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Everyday Robots
Robots are becoming integral players in fields as diverse as mining
and medicine, where they can descend dangerous volcanoes and monitor
a patient’s vital signs. These mechanical creatures can perform
entertaining and educational functions, as well—and now just
about anyone can build and program them from the palm of their hand.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics
Institute, working in the toy and entertainment area, have developed
an easy-to-build, autonomous robot controlled by a Palm handheld
computer.
“The Palm Pilot Robot was
created to enable just about anyone to start building and programming
mobile robots at a modest cost,” said Illah
Nourbakhsh, assistant professor of robotics, and head of the
institute’s Toy Robots
Initiative.
Nourbakhsh collaborated on the development of the Palm Pilot Robot
with Computer Science Professor Matthew T.
Mason and his laboratory assistant Grigoriy
Reshko, a freshman in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science.
The project grew out of earlier work in Mason’s Manipulation
Laboratory where he and Reshko were developing easy and inexpensive
rapid prototyping of small robots using simple construction techniques
and hobby servos.
Mason had envisioned a small tabletop robot that could tidy up
a desk. Nourbakhsh was thinking of something students could use
in a high school setting, and the 17-year-old Reshko had the mindset
and technical expertise to combine their visions.
When Reshko had ironed the bugs out of the robot, he released
a pilot version at his Web site, which has since received more than
150,000 hits.
The Palm sits on a base that contains robotic elements such as
“omni-wheels” and optical range sensors. These elements
empower the robot to move on flat surfaces and sense nearby surroundings.
Three “omni-wheels,” with independent control of rotation,
allow movement in any direction. Three optical range sensors enable
the palm robot to “see” the world up to about a meter
away and sense nearby obstacles and walls.
The system, originally built with off-the-shelf components, was
commercialized by Acroname, Inc.,
which sells it in a kit that can purchased from its Web site.
Reprinted with kind permission from Lisa Kulick,
Carnegie Mellon associate director of public relations - Web development
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