From Mexican immigrant to MIT, from Girl Power in Latin America to robotics entrepreneurs in Africa and India, the 2019 annual “women in robotics you need to know about” list is here! We’ve featured 150 women so far, from 2013 to 2018, and this time we’re not stopping at 25. We’re featuring 30 inspiring #womeninrobotics because robotics is growing and there are many new stories to be told.

So, without further ado, here are the 30 Women In Robotics you need to know about – 2019 edition!

Alice Agogino CEO & CTO – Squishy Robotics Squishy robots are rapidly deployable mobile sensing robots for disaster rescue, remote monitoring and space exploration, developed from the research at the BEST Lab or Berkeley Emergent Space Tensegrities Lab. Prof. Alice Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Product Design Concentration Founder and Head Advisor, MEng Program at the University of California, Berkeley, and has a long history of combining research, entrepreneurship and inclusion in engineering. Agogino won the AAAS Lifetime Mentor Award in 2012 and the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring in 2018.

Danielle Applestone CEO & CoFounder – Daughters of Rosies While working at Otherlab, Danielle Applestone developed the Other Machine, a desktop CNC machine and machine control software suitable for students, and funded by DARPA. The company is now known as Bantam Tools, and was acquired by Bre Pettis. Currently, Applestone is CEO and CoFounder of Daughters of Rosie, on a mission to solve the labor shortage in the U.S. manufacturing industry by getting more women into stable manufacturing jobs with purpose, growth potential, and benefits.

Cindy Bethel Professor and Billie J. Ball Endowed Professorship in Engineering – Mississippi State University Prof. Cindy Bethel’s research at MSU ranges from designing social robots for trauma victims to mobile robots for law enforcement and first responders. She focuses on human-robot interaction, human-computer interaction and interface design, robotics, affective computing, and cognitive science. Bethel was a NSF Computing Innovation Postdoctoral Research Fellow (CIFellow) at Yale University, is the Billie J. Ball Endowed Professorship of Engineering, the Director of the Social, Therapeutic, and Robotic Systems (STaRS) Lab, and is the 2019 U.S. – Australian Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Sonja Betschart Co-Founder & Chief Entrepreneurship Officer – WeRobotics Sonja Betschart is the Co-Founder and Chief Entrepreneurship Officer of WeRobotics, a US/Swiss based non-profit organization that addresses the Digital Divide through local capacity and inclusive participation in the application of emerging technologies in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania. Betschart is a passionate “”Tech for Good”” entrepreneur with a longstanding career in SME’s, multinationals and start-ups, including in the drone industry and for digital transformation initiatives. She holds Master degrees both in Marketing and SME Management and has been voted as one of Switzerlands’ Digital Shapers in 2018.

Susanne Bieller General Secretary – International Federation of Robotics (IFR) Dr. Susanne Bieller is General Secretary, of The International Federation of Robotics (IFR), a non-profit organization representing more than 50 manufacturers of industrial robots and national robot associations from over twenty countries. Before then, Dr Bieller was project manager of the European Robotics Association EUnited Robotics. After completing her PhD in Chemistry, she began her professional career at the European Commission in Brussels, then managed the flat-panel display group at the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) in Frankfurt.

Noramay Cadena Managing Partner – MiLA Capital Noramay Cadena is an engineer, entrepreneur, investor, and former nonprofit leader. She’s the Cofounder and Managing Director of Make in LA, an early stage hardware accelerator and venture fund in Los Angeles. Since launching in 2015, Make in LA’s venture fund has invested over a million dollars in seed stage companies who have have collectively raised over 25 million dollars and created jobs across the United States and in several other countries. Previously Cadena worked in aerospace with The Boeing Company, and cofounded the Latinas in STEM Foundation in 2013 to inspire and empower Latinas to pursue and thrive in STEM fields.

Madeline Gannon Principal Researcher – ATONATON Madeline Gannon is a multidisciplinary designer inventing better ways to communicate with machines. Her recent works taming giant industrial robots focus on developing new frontiers in human-robot relations. Her interactive installation, Mimus, was awarded a 2017 Ars Electronica STARTS Prize Honorable Mention. She was also named a 2017/2018 World Economic Forum Cultural Leader. She holds a PhD in Computational Design from Carnegie Mellon University, where she explored human-centered interfaces for autonomous fabrication machines. She also holds a Masters in Architecture from Florida International University.

Colombia Girl Powered Program Girl Powered – VEX The Girl Powered Program is a recent initiative from VEX and the Robotics Education and Competition Foundation, showcasing examples of how women can change the world, providing tools to enable girls to succeed, and providing safe spaces for them to do it in. Girl Powered focuses on supporting diverse creative teams, building inclusive environments, and redefining what a roboticist looks like.

Verity Harding Co-Lead, DeepMind Ethics and Society – DeepMind Verity Harding is Co-Lead of DeepMind Ethics & Society, a research unit established to explore the real-world impacts of artificial intelligence. The unit has a dual aim: to help technologists put ethics into practice, and to help society anticipate and direct the impact of AI so that it works for the benefit of all. Prior to this Verity was Head of Security Policy for Google in Europe, and previously the Special Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Sir Nick Clegg MP, with responsibility for Home Affairs and Justice. She is a graduate of Pembroke College, Oxford University, and was a Michael Von Clemm Fellow at Harvard University. In her spare time, Verity sits on the Board of the Friends of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Lydia Kavraki Nora Harding Professor – Rice University Prof. Lydia Kavraki is known for her pioneering works concerning paths for robots, reflected in her influential book Principles of Robot Motion. A professor of Computer Science and Bioengineering at Rice University, she is the developer of Probabilistic Roadmap Method (PRM), a system that uses randomizing and sampling-based motion planners to keep robots from crashing. She’s also the recipient of numerous accolades, including an ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, an NSF CAREER Award, a Sloan Fellowship and the ACM Athena Award in 2017/2018.

