DARPA's Robotic Challenge, where robots will perform tasks at a simulated catastrophe site, is sure to attract humanoid robots like Petman.

Five years after the DARPA Grand Challenge robotic cars are already hitting the roads and states are preparing for their eventual arrival. Now DARPA is launching a new Robotics Challenge that will test the most advanced robotics solutions in a simulated disaster obstacle course. The challenge – and the cash prize – will almost certainly prove a major catalyst for the near future of robotics technologies.

In the event of a natural or man-made disaster, it’s always better to put robots in harm’s way instead of humans. With this in mind, the Robotics Challenge is a wide open, task-driven test. Instead of specifying specific technologies, DARPA is saying get to the finish line anyway you can.

What DARPA wants to see is a robot that has human-like “mobility and manipulation” abilities. At a disaster scene robots will have to make use of the same machinery and tools that human rescue teams have to use. The different stages of the challenge are meant to simulate an emergency response to a natural or manmade disaster. The robot will enter an open-frame vehicle like a John Deere Gator or Polaris Ranger, turn it on, and drive it – steering, throttle, brakes and all – to the disaster scene. Once it’s pulled up to the pile of rubble, it will exit the vehicle and climb over the sloped terrain littered with loose rocks, trees, ditches, and other obstacles it has to negotiate or avoid. Eventually the robot will reach an entryway blocked with debris that it will have to remove. Once the debris is cleared, it has to operate a door handle and push the door open. Inside, it will have to climb a ladder to reach a catwalk. After crossing the catwalk it will reach a concrete panel or a framed wall that it has to bust through using something like an electric hammer or chisel. Waiting for it on the other side of the panel will be a series of pipes, only one of which will be leaking. The robot has to spot the smoke or hear the hissing sound to locate the faulty pipe and then close the pipe’s turn valve. Lastly, the rescue robot’s day will end after locating and replacing a cooling pump.

They somehow forgot to include pulling small children from a burning building.

DARPA hasn’t yet decided by what criteria exactly the robots will be judged except that the robots get points for operating autonomously and using less energy.

Robots like iRobot's Packbot have already lent a helping hand to emergency response crews, but DARPA wants a robot that can do just about everything a human could do.

If you’re a big fan of humanoid robots like Petman, you may be biased towards imagining a band of Superman-like – or Terminator-like – robots coming to the rescue. But DARPA emphasizes that the winning robot will get the job done, humanoid or not. They want to make it clear that a team should go ahead if they think an arachnoid robot would do the job better than a spiderman robot.

The team that builds the winning robot pockets $2 million.

The robots won’t be required to be completely autonomous but will operate with “supervised autonomy.” Under supervised autonomy, the controller gives general commands without having to carry out basic functions of perception and action.

I expect that Boston Dynamics will be one of the competing teams. But it will be interesting to see which direction they go in. Will they go straight humanoid and try to develop Petman, or will Alpha Dog be the more sensible choice? Maybe we’ll see something entirely new.

DARPA realizes that the challenge is really, really tough, calling it “DARPA hard” but not impossible. For them it’s a longterm commitment. The competition will be held once a year, at the endpoint of two separate phases. Phase 1 will last 15 months, beginning October 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013. There’s no cash prize for the Phase 1 winners. But they qualify to move onto the second phase, which will last 12 moths from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. Any company or research team, anywhere in the world, can compete.

Needless to say, the humanoid robot envisioned by DARPA will require some seriously advanced technologies, and lots of them. To maximize their chances for success, the program is broken up into different tracks so that entrants can tackle a problem that is suited to their strength. Track A is for teams developing both hardware and software, while Track B is for software developers only. Any proposal that is chosen for Tracks A and B will be funded – $3 million for Track A, $375,000 for Track B. Tracks C and D will compete in the same categories, except they’ll have to build their robot and software at their own expense.

DARPA will build its own robot so that teams focused solely on software development will have a test bed. The so-called Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) platform will have arms with two or three fingers and 7 degrees of freedom, legs with 6 degrees of freedom, and a head equipped with stereo vision and laser radar.

The challenge was inspired by the Fukushima disaster last year in Japan. Gill Pratt, the DARPA program manager in charge of the challenge, said in the first 24 hours following the disaster crucial tasks couldn’t be performed because it was too dangerous for people to go into the ruined reactor. DARPA is certainly serious about making sure the US can take care of business. The $2 million cash prize is just a small part of their investment. Including the funded research, DARPA will spend up to $34 million for its rescue robot of the future.

Each of the different tasks could probably be performed separately by different robots, but DARPA’s effort to bring the different technologies into a single robot will undoubtedly create something great. I’m excited for our competitors. May the best robot win! What it will look like is anybody’s guess.

[image credits: Boston Dynamics and CNET]
image 1: Petman
image 2: Petman
image 3: iRobot

These origamiesque robots were printed from a 3D computer. They cost $100 each and take just 70 minutes to print.

We’ve seen 3D printers churn out toys, bone models, chocolate, even human tissue. Now scientists at MIT want to print robots. Not the cool, stainless steel types that your kids will want to play with, but programmable bots that can help out around the house or carry out life-saving reconnaissance in the wake of a disaster.

Even better, it’ll take less than 24 hours to print them out.

Right now building a robot takes years, requires hardware and software development, and is costly. The 3D printing group, MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), wants to design a robot platform that is inexpensive, simple enough to be used to non-experts, but sophisticated enough to perform different specialized functions.

The plastic robotic backbone is what’s actually printed out. What form is printed out depends on the function the user chooses. Electronics and actuators are then attached to the printout. Wired has a short video of two prototypes the researchers have produced thus far: an insect-like crawler and a gripper. Something like the crawler could carry a camera or sensors into an area with a chemical spill or a place like the contaminated Fukushima Daiichi power plant. Or it could check to see if you have rats in your attic, if you’re not all that interested in checking yourself. The gripper could be used to help the elderly or handicapped people get a handle on household objects. Both robots cost $100 and took about 70 minutes to make.

Yes, owning our own robots built to our own specifications will soon be a reality. Well, relatively soon. The project is part of a 5-year grant just awarded by the National Science Foundation, so you have until 2017 to decide on just what robot will be the most valuable to you.

The MIT group is teaming up with researchers at Harvard and Penn University on the project. Their group venture, entitled “An Expedition in Computing for Compiling Printable Programmable Machines,” was recently awarded a $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The next five years will be spent making the platform as user-friendly as possible so the average person can, not only design their own robot, but program it too. As Daniela Rus, the project leader at MIT, said in an MIT announcement: “We believe that it has the potential to transform manufacturing and to democratize access to robots.”

There is still a great deal of work to be done before their robot truly becomes democratized. The team is currently working on an API that would simplify the design process, algorithms that make it easy to control the robot, and a programming language that the average person can use. At the moment the robot comes pre-programmed to perform defined tasks, but ideally even a novice user would program it to perform more complex commands.

And once the greenhorn gets his programming legs, there’s the worry that he’ll break the robot’s. Rus explained that there are as yet no safety measures against bad commands that would result in a broken robot. In addition, the prototypes are not very durable. Toughening them up will be necessary if people are going to want to spend the time printing and programming them, even if it’s already incredibly quick and easy to begin with.

Normally the term household robots conjures up visions closer to Asimo than these little origami insects. But the tradeoff of performance for accessibility means more people will actually have robots in their houses. For many, these printable robots could do much to convert a curiosity into a passion.

[image credit: MIT]
[video credit: Wired]
images: printable robot
video: printable robot

iRobot CEO, Colin Angle, with AVA.

