There are two general visions for household robots: one robot that can do everything, or a bunch of robots that can each do one or two things. Monty would be an example of the former, and a Roomba might be a part of the latter. Having a bunch of specialized bots is, if less efficient, a more realistic short term goal, and researchers at the University of Hertfordshire are working on creating one unified “brain” that can handle a bunch* of different bots.

The system is designed so that any robot in the house can adopt a single “personality” of sorts. When you ask a robot to do something, you’re giving commands to that centralized personality instead of an individual robot. If the particular robot you’re talking to can’t do what you want it to do, another robot will take over, still using the same personalized interface, which means that each robot can respond to different users without requiring different programming. It’s sort of a cloud computing solution for robots, where the software isn’t hardware dependent.

Normally, robot software is extremely (I might argue, excessively) hardware dependent, and this is something that (in my opinion) is holding the robotics industry back as a whole. As it stands, if you write a program for one robot, it’s difficult to get other robots to run the same program, even if they’re similar, and the more different the robot is, the harder it is to make things cross-platform compatible. Being able to program one brain, and have it run different tasks on different bots, would be a major step forward towards interoperability.

VIA [ New Scientist ]

*Is there a collective noun for a group of robots? If not, we need to come up with one. Suggestions, anyone?

This, apparently, is a real audio recording of an unsuspecting phone sex worker doing her level best to be a sexy robot. Personally, I don’t get turned on by base ten… What really does it for me is base 10.

[ Collegehumor ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

James Cameron is working on a sci-fi movie called Avatar, which I don’t really know too much about. But apparently it’s got cool mechs in it, which is good enough for me. The pic above shows a life size model of a “heavy lifter” mech on display at E3 as a video game tie-in. According to Gizmodo, Avatar is “a 3D film set to take place in the 22nd century. The basic premise is that humans visit a distant moon full of giant blue aliens using genetically engineered “avatars” that they mentally inhabit.” Er, sounds great, kids. Here’s a tip: add more robots.

Avatar should come out in December, but you can see actual mechs in action in less than two weeks at RoboGames. More pics of this (fake) one, after the jump. (Read more…)

All the fun of surfing, without getting cold and wet. Oh, and with all the fun of a giant robot arm, too. These KUKA arms are pretty cool, but does anyone ever do any work with them?

VIA [ BBG ]

The goal of RoboCup is to have a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that are able to bury the best human soccer team in the world by 2050. As you can see, we’re not quite there yet, and I have a hunch that it doesn’t really matter that these robots are playing against members of Japan’s national soccer team. Those defenderbots seem pretty determined, though. The video is from RoboCup Osaka 2009, which also played host to a Sony Aibo driving a holonomic base:

Kinda solves the whole problem of running around on stubby little legs, huh? You can see a video of that over at Robot Watch.

[ RoboCup ] VIA [ Robot Watch ]

Hamburgerpanda has a collection of cute little robot animal prints. They’re all sea animals, ranging from Jellybots to Manabots to Humpbots. Like the whale, you pervs. 5×7 prints are $10 each, and some of the designs are available on t-shirts, including this baconfish. No, it’s not a robot, but it does involve bacon, and bacon (good bacon) is greasy, and grease is what keeps robots all lubed up. There, robot connection made.

Octobot, or Botopus, after the jump. (Read more…)

Yesterday we posted about a patent app from iRobot suggesting that they might be working on a docking station that empties Roomba’s dustbin, but as commenter JP pointed out, other companies already have had this option available from several years back. There are two more or less identical robot vacuums, the Siemens Sensor Cruiser VSR 8000 and the K├ñrcher RC 3000, that come with a base station which can charge the robot and empty the dust bin. The bin on the dock holds about 10 full loads of dirt, and comes with bags that you can swap out.

The robots themselves are comparable to a Roomba circa 2004ish (except the K├ñrcher is more space fightery), with scheduling, autonomous cleaning, obstacle avoidance, dirt detect, and dock finding. The problem with them is the cost: the K├ñrcher RC 3000 currently appears to sell for about $1300. Yeah, it’s steep, something like twice the cost of the most expensive Roomba. This is partially because these systems are several years old (from 2004, looks like), but it makes me wonder just what sort of premium people are willing to pay (to iRobot or anyone else) for a vacuum cleaner that empties itself. Not $1300, apparently, but I can’t imagine any product from iRobot costing much less than a couple hundred bucks, and that puts it at about the same price/benefit point as the Roomba: yeah, it saves you time, but only barely (if at all) in proportion to the amount that it costs.

[ Kärcher RC 3000 ]

Just because we were off at Maker Faire for the weekend doesn’t mean that robot news took a vacation (however nice that might have been). Robot Stock News has been busy digging through iRobot patent applications and has come up with a design for a Roomba docking station that is able to automatically empty a robot’s dustbin.

The Roomba does a decent job of cleaning the floor all by itself. It’s decent enough that the amount of dirt and debris collected by the robot often necessitates cleaning and emptying after every run. This is not a particularly enjoyable task (unless, like me, you take pleasure in spiffing up your little robot friend) and hampers the efficiency and autonomy of the Roomba, especially the Roombas that can be scheduled to clean multiple times without supervision. The docking stations shown in the patent would be able to suck dirt out of a Roomba with a secondary vacuum and store it in a larger, stationary reservoir, thus enabling the Roomba to run more frequently with less need for human assistance, which is the whole idea behind household robots: autonomy.

There is, of course, no pricing or release information for this new dock, which has been conceptualized in a variety of styles but has yet to be verified as something that iRobot is actually developing.

VIA [ RSN ]

If you were following BotJunkie’s Twitter feed over the weekend, you’ve already been treated to a bunch of pictures of robots from Maker Faire. I’ve got another small batch coming your way, right after the jump.

We’re covering Maker Faire over on OhGizmo as well, and it’s definitely worth checking out those posts, including a big picture gallery and some sweet video of Tesla Coils.

(Read more…)

This huge robotic hand, constructed by Christian Ristow of RoboChrist Industries, is what’s called a Waldo. No, it has nothing to do with this guy. The term ‘Waldo’ actually comes from a Robert Heinlein sci-fi short story about a disabled guy named Waldo who builds himself gloves that can remotely control other gloves, be they tiny or huge. In the story, the device is called “Waldo F. Jones’ Synchronous Reduplicating Pantograph,” but everyone just called it a Waldo, and the term has managed to make the transition into the real world.

As you can see, the beauty of Waldoes are that with zero training, anyone can use them to control giant metal hands capable of crushing steel barrels and stoves:

[ Christian Ristow ]