Intel Robot Plugs Itself In

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Wednesday, 14 of October , 2009 at 12:01 am

This is Intel’s research robot, named Marvin. Marvin has just learned how to plug himself into a standard wall outlet, a feat that duplicates the skills of Willow Garage’s PR2. What’s interesting to me is how these two robots use substantially different techniques to complete the same task. After Marvin locates a power socket, his arm makes a series of passes along the wall with a sensor to locate the exact location of the outlet and then plugs himself in in one shot. Now that this proof of concept has been tested successfully, Intel plans to add more sensors to allow the robot to plug itself in without having to go through the whole raster scanning routine.

PR2, on the other hand, uses a brute force approach. It locates the general location of an outlet, and then stabs blindly (sort of blindly) until it gets lucky and makes a connection. Now, it’s easy to say that the Marvin is better at connecting to outlets than PR2 is because, well, that’s true. But arguably, PR2 is more efficient than Marvin. It doesn’t need a single dedicated plug sensor, let alone an entire array. That’s less upfront expense, less integration, less programming, and fewer things to break. Yeah, it takes a little longer, but the robot isn’t in a rush, and it’s not like you’re waiting around… It’s an autonomous system, and hypothetically, you’ll just never have to worry about it.

[ Intel Labs Seattle ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

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Category: Artificial Intelligence, Research

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