Dana Kulic Professor – Monash University Prof. Dana Kulić develops autonomous systems that can operate in concert with humans, using natural and intuitive interaction strategies while learning from user feedback to improve and individualise operation over long-term use. She serves as the Global Innovation Research Visiting Professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, and the August-Wilhelm Scheer Visiting Professor at the Technical University of Munich. Before coming to Monash, she established the Adaptive Systems Lab at the University of Waterloo, and collaborated with colleagues to establish Waterloo as one of Canada’s leading research centers in robotics.

Jean Liu President – Didi Chuxing Jean Liu runs the largest mobility company in China, rapidly innovating in the smart cityscape. A native of China, Liu, 40, studied at Peking University and earned a master’s degree in computer science at Harvard. After a decade at Goldman Sachs, Liu joined Didi in 2014 as chief operating officer. During Liu’s tenure, Didi secured investments from all three of China’s largest internet service companies — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent. It also bought Uber’s China operations in China and has announced a joint venture with the Japan’s Softbank. Liu is outspoken about the need for inclusion and women’s empowerment, also the role of technology in creating a better society.

Amy Loutfi Professor at the AASS Research Center, Department of Science and Technology – Örebro University Prof. Loutfi is head of the Center for Applied Autonomous Sensor Systems at Örebro University. She is also a professor in Information Technology at Örebro University. She received her Ph.d in Computer Science with a focus on the integration of artificial olfaction on robotic and intelligent systems. She currently leads one of the labs at the Center, the machine perception and interaction lab (www.mpi.aass.oru.se). Her general interests are in the area of integration of artificial intelligence with autonomous systems, and over the years has looked into applications where robots closely interact with humans in both industry and domestic environments.

Sheila McIlraith Professor – University of Toronto Prof. Sheila McIlraith researches knowledge representation and automated reasoning, and is known for her practical contributions to next-generation NASA space systems and to emerging Web standards. She is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and an associate editor of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR). In 2018, McIlraith served as program co-chair of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-18). In 2011 she and her co-authors were honoured with the SWSA 10-year Award, recognizing the highest impact paper from the International Semantic Web Conference.

Nancy McIntyre Community Innovation Manager – REC Foundation Nancy McIntyre has a Masters in Education and over 23 years of experience as a science teacher. As a coach and organizer, she has seen the impact of competition robotics programs in preparing young women for a career in STEM, whether it be an aerospace engineer or doing biomedical research. Since 2012, McIntyre has been the Regional Manager of the REC (Robotics Education & Competition) Foundation in the California and Silicon Valley region. Currently, she is also the Community Innovation Manager for the new global Girl Powered program run by VEX and REC Foundation.

Malika Meghjani Assistant Professor – Singapore University of Technology Dr. Meghjani received her PhD degree in Computer Science from McGill University, Canada, then was a Research Scientist and Technical Lead at Autonomous Vehicle Lab within Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). She was awarded SMART Postdoctoral Fellowship for her research proposals on “Multi-Class Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand System” and “Context and Intention Aware Planning under Uncertainty for Self-Driving Cars”. Her work on “Multi-Target Rendezvous Search”, was nominated as the finalist for the best paper award at IEEE/RSJ IROS. A start-up proposal based on her work, titled, “Multi-Agent Rendezvous on Street Networks”, won her the NSERC Strategic Network Enhancement Initiative Award.

Cristina Olaverri Monreal BMVIT Endowed Professorship and Chair for Sustainable Transport Logistics 4.0 – Johannes Kepler University Prof. Cristina Olaverri-Monreal graduated with a Master’s degree in Computational Linguistics, Computer Science and Phonetics from the Ludwig-Maximilians University (LMU) in Munich and received her PhD in cooperation with BMW. She worked several years internationally in industry and academia. Currently she is full professor and holds an BMVIT Endowed Professorship and Chair for Sustainable Transport Logistics 4.0 at Johannes Kepler University Linz, in Austria. Her research in Intelligent Transportation Systems focuses on minimizing the barrier between users and road systems with automation, wireless communication and sensing technologies.

Wendy Moyle Program Director – Menzies Health Institute Prof. Wendy Moyle’s research focus is in the areas of ageing and mental health, specifically neurocognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Her research aims to achieve the best evidence possible for care of people with dementia and to reduce the distresses of the disease for the individual and their carers. She is internationally recognised for her research with social robots and assistive technologies. In 2012, she was invited to be advise the World Health Organization (WHO) Consultation Group on the Classification of Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms in Neurocognitive disorders for ICD-11. Currently, she is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth.

Yukie Nagai Project Professor and Director of Cognitive Developmental Robotics Lab – University of Tokyo Prof. Yukie Nagai is Director of the Cognitive Developmental Robotics Lab at the University of Tokyo, where she studies the neural mechanisms of human cognitive development using computational and robotic technologies, designing neural network models for robots to learn to acquire cognitive functions, in order to better understand the causes for social difficulties with among people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Nagai received her Ph.D. in Engineering from Osaka University in 2004, was a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) from 2004 to 2006, at Bielefeld University from 2006 to 2009, a Specially Appointed Associate Professor with Osaka University in 2009, and a Senior Researcher with NICT in 2017. Since April 2019, she is a Project Professor with the University of Tokyo.

Temitope Oladokun Robotics Trainer – TechieGeeks Temitope Oladokun is a Robotics Trainer who teaches robotics to high school and primary school students. After finishing her Bachelor of Engineering at the University of Maiduguri, Oladokun has focused on her company TechieGeeks and also volunteer work to alleviate poverty and spread science and techology literacy in Lagos, Nigeria. Since joining #WomenInRobotics, Oladokun is keen to set up mentorships between African students and overseas.

Svetlana Potyagaylo SLAM Algorithm Engineer – Indoor Robotics Svetlana Potyagaylo received her PhD in Aerospace Engineering on Planning and Operational Algorithms for Autonomous Helicopters at Technion-Machon Technologi Le’ Israel. She then developed an underwater autonomous robotic system for inspection and monitoring of aquacultures as part of the research project AQUABOT co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus, before returning to Technion as a research scientist. Potyagaylo is now an engineer at Indoor Robotics, a stealth mode startup.

