Readybot Announces Cloud Robotics "Gamer Bot" Collaborative Control Software
To celebrate the RoboBusiness 2009 conference this week, Readybot releases details on their Cloud Robotics Collaborative Control system, nicknamed the "Gamer Bot" system because it allows human operators to use a video-game-like interface to control multiple teams of human-size 2-armed mobile work robots. Readybot believes this technology will be a key part of "the economy of the future" with broad application in manufacturing, alternative energy, home, healthcare, and defense.
Pleasanton, CA, April 16, 2009 --(PR.com)-- Readybot today announced their Cloud Robotics Collaborative Control (CRCC) technology, a softare platform and control paradigm that allows human operators to use a video-game like interface to control human-size robots to do real-world tasks. These “gamer bots” can be used for elder care, janitorial, inventory control, home applications, defense, and manufacturing revitalization.
The technology includes both software and hardware. The software is an application platform and communications protocol that enables human operators to provide the intelligence, decision making, and planning that helps mobile service robots pick up and manipulate objects, open doors, clean, carry parts, inspect machines, and perform a myriad of other real-world tasks.
This software is designed initially to run on the Readybot “Trainer” robot, a simple, cloneable hardware platform that gives average business and consumer users an inexpensive entry point for mobile service robotics.
What is Collaborative Control?
For the past several years, researchers have been developing the technology of mobile robots that have human-size load-carrying arms…worker bots. But many researchers feel that the development of effective software and artificial intelligence algorithms to control those robot in real-world environments, like kitchens or factories, are decades away. Many national economies, especially in Asia and Europe, face worker shortages far sooner.
Collaborative control, also called adjustable autonomy, is a way to begin fielding robots earlier. This technique, originally researched at NASA and many other national and university robotics programs, mixes human control and robotic autonomy, aiming for the best of both worlds: the intelligence and flexibility of human decision-making, amplified into a fleet of robots.
Potentially such systems could enable a high ratio of robots controlled per human operator, however the ratio will vary depending on type of job, robot sophistication, operator skill, and other unpredictable factors.
Creating Jobs For Video Gamers
The Readybot architecture assumes a group of robots, which may be of many shapes and sizes in many different locations, are connected via high-speed internet to call centers staffed by human supervisors. Supervisor control many robots simultaneously, since the robot follows pre-scripted routines to handle most activities. The net result is an efficient, cost-effective way for robots to do real work. For the human supervisors, controlling the robots “is a lot like playing online video games” says one designer “but instead of managing a set of fictional characters, you are managing a set of real-life robots doing actual work. This is going to create a lot of new jobs for video-gamers.”
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The technology includes both software and hardware. The software is an application platform and communications protocol that enables human operators to provide the intelligence, decision making, and planning that helps mobile service robots pick up and manipulate objects, open doors, clean, carry parts, inspect machines, and perform a myriad of other real-world tasks.
This software is designed initially to run on the Readybot “Trainer” robot, a simple, cloneable hardware platform that gives average business and consumer users an inexpensive entry point for mobile service robotics.
What is Collaborative Control?
For the past several years, researchers have been developing the technology of mobile robots that have human-size load-carrying arms…worker bots. But many researchers feel that the development of effective software and artificial intelligence algorithms to control those robot in real-world environments, like kitchens or factories, are decades away. Many national economies, especially in Asia and Europe, face worker shortages far sooner.
Collaborative control, also called adjustable autonomy, is a way to begin fielding robots earlier. This technique, originally researched at NASA and many other national and university robotics programs, mixes human control and robotic autonomy, aiming for the best of both worlds: the intelligence and flexibility of human decision-making, amplified into a fleet of robots.
Potentially such systems could enable a high ratio of robots controlled per human operator, however the ratio will vary depending on type of job, robot sophistication, operator skill, and other unpredictable factors.
Creating Jobs For Video Gamers
The Readybot architecture assumes a group of robots, which may be of many shapes and sizes in many different locations, are connected via high-speed internet to call centers staffed by human supervisors. Supervisor control many robots simultaneously, since the robot follows pre-scripted routines to handle most activities. The net result is an efficient, cost-effective way for robots to do real work. For the human supervisors, controlling the robots “is a lot like playing online video games” says one designer “but instead of managing a set of fictional characters, you are managing a set of real-life robots doing actual work. This is going to create a lot of new jobs for video-gamers.”
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Contact
Readybot
Tom Benson, Director
925.264.1187
www.readybot.com
Tom Benson, Director
925.264.1187
www.readybot.com
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