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In this episode of Robots in Depth, Per Sjöborg speaks with Harsha Prahlad, CoFounder and Chief Technology and Products Officer at Grabit Inc. Harsha talks about his novel gripper for soft goods manufacturing, and how he got into robotics via the aerospace industry.

The Uber car and Tesla’s autopilot, both in the news for fatalities are really two very different things. This table outlines the difference. Also, see below for some new details on why the Tesla crashed and more.

Uber ATG Test	Tesla Autopilot
A prototype full robocar capable of unmanned operations on city streets.	A driver assist system for highways and expressways
Designed for taxi service	Designed for privately owned and driven cars
A full suite of high end roobcar sensors including LIDAR	Productive automotive sensors, cameras and radar.
1 pedestran fatality, other accidents unknown	Fatalities in Florida, China, California, other serious crashes without injury
Approximately 3 million miles of testing	Late 2016: 300M miles, 1.3B miles data gathering.
A prototype in testing which needs a human safety driver monitoring it	A production product overseen by the customer
Designed to handle everything it might encounter on the road	Designed to handle only certain situations. Users are expressly warned it doesn’t handle major things like cross traffic, stop signs and traffic lights.
Still in an early state, needing intervention every 13 miles on city streets	In production and needing intervention rarely on highways but if you tried to drive it on city streets it would need it very frequently
Needs a state licence for testing with rules requring safety drivers	No government regulation needed, similar to the adpative cruise control that it is based on
Only Uber employees can get behind the wheel	Anybody can be behind the wheel
Vehicle failed in manner outside its design constraints — it should have readily detected and stopped for the pedestrian	Vehicles had incidents in ways expected under their design constraints
Vehicle was trusted too much by safety driver, took eyes off road for 5 seconds	Vehicles trusted too much by drivers, took eyes off road for 6 seconds or longer
Safety drivers get 3 weeks training, fired if caught using a phone	No training or punishments for customers, though manual and screen describe proper procedures for operating
Safety driver recorded with camera, no warnings by software of inattention	Tesla drivers get visible, then audibile alerts if they take hands off the wheel for too long
Criticism that solo safety driver job is too hard, that inattention will happen	Criticism that drivers are overtrusting the system, regularly not looking at the road
Killed a bystander, though it had right of way	Killed customers who were ignoring monitoring requirements
NTSB Investigating	NTSB Investigating

Each company faces a different challenge to fix its problems. For Uber, they need to improve the quality of their self-drive software so that such a basic failure as we saw here is extremely unlikely. Perhaps even more importantly, they need to revamp their safety driver system so that safety driver alertness is monitored and assured, including going back to two safety drivers in all situations. Further, they should consider some “safety driver assist” technology, such as the use of the system in the Volvo (or some other aftermarket system) to provide alerts to the safety drivers if it looks like something is going wrong. That’s not trivial — if the system beeps too much it gets ignored, but it can be done.

For Tesla, they face a more interesting challenge. Their claim is that in spite of the accidents, the autopilot is still a net win. That because people who drive properly with autopilot have half the accidents of people who drive without it, the total number of accidents is still lower, even if you include the accidents, including these fatalities, which come to those who disregard the warnings about how to properly use it.

That people disregard those warnings is obvious and hard to stop. Tesla argues, however, that turning off Autopilot because of them would make Telsa driving and the world less safe. For them, options exist to make people drive diligently with the autopilot, but they must not make the autopilot so much less pleasant such that people decide to not use it even properly. That would actually make driving less safe if enough people did that.

Why the Tesla crashed

A theory, now given credence by some sample videos, suggests the Telsa was confused by the white lines which divide the road at an off-ramp, the expanding triangle known as the “gore.” As the triangle expands, a simple system might think they were the borders of a lane. Poor lane marking along the gore might make the vehicle even think the new “lane” is a continuation of the lane the car is in, making the car try to drive the lane — right into the barrier.

This video made by Tesla owners near Indiana, shows a Telsa doing this when the right line of the gore is very washed out compared to the left. At 85/101 (the recent Tesla crash) the lines are mostly stronger but there is a 30-40 foot gap in the right line which perhaps could trick a car into entering and following the gore. The gore at 85/101 also is lacking the chevron “do not drive here” stripes often found at these gores. It is not good at stationary objects like the crumple barrier, but its warning stripes are something that should be in its classification database.

