Robo-optics, Organ Clocks, Blood Tech + Reforesting

👁 Low Energy, High Efficiency Remote Sensors

A new seeing robot has entered the chat, and the energy needed to power its vision is only a fraction of what conventional location systems demand. Kathryn Hulick reports for Science News on ​an eyelike sensor incorporated with a chip and tiny AI model​ that can change the remote visual sensing arena.

🤖 Low-Power Superpower

Robots that gather visual information from their surroundings need an eye of some sort. While in some cases a camera and an AI that determines location may serve as that apparatus, that’s not always the most efficient visualizing instrument because a camera is always capturing information even if the environment remains static, needlessly using a huge amount of energy. To save energy, researchers have developed a system called LENS, comprising a sensor, chip and tiny AI model.

LENS uses an existing, commercially available product known as Speck, which is the sensor-chip duo, created by the company SynSense. Akin to a human eye, Speck operates more efficiently than a camera. It pays attention to how the environment changes through a process known as neuromorphic computing, which more closely resembles how our eyes and brain take cues.