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August 10th, 2012

Robots: Field Robotics - mp3 - Transcript

In this episode, we talk to Salah Sukkarieh, Director of Research and Innovation at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR). He gives us an overview of the centre’s past and present projects, many addressing the special conditions robotics faces in Australia.

Salah Sukkarieh

Salah Sukkarieh is the Director of Research and Innovation of the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) and the Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at the University of Sydney in the School of Aerospace. He received his Honours in BE Mechatronics Engineering in 1997 and his PhD in 2000 at the University of Sydney.

Field robotics focuses on systems that work in outdoor environments. Having been the principal research and development lead on many of the autonomous systems projects, Sukkarieh tells us about work done at the ACFR in aerospace, aviation, agriculture, mining and autonomous transport. Given the ripeness of the field, he also tells us about remaining future work and the potential for collaborations with industry.

For more information, visit the centre’s youtube channel.

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July 27th, 2012

Robots: JPL Open House 2012 - mp3

In today’s show we bring you to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Open House, just in time to prepare for the landing of the Curiosity Mars Rover in less than 10 days.

JPL Open House 2012

Every year, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory opens its doors to over 38,000 visitors. This year’s theme was “Great Journeys”, inviting visitors to share in the wonders of space through high-definition and 3-D videos, live demonstrations, interactions with scientists and engineers and a first look at JPL’s new Earth Science Center.

As we walk you through the JPL mission control center, clean rooms and facilities, we stop to chat with JPL engineers and developers about the many space systems we encounter including the rovers Athlete, Spirit & Opportunity and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. This year’s highlight was the Mars Rover Curiosity, scheduled to land on August 5th. Curiosity, which is part of the the Science Laboratory Mission, will assess whether Mars ever was, or is still today, an environment able to support microbial life.

People we had a chance to speak with include Tod Litwin & Megan Richardson (Mars Exploration Booth), Kit Kennedy (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter), Mike Watkins (MSL Rover Curiosity) and Dimitri Zarzhitsky (Mobility and Robotic Technologies).

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July 13th, 2012

Robots: Launching Startups - mp3

Today we talk with Andra Keay, founder of Robot Launch Pad, robotics startup accelerator based in Silicon Valley, about latest events, lean startup methodology, funding, and gender.

Andra Keay
Andra Keay is a Robot Startup Evangelist passionate about growing robotics, one startup at a time. Supported by key actors in the field including Erin Rapacki and Ryan Calo, Robot Launch Pad aims to bridge the software, web and mobile startup worlds of Silicon Valley and San Francisco with the robotics community and the flourishing local maker sphere. In this interview, Keay tells us about the excellent startup events organized by Robot Launch Pad in April including the Robot Retreat, the Robot Block Party, Mega Startup Weekend and a Cloud Robotics Hackathon. She brings us into her world of lean startup methodology, minimum viable products and tells us about the importance of women in science.

Before launching Robot Launch Pad, Keay completed her Master of Digital Cultures in the area of Human-Robot Interactions at the University of Sydney. Her project on “the Naming of Robots” explored how roboticists express identity and gender through their technology. Passionate about robotics for a long time, she has also been running science and robot workshops for children since 1995, including coaching competition teams in Moonbots, First Lego League and RoboCup Jnr.

Finally, don’t miss Andra Keay’s other blogs, Robot State and Andragy.

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June 29th, 2012

Robots: Knowledge Engineering - mp3

In this episode, we talk to Mary-Anne Williams, knowledge engineer and roboticist from the University of Technology in Sydney Australia (UTS). Her work focuses on cognitive models of decision making and behaviour in complex and dynamic environments, including applications in mobile robotics.

Mary-Anne Williams

Mary Anne Williams and the PR2

Mary-Anne Williams is the director of the Innovation and Enterprise Research laboratory at UTS, where researchers are investigating the process of innovation and the role of the law, as well as IT, in the adoption of innovative and entrepreneurial practice.

Mary-Anne has a passion for innovation, science, technology and engineering. She is coach of the Robot Soccer team UTS Unleashed! and the 3D simulation team the Karachi Koalas and has lead seven robot soccer teams to outstanding success at the International Robot Soccer World Cup. She is Program Chair of the International Conference in Social Robotics this year, and works with her research team at UTS to engineer knowledge; together they explore robot learning, social robotics, human-robot interaction, robots in society, robot-robot collaboration, and bio-inspired robot cognition.

In this interview, she talks about her work, her involvement with the International Conference in Social Robotics and the PR2 robot.

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June 15th, 2012

Robots: Swiss Robotics - mp3

In this episode we talk to Dario Floreano, director of the Swiss National Center of Competence for Research (NCCR) in Robotics that gathers leading experts in the field working at Swiss institutions.

Dario Floreano

Dario Floreano is the director of the Swiss NCCR Robotics which gathers leading robotic experts in Switzerland from EPFL (home institution), ETH Zurich, University of Zurich and Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence. The center was launched in December 2010 and will run for up to twelve years.

The center aims to develop human­-oriented robots that assist people in their daily lives and improve their quality of life. Examples include “care robots”, “neuroprosthetic”, “exoprosthetic”, “educational robots” and “environmental robots”. Their research is currently organized into 5 projects that they hope will result in new design principles, approaches, and technologies required for the conception and design of human-oriented robots, the materials and components they are made of, and the control methods that enable them to interface and operate with humans:

Project 1: Bio-mimetic sensing, actuation, and mobility
Project 2: Interaction and Manipulation
Project 3: Prosthetic Robotics
Project 4: Distributed Robotics
Project 5: Robots for Daily Life

Floreano tells us about the role of Swiss robotics in the world, how to manage a large research center, the importance of education, and their cross-disciplinary and translational work.

Finally, he shares the latest developments from his Laboratory of Intelligent Systems at EPFL, including flying robots that physically interact with their environment (see video below) and soft “cells” that can assemble in air.

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