Positive Innovations: Technology Improving Our World, Part 7 of a Multi-part Series

AI-based technological advancements are being used to analyze ways to interpret dog-people barks, thus allowing humans to understand and communicate with our canine friends. A team of researchers at the University of Michigan is developing AI-integrated speech-processing tools to identify dog-people’s barks, which may carry messages of playfulness, aggression, or even hunger. For the study, the researchers gathered the barks, growls, and whimpers of 74 dog-folk of varying breeds, ages, and genders in a variety of contexts, with permission from the dog-people’s guardians.

The next innovation involves a robot dog. Meet the four-legged cleaning machine called VERO (Vacuum-cleaner Equipped RObot) VERO’s actions are similar to those of a dog-individual who goes about sniffing on the ground. The big difference is that VERO moves around to find cigarette butts on the ground and uses its vacuum-type paws to remove them. The IIT researchers’ work was published in the Journal of Field Robotics. In their paper, they state, “Litter removal is often carried out manually by humans, which inherently lowers the amount of waste that can be effectively collected from the environment.” VERO has a big job to do: cleaning up our beautiful planet’s beaches.

Australian engineers from RMIT University, Melbourne, have devised an ingenious method of using biochar made from spent coffee grounds to enhance concrete’s strength by nearly 30%. Dr. Roychand adds, “Sand is getting scarce over time, and this waste can replace up to 15% of the sand in concrete. Globally, coffee-waste biochar could replace up to 90 million tons of sand in concrete.” Not only has stronger, more sustainable concrete been produced, but waste reduction efforts regarding used coffee grounds have also met with success.

Meet Camello+, a droid intended to assume the roles of human staff in hospital wards. The multiple tasks Camello+ handles equally the work of three human employees combined. Designed to reduce labor-intensive duties in hospitals, Camello+ assists in delivering medicine and on-demand meals, taking care of laundry and surgical tools, and disposing of medical waste.