Servo - January 2009

Software Platforms

For Service Robots

by MICHAEL SOMBY

What is special about service robotics as compared to industrial robotics? Imagine it gets dark in the living room and you turn on the light. For most industrial robots, such a change in the illumination pattern would be a catastrophic event. Those robots are designed to work in closely controlled industrial settings. Their computer vision systems are not able to cope with such changes in the illumination without reconfiguration or reprogramming. On the other hand, interacting with the dynamic and changing world is a survival requirement for most service robots.

New pieces of furniture, random obstacles, walking people, missing or unknown objects, unprofessional users, children, pets, cars on the road — those features comprise the dynamic environment where a service robot needs to be able to operate. Besides that, most service robots are mobile and work in close proximity to people.

The unique requirements of service robotics triggered the creation of an industry which develops new technology specifically designed for service robotics applications.

This article reviews several of the software products available on the market for this particular industry.

Introduction

Building a robot which makes up rooms, cleans houses, or serves breakfast is the dream of every service roboticist.

A company which delivers such a product at a reasonable price will most likely make huge sales.

The military looks for robots which can be used to fight wars; farmers would love robots to grow crops. Nearly every industry has a use for service robots. Examples include:

• Robotic Elder care

• Automatic Health Scanning and Monitoring (healthcare)

• Robotic Surgery (healthcare)

• Robotic Delivery (hotels, hospitals, restaurants, offices)

• Robotic Crop Picking (agriculture)

• Unmanned Convoys (defense)

• Bomb Disposal (defense)

• Security, Patrols

• Entertainment (home, museums, parks)

• Cleaning

• Mining

• Fire Fighting

There are so many potential applications, and the good news is that the technology is getting there.

Service Robots of Today

Although service robotics is a relatively young industry, it has gone through various iterations of technology improvement.

Healthcare telepresence robot (In Touch Technologies, Inc.).

Teleoperation was probably the first step in the evolution of practical service robots. Many of today's deployed service robots still have all their motions initiated and controlled by a human operator. The military robots deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, successful robotic surgery robots, and healthcare telepresence robots are good examples of these types of robots.