Once again, the Tesla is just a smart cruise control. It is going to make mistakes like this, which is why they tell you you have to keep watching. Perhaps crashes like this will make people do that.

The NTSB is angry that Tesla released any information. I was not aware they frowned on this. This may explain Uber’s silence during the NTSB investigation there.

The long-anticipated, Steven Spielberg-helmed Ready Player One has just been released in UK cinemas this week, and as a film of obvious interest to DreamingRobots and Cyberselves everywhere, we went along to see what the Maestro of the Blockbuster has done with Ernest Cline’s 2011 novel (which the author himself helped to adapt to the screen).

We went in with a lot of questions, not least of which included:

• How would Cline & Spielberg update the material? (in terms of VR technology, 2011 is so 2011. )
• How would the film engage with the modern politics of the Internet and gaming?
• How would Spielberg use the most up-to-date cinematic techniques and effects to enhance the film? (would this be another game changer?)
• What would the film have to say about our future? the future of gaming? of our interconnectedness? social media? what would the film have to say about the future of humanity itself?

A one-time viewing and a next-day review are, of course, too early to answer such big questions with any certainty. Fortunately, however you feel about the film itself, it will reward many multiple viewings on DVD as even the most unsatisfied viewer won’t be able to resist pausing the action frame-by-frame to catch all the references and fleeting glimpses of their favourite video game characters of the past.

But for now, here are 3 initial responses for discussion/debate:

1. Ready Player One is a morality tale about corporate power and the Internet

Cline’s original novel was very much a paean to plucky independent gamers resisting the ruthless greed and world-conquering ambition of the Corporate Villain (while simultaneously, strangely, lionising the richest and most world-conquering of them all, James Halliday, the Gates-Jobs figure transformed here into the benevolent deus ex machina that built his trillions on creating the OASIS).  The film remains true to Cline’s vision, and perhaps even heightens this black-and-white, goodie-versus-baddie (IOI), with a brilliantly cast Ben (‘Commander Krennic’) Mendelsohn and a tragically under-used Hannah John-Kamen heading an army of faceless corporate infantry.

But while this wouldn’t have been at the forefront of Cline’s thinking in 2011, it is impossible to watch this film now, today, and not think of the erosion of net neutrality that was set in motion by the FCC’s December 2017 decision and, more recently, the exposure of Facebook’s data breach by Cambridge Analytica, which has finally woken more people up to the reality of mass surveillance and what personal data corporate giants have and how it might be misused.

There is little chance that Spielberg and Cline had either of these potential dangers in mind when the film went into production. And such issues shouldn’t be vastly oversimplified in real journalism, but storytelling is always a good way to make people understand complex issues and motivate them to action, and if RPO‘s simple story of goodies and baddies can become a cultural rallying-point for the dangerous mix of unchecked capitalism and our social interconnectedness, then that is a Good Thing

2. Spielberg’s film goes a certain way into correcting some of the problems of the original novel (though could have gone further).

Through no real fault of the author, opinions on Cline’s once much-lauded book were revised, post-#gamergate, and what was once seen as an innocent tale of a young (definitely boy) geek’s nostalgic travels from social outsider to saviour of the world (cf. also Cline’s Armada) came to be seen by some instead as a symptom of everything behind the vile misogyny of white male gamers, backlashing out at anyone that didn’t see how they were the best and most privileged of all people on this earth.

Let’s be clear: the gender politics in the film are far from ideal. How is it, for example, notes another reviewer, that two of the main female protagonists are so ignorant of basic Halliday-lore? And there is still a bit too much of White Boy Champion of the World in even this version of Cline’s tale. However, having said that, other critics, too, have noticed a much-improved gender consciousness in the film.

But what is clear from Spielberg’s offering is that women are as much a part of gaming culture as men, and have every right to occupy the same space, and anyone who thinks otherwise can be gone. Without wanting to give anything away, it is enough to note that Art3mis is a legend in the OASIS, a skilled gamer that Parzifal worships, and that one of the OASIS’s best designers/builders (or programmer) is also a woman. Outside of the VR world, the real women behind the avatars are among the best-drawn characters (albeit in a film not overburdened with character depth, but then this is a Spielberg popcorn speciality, not one of his Oscar worthies). Both Olivia Cooke and Lena Waithe are given space to live and to be (the former, in particular, being a much more interesting protagonist the poor Wade Watts, who really is little more than his avatar), and as previously mentioned, John-Kamen is a much more frightening villain than Mendelsohn’s corporate puppet.

