Automaton

iRobot announced two new products today, adding to their already pioneering line of home robots.

First up is the Looj, a gutter-cleaning bot. It's remote-controlled; that is, a user puts it up in a gutter, steps down the ladder, and from there directs its movement along a gutter, moving both forward and backward. From the website:

iRobot Looj uses a powerful 3-stage auger, spinning at 500 RPM, to break up sludge and clogs, lift out debris and brush your gutters clean. The hard plastic disruptors break apart clogs, while natural rubber ejectors lift and throw the debris from your gutters, finally, sturdy polypropylene bristles brush your gutters clean.

Gutter cleaners are all well and good, but I am REALLY excited about this next one: ConnectR, the Virtual Visiting robot. Thus spake iRobot:

ConnectR enables real-time virtual visits over the Internet. Equipped with high-quality audio and a video camera, the robot is located on-site in the home of the “host” party. Using a computer keyboard, mouse or joystick, the remote (“visiting”) party can drive the robot around and interact with those on-site, virtually participating in activities at home or wherever the device is located (for example, in the home of your grandchildren). The on-site host party can also direct the robot’s movements with a remote control.

The Looj is available now, but ConnectR isn't out yet -- and robot aficionados have the opportunity to be part of a pilot program this year. They'll choose pilot users from a pool of applicants here -- sign up!

Looj currently sells from $99 to $169, depending on the accessories. ConnectR will be $200 for those involved with the pilot program, and "just under $500" once it's on the market.

Images from irobot.com

iRobot wasn't the only company to introduce new products at Digital Life yesterday in New York City. Spykee, designed by a French company and marketed in the US by Erector (of Erector set fame) may compete with the iRobot ConnectR as an Internet-controlled telepresence robot. Spykee, which will cost $299 when it's released in November, is available in one of three configurations -- which you build yourself. Once built, Spykee can be used as a digital music player, VOIP phone (over Skype), do audio and video, and be controlled remotely as "video surveillance". It also appears to auto-dock for recharging whenever it needs to.

Though this only really appeals to budding mechanical engineers, Spykee might appeal to the young'uns as a robot kit as well as a toy.

Paleo-Future, a wonderful blog that offers a "look into the future that never was," unearthed a 1986 article in The Futurist magazine about the future of personal robots. The future as envisioned in 1986, that is.

The Futurist article, which includes a photo of an Omnibot carrying snacks to a smiling couple [right], makes for an entertaining read, saying at one point that "future robots will be complete home-entertainment centers, able to sing and dance and tell jokes..."

Well, unfortunately a future of pervasive snack-fetching, dancing robots roaming around the house is is not quite here yet. It appears that one big obstacle has been making the darned machines autonomous, capable of doing things -- entertaining the kids, loading the dishwasher, or whatever -- all by themselves.

Maybe the way to go is using humans to control the robots? iRobot's new ConnectR "virtual visiting" robot is one example. It's a kind of mobile teleconference device to be remote controlled by that absent parent always on a business trip. Another example are Anybots humanoids, also designed to be operated remotely by a person (in this case an outsourced servant in a faraway country).

Check back in 20 years to see which personal robots made it to the living room.

PS: On a forecasting-the-future related note, Spectrum has its share of brilliant and embarrassing predictions, many of which you can see in the "Write & Wrong" article that appeared in our 40th anniversary special issue.

Thanks, SKM!

It always seems to surprise inventors when robot owners find themselves unusually attached to their 'bots. Here's a quick roundup of links on the subject...

Roombas fill an emotional vacuum for owners -- groan. The article talks about Roomba owners' relationships to their robots and how fond they become of them, a trend that "suggests there's a measure of public readiness to accept robots in the house" -- good news for any budding consumer roboticists out there.

PackBot on the front lines -- I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, and it is an older aticle, but I was reminded again at an event where Helen Greiner spoke earlier this week ... soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are considering their robots members of their teams, giving them names and wanting them fixed (even when obliterated by IEDs) instead of replaced.

And of course, Forecast: Sex and Marriage with Robots by 2050 -- this somewhat overplayed article is based on someone's PhD thesis, so take it with a grain of salt. I love the line that "the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," though as a resident of that fine state, I would like to believe that has less to do with our politics than it does with the incredibly high density of robotics companies and research institutions just in the area.

"If you don't dress up your Roomba, it's just a naked vacuum," quotes the website of MyRoomBud.com. MyRoomBud is a company run by a group of siblings that makes costumes for your Roomba and Scooba. I met two of the team at an MIT event two weeks ago and got the chance to ask Tyler, the CEO, some questions about their business.