Suriya Prabha Founder & CEO YouCode Suriya Prabha is the founder and CEO of YouCode, on a mission to teach rural Indian children AI skills, starting with remote villages and schools in Tamilnadu, India. Her curricula develops computational thinking via play, so robots are an integral part of the AI class. She believes that every small town and village in India should have the opportunity to learn about electronics and coding to help build a Intellectual, Innovative & Incredible India. So far she has trained 2500 students in 25 schools and is campaigning to get an AI lab in all government run schools.

Amanda Prorok Assistant Professor – University of Cambridge Amanda Prorok is a Lecturer in Cyber-Physical Systems at the University of Cambridge, UK. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, where she worked on networked robotic systems. Her PhD at EPFL, Switzerland, addressed the topic of localization with ultra-wideband sensing for robotic networks. Her dissertation was awarded the Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) award for the best thesis at EPFL in the fields of Computer Sciences, Automatics and Telecommunications. Further awards include Best Paper Award at DARS 2018, Finalist for Best Multi-Robot Systems Paper at ICRA 2017, Best Paper at BICT 2015, and MIT Rising Stars 2015.

Ellen Purdy Director, Emerging Capabilities & Prototyping Initiatives & Analysis Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense Ellen M. Purdy currently serves as the Director, Emerging Capabilities & Prototyping Initiatives & Analysis in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (R&E). She is responsible for rapid development of fieldable prototypes and capability supporting emerging needs in autonomy, communications, sensing, and electronic warfare, with a focus on assessing resilience of new capabilities against adaptive adversaries. Previously, Purdy served as the Enterprise Director, Joint Ground Robotics where she had oversight of the unmanned ground systems portfolio, strategic planning for ground robotics and the annual RDT&E funding for ground robotic technology development, and where ground robotics inventory grew from under 1000 systems to over 6000 under her tenure.

Signe Redfield Engineer – Naval Research Laboratory Signe A. Redfield is currently working on the DARPA Robotic Servicing of Geostationary Satellites (RSGS) project as the Payload Mission Manager Lead. Prior to joining NRL in 2014, she was an engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division in Panama City, Florida, supporting autonomous robotics projects and providing expertise gained during a three-year tour as the Associate Director for Autonomy and Unmanned Systems at the U.S. Office of Naval Research Global (ONRG) in London. She is currently participating in a NATO Research Task Group focused on autonomy in limited-communications environments, and is part of the working group that developed the first IEEE RAS standard, covering core ontologies for robotics and automation.

Marcela Riccillo Specialist in Artificial Intelligence & Robotics – Professor Machine Learning & Data Science Prof. Marcela Riccillo specializes in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. She has more than 15 years of experience in companies like IBM, carrying out consulting projects in predictive analytics, data mining, machine learning, information management and Artificial Intelligence applied to the industry. She was also a robotics columnist for Radio Palermo, part of the Jury in the TV show Eureka of Canal Encuentro, and writes about robotics and AI for popular magazines, courses and seminars. She currently works as a Professor in Data Science and Machine Learning at ITBA.

Selma Sabanovic Associate Professor – Indiana University Bloomington Prof. Selma Sabanovic works in human-robot interaction focusing on the design, use, and consequences of socially interactive and assistive robots in different social and cultural contexts. Sabanovic was a Visiting Professor at Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence Center in Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), lecturer in Stanford University’s Program in Science, Technology and Society in 2008/2009, and a visiting scholar at the Intelligent Systems Institute in AIST, Tsukuba, Japan and the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Maria Telleria Cofounder and CTO – Canvas Maria Telleria is co-founder and CTO of Canvas – a startup making new machines for construction that empower the current workforce to be more productive and free from repetitive, physically taxing, and dangerous tasks. She moved from Mexico when she was 14, and then discovered a passion for robotics through robotics clubs. She studied Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and went on to do a PhD there studying centimeter-scale robotics (tools that can get into small places) and “no barcode” machines (inexpensive, low-energy use robotics feasible for one-time use).

Ann Whittaker Head of People and Culture – Vicarious Surgical Ann Whittaker is Head of People and Culture at Vicarious Surgical. Previously, she was co-founder of Rethink Robotics, and held high-level administration and communications roles in educational, philanthropic and life sciences organizations. Her past affiliations include MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the David Rockefeller Jr. Family Office, Millennium Pharmaceuticals and PAREXEL International Corporation. Ann holds a Bachelor of Arts from the American University and an MBA from Babson College.

Jinger Zeng Community & Partnership – Auterion Jinger Zeng is a technologist and entrepreneur. A mechanical engineer by training, she led a team in the development of a net-zero solar house that won international awards when she was at University of Nevada Las Vegas. She then co-founded Dronesmith Technologies in 2014, a company that develops drone hardware and software for developers and corporates. She graduated from Women’s Startup Lab and Techstars IoT. Currently, she works for Swiss startup Auterion, which builds open source infrastructure for autonomous robots. Her role is to develop global partnerships bringing state-of-art drone innovations to market.

Want to keep reading? There are 150 more stories on our 2013 to 2018 lists. Why not nominate someone for inclusion next year! Want to show your support in another fashion? Join the fashionistas with your very own #womeninrobotics tshirt, scarf or mug.

And we encourage #womeninrobotics and women who’d like to work in robotics to join our professional network at https://womeninrobotics.org

From driving rovers on Mars to improving farm automation for Indian women, once again we’re bringing you a list of 25 amazing women in robotics! These women cover all aspects of the robotics industry, both research, product and policy. They are founders and leaders, they are investigators and activists. They are early career stage and emeritus. There is a role model here for everyone! And there is no excuse – ever – not to have a woman speaking on a panel on robotics and AI.

But to start, here’s some news about previous nominees (and this is just a sample because we’ve showcased over 125 women so far and this is our 6th year).

In 2013, Melonee Wise was just launching her first startup! Since then she’s raised $48 million USD for Fetch Robotics and Fetch and Freight robots are rolling out in warehouses all over the world! Maja Mataric’s startup Embodied Inc has raised $34.4 million for home companion robots. Amy Villeneuve has moved from President and COO of Kiva Systems, VP at Amazon Robotics to the Board of Directors of 4 new robotics startups. And Manuela Veloso joined the Corporate & Investment Bank J.P. Morgan as head of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research.

