Automaton

Automaton is IEEE Spectrum's robotics blog. But wait. What's IEEE and Spectrum anyway? The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) is the world's largest professional technology society, with nearly 400,000 members in over 150 countries. The IEEE organizes hundreds of technical conferences and publishes dozens of journals.

Published monthly, Spectrum is the flagship publication of the IEEE. It goes to all members and covers all areas of electrotechnology. With Automaton, we hope to expand our coverage of robotics, which we believe will play an ever more important role in people's lives. Meet the team:

Erico Guizzo, an associate editor at IEEE Spectrum, in New York City, has written and edited articles on surgical robots, exoskeletons, autonomous underwater vehicles, AI, and industrial automation. Originally from Brazil, he has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in science writing from MIT. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with his wife and daughter.

Mikell (pronounced "Michael") Taylor was diagnosed with acute robotics geekiness at a young age. Her current treatments include designing and building robots for Bluefin Robotics in Cambridge, Mass., volunteering for the FIRST robotics competition, and watching her Roombas clean her apartment. When not geeking out, Mikell likes learning foreign languages, getting lost in big cities, and becoming a Guitar Hero.

Markus Waibel studied physics and has since been edging his way towards robotics. He has started a popular podcast on robotics and AI, coded a simulator for swarm robots, experimented with artificial ants, and now just finished his PhD in evolutionary robotics. Originally from Austria, Markus has traversed the Alps on skis and now lives in Lausanne, Switzerland.

John Palmisano is the author of the popular robotics website Society of Robots. He first started building robots while studying mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. After graduation, he spent the next three years as a research engineer studying the design of robotic pectoral fins for UUVs at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. John is currently living in Bangkok, Thailand, pursuing his Thai language hobby.

AuAu, Automaton's robot-logo, was created by Fabio Miranda, a computer science professor at Senac, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Image: Aldebaran Robotics

The French robotics company Aldebaran Robotics, which introduced its Nao humanoid last year, is conducting a beta-test for people interested in helping improve the robot.

Looks like a great opportunity for robo-loving people but there are a few things to note. First, the trial is open only to individuals living in France and the UK. The other thing: beta-testers have to pay. And it's not cheap: 4800 euros for two robots. (At least taxes are included! :)

From their site:

As a beta-tester, you will really be at core of Nao’s adventure. Your experience, your feedbacks, your suggestions and your requests will be the inputs enabling us to improve Nao. We will build a special and close relationship with every beta-tester : you will be invited to exclusive events ; you will be the firtst to know the latest developments on Nao ; you will have access to a dedicated forum to share with us and the other beta-testers ; you will be involved in challenges (not only for advanced programmers) and show us your creativity and skills. You will help us make Nao!

Now, here are the details of the beta-test:  
- it is open for individual customers living in France or UK only 
- it is priced at 4800€, all taxes included 
- for the price, you'll get 2 NAOs: a first one to be beta-tested and, as a gift for your participation and help, a second one as soon as we release the product to the general public 
- the Nao's version to be beta-tested is called "V3+" - this is the most advanced Nao we have ever designed 
- the package also includes all necessary documentation and software, including ChoregrapheC.
- moreover, if we feel an upgrade of your beta-tested Nao is necessary, we will do it and won't charge you for this

To participate, go to this page, download the application form and email them -- deadline is 9 June 2009.

Several robotics companies have been working on telepresence robots lately. I say: boring.

Is that what we want robots for? A robo-body that we can inpersonate to roam around the office when we're out? A toy robot to check that burglars didn't break into the house? A remote-controlled Roomba to check on our family and pets when we're traveling? (Scrap that last one: I forgot iRobot killed its ConnectR project.)

Consider Anybots, a Silicon Valley startup led by Trevor Blackwell. Last time we talked to him, he had a bold vision of using humanoids as personal servants that could clean up the table after dinner, take the garbage out, load our dirty socks into the washing machine. The robots would be remote controlled by human operators, which in a sense makes them telepresence robots. The difference is these telepresence robots weren't designed to just help people communicate -- they were designed to take care of household chores. Now that's an application!

Recently, though, Anybots has focused on telepresence robots to help office workers interact. Sure, Anybots is a business, they need to come up with things to sell, create revenue to invest in newer, better robots. Maybe their current office robot is a first step along the road to one day populate our homes with humanoid servants. Hey, Trevor, is that the plan?

Still, watching the video from the early post and then watching the video below got me a bit depressed. Which do you think represents a more exciting vision for the future of robotics?

Are they called quadrocopters or quadrotors?

Raffaello D'Andrea and his group at ETH Zurich are building a bunch of these amazing flying machines, which they plan to transform into an autonomous stunt flying squad. So far the vehicles can fly in circles and perform audacious flips, but the researches want more for their repertoire: they're designing control algorithms to make a dozen or more quadrocopters guide themselves into complex, acrobatic flight formations.