How old are you guys? How long have you been in business?
myRoomBud is a company that my brother, Niles (13) and I (16) started about two and a half years ago, a few weeks before Christmas. We first began to sell the covers on eBay to earn some extra money in order to pay for Christmas gifts, particularly a pair of cowboy boots for our mother. After Christmas, however, we found that we had made so much money that we decided to continue the myRoomBud business. We employed the help of your younger siblings, Isabelle (10 years old) and Griffin (8 years old).

Do you all have different jobs?
Niles and I used to cut the cloth to be sewn by our parents into the RoomBud covers. Isabelle and Griffin helped sorting the cloth that we had cut into different piles so we would always know where everything was. Niles and I were also in charge of shipping the RoomBuds. Nowadays, we all cut and ship. We have also hired students from my high school to do the sewing of our costumes. The longer we continue the company, the less physical work we end up doing. Now, we mainly focus on running our company and finding new ways of lessening the work that needs to be done.

I see you do costumes for both Roomba and Scooba -- do you have any plans to expand to other robots, either that iRobot makes (like the new Looj or ConnectR) or from other companies (the Aibo, Robosapien, etc)?
Although we have considered making costume covers for the iRobot Looj and ConnectR, we have not actually put these ideas into production. We try to stay away from other companies.

What got you interested in dressing up your Roomba?
We originally got the idea of dressing up the Roomba while we were watching my youngest brother, Griffin, follow the Roomba around as it cleaned the floors. At first we just taped paper ears to the vacuum, but soon the paper became felt, and the next thing we knew we were going to Joanne Fabrics to buy cloth that had animal print on it for the sole purpose of making a RoomBud cover.

Why do you think people like to dress up their Roombas and Scoobas, but not their normal vacuums or mops?
Niles and I both agree that what probably causes people to dress up their Roombas, and not their normal vacuums, is the lifelike way that the Roomba feels its way around a room cleaning the floor. It is the same thing that first enthralled Griffin when he first saw the Roomba at work. And of course, there's the obvious answer, our company motto: If you don't dress up your Roomba, it's just a naked vacuum!

Photos courtesy myRoomBud

An article in PC magazine last week called "Robot Consumers, Grow Up!" explains why US consumers just aren't ready for the kinds of robots that Asia will be producing. The conclusion is that the consumer robotics market will not take off with things like Roomba or Aibo. Instead, robotic technology will be embedded into everything we use every day and the consumers will never notice that "the robots have won." I think the article is overall a little pessimistic, but here are a few interesting comparisons:

Part of the problem is the Western world's relatively short history with robots. Most people point to Karel Capek's R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), a science-fiction play that premiered in 1921, as the first use of the term and America's introduction to robots. We should take a cue from the Japanese. In the book Loving the Machine, author Timothy N. Hornyak explains that robots (or at least automatons) have been part of the Japanese culture for hundreds of years. They're seen as friends, helpers, entertainers, and companions. They've always resembled their creators.

American consumers fixate on anthropomorphism and generally find androids and even android pets grotesque. You won't find a lifelike robot receptionist in the U.S., but there are already many at work in Japan.

If iRobot had made a 4-foot-tall Roomba with a face and a hand to hold a vacuum hose, the company wouldn't have sold more than ten units. Instead, it sold more than two million Frisbee-shaped, personality-free bots.

There's also an interesting statement later in the article that "American robot consumers have yet to comprehend the cost of the programming and mechanical complexity necessary to create effective, realistic, interactive robots." So that's something to think about, especially when, as a robotics geek, I'm always so involved with how cool the thing I'm making is that I don't stop to think whether others appreciate how it came to be. And it also leads me into another article...

Network World talks today about a robot "amusement park" opening in South Korea. From the article:

"[O]fficials said they consider robotics to be one of South Korea's key growth industries, emphasizing "service robots" that can clean homes and offer up entertainment. The robotics industry has grown about 40% a year since 2003, officials said. ... The parks will feature a number of attractions that let visitors interact with robots and test new products."

So the first question is whether or not this would be successful in South Korea -- obviously, the government and a group of investors think it will be no problem. But if we step back and consider the first article about American robot consumers, would something like this ever fly in the US (or in the Western world, for that matter)?