In 2014, Sampriti Bhattacharya was a PhD student at MIT, since then she has turned her research into a startup Hydroswarm and been named one of Forbes 30 most powerful young change agents. Noriko Kageki moved from Kawada Robotics Corp in Japan to join the very female friendly Omron Adept Technologies in Silicon Valley.

2015’s Cecilia Laschi and Barbara Mazzolai are driving the Preparatory action for a European Robotics Flagship, which has the potential to become a 1B EUR project. The goal is to make new robots and AIs that are ethically, socially, economically, energetically, and environmentally responsible and sustainable. And PhD candidate Kavita Krishnaswamy. who depends on robots to travel, has received Microsoft, Google, Ford and NSF fellowships to help her design robots for people with disabilities.

2015’s Hanna Kurniawati was a Keynote Speaker at IROS 2018 (Oct 1-5) in Madrid, Spain. As were nominees Raquel Urtasun, Jamie Paik, Barbara Mazzolai, Anca Dragan, Amy Loutfi (and many more women!) 2017’s Raia Hadsell was the Plenary Speaker at ICRA 2018 (May 21-25) in Brisbane, Australia. And while it’s great to see so many women showcased this year at robotics conferences – don’t forget 2015 when the entire ICRA organizing committee  was comprised of women.

ICRA 2015 Organizing Committee

2016’s Vivian Chu finished her Social Robotics PhD and founded the robotics startup Diligent Robotics with her supervisor Dr Andrea Thomaz (featured in 2013). Their hospital robot Moxi was just featured on the BBC . And 2016’s Gudrun Litzenberger was just awarded the Engelberger Award by the RIA, joining 2013’s Daniela Rus. (The RIA is finally recognizing the role of women after we/Andra pointed out that they’d given out 120 awards and only 1 was to a woman – Bala Krishnamurthy in 2007 – and are now also offering grants for eldercare robots and women in robotics.)

We try to cover the whole globe, not just the whole career journey for women in robotics – so we welcome a nominee from Ashesi University in Ghana to this year’s list!  So, without further ado, here are the 25 Women In Robotics you need to know about – 2018 edition!

Crystal Chao Chief Scientist of AI/Robotics – Huawei Crystal Chao is Chief Scientist at Huawei and the Global Lead of Robotics Projects, overseeing a team that operates in Silicon Valley, Boston, Shenzhen, Beijing, and Tokyo. She has worked with every part of the robotics software stack in her previous experience, including a stint at X, Google’s moonshot factory. In 2012, Chao won Outstanding Doctoral Consortium Paper Award, ICMI, for her PhD at Georgia Tech, where she developed an architecture for social human-robot interaction (HRI) called CADENCE: Control Architecture for the Dynamics of Natural Embodied Coordination and Engagement, enabling a robot to collaborate fluently with humans using dialogue and manipulation.

Sougwen Chung Interdisciplinary Artist Sougwen Chung is a Chinese-born, Canadian-raised artist based in New York. Her work explores the mark-made-by-hand and the mark-made-by-machine as an approach to understanding the interaction between humans and computers. Her speculative critical practice spans installation, sculpture, still image, drawing, and performance. She is a former researcher fellow at MIT’s Media Lab and inaugural member of NEW INC, the first museum-led art and technology in collaboration with The New Museum. She received a BFA from Indiana University and a masters diploma in interactive art from Hyper Island in Sweden.

Emily Cross Professor of Social Robotics / Director of SoBA Lab Emily Cross is a cognitive neuroscientist and dancer. As the Director of the Social Brain in Action Laboratory (www.soba-lab.com), she explores how our brains and behaviors are shaped by different kinds of experience throughout our lifespans and across cultures. She is currently the Principal Investigator on the European Research Council Starting Grant entitled ‘Social Robots’, which runs from 2016-2021.

Rita Cucchiara Full Professor / Head of AImage Lab Rita Cucchiara is Full Professor of Computer Vision at the Department of Engineering “Enzo Ferrari” of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, where since 1998 she has led the AImageLab, a lab devoted to computer vision and pattern recognition, AI and multimedia. She coordinates the RedVision Lab UNIMORE-Ferrari for human-vehicle interaction. She was President of the Italian Association in Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning (CVPL) from 2016 to 2018, and is currently Director of the Italian CINI Lab in Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Systems. In 2018 she was recipient of the Maria Petrou Prize of IAPR

Sanja Fidler Assistant Professor / Director of AI at NVIDIA Sanja Fidler is Director of AI at NVIDIA’s new Toronto Lab, conducting cutting-edge research projects in machine learning, computer vision, graphics, and the intersection of language and vision. She remains Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto. She is recipient of the Amazon Academic Research Award (2017) and the NVIDIA Pioneer of AI Award (2016). She completed her PhD in computer science at University of Ljubljana in 2010, and has served as a Program Chair of the 3DV conference, and as an Area Chair of CVPR, EMNLP, ICCV, ICLR, and NIPS.

Kanako Harada ImPACT Program Manager Kanako Harada, is Program Manager of the ImPACT program “Bionic Humanoids Propelling New Industrial Revolution” of the Cabinet Office, Japan. She is also Associate Professor of the departments of Bioengineering and Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and the University of Tokyo, Japan. She obtained her M.Sc. in Engineering from the University of Tokyo in 2001, and her Ph.D. in Engineering from Waseda University in 2007. She worked for Hitachi Ltd., Japan Association for the Advancement of Medical Equipment, and Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Italy, before joining the University of Tokyo. Her research interests include surgical robots and surgical skill assessment.

