Posted on 12/01/2021 12:56:18 PM PST by devane617
A new strategy to reduce the spread of COVID-19 employs a mobile robot that detects people in crowds who are not observing social-distancing rules, navigates to them, and encourages them to move apart. Adarsh Jagan Sathyamoorthy of the University of Maryland, College Park, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 1, 2021.
Previous research has shown that staying at least two meters apart from others can reduce the spread of COVID-19. Technology-based methods—such as strategies using WiFi and Bluetooth—hold promise to help detect and discourage lapses in social distancing. However, many such approaches require participation from individuals or existing infrastructure, so robots have emerged as a potential tool for addressing social distancing in crowds.
Now, Sathyamoorthy and colleagues have developed a novel way to use an autonomous mobile robot for this purpose. The robot can detect breaches and navigate to them using its own Red Green Blue—Depth (RGB-D) camera and 2D LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensor, and can tap into an existing CCTV system, if available. Once it reaches the breach, the robot encourages people to move apart via text that appears on a mounted display.
The robot uses a novel system to sort people who have breached social distancing rules into different groups, prioritize them according to whether they are standing still or moving, and then navigate to them. This system employs a machine-learning method known as Deep Reinforcement Learning and Frozone, an algorithm previously developed by several of the same researchers to help robots navigate crowds.
The researchers tested their method by having volunteers act out social-distancing breach scenarios while standing still, walking, or moving erratically. Their robot was able to detect and address most of the breaches that occurred, and CCTV enhanced its performance.
Oh, what fun....
Wait ‘til they outfit them with Tasers.
Surround and taunt the robot !!!
Let’s try that in Chicago. Take bets on how long the navigating device continues to function and provide helpful hints to all those evil, wicked social distancing offenders.
It will be a case of Robot meets Cinderblock, upside the head.
Are you kidding me?
I was a marine. Just like fighting tanks. A mobility kill is a good starting place.
A new Knock out game.
Kick the can..
And if robots become enough of a nuisance, I wouldn’t want to work at the factory or at the company that makes them.
Learn how to make Molotov Cocktails.
Adarsh Jagan Sathyamoorthy must lead a really secluded life and not get out much. He’s probably never been laid.
Oh wouldn’t that be delightful? People will take baseball bats to these things with gusto. Then, there will be legislation granting rights to them, and damage to them will be deemed a “hate crime”. In the name of diversity, (1) you’ll be compelled to allow them into your schools, your places of worship, and your work. (2) There will be dark colored ones and light colored ones. Nirvana.
Hit it with your stun gun.
They’re not going to last long if they actually do it. People will destroy them.
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