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December 28th, 2012

Robots: Autonomous Solutions - mp3 - Transcript

In today’s episode we speak with Mel Torrie about work done at Autonomous Solutions, Inc. to make a large range of vehicles autonomous.

Mel Torrie
Mel Torrie is CEO and President of Autonomous Solutions, the company he founded in 2000 after his work at Utah State University (USU) managing robotics development programs for John Deere, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Energy. While at USU, he also received a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and worked on two NASA space shuttle payloads.

Autonomous Solutions, Inc. is a spin-off of the Center of Self Organizing and Intelligent Systems at USU. The company designs software and hardware solutions to make a wide variety of autonomous vehicles spanning industry, agriculture, and government/military applications. The technology developed allows for multi-vehicle command and control, mission planning, sensor fusion, obstacle detection and avoidance, tele-operation, and point-and-go ease of use.

Here is a video overview of the different types of autonomous solutions coming out of their company:

Torrie also tells us about challenges faced when translating results from research to the real world and creative solutions to autonomous control including attaching “dog-leashes” to control vehicle convoys.

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December 14th, 2012

Robots: Sphero - mp3 - Transcript

In today’s episode we speak with Ian Bernstein about the hugely successful Sphero robot and the company he co-founded, Orbotix.

Ian Bernstein
Ian Bernstein is cofounder of Orbotix which produces Sphero, a small ball-like robot which can be controlled from your smartphone. Launched one year ago, the robot has been hugely successful and is now available in the Apple store, Brookstone and Target to only cite a few. Key to their success has been a growing community of users writings apps for and making videos of their robots. Demonstrations include swarm control using the kinect or swimming Spheros augmented with “fish tails”.

Bernstein has been a hardware tinkerer and robot enthusiasts since age 12 when he attended the International BEAM Robotics Games (see Mark Tilden ROBOTS interviews from 2008 and 2012). He then studied at New Mexico Tech and Colorado State University, all while working at Road Narrows Robotics and running his own web-development company.

In 2010, Bernstein and Adam Wilson (also co-founder) joined a 3-month program at a startup accelerator called Techstars that led to their new company. Bernstein tells us about finding funding for hardware companies, setting up a production line and certifications needed to launch a product.

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November 30th, 2012

Robots: The Wambots Team - mp3 - Transcript

In today’s episode, we speak with Thomas Bräunl from the University of Western Australia about the MAGIC 2010 Challenge, the Wambot team and work done at the Robotics & Automation Lab.

Thomas Bräunl
Thomas Bräunl is Professor at the University of Western Australia and leader of the Robotics & Automation Lab. He tells us about the first MAGIC Challenge (Multi Autonomous Ground-Robotics International Challenge) that took place in 2010 in Adelaide, South Australia. MAGIC is a 1.6 million dollar prize competition for autonomous mobile robots funded by the primary research organizations for Tank and Defense research in the USA and Australia-TARDEC and DSTO. The goal of the competition is to create multi-robot teams that can execute an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mission in a dynamic urban environment. Tasks include mapping a 500 m x 500 m area in under 3.5 hours and identifying targets of interest. Bräunl tells us what it takes to make a robot for your first participation in a robotics competition, lessons learned from their 4th place and other work done in the lab on underwater robotics and the “not so Grand Challenge”.


Calum Meiklejohn
Calum is a mechatronics student working towards his final year project. He tells us about his work on the new UWA Wambot robot including an upgrade in software that now uses ROS (Robot Operating System) to coordinate sensors for SLAM (Simultaneous localization and Mapping). Their final aim is to have a swarm of these cooperate to build maps of an environment.

 

Holiday Robots
Like last year, we ask you to submit videos or audio related to robotics and the holidays! Content can be fictional, scientific or business oriented. We’ll be posting the material on our dedicated YouTube channel and select segments will be featured in the episodes until the end of the year. To submit material, simply go to www.robotspodcast.com/christmas or send us your material by email to christmas@robotspodcast.com. To get in the spirit, check out the videos from previous years via the link above or on our YouTube channel. Some of these videos gathered millions of views!

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November 16th, 2012

Robots: Digital Cultures - mp3

In today’s episode we speak with Chris Chesher about how he views the emergence of robotics. He brings a new and interesting perspective as his approach mixes science and technology studies, media studies and ethnography in an effort to understand robotic technologies and everyday-life.

Chris Chesher

Dr Chris Chesher is Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures working with cultures of contemporary robotics, in association with the Center for Social Robotics at the Australian Center for Field Robotics, University of Sydney Australia. His background is in studies on Media, communications, and interdisciplinary studies. His research interests center around the disruptive effects of technology, such as robotics, on society.

He also writes a blog called FollowingRobots.

News

Read the story about Georgia Tech’s robotic dragonfly on Robohub.

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November 2nd, 2012

Robots: Grishin Robotics - mp3 - Transcript

In today’s episode we speak with Dmitry Grishin about Grishin Robotics, his global investment company dedicated to helping robotics startups distribute already working products to the mass market.

Dmitry Grishin
Dmitry Grishin is co-founder and chairman of the Mail.Ru Group, the largest Internet company in the Russian-speaking world and one of the biggest in Europe. He joined the company in 2001 after graduating from the Faculty of Robotics and Complex Automation at Moscow State Technical University.

This background led him to believe that personal robotics, with a market potential estimated to be over $18 billion in 2015 (ABI Research), is ready to become mainstream and poised for massive growth, similar to the internet industry in the past decade. To help drive mass-market penetration of new robotics products, Grishin founded Grishin Robotics in 2012 with an initial personal investment of $25 million. His firm, located in New York, funds start-up companies that are ready to ramp-up production of already proven robotic prototypes. Grishin recently announced their first investment in Double Robotics, a company that makes telepresence robots.

Grishin tells us about the changes that are need in the robotics culture to start developing successful startups, including building simple robots that are need-driven rather than technology-driven and emphasize user experience.

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