Engineering Out Loud

Will robots someday replace farm workers? Do we want them to? Assistant Professor and agricultural robotics expert Joe Davidson talks about the potential benefits of using robots in agriculture, and what goes into designing the perfect robotic apple picker.

BONUS CONTENT

• Design, integration, and field evaluation of a robotic apple harvester (Wiley)
• Robotics for Sugarcane Cultivation: Analysis of Billet Quality using Computer Vision (IEEE Xplore)

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-9-robotics-and-ai/and-farm-he-had-robot-s9e5

Why should robots have artificial social intelligence? According to Heather Knight, assistant professor of computer science, if robots are going to help in hospitals or work with people in factories, they will need to be adapted to our social conventions.

For robots to be more useful around people, they’ll need to go where we go. But how? Associate Professor Jonathan Hurst thinks the answer is simple. Walking. But actually making a walking robot is no simple feat.

For robots to be more useful around people, they’ll need to go where we go. But how? Associate Professor Jonathan Hurst thinks the answer is simple. Walking. But actually making a walking robot is no simple feat.

Can we trust artificial intelligence to make good decisions? The answer is a resounding maybe. More and more, society and individuals are entrusting AI to make potentially life-changing decisions. Rather than putting blind trust in the judgment of these remarkable systems, Alan Fern and a team of computer scientists want to reveal their reasoning processes.

How do you combine ethics, policy, and practicality into the design of revolutionary  robotics and artificial intelligence systems? Researchers Kagan Tumer and Tom Dietterich are collaborating to find out as they help lead the Oregon State Collaborative Robotics and Intelligent Systems Institute.

BONUS CONTENT

• The Promise and Peril of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics symposium

• CoRIS

• Artificial Intelligence Roadmap

• TWIML podcast episode featuring Tom Dietterich

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-9-robotics-and-ai/beautiful-music-robotics-and-ai-s9e1

Geoff Hollinger, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is teaching underwater robots to use human preferences to take on risk as they complete their scientific missions.

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-1-data-science-and-engineering/sea-and-sky-s1e2

What can be done to protect workers in one of the most dangerous industries on Earth? For much of his career, John Gambatese has studied, developed and evaluated a wide range of options designed to keep construction workers out of harm’s way.

Advances in 3D graphics have made movies and video games more realistic, but can also have an impact on science. Associate Professor Eugene Zhang and Assistant Professor Yue Zhang describe their research to help medical doctors better target cancerous tumors by using 3D modeling and simulation.

BONUS MATERIAL

• Associate Professor Eugene Zhang's website.
• Associate Professor (Senior Research) Yue Zhang's website.

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-3-environmental-and-human-health/toy-story-tumors-s3e1

How can we help in the fight against Parkinson’s disease? Harriet Nembhard and her colleagues developed a sensor system to detect the disease early on, opening the door to earlier treatment and improved quality of life. Nembhard is the head of the School of Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering and Eric R. Smith Professor of Engineering.  

BONUS CONTENT

• Michael J. Fox profile in The New York Times Magazine
• The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research
• Interview with Michael J. Fox on "CBS Sunday Morning" 
• “A data mining methodology for predicting early stage Parkinson's disease using non-invasive, high-dimensional gait sensor data”
• “Evaluating the Cost-Effectiveness of an Early Detection of Parkinson’s Disease through Innovative Technology”
• Narration for this episode was provided by Adam Keenan, a student with the Oregon State University Theatre.

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-8-health-and-safety/detecting-parkinson%E2%80%99s-early-better-outcomes-s8e5

Aid workers put their lives on the line to treat patients with Ebola. Can robots help make their jobs a little easier and allow more people to survive the disease? Bill Smart, professor of robotics at Oregon State University, is exploring how robots may be most useful during disease outbreaks.

BONUS CONTENT

• Doctors Without Borders
• Oregon State’s simulated Ebola treatment unit

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-8-health-and-safety/robots-without-borders-finding-new-ways-treat-ebola-s8e4

What makes a frog’s tongue sticky, or a snake’s skin slippery? Joe Baio, assistant professor of bioengineering, looks to nature for substances that could provide clues to developing new biomedical adhesives and anti-fouling surfaces.

BONUS CONTENT

• The Baio Lab home page
• “Snake Scales” video featuring Joe Baio
• Press release

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-8-health-and-safety/sticky-and-slippery-science-biomedical-applications-s8e3

Ever wonder why so many truckers park their rigs on highway off-ramps, in retail store parking lots and at other odd locations? It’s not their first choice, and it’s not the safest choice either, but sometimes it’s their only choice. Research by Sal Hernandez reveals that the national truck parking shortage takes an enormous toll on people and commerce.

How can we support nuclear medicine efforts that help more than 40,000 people in the U.S. everyday? Researchers at the Oregon State University College of Engineering have developed a way to produce the much-needed radioisotope technetium-99m using small research reactors like the one here at the university.

BONUS CONTENT

• The Oregon State TRIGA Reactor
• Northwest Medical Isotopes
• “Bringing medical isotope production closer to home”
• Molybdenum-99 for Medical Imaging
• Moly target

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-8-health-and-safety/making-medical-isotope-used-millions-s8e1

Can turning seawater into drinking water be a cost-effective way to  provide clean, fresh water for the growing numbers of people facing water scarcity? Bahman Abbasi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is taking up that challenge with a mobile, modular, solar-powered, desalination system.

Bonus content

• OSU-Cascades researcher awarded $2 million to develop solar-powered desalination technology
• Department of Energy Solar Desalination program
• Energy Systems Engineering -- OSU Cascades

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-7-clean-water/turning-seawater-sweet-water-s7e6

How can we remove toxic contaminants like TNT from groundwater? Jack Istok and Mandy Michalsen are using pioneering bioremediation and bioaugmentation methods developed here at Oregon State to restore the groundwater at the Umatilla Chemical Depot.

BONUS CONTENT

• Underground Story of Water in Oregon
• Umatilla Army Depot Superfund Site
• Groundwater Research Lab
• “Clean Water for a Thirsty Region”
• “Evaluation of Biostimulation and Bioaugmentation to Stimulate RDX Degradation in an Aerobic Groundwater Aquifer”
• “RDX Degradation in Bioaugmented Model Aquifer Columns under Aerobic and Low Oxygen Conditions”

How do you ensure a product designed for the developing world is useful for the people it’s intended to help? A team of researchers, led by Nordica MacCarty, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is combining engineering with anthropology in field tests of a water purification system.  

How can students at Oregon State improve access clean water for rural communities around the world? We hear from three students who worked in Nicaragua and Cambodia on projects that  changed people’s lives -- including their own.

How long will the world’s supply of clean fresh water last? Just the fact that we have to ask that question is enough to start worrying, as threats from pollution, climate change, and overpopulation continue to get worse. Fortunately, researchers like Tyler Radniecki are at the vanguard of the search for solutions to revive and restore this precious resource.

How can we clean up pollution from toxic chemicals that have seeped into the groundwater, hundreds of feet below the surface? Lewis Semprini, Distinguished Professor of environmental engineering, discusses strategies for bioremediation, using microorganisms to break down dangerous chemicals into harmless end-products.

BONUS CONTENT

• Clean and Sustainable Technology Initiative Workshop

• A Vision of Clean Water for Everyone

• Cultivating a Community to Clean Up Toxic Waste

https://engineering.oregonstate.edu/season-7-clean-water/going-beneath-surface-s7e1