Optical Tech Would Update a Robot’s AI on the Fly
TL;DR
Atop a lab bench, Cornell Tech postdoctoral researcher Yifan He positions the lens of an optical receiver almost a meter away from an LED emitting a beam of red light. The computer monitor attached to the receiver takes a beat to refresh, then displays an array of squares that resemble a QR code. When you hold your phone camera up to a QR code, light strikes the image sensor as only a first step to revealing the data hidden behind the black and white matrix.
Nauti's Take
Updating a robot's model with a beam of light sounds exotic but targets a real problem: machines in factories, warehouses or operating rooms need new weights without hanging on a network, and that is a promising path around cable and radio. The catch: what works across a metre of lab bench still has to survive dust, motion and stray light.
Worth watching for robotics teams under hard security rules; for everyone else it stays research for now.
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