The trick involves more than just the flying robots. The machines are designed to fly within a special sensor-equipped environment where they'll "teach themselves -- and each other -- how to fly." The researchers call their airspace the Flying Machine Arena. The video above shows how users will be able to control the vehicles by moving a "magic wand" -- the controller has markers and the arena's sensor system captures the gestures and sends control signals to the vehicles. From their site:

Human beings learn from experience: when we try something and fail, we try doing it a different way the next time around. And we are incredibly efficient at this process.

We are so adept, in fact, that when it comes to learning complex activities such as racing a car or playing a violin, we can easily outperform automated systems. This is why we use autopilot programs for the routine aspects of flying a plane (such as cruising, take-off and landing), but why we still need human pilots to handle unexpected events and emergencies.

We are currently developing algorithms that will narrow the learning gap between humans and machines, and enable flight systems to ‘learn’ the way humans do: through practice.

Rather than being programmed with detailed instructions, these flight systems will learn from experience. Like baby birds leaving the nest, they will be clumsy at first. Over time, however, they will become capable of sophisticated, coordinated maneuvers.

Unlike humans, these systems won’t make the same mistake twice. And, when networked, they have the added advantage of being able to learn from each other’s successes and failures. The result is an impressively steep learning curve!

Image: ETH Zurich

Last week at the Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas, iRobot announced a new version of the Looj, their gutter-cleaning robot. While it wasn't the totally new product announcement many people (including yours truly) were expecting and hoping for, it does reflect iRobot's commitment to improving products based on user feedback. The new Looj has an interior antenna, a better auger that keeps it from flipping over, and the battery door no longer requires the use of a screwdriver to remove it. The new Looj isn't available for a couple of months, so the old ones are still in the iRobot store and on sale.

Perhaps more interesting was the second, quieter announcement via email: iRobot is shelving the ConnectR project, the Roomba-shaped robot that was iRobot's entry into the telepresence ring at last year's CES. iRobot has been running a pilot program to determine the real market needs for such a robot and it seems that now those needs are too far away from what the ConnectR currently is. They made sure to say that they're not necessarily out of telepresence entirely -- they maintain it's a place they need to be -- but just that whatever product they create, it's not going to look like the ConnectR. I think this is probably a good move; while I remain skeptical of current telepresence robots anyway, I think a small, low-profile package with lots of buttons is not what we'll ultimately be looking for.

Photo: The Biorobotics Lab at Case Western Reserve University

Not what you think.

This Spectrum slideshow is about how "creatures from across the animal kingdom offer design principles to make robots more useful, engaging, and lifelike."

It includes German mechatronic jellyfish, Stanford's gecko-inspired StickyBot, the EPFL robootic salamander, Northwestern University's RoboLobster, the poop-free robotic chicks by Sega Toys, and Puppy, the 12-DOF pneumatically-actuated beast you see above, a mechanical greyhound developed at Case Western Reserve University.

PS: Read also Spectrum's April cover, "March of the SandBots," by Daniel Goldman, of Georgia Tech, and Haldun Komsuoglu and Daniel Koditschek, of the University of Pennsylvania.

PHOTO: Yvonne Boyd

There are certain topics that inspire rashes of articles about the inevitable robot uprising. Typically they start with some mild panic -- perhaps due to a recently released movie, or a newly announced military robot -- then they interview an expert who describes how unrealistic their concerns are, then they conclude that there's nothing to worry about... yet. The opening of the new Terminator movie last week is no exception. Here's a sampling of some articles I've already run into: 

• "How Close is Terminator-Like World?" 
• "How to survive in a world ruled by robots" 
• "Poll: Is a Terminator Scenario Possible?"  

As a robotics engineer, this drives me nuts. Science fiction is a real double-edged sword for the robotics industry: on one hand, it has encouraged many people to go in to the field and has inspired ideas of what robots should look like or how they should act. On the other hand, a large number of the most popular sci-fi stories and movies describe the uprising of robots against their creators, and has become a common perception of the future of robotics. Whether they're Cylons, Terminators, or NS-5s, the moral of the story is always clear: beware your creations. 

It is a little-known fact that giving your robot red LED eyes embeds in it the potential for evil. Red/green LEDs will just make it morally confused. Image from kotaku.com

Not that this fear is all bad; it does force us to think hard about the implications of what we create, and several organizations are working on ethics systems that can be programmed into our machines and AIs. But realistically, despite its popular science appeal, we're so far from the kind of technology that could threaten us the way it does in movies that it's a counterproductive argument to be having right now, and a distraction from the amazing advances we have made and the potential beneficial applications we have right now. 

So do robotics a favor, and if you ever interview a roboticist or write about the subject, don't bring up Robot Armageddon; focus on what incredible ways the technology can help us here and now. Go see the Terminator movie, and enjoy it, but rest easy -- my Roomba can't find its way out from under a chair, so I'm not too concerned about it searching for Sarah Connor any time soon. 