This film shouldn’t be heralded as a feminist triumph or a shining example of post-Weinstein Hollywood, but it is a step in the right direction, and it might mean a few more people can forgive Cline for the white-boy wank-fest that they perceive (not without some good reason) the original novel to be.

3. Despite some nods to progressive politics, the film holds deeply conservative views on human nature.

A big attraction of the novel and the excitement of the film, for DreamingRobots and Cyberselves, was the way the novel created worlds in a new reality, and explored the ideas of what humans could become in such spaces no longer bound by the physical limitations of our birth. It’s what we’re looking at with our experiments in VR and teleoperative technologies, and we ask the questions: what happens to human beings when we can be transformed by such technologies? What might our posthuman future look like?

The film does not ask these questions. In this respect, again, the film does not deviate from the original novel. The novel, for all its creativity in imagining such virtual realities, before they were fully realised in real-world technology, was still very much about recognisably human worlds. The film actually regresses to a vision of human experience where the worlds of flesh-reality and virtual-reality are more clearly demarcated. In the book, there was at least a certain bleeding between these two worlds, as events in the virtual world could have consequences in the real world and vice versa. In the film, however, only real-world events have impact on the virtual world. Events in the virtual world do not impact upon the real, and the two storylines, the two battles between goodies and baddies in the virtual and real worlds, are clearly separate. (Highlighted by the fact that there are distinct villains for each location: John-Kamen’s F’Nale Zandor never enters the virtual world, while T.J. Miller’s I-R0k exists only in the virtual. Only Mendelsohn’s Sorrento is the only villain crossing that boundary.)

Spielberg’s vision of 2045 is clearly dystopian: you can see it in the ‘Stacks’, where so many impoverished are forced to live, the utter dominance of mega-corporations, and the inability (or unwillingness) of the state to provide for or protect its citizens. But while so many of the citizens of 2045 take refuge in the paradise that is the OASIS, Spielberg makes it clear that this world is merely a symptom of the dystopian world of the flesh. The opium of these alienated masses, in fact, amplifies the miserable situation of these people. We’re supposed to pity the people we see, caged in their headsets, who can’t play tennis on a real tennis court, or dance in a real nightclub, or find love wherever real people find love.

This is clear at the film’s conclusion, but as we don’t want to give away spoilers, we’ll leave it for you to see for yourselves. But what is evident throughout is that the virtual world should only be a place where gamers go to play – it is not a place where humans can live. And it is only in the world of flesh that humans can really, successfully exist. Again, this is evident in Cline’s novel: ‘That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.’

As one reviewer has so succinctly put it:

But here’s the thing. Ready Player One is a tragedy. What seems like a fun adventure movie is actually a horror movie with a lot to say about the way we live now, the way we might live in the future, and the pitfalls and perils of loving video games too much. This is Spielberg reflecting on the culture he helped create, and telling the audience he made mistakes.

The only objection I have to the above quotation is the idea that the film has a lot to say about the way we might live in the future. Because our future will most certainly be posthuman, and this film cannot shake its humanist origins, and its deeply conservative understandings of how we might use technology. In this film, that posthuman being, and the technology that enables it, is as much of a threat to human life as a Great White shark or rampaging dinosaurs.

The film, therefore, cannot at all accommodate what will be the most imperative issues for human beings in the very near future. Such a binary understanding comes straight from the classic humanist guidebook: fantasy is fine, technology can be fun, but what’s real is what’s real, and what is human is human. That meddling in human’s true nature can never bring us happiness, and it is only by eschewing anything external to our true nature can we be truly happy, or truly human, are the usual humanist scaremongering about technology that we’ve seen time and again, since Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein did so much to create our present fantasies.

Nevermind that such a worldview ignores the fact that there has never been such a creature, a human being unimpacted by technology. Nevermind, too, that Spielberg’s entire cinematic oeuvre is fantastically, stubbornly, deeply and, sometimes, beautifully humanist (even when, or perhaps especially when, he’s telling stories about big fish or aliens). It is nevertheless a disappointment that such an opportunity, that such a potentially transformative film about the future and how we can be re-shaped by technology, plays it safe and retreats to a nostalgia for a kind of human being that is increasingly becoming obsolete. It would have been nice if Ready Player One was a great film about posthumanism, addressing the vital issues about technology that we are increasingly facing. But alas Perhaps we should dive back into Spielberg’s catalogue and watch A.I. 