We found this video from CNNMoney, about AVA, iRobot’s latest personal assistance robot. We’ve covered AVA before, how it’s basically an iPad (or notebook) on a pretty sophisticated set of wheels. We don’t learn anything new about the robot, but watching AVA we begin to get a feel for how AVA might work in the home, particularly, as iRobot CEO Colin Angle points out, to assist the elderly. With laser range finders, acoustic sensors, accelerometers, bumpers, and two cameras for 3D vision, iRobot’s built AVA to have the tools to get around the home and be of service.

What service will AVA provide exactly? Mainly telepresence communication between the elderly and healthcare providers. Angle’s main point is that the elderly don’t want to live in assisted living homes, and their relatives don’t want to pay the cost of assisted living homes. By having doctors, nurses, or other health personnel available at the tap of a touchscreen, AVA can mediate exchange of immediate health information between patients and their doctors. AVA would be perfect for the elderly who require minimal care but regular monitoring.

And healthcare aside, AVA’s perfect for curing another major ailment of the elderly: loneliness. With AVA, friends and family members can “drop in” from time to time. Watching the robot scoot around, it’s actually got some personality, the way it’s head swings around and tilts to look at you – even thought it’s head is an iPad. Imagine a grandson’s face rolling into the living room, “Hi grandma!” I think she’ll take that over a telephone call any day.

[image credits: CNNMoney via YouTube]
[video credits: CNNMoney via YouTube]
video: AVA

The open source platform allows users to come up with their own apps, such as the devious "Spy Robot App."

How awesome is Romo the Smartphone Robot? Without knowing anything about it, you simply have to look at the robot’s Kickstarter page. The pledge goal was $32,000. The robot has raised $114,796.

I’d say these guys are on to something.

The guys – Peter Seid and Phu Nguyen – have turned your smartphone into a robot. They’ve built a robotics platform that uses a smartphone for a brain to control a mobile, two-track base. Just attach your smartphone to the base, plug a cord into the earphone jack, download the apps, and using another smartphone, iPad, or computer to control it – you’ve got a robot! The guys are only just getting started, but already they’ve made a “Spy Robot” app that allows you to drive Romo around while seeing the world through the smartphone camera. It can track objects with a color tracking app. Another app turns Romo into a doodler. Just make your drawing on the smartphone touchscreen and Romo follows the pattern, driving around and turning your pixel drawing into a real one. You can also have a conversation with Romo, which makes sense since it has a phone for a head.

Seid and Nguyen’s genius was to recognize that you don’t have to build a robot from the ground up. With their self-admitted nerdyness, the two longed to create a functional robot but without the millions of dollars it takes to create the beast that is Honda’s Asimo, they recognized that supercomputer robotic brains had already been built that are cheap and are everywhere. They built Romo and founded the company Romotive to build more.

The beauty of having a smartphone for a brain is that it is limited only by its apps. Seid and Nguyen, and the growing number of Romo users, are hard at work coming up with new applications, which means the sky’s the limit. They encourage hackers to take Romo apart, to find new ways to interface the smartphone and hardware. And they’re working on an SDK of their own that will run on iOS and Android to make programming easier and more flexible. A forum on their website provides a place where hackers can share their innovations with others. Given the obvious enthusiasm, I see their apps library growing quickly, becoming the smartphone equivalent to the Robot Operating System applications library for robots. Yet another example of the power of open source.

Just $78 gets you a Romo (smartphone not included, duh). An iPod Touch can also be used with the platform. Controls are sent over Wi-Fi, so you can potentially play with Romo over half a world away.

Romo isn’t the first robot to use a smartphone for a brain. iRobot’s AVA turns smartphones, tablets or notebooks into mobile robots. With laser range finders and accelerometers and other major league hardware, AVA’s obviously the superior telepresence robot. But Romo’s our robot, the one we can actually get our hands on and program. Smartphones were already awesome, but Romo takes them to a whole new level. And now that Romotive has got some serious startup funds, the mobile robot could very soon leave your brand new 4S in the dust.

[image credits: Kickstarter]
[video credits: phanloc23291 via YouTube]
images: Romo
video: Romo

Propelled by a series of fins beneath the water, the fuel-less and solar-powered Wave Glider is making waves in the world of ocean research.

Meet Piccard Maru, Fontaine Maru, Benjamin, and Papa Mau, the four sea-faring robots that set out from San Francisco November 17th for a 300-day journey that will take them to Australia and Japan. Named after accomplished ocean explorers, the robots will become pioneers in their own right when they complete their journeys, setting the world record for the longest autonomous oceanic journey. What’s more, when they reach their designations, they’ll have done so without using a single drop of fuel.

Silicon Valley startup Liquid Robotics are sending the robots out as a kind of high-profile advertisement to government, military, and commercial entities that might want a cheaper and greener way to collect ocean data. Dubbed Wave Gliders, the surfboard-sized robots have titanium-framed fiberglass bodies that encapsulate terabytes of flash memory, a dual-core ARM processor that runs on open Linux software, a GPS unit, a battery pack and wireless and satellite communications with which to receive commands and beam back data. Data to be collected by sensor arrays include water temperature, oxygen levels, air temperature and pressure, crude oil concentrations in regions unfortunate to have them, and other metrics.
Ocean vessels can run companies and researchers $30,000 to $150,000 a day to operate. The Gliders don’t need a staff, and they don’t need fuel or to be resupplied. How do they get around without fuel? Twenty-three feet below the Gliders are six fins projecting from a rudder. The fins use the up-and-down motion of ocean waves to propel the robot along. Not the speediest way to travel, top speed is a sluggish two knots. But the fins allow the Gliders to both travel or remain stationary as when collecting data at a particular point without the need for fuel. Energy for the onboard equipment is supplied by two solar panels covering the Glider. It’s this self-sustaining energy system that make the Wave Gliders so cheap to operate and valuable to oil companies, researchers, and the military. Investing heavily in start-up costs and R & D, Liquid Robotics is not yet profitable. The current expedition is supported by Richard Branson’s Virgin Oceanic – the thrill-seeking billionaire’s own ticket to the ocean depths – and Google Earth. The data gathered from this maiden voyage will be made available to scientists, educators, students, and the general public real-time and free of charge. That’ll change in the future when the data will be made available for purchase. The gas and oil industry spends about $250 million per year on buoys, ships and satellites to search for new oil sources beneath the ocean surface. With the potential for big bucks from oil companies, it’s no wonder Liquid Robotics has already received $40 million in venture funding.

Check out the elegant efficiency of these wave-making robots in the following video.

The initial leg of the journey will take the four robots to Hawaii. From there, Benjamin and Papa Mau will veer off and head for Brisbaine, Australia while Piccard and Fontaine will make for Japan. Crossing the ocean is a risky undertaking, to say the least. The robots will pass through the North Pacific Tropical Gyre – aka “The Garbage Patch.” The gyre is a gigantic vortex into which tons of junk have been swept. Having navigated the gyre, the robots will have to contend with the tumultuous currents at the equator. And as you saw in the video, barnacles remain a constant nuisance. “It’s a tough thing to do and we may not make it,” Vass told to his team moments before the four robots shoved off, reported Forbes.

When the data starts coming in Liquid Robotics and Google Earth with set up a platform from which we’ll be able to track to robots’ movements. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that their journey is a safe one.