Using glider AUV technology, researchers at Rutgers University hope to be the first scientists to successfully navigate an AUV across the entire Atlantic Ocean over the course of seven months. Ari Daniel Shapiro reports on the project in an excellent Spectrum podcast, explaining the technology behind the glider and what the goals of the mission are.

Gliders use low-power variable buoyancy systems to glide up and down through the water column for months at a time and carry payloads of different kinds of sensors to collect oceanographic data. These are primarily water quality sensors -- salinity, temperature, optical quality, and so on. During the mission, the glider will occasionally surface to send and receive information via the Iridium satellite network, and will allow its "drivers" to redirect it if necessary. While it is incredibly energy efficient, it's also slow and likely to drift, making it hard to hit particular distance targets during a mission. In the podcast, Shapiro mentions the importance of keeping the glider navigating through the eastbound Gulf Stream current to provide the glider with a little extra "oomph" and allow it to travel a greater distance over its lifetime.

The Rutgers team with their glider, built by Webb Research. Photo courtesy of RU COOL's RU-27 Flickr photostream

The Rutger's lab's first attempt, glider RU-17, failed off the coast of the Azores. While disappointing, it was a valuable way for them to learn about the difficult task of controlling a glider over such a great distance. Their second glider, named RU-27 (nicknamed Scarlet Knight), will take advantage of these lessons learned and hopefully succeed. Since its launch on 29 April it has already covered more than two thousand kilometers.

You can follow the glider's path here and check out the mission blog. Anyone interested in the ocean science going on should also check out the Scientist's Blog that discusses the data coming back from the glider.

Previously:

Webb's thermally-driven robotic glider

Why autonomous gliders are the hot new ocean technology

I am a confessed Roomba evangelist. One of the most frequent questions I get is how Roomba knows where to go -- does it build a map? Does it do rows of your carpet? Why is it spinning in circles?

Since I'm friends with a few past and current Roomba engineers, I've always known that Roomba is mostly random. It does have a few behaviors -- for example, wall-following, or the spiral pattern it uses when it starts up or when it's in "dirt detect" mode -- but mostly, it wanders, as anyone who's spent time watching their Roomba with rapt attention may have noticed.

The next question, of course, is how effective this random pattern is. We humans are very methodical about our vacuuming to make sure it covers the whole floor; how can we be sure that our wandering robots are getting the same coverage?

Well, wonder no more. An enterprising Roomba user took a long-exposure shot of his Roomba in a dark room as it did its cleaning to see exactly where it went over the full cleaning cycle.

Long-exposure shot of Roomba in action (from signaltheorist.com)

You can see where Roomba starts -- the spiral pattern in the middle of the room -- and how it covered the remainder in a criss-cross pattern. Keep in mind that the light this photograph shows is a point on the Roomba itself; on either side of the line is about six inches of actual vacuum coverage. As you can see, the Roomba gets darn near everywhere in that room, and arguably covers the space more often than most of us would with our normal upright vacuums (if, indeed, we vacuum at all. Cough cough).

It wouldn't be impossible for Roomba to build a map or to follow a traditional "lawn mower" pattern across your floor; the technology exists, and there have been plenty of Roomba clones that do that, actually. iRobot seems to subscribe to the KISS principle of design, making the Roomba more cost-effective compared to its competitors -- but at the end of the day, still keeping my floor squeaky clean.

Thanks, Josh!

Previously:

Scooba washes my floors (and rocks my world)

A robot penguin and its 3D Fin Ray® structure. Source: Festo

Following up on a previous post, Festo's latest creation deserves a closer look. To start with the obvious: Why robot penguins?

Penguins are amazingly efficient swimmers: According to tests by Festo's engineers, their body shape shows a flow resistance 20 to 30% lower than the hydro-dynamically most favorable known technical bodies. If penguins were to run on gas, their energy efficiency would allow them to swim 1,500 kilometers through icy Antarctic waters - on just one liter (0.26 US gallons) of fuel!

Festo's AquaPenguin (video) and AirPenguin try to replicate some of this success and serve as both, a model and a testbed for new, bio-inspired technologies. The bionic Fin Ray® structure, derived from the strange functional properties observed in tail fins of fish, is one such example.

Festo is a firm believer in learning from nature. For example, their BionicTripod implements a 3D version of the Fin Ray® structure in a gripper to achieve an operating range that by far transcends that of the conventional tripod configuration and allows pick-and-place applications with an offset angle of up to 90 degrees (see video).

Like previous equally breath-taking bio-inspired projects, such as the manta rays AquaRay and AirRay as well as the Aquajelly and Airjelly, the robot penguins were developed in cooperation with robotics pioneer Rudolf Bannasch at EvoLogics.