Lead Mechatronics Engineer Douglas Hutchings (shown with National Science Foundation (NSF) Director Sethuraman Panchanathan) represented Squishy Robotics and spoke to attendees at the Robotics Demo Day with the Senate AI Caucus on April 30. This showcase was sponsored by the Computing Research Association (CSA), IEEE, and Carnegie Mellon University.
The event, titled “Robots for a Better Tomorrow: Robotics Showcase & Demo Day,” was designed to provide members of Congress (from both Senate and House) and Congressional staff with an overview of the robotics landscape in the United States. Specifically, attendees gained insights about the robotics industry, how that industry is incorporating evolving A.I., and how these emerging technologies maximize U.S. global competitiveness. Attendees were able to meet and talk with robotics researchers and developers. Hutchings spent the day demonstrating and talking about our tensegrity robots and how they provide situational awareness to first responders in emergency situations.
“It was exciting to talk with staffers about how robotics and A.I. are evolving and working together in so many ways,” said Hutchings. “I explained how Squishy Robotics is using A.I. in our research and development work to identify and help reduce methane emissions. The combination of A.I. and our unique robot sensors is a particularly effective method to sense fugitive methane leaks from remote oil wells.”
“Although satellite data can point to where methane gas is present, such identified areas are extremely large,” stated Hutchings. “When you can combine that satellite data with A.I. software and ground-based sensors, as Squishy Robotics is doing, a specific area within a large oil field can be identified. Drones could then deploy our sensor robots to pinpoint exactly which oil well is leaking.” Hutchings explained that a company could then give specific coordinates to a repair crew and remediation could quickly follow.
Congressional staffers were particularly interested in Squishy Robotics’ commercialization plans, as Squishy Robotics grew out of a federally funded research collaboration between NASA and the University of California, Berkeley.
NSF Director Panchanathan compared the investments that the NSF is currently making in A.I. and robotics to the long-term investments made in software, networking, and computer-related engineering in the 1960s and 1970s that helped create the Internet of today. The showcase sponsors believe that today’s federal investments in robotics and A.I. will help advance new innovations and will support U.S. economic competitiveness.