Spy Flies, Robot Maids, Cancer Sniffers and Explosive Noses

Shad Connelly asked:




Each year, Technology Review, a magazine covering emerging technologies (which dates back to 1899), publishes a list of young innovators whose work shows great promise. This year, the editors at Technology Review have spotlighted 35 technologists and scientists under the age of 35. Though their inventions vary from medicine to computers to communications and more, there are some significant overlaps in their work – most notably, robots and noses.

As is expected, several of the innovators on the list were profiled for their work in the vast (and growing) field of robotics. One innovator, Robert Wood, an assistant professor of engineering and applied sciences at Harvard, received a nod for his work developing robotic flies. No longer just a fictitious spy tool, Wood invented a fabrication technique that allows engineers to make tiny parts for a range of different robots – among them robotic flies. To create three-dimensional structures that bend and rotate, Wood builds “fold lines” into layered composites of materials such as polymers or carbon fiber (Technology Review compared the practice to Origami). Woods used the method to build the world’s smallest robot capable of taking flight, and the technology also can be used to create crawling and swimming bugs. Eventually, Wood hopes to make his robot insects fully autonomous – employing sensors to help them navigate.

Another inventor making the list for his robotics work was Andrew Ng, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford. Ng received notice from Technology Review for inventing the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Robot (or STAIR for short). The STAIR is a housekeeping robot whose components include a working arm, laser scanners and various depth cameras. But the STAIR’s greatest innovation is its ability to improvise. Ng taught the robot how to grasp certain items (like a wine glass by its stem), and then generalize associations for new objects (for example, the robot picked up an intricate piece of lab equipment by what could be considered its stem). As a result, the robot is now able to load a variety of dishes and cups into a dishwasher. And, to help push household robots further along so we can all one day have a Rosie like “The Jetsons”, Ng is working on an open-source robotics operating system that will let researchers share technology and programming code.

Elsewhere on the Technology Review list, a couple inventors used noses as inspiration for devices designed to “sniff out” problems before they escalate. Hossam Haick, a senior lecturer in chemical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, invented a device that can “smell” a person’s breathe to determine if the individual has cancer. Even more impressively, the electronic nose can provide a diagnosis in only a few minutes. Since cancerous tumors produce chemicals that appear in the blood and cross into the lungs – where they’re exhaled in very small amounts – Haick created a device to detect the chemicals in a person’s breathe. Haick’s current prototype can even distinguish between lung, breast and colon cancer. Eventually, Haick hopes the cell-phone-size invention will provide an easy and inexpensive way for doctors to screen patients.

Another inventor who used the nose as the basis for her invention is Aimée Rose, who works for ICx Technologies. Rose’s work as a scientist, engineer and research manager has directly led to the development of ultrasensitive detectors that can “sniff out” explosives. Currently, the most effective way to detect explosives on individuals at airports is through the noses of canines – a process that Rose’s technology recreates. Rose believes her invention could provide an equivalent alternative (since explosive-sniffing dogs are in short supply), and would be far more accurate than the x-ray scanners typically used in airports now. Like all the innovators who made the 2008 Technology Review list, Rose’s invention uses wires, chips and ingenuity to make everyday life better. “I wanted an opportunity to put something in people’s hands that could affect their lives and maybe make them safer,” she said.

Prosthetic Robotics