I haven't seen your beer fetching robot. Do you have any videos? I imagine that like Baxter you decomposed the problem to the point where the robot didn't need much·representation of the external world. For some reason I'm fixated on beer fetching robots lately.
In looking at the PR2 video it looks like their speed problem is due to their heavy duty machine vision work. The robot opens the fridge door and locates the beer. It then recognizes faces to give them the beer. That requires a pretty rich internal model of the external world. There's a cool TED video on optical illusions which explains why they happen. Basically you take a 3D world and map it onto a pair of 2D planes. The next step is turn the 2D images into a 3D internal model of reality. The problem is that there are many possible original 3D worlds for the 2D images. So an optical illusion happens when your brain is tricked into transforming the 2D image into an impossible external 3D world. I imagine it is computationally tough to build programs that do that.
BTW I saw a PR2 safety video on Bot junkie and it made me glad I work hobby robots. The worse case scenarios are pretty mild for an out of control Scribbler.
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·"If you build it, they will come."
Post Edited (erco) : 7/10/2010 4:50:18 PM GMT
In looking at the PR2 video it looks like their speed problem is due to their heavy duty machine vision work. The robot opens the fridge door and locates the beer. It then recognizes faces to give them the beer. That requires a pretty rich internal model of the external world. There's a cool TED video on optical illusions which explains why they happen. Basically you take a 3D world and map it onto a pair of 2D planes. The next step is turn the 2D images into a 3D internal model of reality. The problem is that there are many possible original 3D worlds for the 2D images. So an optical illusion happens when your brain is tricked into transforming the 2D image into an impossible external 3D world. I imagine it is computationally tough to build programs that do that.
BTW I saw a PR2 safety video on Bot junkie and it made me glad I work hobby robots. The worse case scenarios are pretty mild for an out of control Scribbler.
Post Edited (Martin_H) : 7/10/2010 3:26:35 PM GMT