Having said that, Ready Player One is a fun film and we will be taking our children to see it ironically, perhaps, for the message that games are fun but sometimes yes, you do need to turn them off. (It is definitely worth its 12 Certificate, though, so parents of younger children be warned. And of course we’ll buy it on DVD, to catch another glimpse of our favourite gaming characters.)

(Which films do you think better address our posthuman future? Suggestions below, please!)

Twenty-four startups were funded in March 2018 raising a combined total of $350 million. That brings the 3-month total to $1.5 billion!

There was an additional funding of $2.5 billion to JD Logistics, an 81.4%-owned spin-off that is the logistics arm of JD, China’s 2nd largest online retailer. Funding came from Hillhouse, Sequoia, China Merchants, Tencent, China Life, China Development Bank, China Structural Reform and ICBC International.

JD Logistics has 14 smart warehouses serving a network of ~500 warehouses occupying over 130 million sq ft of warehouse space. The 14 smart warehouses are using robotic shuttles, AS/RS systems, parallel robots and AGVs and JD Logistics is experimenting with autonomous delivery vehicles. Consequently, some of that funding will be used to research, develop and increase the number of smart warehouses with robotic logistics solutions.

Also in March there were three acquisitions and an IPO.

Fundings

1. Desktop Metal, a Burlington, Mass.-based company making metal 3d printing system for mass production raised $65 million in funding. Ford Motor Company led the round, and was joined by other investors including Future Fund. Desktop Metal has raised $277 million to date, has over 225 employees and has sold products into more than 40 countries.
2. Mythic, an Austin, Texas-based AI chip company, raised $40 million in Series B funding. SoftBank Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including DFJ, Lux Capital, Data Collective, AME Cloud Ventures, Lockheed Martin Ventures and Andy Bechtolsheim. Mythic’s low-power lightweight chips are used for onboard processing in drones.
3. Corindus Vascular Robotics
   

   CorPath GRX System.

   , a Waltham, MA-based robotic-assisted surgical platform and the developer of the FDA-approved CorPath GRX system, raised another $25 million in a post-IPO equity private placement to existing investors including Hudson Executive Capital and BioStar Ventures, and new investors. Corrindus has raised $118 million and installed 33 systems to date.

4. ReWalk Robotics, an Israeli exoskeleton provider, in another post-IPO equity private placement, exchanged 16 million shares of its stock RWLK for $20 million in a private placement with Hong Kong Timwell Garment, a wholesale distributor of men’s and boy’s apparel. Timwell and ReWalk are joint venturing in China with RealCan Ambrum, a Shenzhen VC for healthcare products, to develop, manufacture and market ReWalk’s new soft-suit exoskeleton. ReWalk will provide the technology; Timwell and RealCan will provide additional funding and do the rest.
5. Airspace Systems Inc, a San Leandro, Calif.-based manufacturer of comprehensive drone defense systems, raised $20 million in Series A funding. Singtel Innov8 led the round, and was joined by investors including s28 Capital, Shasta Ventures and Granite Hill Capital Partners.
6. Blackmore Sensors and Analytics, a Bozeman, Montana-based developer of frequency-modulated continuous wave LiDAR for the auto industry, raised $18 million in Series B funding. BMW i Ventures led the round and was joined by Toyota AI Ventures, Millennium Technology Value Partners and Next Frontier Capital.
7. Starsky Robotics, a San Francisco-based self-driving truck startup, raised $16.5 million in funding. Investors include Shasta Ventures, Y Combinator, Trucks.vc, 50 Years, and 9Point Ventures.
8. Fortem Technologies, a Utah developer and provider of ultra small C-SWAP radar for beyond line of sight UAS operations, raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Data Collective with participation by New Ground Ventures, Mubadala Investment Co, New Ground Ventures, Signia Venture Partiers and The Boeing Company.
9. Laifual Drive, a Chinese harmonic drive gearbox manufacturer and robot reducer supplier, raised $15 million in a Series A round led by Northern Light VC with participation from Rushan Investment.
10. Transphorm, a CA chipmaker using gallium nitride semiconductors, has raised $15 million from Yaskawa Electric who uses Transphorm products in the servo motors for robots.
11. Blue Vision Labs, a Los Angeles machine perception startup, raised $14.5 million in a Series A round led by GV with participation by Accel Partners, Horizons Ventures and SV Angel.
12. Cobalt Robotics
    

    Cobalt mobile security robot.

