The
company's design team - which now consists of five software engineers, three
mechanical engineers and an electronics engineer - set out in 2008 to turn the
manual labor robot into a communications specialist. Over time, their design
evolved into a powered two-wheel base, a telescoping pole, and a head with two
eyes and a display screen. Like a remote-controlled toy car, it allows users to
drive it via a wireless communication link.
While that
might sound simple, it wasn't. The engineering team learned that users of the
robot were inclined to bump into things.
"We found
that drivers were the least reliable part of the whole system," Blackwell
recalls.
For the
engineering team, the challenge was to design a robot that could drive without
tipping over and without running into objects ranging from conference tables to
doorframes. They did that by endowing the QB with an electric drive mechanism
and a Segway-type balancing system. Power comes from two 90-W brush-type dc
motors from Maxon Motors, both of which receive electrical current from a
380W-hr lithium-ion battery back from Inspired Energy Inc.
Drivers log
onto the robot by accessing the Internet. Using a Web browser plug-in located
on Anybots' website, they control the robot remotely. Video images from
on-board cameras are streamed over the Internet via Wi-Fi. An Intel i5-based
CPU in the robot's base does the audio and video compression, then works with
an Atheros chip set and its two independent Wi-Fi systems to wirelessly send
the information to the remote driver.
To make sure
that drivers don't run into obstacles, Anybots' design team employed two
cameras - one looking ahead, the other looking down. To augment the cameras,
they also incorporated a LIDAR optical sensing system from Hokuyo Automatic Co.
Ltd., to detect obstacles within two meters.
"If you've
spent any time driving radio-controlled cars, then you know it's pretty easy to
crash into things," Blackwell says. "The LIDAR senses obstacles, so that the
robot can figure out what you're trying to do, and do it for you. So if you're
heading toward a doorway and you're off to one side a little bit, it will
automatically correct your course to the center of the doorway."
Maintaining
Balance
Because the
QB's "neck" can extend to make the robot the height of a full-grown adult,
Anybots' design team also needed to assure that the QB could move without
tipping over. To do that, they employed a gyroscopic sensing system from Analog
Devices Inc. that tracks which way the robot is tilting and then provides
balance correction. Using three rate-gyros and three accelerometers, the
sensing system gathers spatial data, then sends it to an Atmel 32-bit AVR32
microcontroller, which does the so-called "sensor fusion" and determines which
way is up. The microcontroller, in turn, uses the information to send a
pulsewidth-modulated output to drive the electric motors. As a result of all
that calculating, the QB can determine whether it needs to go forward or
backward in order to maintain its balance.
Chuck, toward the end of this article, you mention QB robots being deployed in certain areas as tests/prototypes. Any updates as to how they are working out?
Very cool story, Chuck, but really--a robot as an avatar replacement in meetings and in place of a CEO to communicate to his or her employees. While I applaud the technology and definitely can see robots finding a real home in business, I just don't think even this cute ET-like guy (or gal) can replace a person in terms of the value of human-to-human communication in meetings or coffee breaks or any where else, for that matter. Social media and texting are bad enough in terms of serving as a substitute; throw robots into the mix and things really get scary!
There seems to be two tracks for robot development: Robots that can conduct extraordinary tasks in production (while not looking the least bit human), and robots that look slightly human and perform tasks (such as talking and walking) less efficiently than humans.
We're fascinated by the semi-human aspects of robotics, while the really fascinating robot development is conducted by very non-human-looking robots.
The auto industry is deploying an inspection robot with multiple "eyes" that examine the inside of a cab for welding accuracies and parts-in-place. The robot has five eyes, each with a different task. They can scan or "see" more accurately than human vision (besides retaining a much higher level of focus than humans). These robots don't look human, so they don't get the pats on the head. Yet these robots demonstrate real value of robotics -- doing tasks that exceed human ability.
I agree. Facial design of robots may matter for tasks that are humanly. However, there are those tasks (you cited few examples), which no human being wants to do such as handling hazardous materials or cleaning in nuclear facilities. There, I think flexibility of robots to maneuver different tasks or situations at hand would be more important than their look. Right?
Won't take long before Dilbert, Alice, Wally and the PHB all send their avatars to the meeting room while they get some work done, and there will be no one outside to drink cofee with Asok. Defeats the purpose.
I agree, I don't think we need a bunch of Shelbots running around our halls. Most of the goals would be accomplished by a good video conf system. Now, if we add an arm so it could get me some coffee... there might have something useful to this.
It sounds to me that this robot was designed and prototyped before the times of the existing video conference systems. At first, I couldn't come up with any situation in which a robot could be more efficient that me attending a video conference meeting. We can also create an avatar that looks just like us in virtual environments like Second Life and attend vistual meetings.
Then I though that the only way this robot could come useful would be if I have to attend two very important meetings at the same time. In that case, I would send my avatar robot to one and I would attend the other one in the real or vistual world. Closing two important deals at the same time? :)
I think these guys are onto something. Travel is getting very tiresome these days. With the advent of the new imaging systems at airports, we now have to remove our shoes, belts, phones, pens, eyeglasses, computers, bottles of liquid and even scraps of paper when we go through security. Planes are jammed; there's never an extra seat. Hotels and airfare are expensive. If engineers could find a way to alleviate some of that pain, I'd be all for it. My problem is that I would need to have avatar robots spread all over the country -- San Jose, Boston, Detroit -- and I'd never be able to afford that. I think this would work for people who have remote offices or manufacturing facilities that they frequently visit.
I have this robot coming out soon that I need to sell thousands of and my price is only $1,999 (available for a limited time for only $19.99 a month). Unlike other robots, businesses can easily afford to buy one of these for every employee. While it isn't quite ready to fetch coffee or pretend to be you, it can sit by the break room and drink coffee (and pee on the floor later on). It's so cute when it says 'your next payment is due in [xx] days!'
Be serious people, what is the ROI when a company buys one of these?
It's got "eyes", and a screen to display the image of the person controlling the robot. To whom should we be speaking? If it's the person controlling the robot, then even the hint of anthropomorphism (the friendly eyes) should be removed. Consider the interaction when a human translator facilitates a conversation (whether foreign language, or sign language). The proper way to converse is to talk TO the person, NOT to the translator, even though the translator is speaking the words you understand.
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