Jessica Hodgins Professor / FAIR Research Mgr and Operations Lead Jessica Hodgins is a Professor in the Robotics Institute and Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University, and the new lead of Facebook’s AI Research Lab in Pittsburgh. The FAIR lab will focus on robotics, lifelong-learning systems that learn continuously, teaching machines to reason and AI in support of creativity. From 2008-2016, Hodgins founded and ran research labs for Disney, rising to VP of Research and leading the labs in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1989. She has received an NSF Young Investigator Award, a Packard Fellowship, a Sloan Fellowship, the ACM SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, and in 2017 she was awarded the Steven Anson Coons Award for Outstanding Creative Contributions to Computer Graphics. Her groundbreaking research focuses on computer graphics, animation, and robotics, with an emphasis on generating and analyzing human motion.

Heather Justice Mars Exploration Rover Driver Heather Justice has the dream job title of Mars Exploration Rover Driver, and is a Software Engineer at NASA JPL. As a 16-year-old watching the first Rover landing on Mars, she said: “I saw just how far robotics could take us and I was inspired to pursue my interests in computer science and engineering.” Justice graduated from Harvey Mudd College with a B.S. in computer science in 2009 and an M.S. from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 2011, having also interned at three different NASA centers, and working in a variety of research areas including computer vision, mobile robot path planning, and spacecraft flight rule validation.

Sue Keay COO Sue Keay is the Chief Operating Officer of the ACRV and in 2018 launched Australia’s first National Robotics Roadmap at Parliament House. A university medallist and Jaeger scholar, Sue has more than 20 years experience in the research sector, managing and ensuring impact from multidisciplinary R&D programs and teams. She has a PhD in Earth Sciences from the Australian National University and was an ARC post-doctoral fellow at the University of Queensland, before turning to science communication, research management, research commercialisation, and IP management. Keay is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and Chairs the IP and Commercialisation Committee for the Board of the CRC for Optimising Resource Extraction. In 2017, Keay was also named one of the first Superstars of STEM by Science & Technology Australia.

Erin Kennedy Founder Erin Kennedy is a robot maker and the founder of Robot Missions, an organization that empowers communities to embark on missions aimed at helping our planet using robots. She designed and developed a robot to collect shoreline debris, replicable anywhere with a 3D printer. Kennedy studied digital fabrication at the Fab Academy, and worked with a global team at MIT on a forty-eight-hour challenge during Fab11 to build a fully functional submarine. A former fellow in social innovation and systems thinking at the MaRS Discovery District’s Studio Y, Kennedy has been recognized as a finalist in the Lieutenant Governor’s Visionaries Prize (Ontario), and her previous robotic work has been featured in Forbes, Wired, and IEEE Spectrum, and on the Discovery Channel.

Kathrine Kuchenbecker Director at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems / Associate Professor Katherine J. Kuchenbecker is Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, on leave from the Department of Computer and Information Science at UPenn. Kuchenbecker received her PhD degree in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 2006. She received the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Academic Early Career Award, NSF CAREER Award, and Best Haptic Technology Paper at the IEEE World Haptics Conference. Her keynote at RSS 2018 is online. Kuchenbecker’s research expertise is in the design and control of robotic systems that enable a user to touch virtual objects and distant environments as though they were real and within reach, uncovering new opportunities for its use in interactions between humans, computers, and machines.

Jasmine Lawrence Technical Program Manager – Facebook Jasmine Lawrence currently serves as a Technical Program Manager on the Building 8 team at Facebook, a research lab to develop hardware projects in the style of DARPA. Previously, she served as a Technical Program Manager at SoftBank Robotics where she lead a multidisciplinary team to create software for social, humanoid robots. Before that she was a Program Manager at Microsoft on the HoloLens Experience team and the Xbox Engineering team. Lawrence earned her B.S. in Computer Science, from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and her M.S. in Human Centered Design & Engineering from U of Washington. At the age of 13, after attending a NFTE BizCamp, Jasmine founded EDEN BodyWorks to meet her own need for affordable natural hair and body care products. After almost 14 years in business her products are available at Target, Wal-Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Amazon.com , Kroger, HEB, and Sally Beauty Supply stores just to name a few.

Jade Le Maître CTO & CoFounder – Hease Robotics Jade Le Maître spearheads the technical side of Hease Robotics, a robot catered to the retail industry and customer service. With a background in engineering and having conducted a research project about human-robot interaction, Le Maître found her passion in working in the science communication sector. Since then she has cofounded Hease Robotics to bring the robotics experience to the consumer.

Laura Margheri Programme Manager and Knowledge Transfer Fellow – Imperial College London Laura Margheri develops the scientific program and manages the research projects at the Aerial Robotics Laboratory at the Imperial College London, managing international and multidisciplinary partnerships. Before joining Imperial College, she was project manager and post doc fellow at the BioRobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. Margheri has an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering (with Honours) and the PhD in BioRobotics (with Honours). She is also member of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Soft Robotics and of the euRobotics Topic Group on Aerial Robotics, with interdisciplinary expertise in bio-inspired robotics, soft robotics, and aerial robotics. Since the beginning of 2014 she is the Chair of the Women In Engineering (WIE) Committee of the Robotics & Automation Society.

Brenda Mboya Undergraduate Student – Ashesi University Ghana Brenda Mboya is just finishing a B.S. in Computer Science at Ashesi University in Ghana. A technology enthusiast who enjoys working with young people, she also volunteers in VR at Ashesi University, with Future of Africa, Tech Era, and as a coach with the Ashesi Innovation Experience (AIX). Mboya was a Norman Foster Fellows in 2017, one of 10 scholars chosen from around the world to attend a one week robotics atelier in Madrid. “Through this conference, the great potential robotics has, especially in Africa, been reaffirmed in my mind.” said Mboya.

Katja Mombaur Professor at the Institute of Computer Engineering (ZITI) – Heidelberg University Katja Mombaur is coordinator of the newly founded Heidelberg Center for Motion Research and full professor at the Institute of Computer Engineering (ZITI), where she is head of the Optimization in Robotics & Biomechanics (ORB) group and the Robotics Lab. She holds a diploma degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Stuttgart and a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from Heidelberg University. Mombaur is PI in the European H2020 project SPEXOR. She coordinated the EU project KoroiBot and was PI in MOBOT and ECHORD–GOP, and founding chair of the IEEE RAS technical committee on Model-based optimization for robotics. Her research focuses on the interactions of humans with exoskeletons, prostheses, and external physical devices.