More than 70 percent of the Earth is covered by water. The oceans regulate the planet’s temperature and drive its weather. And all life is ultimately depending on its ebbs and flows yet only about five percent of our oceans have been explored. Permanent underwater observatories like the Ocean Observatories Initiative’s, while data gathering powerhouses, are limited to collecting data from their immediate areas. By being able to traverse entire oceans in an amazingly cheap and environment-friendly way, the Wave Gliders stand to be ocean research game-changers.

[image credits: Liquid Robotis, Forbes, and Venture Beat]
[video credits: NOAAPMEL via YouTube]
image 1: Wave Glider
image 2: Wave Glider 2
image 3: Fin Power
video: Wave Glider

Rite Aids in Detroit are getting chat rooms with which customers can video chat with doctors or nurses for medical advice. The doctors can even tele-prescribe over the Internet.

You got your shopping list: coffee, toothpaste, Tums, and…a doctor’s consultation about your lower back pain? Rite Aid is now your one-stop-shop for everything pharmaceutical, including expert medical advice on prescriptions or any other health-related questions you might ask your primary doctor. Chat rooms are already being installed at Rite Aids Detroit in which you can connect with doctors and nurses through the Internet for one-on-one video consultations. Now the doctors themselves are over-the-counter, and you don’t even need health insurance, just a credit card. Technology continues to make health care more convenient and accessible, and to reshape the clinic as we know it.

Inside the private chat rooms, customers will pay $45 to talk to a doctor for ten minutes. After describing symptoms they’ll receive feedback from the doctor and even a prescription if necessary, which they can then immediately fill. And they can choose to speak to a general practitioner or a specialist such as a psychologist or dermatologist. Nurses are also available for consultation free of charge. Staffed by OptumHealth, the company that also supplies the chat rooms, nurses can provide the customer with basic health information and assist them on appropriate care options. If they’re not comfortable with video chat, patients can choose to chat by typing or talk over the phone. The exchanges are automatically recorded and the recording can be sent off to the customer’s primary doctor to maintain continuity.

The “virtual” clinics are part of the OptumHealth’s NowClinic Online Care services. Rite Aid and OptumHealth’s efforts make health care more convenient. And if the chat rooms are convenient enough customers can still use NowClinic 24/7 by going to www.myNowClinic.com/RiteAid. Of course, it’s also very convenient for Rite Aid to have people in their store who have fresh prescriptions that need to be filled.

The following video is a tutorial demonstrating how to use the NowClinic.

The virtual clinics are part of a growing trend to make healthcare more accessible through technology. Rite Aids in Detroit are the first to receive the NowClinics, but BlueCross BlueShield has a similar system in five different states through which patients are able to gain immediate online access to doctors within the company’s network. Additionally, there are a number of websites such as healthcaremagic.com, goodhealthnyou.com, and askadoctornow.com that have doctors online, ready 24/7 to give advice to paying customers.

And OptumHealth doesn’t want to stop there. Chuck Grothaus, Senior Director of Corporate Communications told Singularity Hub that there are plans to “include some remote diagnostic capabilities including the ability to measure and share blood pressure information, among other things. We are still researching and developing what these tools will entail.”

It's the next step, you know it!

Some customers, however, might be resistant to this trend towards virtual care, or to taking advice from a doctor they’ve only “met’ ten minutes ago. But a study published earlier this year shows that virtual health care can be as good or even better than old fashioned visits to the doc’s office. The study compared traditional health care monitoring and total internet-based monitoring of a group of HIV positive patients. While neither the physical or psychological healths showed differences between the two groups, the patients monitored through the “Virtual Hospital” felt they had better access to clinical information.

Virtual doctors are just the latest way technology is making it easier for us to stay healthy. We can track our calories and sleep with Fitbit, test our blood sugar levels with our smartphones, and soon we’ll be able to swallow a pill that monitors our internal physiology. But to be clear, virtual visits aren’t meant to replace face-to-face visits but to augment them. An at home, do-it-yourself stethoscope exam probably wouldn’t work. As medical records become increasingly digitized virtual doctors and virtual hospitals will draw closer to true doctors’ office visits, even if they are found at the end of aisle five, just past the toothpaste and hair gel.

[image credits: Academy of Information Medicine]
[video credits: myNowClinic]
image: stethoscope

The new, heavily-armed ShadowHawk can track perpetrators using normal or infrared light.

Forget the idea that weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are only for military operations in wars fought in far off lands. Soon they’ll begin setting their sights on criminals within our borders. And they’ll be packing heat, not the long-range missiles of the X-47B, but with up close and personal stun guns, 12-gauge shotguns and, believe it or not, grenade launchers.

The ShadowHawk is the seven-foot, 50-lb copter that is the toy-sized dealer of destruction from Texas-based Vanguard Defense Industries. The copter is the result of three years of development. If being tased from above sounds frightening to you, I suggest you cease all criminal activities now (simply staying indoors is an option). There’s a good chance ShadowHawk’s spine tingling buzz could be heard approaching a city near you. As a sign of new law enforcement tactics to come, the Sheriff’s Office of Montgomery County, Texas was recently awarded a grant by the Department of Homeland Security for a squadron of ShadowHawks. Montgomery County’s Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel is psyched. “We are very excited about the funding and looking forward to placing the equipment into the field. Both my narcotics and SWAT units have been looking at numerous ways to deploy it and I absolutely believe it will become a critical component on all SWAT callouts and narcotics raids and emergency management operations.”

The Department of Homeland Security grant is just the latest indication that the US is taking the military’s lead – with over 7,000 drones in the skies of Iraq and Afghanistan – and using drones as a key tactical tool. In 2009 a surveillance drone called the Wasp was used during a SWAT raid in Austin, Texas. The Wasp climbed to 400 feet and beamed realtime video of a house in which an armed drug dealer was hiding. After the team had confirmed that there were no unforeseen dangers lurking in the backyard, they stormed the house and arrested the suspect. Drones are also helping the US to secure its borders against illegal immigration and drug trafficking. Just a few months ago the Obama administration began sending drones to Mexico to gather intelligence and help in the country’s war on drugs.

Not limited to our borders, ShadowHawk will soon be swooping down on bad guys off the shores of Africa. Vanguard Defense justwon a multi-million dollar contract for “several” ShadowHawks to patrol the east African coast against pirates. Hired by a “global leader in the oil and gas exploration and production industry,” the initial plan is to use the copter drones strictly for surveillance. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the local authorities get involved at some point and bring the heavy stuff. Pirates might respond better when looking down the nose of a 40mm grenade launcher.

ShadowHawk is not nearly as agile as the acrobatic quad-copter from UPenn’s GRASP Lab. But it’s definitely more agile than a perpetrator fleeing on foot. All of the cameras can be used to track ground targets with amazing effectiveness. The following video demonstrates the ability of the CCD (1:40) and infrared cameras’ (2:00) ability to track vehicles and humans fleeing on foot. You can run, but ShadowHawk is going to stick to you like flies on…shady characters.

The ShadowHawk comes in four different flavors with different options for outfitting. Both turbine or piston engines are available and guidance systems include laser pointers, range finders, illuminators, CCD TV optics and a FLIR infrared camera. Take off, flying and landing can be fully automated or pilot assist, semi-autonomous. The military and law enforcement can opt to add an XREP taser, 37mm or 40mm grenade launchers or a meaty single shot or multiple shot 12 gauge shotgun. The final variety is for military use only and they don’t tell us what sorts of ballistics toys they get to pick from.
ShadowHawk can travel over land or sea for up to 3.5 hours in its hunt for perpetrators. Its maximum range is 35 miles with a top speed of 70 mph. The XREP taser sits on ShadowHawk’s nose with four barbed electrodes that can be shot to a distance of 100 feet. After hitting the target they deliver ‘neuromuscular incapacitation’ for a hellish 20 seconds. The cameras are on continuously, which means, when they are inevitably leaked, we’re due for some of the craziest videos-gone-viral ever to hit YouTube.