    , a Silicon Valley mobile security robot startup, raised $13 million in a Series A financing led by Sequoia Capital with participation by Founders Fund, Storm Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Promus Ventures and others.

13. Bestmile, a Swiss autonomous driving fleet management platform startup, raised $11 million in a Series A round let by Road Ventures with participation from Serena Capital, Partech, Airbus Ventures, Mobility.fund and Aéroport de Paris.
14. Robotic Vision Technologies, an Illinois developer and integrator of vision systems, raised $10.5 million from unknown sources. RVT has a 3D vision guidance system for guided vehicles and the collaborative robot market.
15. Ascent Robotics, a Tokyo-based AI startup focusing on self-driving vehicles and autonomous robotic systems, raised $10.3 million in a Series A round led by SBI Investment with participation from Bart Joseph Broadman.
16. OpenTrons, a Brooklyn, NY lab liquid-handling pipetting robot maker, raised $10 million in a seed round led by Khosla Ventures with participation by Y Combinator, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Jeffrey Kindler.
17. Arraiy, a Silicon Valley vision systems and machine learning startup, raised $10 million in a Series A round led by Softbank Ventures Korea and Lux Capital with participation by IDG Capital Partners, Dentsu Ventures, Cherry Tree Investments and CRCM Ventures.
18. Agility Robotics
    

    Agility bipedal mobile robots.

    , an Oregon startup developing legged robots into products that need rugged mobility and must fit into human spaces, closed a $8 million Series A round. Playground Global led the round, with participation from Sony Innovation Fund and existing investor Robotics Hub. Agility’s two-legged Cassie robot is already deployed in 6 research institutes. Agility is planning on using Cassie for everything from deliveries to facility inspections to hazardous search-and-rescue operations.

19. Scotty Labs, a tele-operations company working on technology for remote control-enabled self-driving cars, raised $6 million in seed funding. Gradient Ventures led the round, and was joined by investors including Horizon Ventures and Hemi Ventures.
20. Hummingbird Technologies, a UK drone, aerial and satellite imagery and remote sensing ag startup, raised $4.1 million in a Series A round led by Sir James Dyson, the European Space Agency, Newable Private Investing and Velcourt.
21. Circular Wave Drive, an Ohio startup developing a long-life speed reducer gear for robots, raised $2 million in a Seed round led by Ikove Venture Partners.
22. Skycision,  a Pittsburgh-based ag drone analytics startup, raised $1.1 million in a seed round from Innova Memphis, AgLaunch Accelerator, Scurich Berry Farms and individual investors.
23. Mojio Inc, a Vancouver-based connected car platform, raised funding of an undisclosed amount. Investors include Iris Capital and Telus Ventures.
24. Oxford Robotics (Dynium), an Oxford, UK autonomous farm tractor startup, raised an unknown amount in seed investment from unknown sources.

Acquisitions

1. Energid, a Cambridge, MA-based integrator, engineering firm and developer of robot control, simulation and machine vision software, was acquired by Teradyne (NYSE:TER), the company that acquired Universal Robots back in 2015.
2. Syngenta (NYSE:SYT), an ag conglomerate which was acquired by ChemChina in 2017, has acquired NC ag analytics startup FarmShots, for an undisclosed amount. FarmShots will be integrated into Syngenta’s AgriEdge Excelsior whole-farm management system and be available to growers worldwide.
3. Tarena Intl, a Chinese educational services company, acquired Wuhan Haoxiaozi Robot Technology, also known as Rtec, a K-12 robotics programming education service. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

IPOs

1. Octopus Robots (FP:MLOCT), a French developer of mobile robots for the ag industry, raised $32.8 million from selling 1.765M shares of stock on the Paris Stock Exchange.

"At its core, National Robotics Week brings STEM experiences to all education levels across the country, providing greater access and opportunity for the next generation of innovators."

The SCOT™ solution is ideal for perimeter surveillance for critical infrastructure, distribution and storage centers, data centers, high-value outdoor areas, homeowner’s associations and other restricted properties.

CCD (charge coupled device) and CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) image sensors are two different technologies for capturing images digitally. Each has unique strengths and weaknesses giving advantages in different applications.