Devi Murthy CEO – Kamal Kisan Devi Murthy has a Bachelors degree in Engineering from Drexel University, USA and a Masters in Entrepreneurship from IIM, Bangalore. She has over 6 years of experience in Product Development & Business Development at Kamal Bells, a sheet metal fabrications and components manufacturing company. In 2013 she founded Kamal Kisan, a for-profit Social Enterprise that works on improving farmer livelihoods through smart mechanization interventions that help them adopt modern agricultural practices, and cultivate high value crops while reducing inputs costs to make them more profitable and sustainable.

Sarah Osentoski COO – Mayfield Robotics Sarah Osentoski is COO at Mayfield Robotics, who produced Kuri, ‘the adorable home robot’. Previously she was the manager of the Personal Robotics Group at the Bosch Research and Technology Center in Palo Alto, CA. Osentoski is one of the authors of Robot Web Tools. She was also a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University working with Chad Jenkins in the Brown Robotics Laboratory. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, under Sridhar Mahadevan. Her research interests include robotics, shared autonomy, web interfaces for robots, reinforcement learning, and machine learning. Osentoski featured as a 2017 Silicon Valley Biz Journal “Women of Influence”.

Kirsten H. Petersen Assistant Professor – Cornell University Kirstin H. Petersen is Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She is interested in design and coordination of bio-inspired robot collectives and studies of their natural counterparts, especially in relation to construction. Her thesis work on a termite-inspired robot construction team made the cover of Science, and was ranked among the journal’s top ten scientific breakthroughs of 2014. Petersen continued on to a postdoc with Director Metin Sitti at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems 2014-2016, and became a fellow with the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems in 2015. Petersen started the Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab in 2016 as part of the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at Cornell University, and has field memberships in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering.

Kristen Y. Pettersen Professor Department of Engineering Cybernetics – NTNU Kristin Ytterstad Pettersen (1969) is a Professor at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics, and holds a PhD and an MSc in Engineering Cybernetics from NTNU. She is also a Key Scientist at the Center of Excellence: Autonomous marine operations and systems (NTNU AMOS) and an Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). Her research interests include nonlinear control theory and motion control, in particular for marine vessels, AUVs, robot manipulators, and snake robots. She is also Co-Founder and Board Member of Eelume AS, a company that develops technology for for subsea inspection, maintenance, and repair. In 2017 she received the Outstanding Paper Award from IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, and in 2018 she was appointed Member of the Academy of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.

Veronica Santos Assoc. Prof. of UCLA Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering / Principal Investigator – Director of the UCLA Biomechatronics Laboratory Veronica J. Santos is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department at UCLA, and Director of the UCLA Biomechatronics Lab. She is one of 16 individuals selected for the Defense Science Study Group (DSSG), a two year opportunity for emerging scientific leaders to participate in dialogues related to US security challenges. She received her B.S. from UC Berkeley in 1999 and her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mech. Eng. with a biometry minor from Cornell University in 2007. Santos was a postdoctoral research associate at the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering at USC where she worked on a team to develop a novel biomimetic tactile sensor for prosthetic hands. She then directed the ASU Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program and ASU Biomechatronics Lab. Santos has received many honors and awards for both research and teaching.

Casey Schulz Systems Engineer – Omron Adept Casey Schulz is a Systems Engineer at Omron Adept Technologies (OAT). She currently leads the engineering and design verification testing for a new mobile robot. Prior to OAT, Schulz worked at several Silicon Valley startups, a biotech consulting firm, and the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Labs.Casey received her M.S in Mech. Eng. from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009 for NSF funded research in biologically inspired mobile robotics. She received her B.S from Santa Clara University in 2008 by building a proof-of-concept urban search and rescue mobile robot. Her focus is the development of new robotics technologies to better society.

Kavitha Velusamy Senior Director Computer Vision – BossaNova Robotics Kavita Velusamy is the Senior Director of Computer Vision at BossaNova Robotics, where she builds robot vision applications. Previously, she was a Senior Manager at NVIDA, where she managed a global team responsible for delivering computer vision and deep learning software for self-driving vehicles. Prior to this, she was Senior Manager at Amazon, where she wrote the “far field” white paper that defined the device side of Amazon Echo, its vision, its architecture and its price points, and got approval from Jeff Bezos to build a team and lead Amazon Echo’s technology from concept to product. She holds a PhD in Signal Processing/Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science.

Martha Wells Author Martha Wells is a New York Times bestselling author of sci-fi and speculative fiction. Her Hugo award-winning series, The Murderbot Diaries, is about a self-aware security robot that hacks its “governor module”. Known for her world-building narratives, and detailed descriptions of fictional societies, Wells brings an academic grounding in anthropology to her fantasy writing. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Texas A&M University, and is the winner of over a dozen awards and nominations for fiction, including a Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and Locus Award.

Andie Zhang Global Product Manager – ABB Collaborative Robotics Andie Zhang is Global Product Manager of Robotics at ABB, where she has full global ownership of a portfolio of industrial robot products, develops strategy for the company’s product portfolio, and drives product branding. Zhang’s previous experience includes 10+ years working for world leading companies in Supply Chain, Quality, Marketing and Sales Management. She holds a Masters in Engineering from KTH in Stockholm. Her focus is on collaborative applications for robots and user centered interface design.

Join more than 700 women in our global online community https://womeninrobotics.org and find or host your own Women in Robotics event locally! Women In Robotics is a grassroots not-for-profit organization supported by Robohub and Silicon Valley Robotics.

And don’t forget to browse previous year’s lists, add all these women to wikipedia (let’s have a Wikipedia Hackathon!), or nominate someone for inclusion next year!

To explore these issues, former Robohub Editor Hallie Siegel and Open Roboethics Institute (ORi) Co-founder and Director AJung Moon invited researchers, policymakers, and industry members who have played a significant role in launching and shaping major strategic robotics initiatives in their regions to participate in an IROS 2017 workshop “Best practices in designing effective roadmaps for robotics innovation” to see what is working, what is not, and to uncover what best practices in roadmap development (if any) might be broadly applied to other regions.