A nice, cute copter for hobbyists – if your hobby happens to be going after bad guys with tasers and grenade launchers.

But you shouldn’t be worried about your neighbors getting their hands on a ShadowHawk. Hobbyists can have drones as long as they keep them from flying higher than 400 feet. And, of course, they won’t be armed with tasers or grenade launchers. But after that the FAA guidelines are pretty loose concerning ShadowHawks or any such “unmanned aircraft.” The FAA “encourages good judgment on the part of operators so that persons on the ground or other aircraft in flight will not be endangered.”

In its first flights the ShadowHawk’s job will probably be strictly surveillance. But as law enforcement such as Montgomery County’s gains experience and field tests the drone, perhaps they’ll decide when using that taser might be the best option. As more drones like ShadowHawk take to the sky over our cities and that high-pitched whine draws terribly closer, probably best to just lay down, hands on your head, feet spread apart.

[image credits: Vanguard Defense Industries]
[video credit: Vanguard Defense Industries via YouTube]
images: ShadowHawk
video: ShadowHawk

An early Sprite prototype. Don't lose it!

We knew to expect a paradigm shift with the end of the space shuttle program, but this is ridiculous. Mason Peck and his group of forward-thinking engineers are taking NASA’s slogan of Faster, Better, Cheaper to the extreme. Their spacecraft will cut down travel time to Alpha Centauri from thousands of years to just a few hundred, and instead of the $1.7 billion it takes to build a space shuttle, Peck’s ships can be built for an amazing $33.

I might mention that there’s no room for astronauts. In fact, if one were to try and board these spacecraft they would crush it.

Okay, maybe Peck’s Sprites, as they’re called, aren’t going to be the next manned space vehicle, but they could be the first of a new breed of satellites that are so cheap and innovative – they don’t need fuel – they could be an important addition to our satellite-based efforts to study the universe.

In stark contrast to the present approach of sending satellites costing tens or hundreds of millions of dollars for single missions, Peck’s team at Cornell’s School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering envision a swarm of wafer-sized spacecraft that sense their surroundings together and send data back to the earth in aggregate.

The spacecraft are called Sprites and they weigh about 10 grams each. Integrated circuits 3.8 cm on a side, they’re literally spacefaring computer chips. This past May the space shuttle Endeavour brought three Sprite prototypes to the International Space Station. Fixed to the station’s exterior, they are currently in the early days of a two year test to see how they stand up to the harsh elements of space.

Compared to your typical satellite the faculties of a single miniscule Sprite are severely limited. The Sprites at the station right now are equipped with seven tiny solar cells, a microprocessor with a built-in radio, an antenna, an amplifier, and special circuitry that activates the microprocessor when the solar cells have stored up enough energy to emit a single radio-frequency “beep.” The beeps not only tell operators on Earth that the Sprites are still functional, they’re data that can be used to estimate the angle of sunlight hitting the chip as an oblique angle will take longer to charge the solar cells than direct light that hits at a right angle. Not the most revolutionary sort of space exploration, it’s a proof-of-principle that will show the Sprites can sense their surroundings as a population of individual sensors – albeit a population of three. When they do it will be first tiny steps towards a new paradigm of distributed space exploration.

NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel, STS-134 mission specialist, installs and photographs the experimental module that includes three Sprites.

The Sprites of the future will do more. As Peck describes in an IEEE article, semiconductors will fit the solar cells, energy-storing capacitors, and “all the memory and processing capability you could want” onto a single chip. These will support experimental payloads such as spectrometers that break down the light emitted by stars and planets, for example, and use it to determine the chemicals that make up those stars and planets. A chip equipped with load sensors would be able to measure impacts made by space particles. Chemical sensors and simple CMOS cameras – essentially your common digital camera – can also be added. With these sorts of eyes and ears, tens of thousands of Sprites could explore space in ways impossible with conventional satellites. Peck describes a scenario in which Sprites in orbit between the Earth and the sun would send a signal when the local magnetic field or the number of charged particles that hit the spacecraft exceed some preset value. Each Sprite will be a single detector and provide just one data point. “But a network of these scattered chips could produce 3-D snapshots of space weather, something no traditional spacecraft, no matter how sophisticated, could ever do on its own.”

But don’t expect the Sprite swarm to be anything like the self-organizing nanobots of Michael Crichton’s Prey that were able to take a car ride in the shape of a human. Sprites simply won’t have the power for realtime communication – each will be acting on its own. Sprite swarms should be achievable, however, by harnessing the grouping power of space’s gravitational eddies and currents. The Interplanetary Transport Network is the vast array of virtual highways that arise from the gravitational pull of the planets and other celestial bodies. In the same way the interplanetary satellites of old were flung around Jupiter and Saturn in a gravity assist slingshot, a much smaller spacecraft could be ferried between planets along the much weaker gravitational forces that exist between planets. Another propulsion source is provided by the light given off by the sun. Photons that are continually expelled by the sun carry momentum. Just as they strike dust particles at the speed of light and blow them out of the solar system, photons could strike the dust-like Sprites and push them to the orbits of Jupiter or Saturn and beyond. Yet another way to steer the Sprites is to use a planet’s magnetic field. A charged particle that is moving will feel the tug of a magnetic field. A Sprite isn’t normally charged, but it could give itself a well-timed electrical charge to change its course of direction. If it found itself in the presence of a very large magnetic field, such as Jupiter’s which is 20,000 times as strong as Earth’s, it could literally follow in the paths of the Voyager and Pioneer satellites and get a particle accelerator-type planetary assist rather than a gravity assist.

If you picture a Sprite right now as something akin to a powerless piece of dust being capriciously pushed and pulled by the wind then you’re thinking along the lines of Peck and his team. “The idea goes back at least 15 years, and it has its origins in “smart dust” – tiny microelectromechanical sensor systems that can be used to measure light and temperature, register movement and location, and detect chemical and biological substances.” He and his graduate student, Justin Atchison, set out to see if they could explore space in new ways, and do it way cheaper. Space shuttle payloads costed about $10,000 per pound to fly. And putting a satellite in orbit costs between $50 and $400 million. At 10 grams each, 10,000 Sprites would weigh 100 kg – negligible as far as space payloads go. And Peck wants to get them down between 5 and 50 milligrams so that photons and magnetic fields could propel them that much faster.

If he succeeds in miniaturizing them further, Sprites may just be our ticket to the stars. At such small sizes the Sprites could travel at speeds fast enough to reach our nearest star, Alpha Centauri, in a few hundred years. That may not sound very fast, but our next best option at the moment – solar sails – would take at least a thousand years to get us there, more than likely longer.

The Sprites represent a paradigm shift in space exploration. Their materialization was made possible by advances in integrated circuit and superconductivity technologies. As these technologies advance further and are manufactured on the nanometer scale, spacecraft like Sprites will become faster and more powerful. It’s hard to say right now what their role in space exploration will be in the coming decades, but one can only expect that role to be as unorthodox as the Sprites themselves.

