Re: 6 S's of Capable Home Robots

I accidentally hit reply to author instead of replying to the group so
here's take two.


On Feb 22, 1:37 am, cadco...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Nice list, but it is much easier said than done.  I do disagree with
one comment;

"There is absolutely no reason why we can't have capable robot in our
homes TODAY. "


I can see most people disagreeing with the above statement since it
hasn't been realized yet. The only way to back up the statement is for
me to build it but that's the great thing about robotics.

Many have tried, but it is certainly proving harder than it was first
thought. On the drive to work, I've been listening to Podcasts of old
radio broadcasts of science fiction stories from the 40's and 50's.
They really were expecting us to have farms on mars, and robots doing
all our housework by the 80's.


I see a lot of technology today that could really make these bots
real. WIFI, the internet, cheap computers, cheap actuators, wireless
video, webcams, USB, micros, software IDEs, etc, etc, etc

I suspect that, for the near future, the only things we can really
hope for, will be a practical robot vacuum and a lawn mower. This just
requires a bit more capability than current similar products; things
like more navigational certainty, and visual processing to avoid
obstacles.  Autonomous robot airplanes for the military are relatively
easy, since there is nothing for them to bump into.


here are two companies that make vision products:
www.evolution.com
www.braintech.com

I've used the stuff from Evolution and it is good enough to recognize
objects in a fridge and pantry.

Although true autonomous robots are a problem, I suspect there will be
significant advancement in remote control ore teleprocessing
"robots".  This is where there are "brains" in a machine that help
prevent it from driving off a step, but it will ultimately be operated
by a much more advanced processor that God designed and placed in the
skulls of human operators.


The PR2 from www.willowgarage.com takes the approach of teleoperation
and vision processing. I'm kinda building a poor man's version of that
bot. I do agree that ultimately a human operator needs to have the
final control.

Joe Dunfee

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