Tech – Revista Arco-55BET Pro

Revista Arco — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 20:17:14 +0000

Technology, Science, Innovation, Arts and Humanities in Southern Brazil

Scientific and Cultural Journalism

Tech – Revista Arco-55BET Pro

Revista Arco — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 20:08:57 +0000

TauraBots, the UFSM humanoid robot soccer team, has a new teammate: the robot Dimitri. The new android is the first to be funded through international cooperation between UFSM and a laboratory at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea. Dimitri is aiding researchers in the field of cognitive robotics by enabling them to test computational models of cognitive development in a physical robot.

The partnership was initiated after a meeting between UFSM professor and project supervisor, Rodrigo Guerra, and the director of the South Korean laboratory, Jun Tani. Built in late December of 2015 and exported to Korea, the robot is composed of a torso, head and compliant robotic arms that give it sensitivity for dynamic manipulation, enabling it to understand when it is squeezing an object, for example.

A second Dimitri was built and is kept at UFSM to help exchange code in cooperation with the Korean lab. The android in Brazil also has two legs and is about 1.24 meters tall, one of the largest humanoid robots ever designed in Brazil.

The idea for its name came from a project member, who said that the robot was “tough like a Russian actor”, so the invention should be given a Russian name. According to the developers, you could throw a concrete block at Dimitri without damaging it.

Connection

The aim of the project is that when the Santa Maria team improves the functionality of the machine, this information can be used in South Korea – and vice versa – since both robots are based on the same system, which facilitates the replication of results.

The most distinguishing feature of the Dimitris is that they have special series elastic actuators (SEAs) in their arms and legs. SEAs are a kind of actuator where springs are placed in series between the motor and the joints and they can be placed in any joint of the body. Traditional robots without this technology have stiffer and more fragile joints that don’t handle unpredicted external forces well, such as when someone pushes the robot’s arm, for example.

With this innovation developed at UFSM, the robots maintain compliance with the environment when they are under strain, which increases the safety of the interaction, both for the robot and, more importantly, for people working with it.

Investment

Developing this kind of technology requires a large financial investment: each robot costs at least US$16,500, according to Professor Guerra. The electric motors alone, used in the Brazilian Dimitri – which were reutilized from another project – cost around US$1,000 each, totaling approximately US$13,200.

Professor Guerra, who resorted to using his own financial resources in the project, points out that Dimitri’s importance for the future justifies its high cost of development. “Dimitri is a robot that, for now, has no pretension to handle household problems, wash dishes or help people with special needs, for example, but it explores this type of technology, which is a step in that direction,” he says.

Dimitri’s developers chose to make the files used to build the robot available to anyone who wants to contribute or even copy the invention. The software and more information about the project can be obtained by contacting the team at facebook.com/taurabots
Image caption: Development of the elastic series actuator required almost two years of research. It is compact, low-cost and is made of a low-density polyurethane elastomer material.

Reporter: Gabriele Wagner de Souza;

Photographer: Rafael Happke;

Graphic Design: Kennior Dias and Taynane Senna.

Published 2017

Tech – Revista Arco-55BET Pro

Revista Arco — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 19:57:16 +0000

Competing against more than two thousand projects, two UFSM students won the Empreenda Santander 2017 award in the Entrepreneurial University category. Fernando Ferreira and Jader Stefanello are students from the Automation and Control Engineering course who created the Startup Lunix, which aims to reduce energy consumption through a system that identifies the ideal lighting in an environment, based on the amount of natural light and pedestrian and vehicular circulation.

Their proposal competed with projects in the areas of health, management, energy and parking control. Jader believes that winning first place was related to a number of factors, saying that “Intelligent consumption was the difference. Energy prices are increasingly high and this is likely to worsen in coming years. We will have to consume less and less. Plus, the potential of our team and the size of the market were also important”.

Glossary of Entrepreneurship

Startups: new companies that seek to explore market innovation. They aim to develop a business model that is scalable and repeatable, i.e., use a single economic model to reach a large number of customers and generate profits in a short time without a significant increase in costs.

Incubation: a process in which entrepreneurs seeking to develop projects, products and services based on innovative technology are temporarily provided with a physical space and guidance to establish and structure themselves.

Acceleration: accelerators follow each startup with a focus on goals and metrics in a collaborative model.

The light of the idea

The business plan for Lunix was hatched in the UFSM class “Entrepreneurial Attitude,” taught by Dr. Hélio Leães Hey, director of UFSM’s Agency for Innovation and Technology Transfer (AGITTEC). The Agency helped to polish the original idea and has followed up on its progress since leaving the classroom. As a result of the partnership, Lunix was incubated at UFSM’s PULSAR incubator –which means the Startup was provided with temporary facilities and technical support to take its first steps as a company.

Lunix’s proposal drew on the team’s different experiences. Jader had worked in a junior company for a year and a half and was focused on business administration and management, while Fernando was in charge of the automation technology side. Both saw the opportunity to put into practice the knowledge acquired throughout their academic careers. Felipe Wilke Neu and Jeann Carlo Raguzzoni are team members with academic and research experience in the area that are responsible for providing technical support. “Seeking diversity of perspectives and people who complement each other in a project is a good tip for entrepreneurship,” says Jader.

