelligence (AI) data is one of the Squishy Robotics industry-sponsored projects for the UC Berkeley Masters of Engineering program for the 2021-2022 academic year.
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UC Berkeley’s Spring semester began January 11 and the return to in-person classes on January 31 brought 11 UC Berkeley Master of Engineering (MEng) students back to our Squishy Robotics office and labs. MEng students typically intern with different companies or laboratories to work on capstone projects. This school year, our capstone MEng students are members of one of four teams that are working on collaborative projects that involve research, design, and ongoing presentations of project findings and goal achievements.
“Each team has a particular focus and specific goals,” explained Lead Mechatronics Engineer Douglas Hutchings, who serves as Squishy Robotics’ industry/business mentor for these UC Berkeley students. “The four teams that have been working together since September 2021 are: the Rotor Robot team, the Wildfire/Methane Detection and Prevention team, the Mobile Sensor Robot team, and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) team.”
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The Rotor Robot team members, who are also advised and mentored by UC Berkeley Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering Mark W. Mueller, are focused on drones with mechanical protection systems (such as cages) that allow for protection and some collision resilience. This impact-resistance makes this drone technology especially useful in indoor and/or contained natural or man-made environments, such as tunnels and storage tanks.
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The Wildfire/Methane Detection and Prevention team is studying the efficacy of automatically emplacing sensors that can detect an emergent wildfire and monitor such a site until a work crew can put out the fire. The team is also studying how best to detect and monitor methane leaks, a substantial cause of greenhouse gas emissions. The team’s is researching and working on how best to identify wildfire and methane emissions locations based on analysis of satellite data, maps, expert user input, and artificial intelligence (AI) and fusing data from multiple sensor robots to find such fire or leak locations. Additional project work is focused on how to remediate and/or stop such environmental damage using tensegrity, robot, sensor, and drone technologies.
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The Mobile Sensor Robots for Emergency Response and Human-Robotic Interaction team is continuing the testing and optimizing of control strategies for energy-efficient mobility of the Squishy Robotics Mobile Robot. This interdisciplinary team of mechatronics, design, and controls/software engineers are collaborating to refine the design of a ruggedized impact-resilient iteration
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of the robot’s current design, are improving the robot's degree of slope incline capabilities, and are working to apply state estimation into the robot’s control scheme.
Unlike the three teams previously described that are made up of students getting their master’s degree, the IIoT team has a mixture of undergraduate and graduate students. For the most part, these students work in BEST (Berkeley Emergent Space Tensegrities) Lab. BEST Lab is at the forefront of investigation that focuses on the intersection of cutting-edge frontiers in design research, computational design, sustainability, gender equity, human-machine cognition, supervisory control, soft robotics, sensor fusion, design research, and intelligent learning systems. Squishy Robotics CEO Dr. Alice Agogino is the Director of BEST Lab.
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Squishy Robotics in the News
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Squishy Robotics co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Deniz Dogruer sat down for a talk with staff members at HazSim. The Southern California-based company recently published the extended Q&A in its newsletter and posted the interview on its website.
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HazSim provides first responders and hazmat workers with hands-on, interactive, real-time simulations for training and improving operations.
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Robots Featured in DJI Brochure
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Squishy Robotics was included in DJI's multi-page brochure for third-party solutions. Under the heading of Sensor Accessories, the brochure highlights how the company’s products “keep your drones in the air while sensor-loaded robots gather data on the ground.” The listing also notes that Squishy Robotics offers many different, customizable sensor combinations.
The brochure is available from DJI-authorized online retailers and enterprise dealers.
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