[image credits: NASA and investors.com]
image 1: Sprite
image 2: Astronaut

The counter on the wall reads “30:54:2″. That’s the number of QB robots actively deployed, the robots online (including those at Anybots HQ), and the robots currently logged in and in use, respectively. Actually, Bill tells me, the number deployed is currently more than forty, they just haven’t updated the counter recently. That’s a little disappointing, but it’s still early in the game and I look forward to those numbers climbing soon. For the past year, Anybots has been transitioning from having a handful of robots out on beta tests to actively selling and placing their QBs all around the world. They have dozens in the US, some in Mexico, a few in Asia, and they’re setting up distributors in the EU. Anybots has gone global, and they want to keep on growing. Their first batch of bots is ready for release and they’ve got the parts and plants lined up to make the next batch. All moving towards that goal of selling 100 robots a month by next summer. While Murvihill wouldn’t give hard numbers about their financials, he did say that Anybots should be “cash flow positive by January 2012 and always interested in talking to prospective investors.”

Are they going to have enough interest to match their sales projections? Anybots certainly seems confident, and I’ve been consistently impressed with the QB. Those that watched my first test drive last summer and those who went to the Anybots website and test drove the bot online for yourselves (good for you) will know that using the QB is remarkably easy. You login, you click a button to tell the robot to stand up (it rests on a retractable peg when not in use), and you start driving. Arrow keys move the robot like a video game come to life, and you simply talk to anyone you see just as you would with a normal webcam. That ease of use is still one of the QBs best selling points. You can go from sitting at your desk to maneuvering the bot into a conversation in less than a minute, and it doesn’t take more than a few minutes ‘inside the bot’ before you feel like you’re having a natural conversation with someone. Even if that someone is thousands of miles away.

Here’s a quick video to summarize the QB for those new to the concept:

Describing the experience of driving the QB, however, doesn’t really do it justice. They do have a bot or two at Anybots HQ ready for customers to remotely play with, but that’s not nearly enough for all the interested parties. Which is why Murvihill expects they’ll be establishing a QB test drive center in Santa Clara in the next twelve months. Twenty or so QB, in a mock (or maybe real world) environment able to drive around and interact with other bots and humans. Those bots will be controlled by prospective customers, probably invited via LinkedIn or some other social network. Think of it as a car dealership, only instead of the latest automobiles you’ll be able to drive the cutting edge in telerobotics…and from anywhere in the world.

Actually, Bill Murvihill really likes the car analogy. He says that Anybots faces the “Henry Ford” challenge. They have this great product, but no one in the market really understands what it can do yet, and most potential customers aren’t even sure how they should use it. If they can get enough people to buy into the concept, it might change the world, but they have to build interest first, and demonstrate the capabilities of their platform. To Murvihill, the QB is the Model T of telepresence robotics.

Of course, you have to remember the Model T wasn’t the first automobile, nor the only one actively competing in its market. So too with the QB. Willow Garage has just spun off a company to bring its telepresence bot into commercial production, and there’s also iRobot’s AVA, the Gostai Jazz, V*Go, and the multi-talented (and considerably less expensive) Luna on the horizon. Not to mention the South Korean robots aimed at school use, and the dozens of non-mobile and amateur level telerobots currently available. It’s a big race that’s only just begun. It’s too early to know who the serious competitors are, much less predict who’s going to win.

But Anybots is doing its best to take the lead. I asked Murvihill what distinguished the QB from its competitors. “Well, we’re the tallest bot,” he joked. Seriously though, the height of the QB, which can be adjusted from 2′ 6″ to 6′ 2″ in just a few seconds is a pretty cool selling point, but it doesn’t top the list. Dynamic balancing does. Look at all the other telerobots out there, and they’re probably standing on three wheels or more. And they probably drive around as like a motorized tripod. The QB zips around, adjusting the camera angle as it moves so you hardly notice at it tilts, giving you a robot that is speedy, steady, and lightweight. Around 35 lbs, I can lift the QB with one hand easily, and wouldn’t hesitate to carry the bot upstairs. Not so with the 70 lb+ robots we’ve seen from other companies. If the whole point of telerobotics is that they give you a mobile telepresence, then maybe the most mobile robot will win. The QB is definitely gunning for that title.

Nothing demonstrates the QB’s mobility more than this next video. In February, the engineers in Mountain View were craving scones, so they sent someone out to Red Rock Coffee located a mile away. That someone was a QB. What follows is priceless:

How freaking amazing is it to send a robot on a 1.9 mile round trip to fetch you a snack from a cafe? (A cafe, I might add, whose staff hardly blinked at the idea of serving a robot). You may have seen mobile phone videos of this event on MTV or on the web. Here’s the most popular clip of the scone-tastic journey for those that care to see things from outside the machine:

So I’ve linked you to a test drive, told you about an upcoming QB center, and even shown you how Anybots could solve all your snack related problems. Here comes the bad news. This robot is not going to be in your home. Not now, maybe not ever. As mouth watering as this bot may be to all us technophiles, it’s not for casual use. This is a business bot. You probably guessed that from the $15,000 price tag, but Murvihill made it clear: while the QB might get a little cheaper, and it will definitely keep getting better, it’s not aimed at personal use. Offices, hospitals, factories – those are the markets for the QB.

And the QB could radically impact those markets. Anybots has gotten feedback from customers saying they’ve forgotten which office meetings they attended in person, and which via QB. The ‘presence’ of telepresence robots is very real, and could all but eliminate business travel. Murvihill talked with hospital staff about putting QBs on ambulances so that ER doctors can be remotely brought to a trauma site and provide triage as soon as possible. With global production and manufacturing pushing itself into the lowest priced labor markets, robots like the QB could be sent to provide eyes and ears to those investors, owners, or managers on the other side of the globe. (The QB’s already being sold in Mexico.) Everywhere telerobotics is applied we can expect disruption. As Murvihill puts it, “we can’t imagine the scale and scope of this industry yet.”

We can’t even use the current capabilities of the QB as a guide for how the world will adopt telepresence robots, because the capabilities of the QB are constantly improving. You’ve seen the QB take a 1.9 mile journey – that’s because each bot is hardwired for both 4G and for WiFi roaming (with two WiFi dongles so it can move from one spot to another seamlessly). WiFi connectivity is already in use with deployed QBs, but the 4G is still waiting for service providers and market strategies to firm up. That will come soon. So too will mapping. The QB has lidar, gyroscopes, and enviable dead reckoning skills. With the right software upgrades it could map its way around your building and drive from point to point at the click of a button. Those upgrades could be easily distributed to users because all the QB traffic goes through a central server (in Austin, Tx). But hey, maybe you don’t want to use that server. Fine, in the next few months, the QB should be able to migrate onto private networks as well. The QB has great hardware, and Anybots is constantly building code to use that hardware in new and better ways. The QB of today will not be as cool as the QB of tomorrow. Actually, scratch that. The QB of today will download a few code packets and become the QB of tomorrow.

Expect similar trajectories from every other serious telepresence competitor. This field is ramping up, and everyone in it wants to see the industry explode in the next few years. Will telerobotics become the next big thing in business, home use, or medical applications? It really depends on you.

Consumers expectations are hard for me to gage. Those of you who watched James Cameron’s Avatar may need to dial it down a notch. If you sit down for a test drive of a telerobot and expect to go swinging through the vines in a giant blue Smurf with everything in super high quality 3D, you’re going to be disappointed. The video quality on the QB can be adjusted from a standard level (good for driving with low latency) to an HD zoom able to read print off papers or whiteboards. But that video is really not so different from Skype. So too with the robot. If you want to pretend the world is a first person shooter video game and zoom around…well, the QB has far fewer rocket launchers than you may be used to. In person, the QB is lovable, but it doesn’t have a huge screen or articulated arms. It has a few cool antics (see the clip below) but it’s not WALL-E. Neither the QB, nor any of its competitors, can truly live up to our imaginations of what robots should be.

