Karl Muecke was at the Robo Development conference 2007 showing of DARwIn. DARwIn stands for Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence. Karl was visiting from RoMeLa, the robotics and mechanisms laboratory at Virginia Tech. RoMeLa does a lot of research into robotics locomotion strategies.
The development of DARwIn started back in 2005 with version 1 and the current incarnation is at version 2b. DARwIn runs LabVIEW Real Time on a PC104 board and RoMeLa has decided to standardize on this platform for all their robots.
LabVIEW controls DARwIn’s motion over RS-485 and can read joint positions on the same serial network from the servo motors’ built-in potentiometers. While the robot is walking or moving, a rate gyro with acceleration and orientation information communicates with LabVIEW over an RS-232 serial connection so that the program modifies the walking gait to effectively balance the robot in real time.
Karl told VI Shots that RoMeLa is planning on evolving DARwIn hardware so it can be sold at the consumer level at a lower cost. I think this would be very cool.
Hanson Robotics has done some incredible work in the area of robotic human facial expression emulation. Check out their website which has several videos of their handiwork. David Hanson is a true pioneer and visionary in this field. With the invention of Frubber and special AI interaction algorithms, he is helping build the future of robots that can interact with the human population in a more natural fashion. I can’t help but compare him to doctor Noonien Soong who designed Data from Star Trek the next generation. A bit of a stretch, I admit, but listening to him speak in an interview at the 2007 Robo Development conference about robots that can “truly love” makes me wonder.
Hanson robotics is now getting into the consumer market with a creation they call Zeno. Zeno will be available in 2009 for the price range of $200-$300. Zeno is a robotic companion that can interact with you on an entirely new level that has not been seen before. It’s considered a toy targeting kids but I can see this being purchased by gadget craving adults as well.
Hanson Robotics is collaborating with Massive Software on this one. Massive has built their business on artificial intelligence algorithms used in computer animation for simulating crowds. They started off by developing the computer animation for Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings battle sequences.
The vision and decision making components in Massive Software give Zeno the ability to navigate, make facial expressions, and move his body based on what he sees in his physical environment. The video coming in from Zeno’s eye camera is fed into the Massive part of his brain so that he can move appropriately and respond emotionally to what is going on around him.
Interview with the president of Allmotion Inc. AllMotion manufactures Stepper Drives, Stepper Controllers, Servo Drives and Servo Controllers. These are the most compact Intelligent Stepper Motor Drives and Stepper Motor Controllers on the market today.
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Ok, so if there are ever going to be robots interacting with us in our daily lives, then the first place to see these would be at this conference. It wasn’t about industrial robotics but about how we can bring robots into the homes and interact with them. Not only that, but how we can do this for under $200. I saw a lot of cool stuff. I took a lot of video and in general, came away with a lot of hope for the future.
Up until now there hasn’t been a conference of this kind. The location of the conference is telling to the goals of the organizer, Dana Kara, the president of Robotics Trends. In the past, most robotics conferences have been held in cities such as Boston or Pittsburgh because they are close to certain universities or military research in the field. But now, Robotics Trends is hoping to bring the field of robotics development for commercial products closure to venture capitalists looking for new entrepreneurial fields to invest in.
I will be presenting video in the upcoming weeks but for now, here are some highlights.
Ray Almgren from National Instruments presented at the keynote and gave an overview of his company’s involvement in the robotics industry. One example was the partnership with Lego in helping develop the Mindstorms NXT product.
As you can appreciate. There is a lot of stuff to see. Unfortunately I only had time for one day (out of a 2-day conference), plus I had to do all the video interviews so I didn’t get a chance to see any of the presentations. There were several tracks with many in-depth sessions where the technology experts were presenting the tools of the trade to allow more companies to develop lower cost robots.
In the end, If it ever happened again, I would definitely be back. This time with more time to spare.
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