Spectrum ran a feature on exoskeletons two years ago with some interesting details on the Sarcos system's force sensors, power unit, and hydraulic actuators, below:

For its part, the Salt Lake City–based Sarcos team, led by roboticist and inventor Stephen C. Jacobsen, has been working on what may be one of the strongest exoskeletons ever built. Earlier this year, at the demonstration the group did in Fort Belvoir, an engineer wearing the Sarcos robotic system was able to carry 84 kg [185 lb]—about the weight of an average size washing machine—without feeling the payload at all. Jacobsen, Sarcos's CEO and a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Utah, says that the new exoskeleton supports the payload's entire weight even if the wearer stands on one leg.

Like Bleex 2 [the UC Berkeley exo], the latest Sarcos system is a second-generation model that improves substantially over its predecessor. Jacobsen says that while wearing the exoskeleton, you can walk and run, and if you stumble, the system is fast enough to readjust its powered limbs to keep the payload's weight off your body.

The exoskeleton relies on a network of force sensors that are in touch with the wearer's body at certain points, such as underneath the feet. These special sensors, developed by Sarcos, feed data to a control computer that in turn commands the robotic limbs to move in harmony with the wearer's arms and legs without ever obstructing them. Jacobsen calls this method "get out of the way" control, and he says using the robotic suit requires no training. "You can step into the exoskeleton, and you can immediately run it," he says.

According to Jacobsen, what makes an exoskeleton an extremely hard problem is that conventional, off-the-shelf components won't work. Sarcos had to design and fabricate each piece and, in parallel, integrate all of them into its system. The exoskeleton's power unit was one of these many pieces the company had to engineer painstakingly. It's a special internal-combustion engine that can use a variety of fuels and deliver enough hydraulic power to the actuators to meet the great strength and speed the robotic limbs require.

But even more challenging, Jacobsen says, was developing yet another component: the servo valves that control the flow of the hydraulic fluid into the actuators. The valves had to be small, extremely reliable, resistant to high pressures, and highly efficient to preserve precious power, not to mention that some of their parts had to be machined to micrometer tolerances. To make things even harder, so many complex physical processes occur in the valves, Jacobsen insists that simulation software couldn't help in the design. His group, therefore, had to go through several iterations of prototypes to get the valve it needed.

Sarcos is now preparing for demonstrations scheduled over the next few months. Team members are especially busy with the exoskeleton's upper-extremity system, which will add strength to the wearer's arms. A person wearing the full-body system will be able not only to carry a payload on a backpack but also lift heavy items, a capability that is particularly useful for logistics operations such as loading and unloading cargo vehicles and moving things in a warehouse.

PS: When my colleague Harry Goldstein and I spoke with Sarcos for that article, the company had just began developing their exoskeleton's upper-extremity part. Now, as the video shows, it seems they've made significant progress. One thing, however, hasn't changed. Note in the video: the exo has a tether attached to it, probably feeding power or control signals to the suit. Sure, it's a prototype. It will be interesting to see how exoskeleton researchers will cut the umbilical cords of their creations.

A few months ago, I moved to an apartment with a backyard, and I was excited about barbecuing. But one thing stood between me and my kebabs: an unruly thicket of grass all over the yard.

I had never mowed a lawn, and I must say I wasn't thrilled about pushing a machine with rapidly spinning blades under a scalding sun. Then I found something that would do it for me.

No, it's not a goat—it's Robomow.

Cars aren't enough for Toyota -- just like Honda, they're making robots. Both Honda and Toyota, based in Japan, are trying to address the concerns of the aging populace and relatively low birthrates that will result in lots of elderly needing care, and not enough people to provide it. Both companies are focusing on development of humanoid robots with a lot of dexterity, which Toyota consistently demonstrates by having the robots play musical instruments.

The newest addition to Toyota's line of Partner Robots is a violin-playing bot that demonstrates new developments in manipulation and dexterity, which are essentially to working with small objects in a standard human environment. Many of the partner robots can walk, though one is wheeled, and some can carry on simple conversations. Eventually the goal is to have these piloted in nursing homes and hospitals with the elderly to see how they do, and Toyota says they want to have them in homes in 2010.

How realistic is that? The Partner robots (and Asimo) are both still largely tele-operated and incredibly expensive. So much work goes into recreating human balance, manipulation, size, shape, and aesthetics that getting a product to market is delayed perhaps much further than a robot less humanoid and more specialized -- is that the right path to be taking? Will the humanoid form make adoption easier or more difficult?

Here's a video with a good closeup of the robotic hand on the violin. It is definitely impressive. Incidentally, it may not be as much of a robot, but I have to say also that the way the wheelchair deals with the bump in the road is amazing as well.

