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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 Finally, at Georgia Tech, researchers led by assistant professor Charlie Kemp are making their own home-care robots, inspired by the agile intelligence of service dogs.
"We're using service dogs to answer three important questions: What tasks would be good for a [home] robot to perform? How should people interact with the robot, to tell it to do these tasks? And how can the robot actually perform these tasks, given the complexities of the home?" Kemp said.
Service dogs and the disabled people they help are providing the answers. The new robot is being designed to move about and perform tasks such as opening drawers, turning doorknobs and working light switches, Kemp said. Users indicate what they'd like done by using a laser pointer, and homes are modified slightly to help the robot, just as homes are subtly tweaked to aid service dogs. "Things like tying a small towel to a doorknob" to facilitate grasping, Kemp explained.
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The robot may not ever replace a great service dog, but Kemp noted that the average disabled American now pays $16,000 for a properly trained canine, and waiting lists now stretch for years.
"I think there's a real need," he said. "So, the hope is that people will support this sort of work. Then, we'll be able to deliver these things when people need them."
More information
There's more on the uBOT-5 at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
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Copyright © 2008 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.
Last updated 11/18/2008
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SOURCES: Rod Grupen, Ph.D., professor, computer science, and director, Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Seth Teller, Ph.D., professor, co-head, Robotics, Vision and Sensor Networks Group, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; Charlie Kemp, Ph.D., assistant professor, department of biomedical engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta
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