Specifically, the workshop sought to examine the process of how these policy frameworks came to be created in the first place, how they have been tailored to local capabilities and strengths, and what performance indicators are being used to measure their success — so that participants could draw from international collective experience as they design and evaluate strategic robotics initiatives for their own regions.
The highlight of the workshop was a pair of panel discussions moderated by robotics ecosystem expert Andra Keay, Managing Director of the robotics industry cluster association Silicon Valley Robotics.
The first panel — featuring Peter Corke (QUT, Australia), Kyung-Hoon Kim (Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE), South Korea), Rainer Bischoff (euRobotics AISBL, EU), Dario Floreano (NCCR Robotics, EPFL, Switzerland), Sue Keay (Queensland University of Technology, Australia), and Raj Madhavan (Humanitarian Robotics Technologies,LLC, USA) — was an in-depth discussion of regional differences in roadmap motivation, leadership, and strategy design from the perspectives of government, industry and academia.
The second panel — featuring Raja Chatila (IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations
in Artificial Intelligence & Autonomous Systems), AJung Moon (Open Roboethics Institute),
Alex Shikany (Robotic Industries Association), and Sabine Hauert (Robohub.org) — covered the ways in which issues such as roboethics, public perception and the fear of job loss due to automation are influencing robotics policy in different regions around the globe.

Lenka Pitonakova was part of the audience and provides her impressions below.

State-of-the-art in different countries

The workshop started with presentations on the process of designing roadmaps for robotics research and development. Individual speakers discussed best practises and problems encountered in their respective countries.

Dr. Rainer Bischoff (euRobotics, EU)

Robotics research is in a very mature stage in the EU. A network of robotics researchers and companies closely cooperate on issues such as using robots in healthcare, logistics, as well as for maintenance and inspection of infrastructure. The partnership between the European Commission, and European industry and academia is called SPARC. Decisions about relevant research areas to fund in the European Commission’s H2020 programme are made in a bottom-up fashion – meaning stakeholders get to influence priority areas for funding. This is done through topic groups in robotics established throughout the EU, which help shape the Robotics Multi-annual Roadmap which in turn shapes the work programme of the European Commission. Public outreach is also very important in the EU. Not only are all funding decisions openly available to the public, researchers are encouraged to perform outreach activities.

Dr. Dario Floreano (NCCR Robotics and EPFL, Switzerland)


One main source of funding in Switzerland currently comes from the NCCR scheme, which is a 12-year programme that started in 2010 and has four target areas: research, technology transfer (especially when it comes to creating start-ups), education and outreach. A part of this programme is also structural change in the research institutions of Switzerland. Since 2010, new robotics centres have been created and many new professors have been appointed. Switzerland takes a very pro-active approach to applied research, and technology transfer is as important for them as research itself. The most important areas of interest include wearable robots, mobile robots for search and rescue, human-robot interaction and teleoperation, as well as educational robots that can teach computational thinking.

Dr. Sue Keay (Australian Centre for Robotic Vision, Australia)


Australia is currently behind the Western countries when it comes to automation. This is mostly because there is no overreaching body that could unify different research groups and provide substantial research funding. A plan towards creating a centralised institution to support research is currently being formed and efforts are underway to persuade the government about the importance of investing into robotics. To this end, the ICRA 2018 conference, which will take place in Brisbane, Australia, is an important event for the Australian robotics community. Among the focus areas for future research, mining, manufacturing, defence and healthcare have been identified as the most important.

Dr. Kyung-Hoon Kim (Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, South Korea)

The government of South Korea has controlled the robotics research focus via the Intelligent Robots Development and Promotion Act since 2008. Every five years, the roadmap for research is re-visited by government experts and new funding areas are identified. The areas of interest include machine learning and big data analysis, human-robot collaboration, development of hardware parts and software platforms, as well as application of robotics in smart factories.

Dr. Raj Madhavan (Humanitarian Robotics Technologies, USA and India)

Researchers in India currently do not get much support from the government when it comes to robotics research, although some work on a research roadmap for robotics started in early 2017. However, the lack of government support is not the only problem that India faces. There also seems to be a lack of interest and commitment from individual researchers to unite their efforts and collaborate on a national level.

Research roadmaps and funding

In a panel discussion that followed the presentations, the following stakeholders in research and innovation were identified:

• Governments: Provide investment money and shape regulations
• Academia: Provides the foresight into new technologies
• Industry: Creates the need for research and applies it.

A crucial factor that influences the interest from government and industry was idenfied: The ability of researchers to provide estimates about the economic impact of their work. Especially in the EU, robotics started growing as a research field when industry became more involved in funding and roadmap creation.

Secondly, it was mentioned that engaging the government and the public is also very important. Because of the ability of government regulations to stop technology from being developed and used, politicians should be engaged with new ideas and with how they will shape the society. On the other hand, end-users, i.e., the public, also need to understand the impact of new technology on their lives, both to encourage the use of new technology and to mitigate fears of its negative impacts. However, engaging all stakeholders and making research and development relevant to all of them is often very difficult because of differences in opinions and long-term goals.

Challenges for adoption of robotics technologies

The second panel discussion focused on challenges for adoption of robotic technologies.

Public acceptance and uncertainty about the impact of technology on well-being of people and society as a whole, as well as the fear of loosing control of autonomous systems, were identified as the most important topics to address. To mitigate these fears, it is useful to provide the public with statistics on how technology impacted jobs in the recent past, as well as to provide well-informed projections for the near future.

It is crucial for scientists to be trained in and to apply best practice in Public communication, especially as the commentary on new technology often comes from the media, where non-experts (consciously or not) misinform the public about the impacts and capabilities of new technology.

Ada Lovelace Day on October 10 2017 is a day to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and there was no shortage of women to feature on Robohub’s annual Ada Lovelace Day “25 women in robotics you need to know about” list. (If you don’t see someone you expected then they’ll probably be on next year’s list, or on our first four lists from 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 – please read them too!)

