Amazing bridge building machine, exoskeletons, smart drones and a new Kiwi electric farm bike

Amazing bridge building machine

Via Daily of the Day, Neatorama

Have a look at how they put together bridging spans these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_8Rls2AAJw Parts one, two, and three of the series each give different views of the machine in action.

The massive 580-ton SLJ900/32 bridge girder erector placing a large segment of road connecting city of Chongqing and the Wanzhou district in China. The SLJ900/32 was designed by the Shijiazhuang Railway Design Institute.

FORTIS exoskeletons – helping workers, not replacing them

In Improving Lives with Exoskeleton Technology by the National Geographic series Breakthrough, the Lockheed Martin company’s unpowered FORTIS exoskeleton is featured. It shows how it can be used to improve the lives of industrial workers by reducing fatigue.

Drone can avoid obstacles at 30 miles per hour

A PhD student at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has built an autonomous drone capable of identifying and avoiding obstacles while flying at speeds up to 30mph. The drone uses stereo cameras and on-board computers to make all of its decisions using software released as open source.

See it in action at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qah8oIzCwk

Sparks fly over new Kiwi electric farm bike      

The Ubco 22 electric farm bike will be in production by Christmas with initial marketing aimed at New Zealand and Australia. Strong international interest means the company will bring forward plans to sell into North America, said Timothy Allan, managing director of Tauranga's Locus Research

The Ubco founding partners are two of New Zealand's leading e-bike industry experts. Their first farm bike prototype debuted at the 2014 Fieldays, winning two Innovation Awards and they worked to test and improve their design to re-launch at 2015 fieldays.

The bike is a quiet, lightweight, emission-free, off-road 22 that can carry tools. While it is ideal in an agricultural setting, Allan said that potential buyers were looking at a range of applications.

“The responses include tourism operators, and a lot of people from metro environments who are interested in a commuter option,” he said. “We will be moving very quickly to get road legal certification in New Zealand and Australia."

Recent developments have seen major improvements with an upgrade to the drive chain, controller and battery system, Allan said. “We're now at the point we expected to be by the middle of next year.”

See the Ubco 22 in action at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11539973