Lunix won one hundred thousand reais and a scholarship to enroll in an immersion course in the area of entrepreneurship and management at Babson College, in the state of Massachusetts, United States. Babson College is ranked number one in the area of entrepreneurship by Entrepreneur magazine and The Princeton Review (2018). The entrepreneurs spent 15 days at Babson in July 2019 and were awarded a six-month startup acceleration program at the ACE accelerator, which helped them to develop the project.

The controlled energy consumtion system in public lighting works with a presence sensor so that the lights come on so they detect people and vehicles nearby. The signal is transmitted to the lights via a wi-fi network connected to the server. Data showing system performance are made available to the customer.

Change of plans

After winning the award, the Startup changed directions to serve a different market segment. Lunix now offers people flow analyses for shopping malls, supermarkets, pharmacies and retail stores, which ultimately leads to reduced costs and improved sales results. The change of direction was prompted by discussions with potential clients when the team was in the phase of implementing a pilot of the earlier project. Jader explains that they spoke with many people, both from the public and private sectors, and in these conversations, they became aware of this emergent demand.

The technology works by detecting the cell phone signal of people passing by or going into the store and then transmitting the data, such as peak times and recurrence, to a cloud platform. With this information, the Startup performs analyses that compare people flows and sales figures, which can provide insight into ways to improve sales strategies. “When you tell the business owner that they can make more money, they are ready to listen,” says Jader.

Lunix began providing the service in April 2019 and by the end of the year they already had 13 points of operation, as well as some surprising results. In one case, they detected a connection between low sales in the winter due to the cold weather. They suggested scheduling a clearance sale during this period and this worked to boost sales. In another case, they detected a drop in sales after a certain time in the early evening and the solution was to reduce the number of employees on the sales floor after that time. The employees were happy, because they got to go home earlier and the owner was happy because it reduced costs, increasing profits.

Reporter: Bibiana Pinheiro;

Illustration and infographic: Pollyana Santoro;

Graphic Design: Taynane Senna.

Published 2018

Tech – Revista Arco-55BET Pro

Revista Arco — Thu, 02 Jun 2022 19:56:02 +0000

With about 220 million head of cattle, Brazil has the second largest cattle herd in the world. Cattle ranching accounts for about 15% of the national Gross Domestic Product and about 18% of agribusiness exports. In order to contribute to this extensive sector, the UFSM Laboratory of Biotechnology and Animal Reproduction (BioRep) has developed research on Reproductive Biology for over 20 years.

One of their specific lines of research investigates Interferon-Tau, a protein produced and released by embryonic cells and delivered to the uterus and the blood system of cows to assure that levels of progesterone remain elevated during early pregnancy. A number of factors, including food poisoning, malnutrition, medication use, climate and genetic factors may cause females to produce the protein in small quantities or to stop producing it altogether. When this happens, progesterone is reduced and the reproductive cycle is restarted, leaving the uterine environment unsuitable for the embryo.

BioRep, coordinated by Dr. Alfredo Antoniazzi from the Large Animal Clinic Department at the UFSM Center for Rural Sciences, studies ways to control and even avoid impairment of Interferon-Tau production, establishing favorable conditions for conception and pregnancy, which is vital to herd productivity.

One of the most recent studies conducted in the Laboratory under the supervision of Dr. Antoniazzi was Carolina Amaral’s master thesis for the Veterinary Medicine Postgraduate Program, which investigated the influence of heat stress on Interferon-Tau production and oxidative stress in bovine embryos produced in vitro. It was concluded that factors such as hyperthermia – an increase in body temperatures capable of affecting metabolism – can reduce the conception rate by 20 to 30%.

Other studies carried out at BioRep also take into consideration the regional characteristics of Southern Brazil, where UFSM is located. The region has a subtropical climate, with well-defined seasons that include cold winters and hot summers. It is also a leading region in agricultural production, with crop rotations adapted to each period of the year.

For beef cattle breeders, the ideal scenario is for cows to be fertilized between November and February, so the calves are born between August and October, when there is plenty of food due to the harvest and climate. After giving birth, the cow will be healthy, strong, well-nourished and prepared for a subsequent pregnancy. For dairy cattle breeders, this is even more important, since milk production is dependent on having calves. In other words: without pregnancy, there is no milk production and, consequently, a decrease in profits.

“Successful production depends on knowledge generated in laboratories for improving reproduction”, says Dr. Antoniazzi. Besides the study on Interferon-tau, BioRep works with additional research lines on ovarian physiology. The Laboratory, which has a staff of four professors, one laboratory technician and undergraduate and graduate students, collaborates with research centers in the United States and Canada.

Reporter: Cristina Haas;

Photographer: Rafael Happke;

Edition: Andressa Motter;

Graphic Design and Illustration: Taynane Senna.

Published 2019