Welcome to this week’s Engineering360 News Brief.

A Flying Robot

Astronauts on the ISS will soon be getting a new artificial intelligence friend onboard: a flying, talking, intelligent robot called the Crew Interactive Mobile Companion, or CIMON. The orb-shaped device weighs about 11 pounds and displays an expressive digital face. CIMON was developed by Airbus in partnership with IBM and will be a "a free flyer, a kind of flying brain" that will interact with, aid and learn from astronauts. As an astronaut advances through the steps of their tasks, CIMON will track his or her progress and make suggestions on how best to proceed. CIMON may also have a psychological impact during long-term small group confinement aboard the ISS.

Testing Our Drinking Water

The World Health Organization estimates around 140 million people are drinking water containing unsafe levels of arsenic. Scientists from UCL and Imperial College London have created an affordable and easy-to-use arsenic sensor. The traditional tests for arsenic are usually time-consuming and expensive, not to mention hard to access as laboratories often need to be involved. As such, the team developed a sensor that can be used at home, returning accurate measurements. Working like a blood glucose meter, a drop of water is placed on a piece of paper which is then inserted into the device. After one minute, a digital reading of the arsenic level is produced.

Uber Autonomous Trucks

Uber autonomous trucks have been circulating in the United States, transporting goods on long-distance trips since November 2017. These vehicles, which have been moving on Arizona roads, have a licensed driver sitting in the truck cabin, ready to take over in case of emergency. Uber’s autonomous trucks pick up and drop off trailers at the company's transfer centers. There the autonomous vehicles take care of the trailers for the long distance trips, whereas human conductors take those destined for closer delivery, in particular, inside cities. Both Uber and its main competitor in the United States, Lyft, are betting on autonomous trucks because the driver’s salary - which accounts for most of their expenses – can eventually be eliminated.

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