Open source robot: your next personal assistant

Original author: Jon Brodkin
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The goal of the Willow Garage startup is to create robotic technology useful for everyday life.



Imagine a robot that brings you beer and then washes the kitchen and cleans the room. This is exactly what Willow Garage start-up is doing hard at Menlo Park, California. But the company does not do it alone: ​​Willow Garage is an Open Source project that needs as many external private owners as possible.

One of the priority tasks is the creation of 10 robots and providing them to university researchers as a common platform that can be improved. Willow Garage also provides "an Open Source code base built from the best available Open Source robotic software," said Steve Cousins, President and CEO, at the O'Reilly ETech San Diego conference on Wednesday.

Cousins ​​demonstrated a video of the first prototype from Willow Garage, which moves on wheels and is “incredibly sturdy,” as Cousins ​​said. “The prototype can move inside any building that complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and do useful work.

Willow Garage partnered with Stanford University's STAIR projectand has already donated $ 850,000 to Stanford Computer Science Lab. Willow Garage was founded by Scott Hassan, who helped Larry Page and Sergey Brin develop Google technology.

Using your own funds, making a profit is not a priority, said Kuzin. The project will be successful if the result is a useful technology, even if someone else makes money on it, he said.

In the video of Kuzin’s presentation, the first version of the robot vacuumed, collected toys from the floor of the room, took out plates from the dishwasher and, most importantly, opened cold, refreshing beer using an opener.

While the glossy, similar to humans, robots stepping on my feet instead of rolling on wheels, the device from Willow Garage looks like a small amount of metal parts, joined together by a more casual way than Rosie from Jason (The Jetsons). However, appearance is not the same as functionality. Two-legged robots are not so useful with the current level of technology, and Willow Garage waits until the problem with the movement is resolved before fastening the legs to their robot.

“Our task is to create a useful robot in the shortest possible time,” said Kuzin. “We want to bring robotics to homes”

The robot shown in the Willow Garage video is not autonomous, being for the most part a demonstration of the capabilities of the equipment. The second version, which, we hope, will be released at the end of the year and, as Kuzin said, will be provided to researchers.

The robot will be equipped with the ability to synchronously determine the location and map (SLAP), a technique commonly used to create maps (plan) of unknown locations and to safely navigate to a new zone. Cameras and laser scanners combined with an image database will allow the robot to recognize objects before taking them. If the robot removes toys from the floor, it should be able to recognize the Lego constructor and know where to put it. The robot needs to “have an idea of ​​what Lego is,” said Cousin. “We are almost close to the point where you can train vision systems”

Cousin recalled a time when a teenager could spend the whole day trying to fix his car. Strict automotive safety rules have made this practice a little more dangerous, but anyone with sufficient knowledge can improve Willow Garage's robotic platform and find new uses for it, just as software developers are constantly coming up with new personal computer applications.

“We don’t know how impressive the platform’s applications will be,” said Cousin.

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