Researchers at the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS) and St. Petersburg State University have learned how to target the delivery of drugs curing the skin diseases by quantum dots. The specificity of the therapeutic compound is that its biological activity is triggered by a laser. The proposed method has been successfully demonstrated through laboratory models. The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Nanomaterials.

Scientists of the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of RAS (SPC RAS) have developed a specialized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) “Voron”, that allows for quick expanding the wireless coverage area of a certain territory from the air. The above development, in particular, can be used in an area outside the main telecommunications infrastructure, for example, for running rescue and search operations.

From October 11 - 13, Vladislav Donchenko, Chief Researcher, and Alyona Kodolova, Acting Deputy Director for Research of SRCES RAS – SPC RAS, took part in the meetings of the Expert Council on Ecology and Environmental Management at IPA CIS, the Standing Commission of the IPA CIS on Agrarian Policy, Natural Resources and Ecology, as well as the International Forum "Sustainable Development of Mountain Territories".

Dear Colleagues: 5th issue of Volume 22, 2023, is published on the website of the "Informatics and Automation" Journal.

Presentations were delivered in regard to group management, optimization of the consumption of energy resources of robots, educational robotics, vision systems, application of the theory of proactive management, planning of collective actions in human-machine communities, as well as neural network prediction of the behavior of biological objects. The best practices of the journal "Informatics and Automation" were discussed at a round table concerning problems of publishing Russian journals, organized by the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Robotics and Mechatronics.

Successful test flights of the drone were conducted in the Shimsky district on the territory of the agricultural cooperative "Oratai". Due to its application, potato tops were dried, which led to the drying of the aboveground part of the plants, thereby accelerating the maturation of tubers. This procedure accelerates the maturation of tubers, contributes to the thickening of the peel, brings the harvest closer and prolongs the shelf life, as well as prevents the spread of infections and the appearance of diseases such as late blight.

Within the collective stand of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation at the AGRORUS exhibition, the SPC RAS staff members Marina Astapova, Jan Puhalsky presented an agrobox prototype with a function for determining a growth stage of lettuce based on machine vision and neural networks., Research results received based on the collected data corpus showed that the segmentation of lettuce plants using the NDVI index allows for identifying such characteristics of seed lettuce as the square occupied by plants, the height of an individual plant, the number of plants with the accuracy of up to 95%.

SPC RAS researchers from its three laboratories actively participated in the round tables at the International Military and Technical Forum "Army-2023" that dealt with certain applications of Artificial intelligence technologies and robotic complexes.

Researchers of the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS) and staff members of the State Hermitage have developed a VK-bot interpreter of the Flower language. The above bot renders the users an assistance in encrypting their messages via replacing texts on feelings by appropriate flowers. At that, the plants’ images are picked out from the paintings and objects of decorative and applied art as exposed at the Hermitage collections. The project popularizes art as well as helps to get deeper and thoroughly acquainted with the flora’s representatives and their symbolisms over different historical periods.

Scientists of the St. Petersburg Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SPC RAS) have developed a system module – microcomputer, to be particularly used in computer-aided control of various electronic systems (the international standard SMARC v1.1.). The device is almost entirely assembled out of components available in Russia and its characteristics match similar products of the world's leading manufacturers of system modules at a lower cost. Therefore, the development looks promising for serial production within the framework of achieving the technological sovereignty of the country in a considered industry.