When I originally heard about PR2 being taught to push a cart, my comment was “meh,” at least in contrast to PR2 fetching beer or playing pool. However, nobody told me that the robot would be picking up trash, putting it on the aforementioned cart, and then pushing the cart over to the sink. We’re about to go full circle here, folks… PR2 fetches beer. PR2 plays pool while you drink beer. PR2 cleans up beer. Repeat.

Pushing a cart is also trickier than it seems. The physical act of pushing is not particularly challenging, but the cart makes it significantly more difficult for the robot to navigate. Not only does the cart block the PR2′s forward view, but in effect, it changes the shape of the robot, changing how PR2 has to move, especially in tight spaces. The solution to this involved just applying different motion planning software, which was easy to do, thanks to the open source environment of ROS and the standardized PR2 platform.

What I don’t entirely understand is the need for a human in the loop to identify specific containers for cleaning. I guess it might be bad for PR2 to pick up things containing liquid in case it spills, but remember that nifty squeezing experiment from last September that showed how PR2 could tell the difference between open and closed and full and empty containers? Seems like this would be the perfect time to use it.

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…At least, as long as PR2 doesn’t pick the Bud Light.

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Working around big and powerful robots can be scary and dangerous. Working with big and powerful robots can be more scary and more dangerous, and getting them to intelligently cooperate with you can be frustrating, which is nearly as bad. KU Leuven will be tackling these problems with their PR2.

Suppose you want a robot to assist you in carrying an object through a crowded environment. For this to work, the robot must know which item you want to pick up, how to pick it up and with what force, how to avoid both moving and non-moving obstacles, and where to set the object down. Furthermore, it must do all of these tasks while taking your movements into account.

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven has already developed a number of tools that will enable developers to make this a reality with the PR2. Their iTaSC (instantaneous Task Specification using Constraints) and skills framework will enable developers to specify this complex task of carrying an object and avoiding obstacles, all while tracking the human co-operator’s movements.

More details and a video of KU Leuven’s project presentation are at the link below.

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To be fair, some of PR2′s Poolshark programming team look to be pretty terrible at pool, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive that in only five days, PR2 learned how to hold and shoot a pool cue, recognize ball locations, select the best shot, and then sink it. If you’re wondering what this robot can’t do, the answer seems to be nothing (besides using stairs and round door knobs).

Willow Garage has two more of these week long ‘hackathons’ planned this month, which will include teaching PR2 how to push a cart (meh) and fetching drinks from a fridge (yes please). A robot that can play pool and fetch me beer? Hellooooo new best friend.

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Folding towels was very cool, but UC Berkeley has much bigger plans for their PR2:

Towels were only the beginning of Berkeley’s work with non-rigid materials and laundry. Berkeley’s researchers will use the next two years to work on taking it to a whole new level: doing the full laundry cycle, from dirty clothes in a laundry basket to clean, folded clothes. This will present multiple, more difficult challenges. One of the challenges in folding towels was identifying the correct places to grab a crumpled towel and straighten it into a flat, foldable towel. With clothes, Berkeley will have to improve their techniques to handle more difficult and varied shapes. The PR2 will also have to operate with greater robustness and complete new tasks in order to finish the full laundry cycle.

In the area of perception, the Berkeley team will work on improving the PR2′s ability to find and interact with real-world objects. Some of the research areas Berkeley will work on include recognizing transparent objects, like glasses, finding people, and determining the correct way to grasp objects.

PR2 doing laundry from start to finish? Sign me up.

More info and an in-depth presentation at the link below.

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There are big plans in store for those ten eleven PR2s that Willow Garage is donating to worthy institutions worldwide. It’s a good thing that someone over there is writing up exactly what each one is going to do, since if they didn’t, I’d feel like I had to. The first installment on this presumably ten eleven part series is on Georgia Tech’s proposal, “Assistive Mobile Manipulation for Older Adults at Home.”

Robots like the PR2 may be able to help older adults stay in their homes longer with a high quality of life. The Georgia Tech team aims to make progress towards this long-held dream.

Rather than try to guess what seniors want, the team will work with older adults to better understand their needs and how robots can help. The team will also write code to make the PR2 perform helpful tasks at home. By working closely with seniors throughout the research process, the team hopes to better meet real needs and accelerate progress. To make everything more realistic, the robot will spend some of its time in a real, two-story house on the Georgia Tech campus, called the Aware Home. This will enable older adults to work with the robot in a convincing environment, and will give the software developers a good place to test their code.

Lots more details, plus video of Georgia Tech’s presentation, at the link below.

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Remember how Willow Garage decided that it would be kinda cool to give away 10 11 PR2 robots to deserving research institutions worldwide to mess around with? Last night was the official PR2 graduation, where the winning teams got to meet (and dance with) the PR2s that they’ll be taking home with them to do incredibly awesome things. We’ll be keeping you up to date on all of that, of course, but meanwhile, enjoy some pics and video straight from the party at Willow Garage, after the jump. (Read more…)

Well, I didn’t get one, but ten eleven research groups are getting their very own PR2s to mess around with as part of the PR2 Beta Program. Out of 78 submissions, Willow Garage was forced to (somehow) choose only ten eleven, and those lucky sods will get a PR2 for a couple years. The goal is to generate a whole bunch of new ROS libraries that other robots running ROS will be able to use to do everything from the laundry to the dishes. And, you know, other stuff.

There are going to be some fascinating developments coming out of this program. And since it’s all open source, if you have a robot capable of running ROS, you may actually directly benefit from what these groups come up with. Summaries of all of the accepted proposals, after the jump. (Read more…)

Willow Garage brought a PR2 to Stanford for National Robotics Week, and it’s one of the first times the robot has been on public display. Now that the hardware is pretty much finished, they’re working on creating and improving developer tools for ROS to make programming across multiple platforms as simple as possible. Here’s why this is important (from Jorge Cham of Ph.D Comics):

So, to summarize, ROS is attempting to ensure that robotics developers don’t have to waste time rewriting software (that may already exist on other platforms) from scratch. Also, now that PR2s are available to research institutions, developers don’t have to waste tons of time and money (lots of money) designing their own robots just to test out software. To that end, Willow Garage is thinking of making some PR2s publicly accessible as test robots. You’d develop PR2 software using a simulator, and when you were confident that you had it fairly bug free, you could schedule some time to teleoperate a real PR2 to test it out.

More (and it’s tasty!) after the jump. (Read more…)

An infinite number of PR2s, huh? And you’re just going to make them “available to researchers?” I can think of a couple of other things you could do with an infinite number of PR2s, and most of them end up with me being in charge of the world. BWAHAHAHA!

Um, just don’t look here, plz. Kthxbai.

[ Willow Garage ]