That doesn’t mean that this robots aren’t freakin’ amazing. It just means that it will probably be the practical applications for telepresence robots, not the sensational ones, that drive the market in the beginning. The QB is aimed like a heat-seeking missle at those practical applications. It’s robust, it’s easy to use, and it’s accessible anywhere in the world through most web browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome). Is the QB’s $15,000 price tag, the lovable face, and the two wheel driving going to win it the race? Much too early to tell. But having visited Anybots I can tell you this: these guys are going to make a good run of it.

Just a little light-hearted abuse of the QB to play you out. (Oh, and yes, the robot is remotely controlling the door on its own when it wants to leave.)

[image credit: Anybots]
[video credits: Aaron Saenz/Singularity Hub, Anybots, Aaron Blumenshire]
[source: Anybots]

While there are several options for telepresence robots, Anybots has pushed the QB as the hassle free, easy to use, and fun option that businesses will want to adopt. Having test driven a QB myself, I’d have to agree with them on most counts. The halls of Singularity Hub still ring with the debate on whether the cute-looking robot face of the QB would be better replaced by a larger display, and whether the $15,000 cost is the right price point. I’d love to hear what our readers think about those topics – feel free to debate in the comments, or add a thread to our new Debate Central feature. In the meantime, Anybots presses forward, taking their QB to TED 2011, introducing it to Lady Gaga and otherwise showing it off. Good for you, guys, keep it up.

That's a lot of QB Robots...I am a little intimidated here.

Pop sensations can't get enough of telepresence. It's a fact.

They just keep going and going and going and going...

[image credits: Anybots via their blog and Facebook]
[sources: Anybots Blog]

Okay, don't pet the robot too much. Remember that's your friend Skyping in there.

Attention all pirates of the future, I’ve just found the 21st century version of the squawking parrot sidekick. Developed at the Anzai-Mai Lab at Keio University in Japan, Teroos is a shoulder-mounted robot that you can wear on the go. Embedded with a camera, microphone, and speakers, Teroos allows a friend to have a virtual presence sitting a few inches from your head. They simply log into the robot via Skype. With six degrees of motion in its head, Teroos is capable of looking around independently of the human it’s riding but its audio is designed to speak almost exclusively to its carrier. With Teroos, your friend can ride on your shoulder, see what you see, and advise you on whatever you’re doing – from shopping to science. Check out the robot during its recent appearance at Interaction 2011 in the video below. Carrying a telerobotic head around on your shoulder may sound creepy in the abstract, but watching it in action makes me really want one. I’m sure the robo-philic pirates among you will agree.

The Anzai-Mai Lab has done some very interesting things with Teroos as a robot. While it doesn’t have a screen to show the face of its user, the robot can display several different predetermined expressions. Sort of like the animatronic version of emoticons. Teroos sits far enough forward on its mount and has enough flexbility in its neck, to look directly at its human carrier. That means the person ‘riding’ in Teroos could just as easily chat with you as it does look around the room. Taken together, these robotic flourishes gives the impression that the robot really is a character riding around beside you. Which is a pretty darn cool fashion accessory to carry around a tech conference, as you’ll see:

We’ve seen more and more telerobots popping up these days. That may be a sign that they are the next logical step forward in telepresence, but with each new bot I’m inclined to question what we’re really buying here. The actual telecommunication part of Teroos is relatively simple: it connects to a smart phone via Bluetooth and then interacts with its remote user via Skype. That’s fairly basic, and almost anyone can have the same quality of video conferencing on their smart phones. With the right Bluetooth accessories (camera headset, etc) you could replicate the mobility and video calling of Teroos without the robot.

Why even develop telerobotics then? As we’ve discussed before, there are a few things that robots add to telepresence. Mainly, the ‘presence’ part. Have a person telecommute in via a robot long enough, and people start to think of the robot as that person (or as an extension of them). Not something you see with a webcam, and that effect alone is something that is worth exploring. Another advantage of telerobotics is that systems outfitted with limbs or other forms of body language seem to rate higher with those interacting with them, and help people on each end of the conversation communicate better. If these are two of the big selling points about telerobotics, I’m not sure we can credit Teroos with having enough of either. Does it have enough of a separate identity when it has to ride on a human? Are the facial expressions and head movements enough to convey body language?

Probably a ‘no’ on both accounts. Yet maybe I’m looking at Teroos too critically. It doesn’t have to be the most advantageous telerobot ever made to be interesting. Honestly, this thing is simply really cool. It’s a robot sidekick that you wear and that allows your friends to ride along with you wherever you go. I want one. I know that it doesn’t have a lot to offer beyond other telerobots I’ve seen and I still want one. Even if it’s only a novelty in its field, Teroos at least shows us that there is more diversity in telepresence forms than we may have originally thought. I certainly wouldn’t mind if wearable robots caught on. At the very least it’d give us a chance to visit that whole angel and devil sitting on your shoulder routine. Hmm… I wonder if a robot would tell you choose good or evil…or awesome?

[screen capture and video credit: DigInfo News]
[sources: DigInfo News, Anzai-Imai Lab]

PaPeRo is the big-eyed bot that could help you love to communicate via telepresence.

When you’re a super cute blushing robot, humans will let you get away with murder. Especially if the thing you’re killing is dying a slow death anyway. NEC in Japan developed its Partner-type Personal Robot, or PaPeRo, as a communications platform for research into human-machine interactions. Now, they’re testing the lovable bot as a teleconferencing tool. In a series of experiments in office-like settings, NEC found that users preferred the diminutive device to typical conference phones. Able to recognize faces, respond to touch and speech, swivel its head, and wheel around, PaPeRo could make a very cool table-top telerobot. I certainly wouldn’t mind it replacing the landline at my office. Unfortunately, this case study probably won’t lead to any commercially available device in the near future as NEC is still in research. Still, I’m excited by PaPeRo showing off its telepresence talent because it’s another sign that the race to create personal robots is heating up.

NEC created PaPeRo to help them “investigate the relationships between people and robots.” Essentially that means they created it to be as adorable as it is helpful – it actually blushes when it gets loved. The subject of many case studies and demonstrations over the past half dozen or so years, PaPeRo has seen a variety of possible applications. It’s helped take care of children, greeted people to museums, and was recently tested in nursing homes as a combination companion/news delivery system. It seems to excel in interactions with humans because its talents are specifically geared towards the ways we communicate – facial expressions, eye contact, audio, and touch. You can get a taste of these capabilities in the video below, taken during one of its many conference appearances.

Most of the qualifications for good human-robot interactions apply to humans wanting to speak to other humans through a robot. Capable of being remotely controlled via an online interface, PaPeRo can perform the same movements (swiveling its head to look at a speaker) as you might if you were in the room yourself. Its big camera eyes give you a good sense of what’s happening around the room, while its responsive face can convey simple emotions to your colleagues.

I would think that most telerobots should actually have a display screen that shows the speaker’s face. Why use an elaborate robotic facial expression system when a small LCD monitor can do the same at a fraction of the cost? Optimally, one would hope that we could combine robot gestures and human faces to get the best out of both worlds, as we’ve seen before with MIT’s MeBot. Keep the blushes, the swiveling head and the little dancing body, add in the user’s real face, and you’ll have a system that humans can relate to on many levels. At least, that’s what I would do. Several other developers have gone with the robot only (no screen) approach to telepresence, and it may be there are applications where this will be preferable. Personally I think cold robot faces speaking with the voices of my friends would be creepy, but that might just be my cultural context. I know Japan has a different relationship with its bots.

