SOFTWARE FRAMEWORKS When looking for robot software, understand that there's no such thing as a standard now. Individual platforms like the Sony Aibo and Dr. Robot's HR6 Humanoid Robots have their own software framework that won't be found elsewhere on the planet (Fig. 4).
On the other hand, today's emphasis on diversity has led to many different design approaches. Haipeng Xie of Dr. Robot explained how the HR6 distributes work between the robot and a PC via a wireless link. Processors in the robot handle resident behaviors for movement and software running on the PC handles higher-level functions.
This approach reduces the computing power on the robot, diminishing power consumption. Boosting the performance of the PC allows more complex audio and visual analysis from the robot's sensors while eliminating the storage bottleneck that exists in most standalone robots. Wireless links also make it significantly easier to debug untethered robots.
Evolution Robotics is working toward a standard robotic platform. Its Evolution Robotics Software Platform (ERSP) targets autonomous robot navigation and vision. Jack Weissberg, director of Embedded Systems at the company, explains that ERSP uses standard sensors like USB cameras for input and, with its "secret sauce," delivers localized positional information to an application that controls the rest of the robot. ERSP uses automatic landmark recognition to perform its magic. One platform that Evolution's software runs on is the Evolution Scorpion (Fig. 5).
Evolution's solution represents both the solution and the problem with robotic software today. ERSP provides a robust, comparatively low-cost approach that works on a wide range of platforms. It can handle multiple sensors and cameras with a device-driver-style, XML configuration interface. On the other hand, its behavior-based system is tightly coupled to the rest of the system. It features a multilevel system with a high-level, task-oriented, goal-seeking system needed by most sophisticated robotic applications.
This means that all or a major part of a robotic solution will come from one company or be developed in-house. So it's not surprising that most robot companies consider consulting a major portion of their work.
HARDWARE IS HARD WORK As Scotty of Star Trek once said, "Damage control is easy. Reading Klingon—that's hard." For robots, reading Klingon is more of a software and sensor issue. Motors and movements are actually easy.
Control of actuators and motors is well understood. DSPs offer improved power consumption and system control and enable the use of less expensive motors for many robot applications. With additional improvements in this area, robot designers won't be changing the approach to problems, only the magnitude.
Currently, articulated robots can jump and run. This is courtesy of robotics research in this field, as well as the improvements made in motor control.
The next step involves work with shape memory alloys (SMAs), which has moved from research into practice. SMA wires are often called muscle wires. These nickel-titanium alloy wires (commercially known as "Nitinol") contract and expand when current is applied and removed. Actuators using SMAs are finding their way into semi-robotic applications like prosthetics, too.
LEARNING ABOUT ROBOTS Interest in robotics remains high in the commercial as well as educational areas. Yet courses on robotics haven't been as numerous as C++ or SQL classes. Nonetheless, every major engineering university offers courses and ongoing research.
Robotics work isn't restricted to higher academia. Competitions like FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) bring robot research and competition to high schools (Fig. 6). The FIRST Lego Mindstorm competition targets even younger technologists.
Reprints