About a quarter of American workers think technology could take over their jobs within the next 20 years, and 13 percent say it may eliminate their jobs within five. Fears about robots taking jobs from human workers have swirled for years, and the concerns are understandable

It's small enough to fit inside a shoebox, yet this robot on four wheels has a big mission: keeping factories and other large facilities safe from hackers.

"The startups that have made it to the final competition are indicative of the levels of innovation in the machine vision and imaging industries," according to Jeff Burnstein, President, AIA. "I don't envy the job in front of our judges having to select only one winner."

Robby Pepper can answer questions in Italian, English and German. Billed as Italy's first robot concierge, the humanoid will be deployed all season at a hotel on the popular Lake Garda to help relieve the desk staff of simple, repetitive questions.

In this interview, Audrow speaks with Andrea Bajcsy and Dylan P. Losey about a method that allows robots to infer a human’s objective through physical interaction. They discuss their approach, the challenges of learning complex tasks, and their experience collaborating between different universities.

Some examples of people working with the more typical impedance control (left) and Bajcsy and Losey’s learning method (right).

To learn more, see this post on Robohub from the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) Lab.

Andrea Bajcsy
Andrea Bajcsy is a Ph.D. student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California Berkeley. She received her B.S. degree in Computer Science at the University of Maryland and was awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2016. At Berkeley, she works in the Interactive Autonomy and Collaborative Technologies Laboratory researching physical human-robot interaction.

Dylan P. Losey

Dylan P. Losey received the B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA, in 2014, and the M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from Rice University, Houston, TX, USA, in 2016.

He is currently working towards the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering at Rice University, where he has been a member of the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces Laboratory since 2014.  In addition, between May and August 2017, he was a visiting scholar in the Interactive Autonomy and Collaborative Technologies Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.  He researches physical human-robot interaction; in particular, how robots can learn from and adapt to human corrections.

Mr. Losey received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2014, and the 2016 IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics Best Paper Award as a first author.

Links

• InterACT Lab
• MAHL Lab
• Andrea Bajcsy’s website
• Dylan’s Losey’s website
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In this episode of Robots in Depth, Per Sjöborg speaks with Franziska Kirstein, Human-Robot Interaction Expert and Project Manager at Blue Ocean Robotics, about her experience as a linguist working with human robot interaction. We get to hear about what works and what doesn’t when non-engineer users are tasked with teaching robots different movements. Franziska also describes some of the challenges with kinestetic guidance and alternative methods that can be used. She then presents some of the projects she is involved in, including one in robot assisted health care and one involving social robots.

In a 2+ hour talk that filled the Keynote Hall and spillover rooms at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center and had thousands of people in line for hours before, Nvidia’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, in characteristic jeans, leather jacket, and humble humor, described the world of graphics processing units (GPUs) with brilliant images and memorable one-liners:

• “Data is the new source code”
• “Simulation is the key to learning”
• “AI is the turbocharger of software and deep learning is the catalyst for AI”
• “Everything that moves will be autonomous”
• “Robotics boosts every industry”

Most of Nvidia’s revenue comes from GPUs for gaming, super-capable ray-tracing professional graphics, and extraordinarily powerful super computers for data centers. Most of their current research and development is involved with AI-ready chips that enable clients to develop machine and deep learning models and apps. Nvidia is banking on these new development chips to be the chips of the future.

In AI-focused healthcare, this covers CLARA, a deep learning engine that uses present-day black and white sonogram, PET and MRI 2D scans and enhances the data to 3D and then color rendering. In the example on the right, a black and white ultrasound sonogram on the left is enhanced into the fully rendered baby picture on the right.

In the area of robotics this covers cramming AI, deep learning and real-time control and simulation into chips for autonomous vehicles of all types (cars, trucks, mobile robots).

Nvidia boasts 370 partners developing cars, trucks, mobility services, mapping, LiDAR, camera/radar and startups and suppliers for the autonomous vehicles market — all using various Nvidia GPUs.

Ever the salesman, Huang introduced Isaac SDK for robotics to accelerate creating autonomous machines using the Nvidia Jetson embedded platform for autonomous vehicles and simulation.

Finally, in a very convincing demonstration, Huang showed a virtual reality car on the screen. He then showed a very real human near the screen at a control console. Then that very real human placed his virtual avatar behind the wheel and proceeded to remotely drive a very real car outside the convention center around an obstacle and over to a parking lot where he parked it. Very impressive.