Researchers made Qrio giggle after kids touch it on the head. The result: endless giggling. Source: University of California, San Diego

You know that toddlers love to giggle. But did you know they love to giggle at robots that giggle?

In this Spectrum story, Morgen E. Peck reports that entertainment robots can charm toddlers for weeks, even months, and could be useful to teachers as educational assistants. Maybe these giggly robots could also become the babysitters of the future?

From the article:

Qrio, the dancing, bouncing, giggling robot spawn of Sony Corp., tried out its social skills on a group of children between 10 months and 24 months old at the Early Childhood Education Center at the University of California, San Diego, as part of a study on how children socialize with robots. The researchers found that the key to Qrio’s popularity was its ability to move and respond to the children in a way that was closely timed to the activity around it.

PS: As Spectrum reported a while ago, Qrio has done other impressive things in addition to entertaining toddlers. It "has played golf at a pro tournament in Hawaii, acted in the Japanese TV show 'Astro Boy,' danced and sung on stages from Las Vegas to Hong Kong, and even conducted the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in a rousing rendition of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony."

I've long been a little skeptical of Wowwee, makers of the Robosapien. Their black and white toys seemed rather basic and the little dog I have didn't appear to be much advanced beyond the walking and mooing cow I had when I was a toddler (my first robot. It annoyed my parents so much they removed the batteries and told me it died. I've never gotten over it). Frankly, they just seemed boring.

I am very pleased to report that I have been proven wrong. Wowwee's next generation of robot toys on display here at CES are, in a word, awesome.

My favorite is Robosapien's newly developed girlfriend, the Femisapien.

Toys and vacuums are old news; the big new robots this year seem to be telepresence robots. iRobot, Wowwee, and Spykee all brought their new internet-controlled devices to demo video, audio, VoIP, Bluetooth, media players, and other capabilities.

Spykee was introduced at Digital Life last fall and it's already got a group of siblings. Designed by Meccano, the same company that produces the Erector set, all the Spykee versions come as a kit that has to be assembled. The original can be internet controlled from anywhere in the world and can be used for making and receiving Skype VoIP calls as well as playing digital media. Spykee Cell, a smaller version, uses Bluetooth to communicate with your cell phone and can control your iPod Nano or iPod Touch. Since it uses the Bluetooth connection with your cell phone, you can basically use it as a Bluetooth "headset" -- leave your phone on the desk and talk directly to your robot instead.

Wowwee's Rovio looks like a black UFO on Wowwee's popular new omni wheels. Controlled over the Internet, It has the standard camera, two-way speaker and microphone, and video link. What I think is most interesting about Rovio is that it uses Evolution Robotics's NorthStar navigation system to find its way around its environment to return to its docking station whenever it needs recharging. That's a really good partnership between those two companies.

iRobot had its ConnectR telepresence robot on display, though it wasn't being demoed. They are still in the process of identifying beta users for its pilot program that will help them determine what ConnectR will be used for and what features should be developed before the final release. Right now they think the major users will be the "sandwich generation" (middle-aged people taking care of both kids and elderly parents) who want to be able to check up on family members when they can't be physically present, and parents on business travel who want to call home in a more interactive manner.

Is telepresence really the next big thing? Wowwee and Spykee are pitching these robots as toys that kids will want to guard their rooms, play music, and spy on siblings; iRobot 's ConnectR is being pitched to a much older audience but is still waiting for a pilot program to tell them how this technology will really be used. Are these companies guessing right?

IEEE Spectrum's Sarah Adee reports:

Dean Kamen's “Luke arm”—a prosthesis named for the remarkably lifelike prosthetic worn by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars—came to the end of its two-year funding last month. Its fate now rests in the hands of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funded the project. If DARPA gives the project the green light—and some greenbacks—the state-of-the-art bionic arm will go into clinical trials. If all goes well, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gives its approval, returning veterans could be wearing the new artificial limb by next year.

The Luke arm grew out of DARPA’s Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, which was created in 2005 to fund the development of two arms. The first initiative, the four-year, US $30.4 million Revolutionizing Prosthetics contract, to be completed in 2009, led by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., seeks a fully functioning, neurally controlled prosthetic arm using technology that is still experimental. The latter, awarded to Deka Research and Development Corp., Kamen’s New Hampshire–based medical products company (perhaps best known for the Segway), is a two-year $18.1 million 2007 effort to give amputees an advanced prosthesis that could be available immediately “for people who want to literally strap it on and go.” Kamen’s team designed the Deka arm to be controlled with noninvasive measures, using an interface a bit like a joystick.

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Photo: Dirk van der Merwe