“Father of Robotics” Sees Versatile Caregiving Robots
Joseph Engelberger, often called the father of robotics, at 82 is still working to advance robotics. His work has long been in industrial robotics, but he sees robots moving from factories into homes, where they could be caregivers for the elderly and shut-ins. He and his partner Andrew Silverthorne are seeking funding to develop them through PALS Robotics. The acronym PALS stands for Personal Assistance Living System. Silverthorne says, “Nobody wants to be shipped off to nursing homes. The idea is that robots live at home with you for a buck an hour—that’s our pitch. ...They can’t do a lot of things for which you can call a visiting nurse, but they can help around the house a lot. ...They can do a lot of cleaning, they can operate in the kitchen.” He disagrees that robots should be single purpose machines such as robot vacuum cleaners like the Roomba; instead he is developing a versatile two-armed robot that can understand your voice commands and do household chores like unpack groceries, cook, pour drinks, vacuum, etc. For more information please read the Investors Business Daily article, His Robots Change Our Worlds.
Today the Readybot Robot Challenge unveiled a preview of a prototype of their new kitchen-cleaning robot. The Readybot Challenge is a non-profit club, composed of senior engineers and designers from the networking, motion control, ergonomics, and software industries. Their mission is to build a robot that can clean a kitchen. “People ask what will be the breakthrough application for consumer robotics,” comments Tom Benson, team leader, “we think people want a robot that can clean the kitchen.” Yes, he’s right about that! We hear that request more than anything.
Readybot currently can do about 30-40% of the common daily kitchen cleaning tasks, with the goal of achieving 50% in the next year and topping out at 80%. “Common daily tasks” are defined as things that happen every day, like loading the dishwasher and cleaning the counter. Admittedly, some things will simply require more dexterity than the Readybot has, but 30-80% is nothing to complain about. Check out the video at the bottom of this article to see it in action.
The kitchen helper deploys several antenna-like cameras and assumes a human height for working. It’s not fast, but it does just keep on chugging until it gets the work done.
Although Readybot is designed for mass-production, but it is still just a prototype and not ready sale. They estimate it would take about two years to create a shippable product if the right technology firm applied a solid engineering and design team to the project.
Yesterday we published the article, The Robot Form Factor Debate, which brought up the question of the robot form factor: humanoid or robotic, what do people want? I posted the question on the Yahoo iRobot stock message board and poster thatsmyredbag in the following post reminded me of a company named MyRoomBud, that makes costumes for your irobot Rommba and Scooba; while not exactly making your robot vacuum more more human-like, it’s definitely more “cuddly.” I suspect thatsmyredbag must be an extrovert (read our previous article).
Here’s his post:
Objects can be lovable without a human form-factor.
I have a favorite Coffee mug, hammer, bowl, radio station, car ... None of these things have a human form factor. And in some cases, they are downright ugly. The trick is to reach that “favorite” status. Take the Palm Pilot or Furby for instance.
One can design an ugly robot that is endearing in its own way… People are wierd.
After researching the chatter about these Roomba costumes on the web, I suspect that they have sold quite a few of them to the millions of Roomba and Scooba owners. Obviously, there are quite a number of people that, while they love the utility of their robot vacuums, they like dress them up and make them feel more a part of the family. As the folks at MyRoomBud ask on their site, have you ever named your Roomba, talked to your Roomba, spent more time watching your Roomba than it would take to actually vacuum the floor the old fashioned way, or bought a second Roomba so it would not be lonely? Many of you know what I mean. If that’s you, you need to dress up your Roomba too.
By the way, those kids in the accompanying photo: they the founders of MyRoomBud. Isabelle, Griffin, Niles and Tyler. Let’s put some money in those young entrepreneurs’ pockets.
Pet care and cleanup is another dirty job that we humans would like to hand off to robots. One of the biggies would be taking care of the kitty litter. Litter-Robot from Automated Pet Care Products won’t actually walk the used litter to your trash can, but it will free you from the worst part: the chore of litter box scooping. Cleaning the litter now becomes as easy as simply changing a kitchen bag every few days.
Here’s how it works: your cat steps inside the Litter-Robot globe to her business. Seven minutes later, the globe slowly spins and gently sorts and dumps the waste clumps from the litter and into a standard sized kitchen bag in a tray at the bottom of the unit. All you need to do is take that bag to the trash and refill the globe with fresh litter every few days.
What about safety? The globe does not contain any mechanisms or wires that could harm your cat. And the globe won’t rotate if the cat sensor detects the presence of your cat; it will wait for 15 seconds before attempting to resume the clean cycle. The Litter-Robot operates on at a safe 12 Volts DC using an adapter, and there are no electrical components inside the globe. Watch the animation in the video below.
What if your cat won’t venture inside the globe? Cats are naturally inquisitive and should not have any reservations about using Litter-Robot. But, if for any reason, they don’t like it, the company offers a 60-day return.
Here’s a great user video of the the Litter-Robot in action:
”Not exactly ready for Prime Time, but I have to admit incredibly impressive, this kitchen service robot built by professors at Tokyo University gives us a glimpse of how robots will help us around the house. The guy isn’t very fast, but the humanoid robot has enough delicate dexterity and precision that he can pour tea and wash up after. The robot is the result of four years of hard work using cutting edge technology gathered from more than 40 Robotics and Information Technology professors at the University of Tokyo.
It’s almost Valentines Day. Are you going to buy her roses again? Come on, be creative! I know women don’t always appreciate home appliances for this romantic holiday, but what if you bought her a helper that actually reduces work around the house? Well, iRobot has a deal for you — take advantage of their special Valentines Day offer and give her a beautiful red Roomba robotic vacuum. Then she can just sit down with a Cosmopolitan while she watches the little guy scoot around the floor doing the dirty work for her.
A special promotion for mailing list subscribers only (I’ve got the link for you, even if you’re not on the list) gets you a hotrod red Roomba, with all the standard features such as stair avoidance, automatic transitioning from hard floors to carpets and a large bag-less bin PLUS Dirt Detect, Advance Power System (APS) Battery and a Virtual Wall, all for only $149.99.
Give the woman (sorry, or man) in your life more “me time.” Give her an iRobot Roomba Red.
Joseph Engelberger, often called the father of robotics, at 82 is still working to advance robotics. His work has long been in industrial robotics, but he sees robots moving from factories into homes, where they could be caregivers for the elderly and shut-ins. He and his partner Andrew Silverthorne are seeking funding to develop them through PALS Robotics. The acronym PALS stands for Personal Assistance Living System. Silverthorne says, “Nobody wants to be shipped off to nursing homes. The idea is that robots live at home with you for a buck an hour—that’s our pitch. ...They can’t do a lot of things for which you can call a visiting nurse, but they can help around the house a lot. ...They can do a lot of cleaning, they can operate in the kitchen.” He disagrees that robots should be single purpose machines such as robot vacuum cleaners like the Roomba; instead he is developing a versatile two-armed robot that can understand your voice commands and do household chores like unpack groceries, cook, pour drinks, vacuum, etc. For more information please read the Investors Business Daily article, His Robots Change Our Worlds.
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Pet care and cleanup is another dirty job that we humans would like to hand off to robots. One of the biggies would be taking care of the kitty litter. 
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It’s almost Valentines Day. Are you going to buy her roses again? Come on, be creative! I know women don’t always appreciate home appliances for this romantic holiday, but what if you bought her a helper that actually reduces work around the house? Well,
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