$1 million in awards

Nvidia encouraged 200 startups to participate in a three-segment contest to share $1 million in awards. All received hardware grants, training with deep learning experts, and marketing support. Two finalists were picked from each of three categories: healthcare, enterprise and autonomous systems. Kinema Systems, the Silicon Valley material handling company that can depalletize a mixed case pallet at full speed, won the autonomous systems award and received $333,333.

By Eric Brown

If you were to ask someone to name a new technology that emerged from MIT in the 21st century, there’s a good chance they would name the robotic cheetah. Developed by the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering’s Biomimetic Robotics Lab under the direction of Associate Professor Sangbae Kim, the quadruped MIT Cheetah has made headlines for its dynamic legged gait, speed, jumping ability, and biomimetic design.

The dog-sized Cheetah II can run on four articulated legs at up to 6.4 meters per second, make mild running turns, and leap to a height of 60 centimeters. The robot can also autonomously determine how to avoid or jump over obstacles.

Kim is now developing a third-generation robot, the Cheetah III. Instead of improving the Cheetah’s speed and jumping capabilities, Kim is converting the Cheetah into a commercially viable robot with enhancements such as a greater payload capability, wider range of motion, and a dexterous gripping function. The Cheetah III will initially act as a spectral inspection robot in hazardous environments such as a compromised nuclear plant or chemical factory. It will then evolve to serve other emergency response needs.

“The Cheetah II was focused on high speed locomotion and agile jumping, but was not designed to perform other tasks,” says Kim. “With the Cheetah III, we put a lot of practical requirements on the design so it can be an all-around player. It can do high-speed motion and powerful actions, but it can also be very precise.”

The Biomimetic Robotics Lab is also finishing up a smaller, stripped down version of the Cheetah, called the Mini Cheetah, designed for robotics research and education. Other projects include a teleoperated humanoid robot called the Hermes that provides haptic feedback to human operators. There’s also an early stage investigation into applying Cheetah-like actuator technology to address mobility challenges among the disabled and elderly.

Conquering mobility on the land

“With the Cheetah project, I was initially motivated by copying land animals, but I also realized there was a gap in ground mobility,” says Kim. “We have conquered air and water transportation, but we haven’t conquered ground mobility because our technologies still rely on artificially paved roads or rails. None of our transportation technologies can reliably travel over natural ground or even man-made environments with stairs and curbs. Dynamic legged robots can help us conquer mobility on the ground.”

One challenge with legged systems is that they “need high torque actuators,” says Kim. “A human hip joint can generate more torque than a sports car, but achieving such condensed high torque actuation in robots is a big challenge.”

Robots tend to achieve high torque at the expense of speed and flexibility, says Kim. Factory robots use high torque actuators but they are rigid and cannot absorb energy upon the impact that results from climbing steps. Hydraulically powered, dynamic legged robots, such as the larger, higher-payload, quadruped Big Dog from Boston Dynamics, can achieve very high force and power, but at the expense of efficiency. “Efficiency is a serious issue with hydraulics, especially when you move fast,” he adds.

A chief goal of the Cheetah project has been to create actuators that can generate high torque in designs that imitate animal muscles while also achieving efficiency. To accomplish this, Kim opted for electric rather than hydraulic actuators. “Our high torque electric motors have exceeded the efficiency of animals with biological muscles, and are much more efficient, cheaper, and faster than hydraulic robots,” he says.

Cheetah III: More than a speedster

Unlike the earlier versions, the Cheetah III design was motivated more by potential applications than pure research. Kim and his team studied the requirements for an emergency response robot and worked backward.

“We believe the Cheetah III will be able to navigate in a power plant with radiation in two or three years,” says Kim. “In five to 10 years it should be able to do more physical work like disassembling a power plant by cutting pieces and bringing them out. In 15 to 20 years, it should be able to enter a building fire and possibly save a life.”

In situations such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster, robots or drones are the only safe choice for reconnaissance. Drones have some advantages over robots, but they cannot apply large forces necessary for tasks such as opening doors, and there are many disaster situations in which fallen debris prohibits drone flight.

By comparison, the Cheetah III can apply human-level forces to the environment for hours at a time. It can often climb or jump over debris, or even move it out of the way. Compared to a drone, it’s also easier for a robot to closely inspect instrumentation, flip switches, and push buttons, says Kim. “The Cheetah III can measure temperatures or chemical compounds, or close and open valves.”