If you’re waiting for PaPeRo to brighten your home or office phone conversations, don’t hold your breath. While NEC rents out PaPeRo units on a limited basis, there’s little indication that the bot will actually reach market anytime soon. That’s okay. All we really need is a plurality of robot companies investing in the personal robot paradigm, and we already have that. From complex and highly capable human-scale machines like Willow Garage’s PR2 to smaller fun-orientated ‘pets’ like Pleo, the industry clearly understands the importance of bringing a robot to market that humans can both rely upon and enjoy as a companion. With all of this background experience, it will hopefully only be a small matter of time before someone can cobble together enough working systems to create a personal robot that every one will want and be able to buy. I’m guessing that one of the killer applications for said mythical future personal robot will be telepresence. Take a good look at PaPeRo sitting on that conference table. The first successful personal robot of the future is probably going to be very similar, and doing much of the same work.

How will we celebrate when that bot finally arrives? I’ll probably spend the day blogging about it, but I’m guessing Japan will have a slightly less reserved reaction. I’ll leave you with a little PaPeRo video to demonstrate what I mean. It’s the perfect combination of cute and WTF. Don’t miss PaPeRo ‘interacting’ with the elderly around 2:00.

[image credits: NEC via Robonable]
[video credits: Hardwarezone.com, NEConlineTV]
[sources: Robonable, NEC (Jp and En)]

I love a good mystery, especially when I already know the answer. Early this week someone sent Sanford Dickert a grainy video of a sleek looking robot rolling towards the camera. He ran that video on his Pilot Presence blog with the title: “Is Apple Building Robots Now?” A few other blogs picked up the idea. Well Sanford, to answer your question: that machine isn’t from Apple, but I have heard it described as the “iPhone of personal robots”. Not simply because it shares an appealing aesthetic sense, but because telepresence will be among its first killer applications (hence the video being sent to a blog that discusses TP). I’m dying to tell you all about that device, its developer(s), and its potential to rock the robotics world…but the startup behind this robot wants to keep this under wraps for now.  I’m hoping that they will let me unleash the full details soon. In the meantime, check out the mysterious video below to catch a glimpse at a device that could revolutionize personal robotics. I’ve been in contact with the robot’s creator(s) and while this video wasn’t released at their request, they’ve decided to make the most of it and let me share a little bit of what I know. Read more after the break.

16 seconds of grainy footage isn’t a lot to base an opinion on, luckily I already saw full sketches and artist renderings of this device months ago. It’s amazing how close this rolling prototype is to the original designs I saw. There are things that you can’t see in the video that make this robot much more appealing, but (and I apologize again here )I can’t share definitive specifications about its hardware and operating systems. However, there are some broad strokes I can paint as to what you should expect:

• it will be a personal robot that consumers can afford
• it will have a great personality that you’ll love to be around
• it will have modular upgrades to both its hardware and software
• at least one of its killer applications will be telepresence (infer what you want from that!)
• its similarities to iOS and Android platforms is more than just a slick shell
• its creator(s)/developer(s) have the experience and financial leverage they need to make this robot commercially available in the near term on a larger scale
• it will (hopefully) arrive sooner rather than later

…that’s all folks!

Hopefully I’ll be able to share more with you very soon. Sorry for the premature post, but I had to let you know that the video was NOT of an Apple robot.

There’s no guarantees that the prototype you see in the video will actually fulfill all the phenomenal plans its developer(s) have for it…but trust me, these guys are reaching for the moon.

[video credit: Unnamed source via Pilot Presence]

The Jazz is infused with a French sense of aesthetics, but does it deliver? Jazz Connect (left) and Jazz Security (right).

7:00 AM PST- Investor meeting in Berlin
12:00 PM PST- Lunch with wife in Seattle
2:00 PM PST- Walk and talk with CTO in NYC

How is this schedule humanly possible? It’s not. It’s robotically possible. Mobile telepresence grants users the perspective of a remote-controlled, robot avatar via a web interface. Through the robot’s eyes, you can virtually teleport anywhere in the world. We’ve seen many telebots here at the Hub, but there’s a new kid on the robo-block, the Gostai Jazz. As with other telebots, Jazz owners can transcend the stress and expense of travel by letting a robot take their place, but is this French creation a technological tour de force? With its sleek design, multi-purposed models, and human-like swivel head, the Jazz is certainly in tune with its competitors. However, when it comes to technical advantages, it falls a little flat. Even so, Gostai’s creation is an aesthetically pleasing stop on the road to lifelike telerobotics for the commercial market.

Gostai introduces the division of labor to telepresence with three different flavors: a project manager, a salesman, and a security guard. The promo above showcases the manager, the Jazz Connect.  This model is like most telebots in that it’s marketed toward anyone who wants to conduct business from afar.  The swivel head allows the user to survey the scene or look over a project proposal, as seen here. The Jazz Connect can naturally immerse itself in the work environment, and eventually, co-workers could regard the robot as a physical extension of the user. Pretty cool . . . but also pretty standard for mobile telepresence.

Now for the salesman, the Jazz Icon. This model employs Jazz’s crowd appeal to woo potential customers at retail stores and trade shows. The telebot can be customized to display the company logo, and its fitted glass tray can carry brochures, candy, or business cards. Don’t feel like throwing down mega mula for a robot you might use only once? That’s okay, because the Icon is available for rent, just like Elvis impersonators. It’s an interesting concept, but hopefully the Icon won’t chase down customers. Desperate salesmen, like ol’ Gil from the Simpsons, are common enough among humankind.

Sorry Jazz, but your crimson eyes just aren't that intimidating.

In this video above (sorry, no audio), Gostai adds muscle to mobile telepresence with the dark-clad Jazz Security. As the name suggests, this model specializes in surveillance, and you can see a telebot on hallway patrol at 0:52. For this watch bot, there’s no need for an on-hand human operator, and a Laser Rangefinder is in development to automatically generate a map of its surroundings. If the infrared camera detects movement, the Jazz Security alerts the appropriate users via text message or e-mail. However, sporting a diminutive stature, the Jazz pales in comparison to the badass security bots of the silver screen.

On its own, the Jazz is an impressive product. It is a robot stand-in, comes in three different varieties, and has an appealing design. What more could you ask for? Well, depending on your budget and needs, you may want to consider some of the other telebots on the market below.

Comparison table of Telebots. Who would you choose?

As you can see, the Jazz has some stiff competition. It’s one of the more expensive units and falls behind in some areas. Firstly, it’s the smallest telebot of the bunch at around a couple feet under average adult height (~5.6 feet). If human colleagues must always look down, sit, or kneel to interact face-to-face, it may compromise Jazz’s integration into workflow. Another drawback is that the LCD screen doesn’t come standard, and the optional display is on the small side. Nonverbal cues (i.e. facial expressions, hand gestures) are essential components of human communication, and unfortunately, it seems the LCD screen which conveys this information was an afterthought during development. Lastly, the max battery life is the briefest of all the telebots. For a particularly busy day without breaks, the Jazz may die a little too soon. Perhaps Jazz was intended to take a French siesta in middle of the day?

Jazz with the optional LCD screen. In my opinion, all Jazzbots should have one. He even looks happier.

One key observation is that many of MontaroBot’s specs surpass the Jazz for one-third of the cost. Imagine that you’re the head of a company’s telecommunications division. After a hard fought battle, you’ve convinced the board that mobile telepresence is more than just “Skype on wheels,” and you’ve managed to cut the corporate red tape that usually keeps telebots from entering the workplace. In this economy, could you honestly justify the purchase of a Jazz over a MantaroBot to your supervisors? I wouldn’t push my luck . . . even though MontaroBot’s kind of slow and looks like an ice cream cart.

