AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs

This report is the latest in a sustained effort throughout 2014 by the Pew Research Center's Internet Project to mark the 25th anniversary of the creation of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee (The Web at 25).The report covers experts' views about advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, and their impact on jobs and employment

Robot navigation and target capturing using nature-inspired approaches in a dynamic environment

Path Planning and target searching in a three-dimensional environment is a challenging task in the field of robotics. It is an optimization problem as the path from source to destination has to be optimal. This paper aims to generate a collision-free trajectory in a dynamic environment. The path planning problem has sought to be of extreme importance in the military, search and rescue missions and in life-saving tasks. During its operation, the unmanned air vehicle operates in a hostile environment, and faster replanning is needed to reach the target as optimally as possible. This paper presents a novel approach of hierarchical planning using multiresolution abstract levels for faster replanning. Economic constraints like path length, total path planning time and the number of turns are taken into consideration that mandate the use of cost functions. Experimental results show that the hierarchical version of GSO gives better performance compared to the BBO, IWO and their hierarchical versions.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Implementing and Tuning an Autonomous Racing Car Testbed

Achieving safe autonomous driving is far from a vision at present days, with many examples like Uber, Google and the most famous of all Tesla, as they successfully deployed self driving cars around the world. Researchers and engineers have been putting tremendous efforts and will continue to do so in the following years into developing safe and precise control algorithms and technologies that will be included in future self driving cars. Besides these well known autonomous car deployments, some focus has also been put into autonomous racing competitions, for example the Roborace. The fact is that although significant progress that has been made, testing on real size cars in real environments requires immense financial support, making it impossible for many research groups to enter the game. Consequently, interesting alternatives appeared, such as the F1 Tenth, which challenges students, researchers and engineers to embrace in a low cost autonomous racing competition while developing control algorithms, that rely on sensors and strategies used in real life applications. This thesis focus on the comparison of different control algorithms and their effectiveness, that are present in a racing aspect of the F1 Tenth competition. In this thesis, efforts were put into developing a robotic autonomous car, relying on Robot Operative System, ROS, that not only meet the specifications from the F1 Tenth rules, but also allowed to establish a testbed for different future autonomous driving research.Obter uma condução autónoma segura está longe de uma visão dos dias de hoje, com exemplos como a Uber, Google e o mais famoso deles todos, a Tesla, que já foram globalmente introduzidos com sucesso. Investigadores e engenheiros têm colocado um empenho tremendo e vão continuar a fazê-lo nos próximos anos, a desenvolver algoritmos de controlo precisos e seguros, bem como tecnologias que serão colocados nos carros autónomos do futuro. Para além destes casos de sucesso bem conhecidos, algum foco tem sido colocado em competições de corridas de carros autónomos, como por exemplo o Roborace. O facto ´e que apesar do progresso significante que tem sido feito, fazer testes em carros reais em cenários verdadeiros, requer grande investimento financeiro, tornando impossível para muitos grupos de investigação investir na área. Consequentemente, apareceram alternativas relevantes, tal como o F1 Tenth, que desafia estudantes, investigadores e engenheiros a aderir a uma competição de baixos custos de corridas autónomas, enquanto desenvolvem algoritmos de controlo, que dependem de sensores e estratégias usadas em aplicações reais. Esta tese foca-se na comparação de diferentes algoritmos de controlo e na eficácia dos mesmos, que estão presentes num cenário de corrida da competição do F1 Tenth. Nesta tese, foram colocados muitos esforços para o desenvolvimento de um carro autónomo robótico, baseado em Robot Operative System, ROS, que não só vai de encontro `as especificações do F1 Tenth, mas que também permita estabelecer uma plataforma para futuras investigações de condução autónoma

The Future of Work In Cities

The latest report in our City of the Future series examines societal shifts and advancements in technology that are impacting the rapidly changing American workforce. The report outlines solutions to help city leaders plan for the fast-approaching future, while forecasting the economic viability of two distinct sectors – retail and office administration – in which a quarter of Americans are currently employed

Project Management in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (also referred to as Industry 4.0) is driven by a massive utilization of new technologies, such as robots, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications, replacing humans by machines in certain tasks or the development of new or more efficient tasks. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is originating huge modifications in society and organizations. Human adaptation to the new paradigm is required, as it will have a high impact on jobs and on the required skills