Robots grow up, branch out

March 10, 2004 —

The PackBot doesn't look anything like C-3PO of Star Wars fame, or even the loose-limbed robot from the 1960s television show Lost in Space. But unlike its on-screen counterparts, the PackBot plays an active role in modern military activities as a reconnaissance vehicle and ordinance disposal expert, protecting human soldiers from exposure to hazardous situations.

The PackBot was just one of the innovative robots on display Tuesday at the Emerging Robotics Technologies and Applications Conference, held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Science-fiction fans might be disappointed in the progress of robotics to date, but companies are starting to realize what can be accomplished by robots and are looking to cash in.

U.S. forces are using PackBots in Afghanistan and Iraq operations, although iRobot Inc. isn't sure exactly how they are being used, said Colin Angle, chief executive officer of the Burlington, Massachusetts, company that manufactures the PackBot.

The machine's primary function is to detect and dispose of bombs and other explosive devices, but many special operations teams use the robot for undisclosed missions, Angle said.

A PackBot costs anywhere from US$50,000 to $100,000 depending on the size and configuration, Angle said. An operator can control the PackBot via a special laptop or a device as small as a personal digital assistant over an 802.11 wireless connection.

The PackBot navigates using two parallel tracks, similar to a tank. A robotic arm about five feet (1.5 meters) long extends from the base of the robot and can be raised or lowered by the remote operator. The arm has a "gripper" that can pick up objects as small as a penny, and an adjustable camera that gives the operator a view of the PackBot's surroundings.

While the PackBot is designed for hostile environments, the other big seller in iRobot's product line needs only to dodge the living room sofa, or maybe the family cat.

The company sold "hundreds of thousands" of the Roomba self-directing vacuum cleaner last year, Angle said. With $200, and the push of a button, unmotivated house cleaners can set the Roomba free to suck up dirt, pet hair and whatever else is lying under the coffee table.

Roomba uses an 8-bit processor and a sophisticated multithreaded operating system to process the flood of location data gathered by infrared and "bump" sensors that help the unit determine where it is in a given room, Angle said.

It gently bumps into obstacles like couches or tables to ascertain its position, and is able to determine where it has traveled within a room through an artificial intelligence program developed by iRobot, Angle said.

The success of products like PackBot and Roomba has other companies looking to build and develop new robots. Those companies will need inexpensive and easy to implement building blocks to get started, and many of those components can already be found in a PC, said Richard Brown, associate vice president of marketing with Via Technologies Inc. in Taipei.

Via's Mini-ITX motherboard is the engine behind robots, called PC-Bots, built by White Box Robotics. These robots are designed to appeal to PC enthusiasts who like to build their own systems. Via's Mini ITX board allows them to plug in a low-power processing board based on the widely used x86 instruction set so they can concentrate on building applications for their robots, Brown said.

In the PC industry, "white-box manufacturers" are distributors that sell inexpensive systems without a brand name, mostly to small businesses and consumers in the local area. Individually, these vendors make up an extremely small portion of the market, but collectively they are responsible for a larger piece of the market than the dominant companies such as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co.

Via and White Box Robotics think the same approach can be applied to the robotics market as it grows, Brown said. The popularity of devices such as Roomba and Sony Corp.'s Aibo robot dog point to the beginnings of consumer demand for robotic devices, even if those devices don't resemble the dreams of science fiction authors 40 years ago, he said.

"We see a new market here. All the elements are coming into place, it just needs mature hardware," Brown said.

A high-profile robotics competition is set to kick off this weekend in the California desert. A total of 25 teams have built unmanned robotic vehicles that will compete in a race on Saturday from outside Barstow, California, to an undisclosed location over the Nevada border near the town of Primm.

The Grand Challenge is sponsored by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and a $1 million prize will be awarded to the team whose robot crosses the finish line first. The vehicles will self-navigate across the desert from checkpoint to checkpoint, and must detect and avoid obstacles such as ditches or fences rather than climbing over them, according to the rules.

IDG News Service