To Gostai’s credit, the Jazz is arguably the most humanly figured machine in the table above. As Hub followers may know, sophisticated telepresence robots are already starting to look like us. Despite Jazz’s armless physique and small stature, the unique head shape and articulated neck  make it a part of this humanization trend. The swivel head also makes Jazz the only telebot with a major part that can move independently from the rest of the body. What does his mean practically? Unless you have a crick in your neck, you rarely ever turn your whole body to address a new person. TiLR and MantaroBot have pan and tilt cameras, but only the Jazz’s swivel head can emulate the cranial dynamics of  natural conversation. This feature is just a baby step in telebot humanization, so it will probably be a long time before the real android dopplegangers invade the commercial market. In the mean time, robot developers, could we please get a human-sized telebot with arms?

Beyond the general technical shortcomings mentioned earlier, I also have a few bones to pick with the Jazz Security. Gostai is selling the unit as a comprehensive security system, claiming that it’s “worth tens of fixed security cameras, because it can move and cover large areas while being a single investment.” But I think this misses the mark. Yes, it can certainly cover a large area, but a single telebot can not keep an eye on all locations at once. You would need multiple units, and at over ten grand a pop, this could be cost-prohibitive. Also, even though the Jazz could be a robotic scarecrow, intruders could easily identify the telebot as a surveillance source. Compare this to standard security cameras that can be hidden and cover multiple areas simultaneously. Moreover, the infrared motion detector is pretty low-tech. In fact, you can get Vitamin D’s motion detection software for a one camera for free. At the end of the day, a telebot is just a single surveillance point, and for Jazz’s price tag, I would expect more. In the best light, I see the Jazz Security as the icing on the cake of traditional video surveillance, not an all-in-one solution, especially with its five hour battery life. What if you saw a human security guard asleep on the job?

Enough with the Jazz bashing. I could critique the utility of the Jazz all day, but for some, style will always trump substance. This patently French aesthetic philosophy seems to be the guiding principle underlying Jazz’s design. Generally speaking, people want their electronics to look appealing, and more stylish telebots like the Jazz may ease the transition of mobile telepresence into the workplace. There were plenty of MP3 players on the market before the iPod, but how did this now ubiquitous product distinguish itself and succeed? I would argue that along with the iPod’s simple user interface and other factors, its visual appeal also played a significant role. I’m not saying Jazz will be the iPod of telerobotics, but some of the best consumer electronics elegantly intertwine style and functionality. For this, I applaud Gostai’s efforts. They may have come up a bit short on the practical side, but the Jazz is definitely a beautiful looking machine. If you’re going to virtually teleport halfway across the world for a meeting, you might as well do it in style.

<Image Credit: Gostai (modified), Robodynamics, VGo, Anybots, Montaro, RoboCop 3 (modified)>

<Video Credit: Gostai>

<Source: Gostai>

The Vgo robot is Lyndon Baty's passport to a real high school experience.

Freshman Lyndon Baty’s immune system is so fragile he can’t risk being surrounded by people his own age, yet he attends classes at his high school in Knox City, Texas every day. All thanks to a robot. The Vgo telepresence platform is a four foot tall bot on wheels with a small screen, camera, speakers and microphone at the top. Baty logs into the robot remotely from his home, using his PC and a webcam to teleconference into his classes. Baty can drive Vgo around his school, switching between classes just like regular students. For a boy that has spent much of his life sick and isolated from his peers, Vgo not only represents a chance at a better education, it’s also an opportunity for freedom and comradery. Learn more about his story in the local news segment video below. Lyndon Baty’s circumstances may be far from typical, but stories like his are going to become much more common in the future as telepresence robotics makes its way into the mainstream.

Baty’s situation is a rare combination of marketing, bad/good timing, and innovative thinking from school officials. The young man has polycystic kidney disease and recent treatments have left his immune system too damaged for him to attend school directly. Representatives from Vgo contacted the Knox City school district to offer their services. While attending school through a robot isn’t quite the same as being there in person, you can tell from Lyndon’s smile in the following video that Vgo is a more than welcome improvement in his life:

While we haven’t covered the Vgo robot in the past, it reminds me of several other telerobots we have seen, especially Anybot’s QB. Only Vgo is supposedly retailing for around $6000 (including ~$1200/year for the service contract), considerably less than the QB’s $15k price tag. Differences in maneuverability, reliability, and video quality may make the cost difference appropriate, but that’s not really my concern. Vgo is representative of the telerobotics market as a whole right now: reasonable run times (battery life is between 6-12 hours depending on upgrade options), Skype-level video quality, and compatible with standard WiFi. If you can afford the $6k (or $15k) price tag, you can probably have this setup in your home or office right now. In other words, this isn’t the technology of tomorrow, it’s here today and ready to go. Vgo launched sales in 2010 and has been marketing their product to a variety of applications, as you’ll see in the following video:
(My apologies for the poor embedding of this video player.)

Not to sound cynical, but I’m guessing that Lyndon Baty’s use of Vgo is just another part of that marketing plan. I’m totally fine with that, by the way. Giving a child (and a school district) a reasonable solution for a terrible predicament is great. If it comes with a moderate price tag, so be it. So, while Lyndon’s personal story of perseverance and increasing freedom is exceptional, the underlying technological implications are pretty mundane: telepresence is gearing up to try to make a big splash in the market.

We’ve seen plenty of indications of this. South Korea is testing telerobots in their schools. They could have one of these devices in every kindergarten classroom by 2013. Researchers in Japan are experimenting with robots aimed towards emotional connections (with mixed results). As we said above, Anybots has their own platform on the market already. iRobot recently unveiled a prototype robotic platform that would transform any teleconference-enabled tablet computer into a telerobot. I’m guessing that in the next five years, one or more of these attempts at telerobotics is going to actually gain some traction and start moving some serious product.

Education may be a natural market. As we learned from Fred Nikgohar, head of telerobotics firm RoboDynamics, there are some big hurdles in other applications of telepresence robots. Offices value secrecy. Medical facilities worry about patient privacy. There’s a lot of bureaucracy standing in the way of widespread adoption of telerobotics. Schools have some of the same problems, but (to be perfectly honest) they also have sick kids who you can’t say no to. Or they’re run by governments who have nationalistic goals in science and technology (exemplified by South Korea). Get the price of telerobotics low enough, and we could see it expand into different niches of education including homeschooling, remote expert instructors (like the English tutors in South Korea), or online universities.

I’m hoping that these early applications for telepresence will keep driving the price down. $15k is way too much for home use. Even $6k is an order of magnitude too large. Given that kind of option we’ll always default to the $30 webcam and Skype video conferencing, even if it’s not mobile.

But give us a $500 telerobot and things could change considerably. Remotely controlling a robot while talking to someone in a far off location is an amazing opportunity. I’d love to visit my distant family members every week if I could actually roll around and interact them in a more ‘natural’ way.

Hopefully Vgo and other telepresence companies will continue to gather momentum in the years ahead and push their products into the mainstream. If we can make them cheap enough, the benefits of telerobotics will sell themselves. The mobility that comes with a telerobot is something that sets it head and shoulders above video conferencing on a laptop. It transforms a restricting experience into a freeing one. Just ask Lyndon Baty.

*Special thanks to Frank Whittemore for helping research this article.

[screen capture credit: KFDX News]
[video credits: KFDX News, VGo]
[sources: Vgo, KFDX News]