Advantages over tracked robots include the ability to maneuver over debris and climb stairs. “Stairs are some of the biggest obstacles for robots,” says Kim. “We think legged robots are better in man-made environments, especially in disaster situations where there are even more obstacles.”

The Cheetah III was slowed down a bit compared to the Cheetah II, but also given greater strength and flexibility. “We increased the torque so it can open the heavy doors found in power plants,” says Kim. “We increased the range of motion to 12 degrees of freedom by using 12 electric motors that can articulate the body and the limbs.”

This is still far short of the flexibility of animals, which have over 600 muscles. Yet, the Cheetah III can compensate somewhat with other techniques. “We maximize each joint’s work space to achieve a reasonable amount of reachability,” says Kim.

The design can even use the legs for manipulation. “By utilizing the flexibility of the limbs, the Cheetah III can open the door with one leg,” says Kim. “It can stand on three legs and equip the fourth limb with a customized swappable hand to open the door or close a valve.”

The Cheetah III has an improved payload capability to carry heavier sensors and cameras, and possibly even to drop off supplies to disabled victims. However, it’s a long way from being able to rescue them. The Cheetah III is still limited to a 20-kilogram payload, and can travel untethered for four to five hours with a minimal payload.

“Eventually, we hope to develop a machine that can rescue a person,” says Kim. “We’re not sure if the robot would carry the victim or bring a carrying device,” he says. “Our current design can at least see if there are any victims or if there are any more potential dangerous events.”

Experimenting with human-robot interaction

The semiautonomous Cheetah III can make ambulatory and navigation decisions on its own. However, for disaster work, it will primarily operate by remote control.

“Fully autonomous inspection, especially in disaster response, would be very hard,” says Kim. Among other issues, autonomous decision making often takes time, and can involve trial and error, which could delay the response.

“People will control the Cheetah III at a high level, offering assistance, but not handling every detail,” says Kim. “People could tell it to go to a specific location at the map, find this place, and open that door. When it comes to hand action or manipulation, the human will take over more control and tell the robot what tool to use.”

Humans may also be able to assist with more instinctive controls. For example, if the Cheetah uses one of its legs as an arm and then applies force, it’s hard to maintain balance. Kim is now investigating whether human operators can use “balanced feedback” to keep the Cheetah from falling over while applying full force.

“Even standing on two or three legs, it would still be able to perform high force actions that require complex balancing,” says Kim. “The human operator can feel the balance, and help the robot shift its momentum to generate more force to open or hammer a door.”

The Biomimetic Robotics Lab is exploring balanced feedback with another robot project called Hermes (Highly Efficient Robotic Mechanisms and Electromechanical System). Like the Cheetah III, it’s a fully articulated, dynamic legged robot designed for disaster response. Yet, the Hermes is bipedal, and completely teleoperated by a human who wears a telepresence helmet and a full body suit. Like the Hermes, the suit is rigged with sensors and haptic feedback devices.

“The operator can sense the balance situation and react by using body weight or directly implementing more forces,” says Kim.

The latency required for such intimate real-time feedback is difficult to achieve with Wi-Fi, even when it’s not blocked by walls, distance, or wireless interference. “In most disaster situations, you would need some sort of wired communication,” says Kim. “Eventually, I believe we’ll use reinforced optical fibers.”

Improving mobility for the elderly

Looking beyond disaster response, Kim envisions an important role for agile, dynamic legged robots in health care: improving mobility for the fast-growing elderly population. Numerous robotics projects are targeting the elderly market with chatty social robots. Kim is imagining something more fundamental.

“We still don’t have a technology that can help impaired or elderly people seamlessly move from the bed to the wheelchair to the car and back again,” says Kim. “A lot of elderly people have problems getting out of bed and climbing stairs. Some elderly with knee joint problems, for example, are still pretty mobile on flat ground, but can’t climb down the stairs unassisted. That’s a very small fraction of the day when they need help. So we’re looking for something that’s lightweight and easy to use for short-time help.”

Kim is currently working on “creating a technology that could make the actuator safe,” he says. “The electric actuators we use in the Cheetah are already safer than other machines because they can easily absorb energy. Most robots are stiff, which would cause a lot of impact forces. Our machines give a little.”

By combining such safe actuator technology with some of the Hermes technology, Kim hopes to develop a robot that can help elderly people in the future. “Robots can not only address the expected labor shortages for elder care, but also the need to maintain privacy and dignity,” he says.