This year we are featuring women from all over the world, including early stage entrepreneurs, seasoned business women, investors, inventors, makers, educators, and organizers; we also feature early career researchers, established academics, senior scientists and politicians. The unifying characteristic of all these women is their inspirational story, their enthusiasm, their fearlessness, their vision, ambition, and accomplishments. Every year we’re inspired and hope that you are too.

It’s been a roller coaster year of tough headlines for tech diversity … In February, engineer Susan Fowler wrote a blog post “Reflecting on one very, very strange year at Uber. For some it was a wake-up call to the sexual harassment in tech culture, and for others it was just a public confirmation of what was already well-known. A series of high-profile mea culpa’s from male investors and CEOs ensued; then James Damore was fired from Google after implying that biological differences — not sexism — lie behind the gender gap.

It seems negative, but the publicity around bias, harassment and lack of diversity does provide public vindication for women like Susan Fowler, Tracy Chou, Erica Joy Baker and Ellen Pao who took stands against sexism and suffered for it. We’re now starting to see some positive outcomes. For example, Ellen Pao has just released a book, Reset, about her experience suing a prominent venture capital firm for bias and says, “My lawsuit failed. Others won’t.”

This year, Ellen Pao, Tracy Chou, Erica Joy Baker joined other women fighting against sexism and racism in the tech industry by starting Project Include, a non-profit that uses data and advocacy to accelerate diversity and inclusion solutions in the tech industry. Tracy Chou was also named as one of MIT Tech review’s Innovators under 35 alongside some 25 Women in Robotics alumni – Angela Schoellig [2013] and Anca Draga [2016].

Women in robotics still face challenges, even danger, such as Stella Uzochukwu-Denis and her fearless female robotics students face from Boko Haram extremists. And we all face the relentless lack of diversity and general apathy about the gender gap in our daily workplaces.

And yet robotics itself faces huge challenges. We are a very small segment of the very rich tech industry and robotics startups struggle to attract great talent. We have an opportunity to improve our diversity hiring practices to gain more recruits as well as increasing our internal innovation capacity, something that Linda Pouliot of Dishcraft writes about with elegance. As Pouliot notes, if you’re a robotics startup looking to hire, your personal network is your biggest asset — yet another reason for women in robotics to know about each other and to network, like with the Women in Robotics organization.

Speaking of networks, we’re biased towards the countries and careers that we know well. It’s a challenge to provide a representative sample of the wide range of jobs around the world that women are doing in robotics. Perhaps you can help us for next time with more nominations from other regions? Email nominations@womeninrobotics.org with suggestions.

Without further ado, here are 25 women in robotics you should know about (in alphabetical order) for 2017. Enjoy!

Muyinatu Bell Assistant Professor at Johns HopkinsMuyinatu A. Lediju Bell is the director of the Photoacoustic and Ultrasonic Systems Engineering (PULSE) Lab, a highly interdisciplinary research program to engineer and deploy innovative biomedical imaging systems that address unmet clinical needs in neurosurgical navigation, cardiovascular disease, women’s health, cancer detection and treatment.  Before Johns Hopkins, she obtained a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and spent a year abroad at the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital in the UK. Dr Bell is also the recipient of the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award and was named one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35.

Jeanette Bohg Assistant Professor at Stanford and Guest Researcher at Max Planck Institute for Intelligent SystemsJeannette Bohg is an Assistant Professor in Computer Science at Stanford and Guest Researcher at the Autonomous Motion Department of MPI. Her research focuses on perception for autonomous robotic manipulation and grasping, and she is specifically interested in developing methods that are goal-directed, real-time and multi-modal such that they can provide meaningful feedback for execution and learning. Before joining the Autonomous Motion lab in January 2012, she was a PhD student at the Computer Vision and Active Perception lab (CVAP) at KTH in Stockholm. Her thesis on Multi-modal scene understanding for Robotic Grasping was performed under the supervision of Prof. Danica Kragic. She studied at Chalmers in Gothenburg and at the Technical University in Dresden where she received her Master in Art and Technology and her Diploma in Computer Science, respectively.

Maria Chiara Carozza Professor of Biorobotics at Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (SSSUP)After graduating in Physics at the university of Pisa and obtaining a PhD in Engineering, Maria Chiara Carozza became Professor of Biorobotics. She was Director of the Research Department, Coordinator of the SSSUP Laboratory ARTS and elected Rector of SSSUP in 2007. As well as being involved in many EU and multinational projects such as CYBERLEGS, ROBOCASA, WAY, CogLaboration, Nanobiotouch, Evryon, SmartHand, Neurobotics, RobotCub and CyberHand, she is also active in politics. She was Minister of Education, University and Research in the Letta Government developing a national research program and remains active in Italian Parliament. Recipient of many awards, Dr Carozza has published more than 80 ISI publications,130 papers, holds 15 patents and is active in international conferences and professional societies. Her primary interest remain improving conditions for all in society through bioengineering, HRI, humanoid robotics, intelligent environments, prosthetics, tactile sensors and artificial skin.

Helen Chan Wolf Original Shakey Team at SRI InternationalHelen Chan Wolf joined the SRI AI Group in 1966 and worked on Shakey the world’s first mobile autonomous robot. In 2017 Shakey was honored by an IEEE Milestone. Shakey was the first robot to embody artificial intelligence, to perceive its surroundings, deduce facts, make a plan to achieve a goal, navigate from place to place, monitor execution of the plan, and improve through learning. Wolf’s job was to work with the images and extract coordinates for Shakey. Her research papers included scene analysis, image matching and map guided interpretation of remotely sensed images. She was also one of the pioneers of automated facial recognition.

Neha Chaudhry Founder of Walk to Beat / Bristol Robotics Lab IncubatorAfter studying a Masters Degree in Marketing at UWE Bristol, Product Design Engineer Neha Chaudhry went on to develop award winning Walk to Beat. Inspired by her late grandad who suffered from Parkinson’s for 8 years, her product is a robotic walking stick with an innovative technology that gives out pulses in the handle – it’s discreet and looks good, so people feel empowered instead of disabled. She has won five prizes for her work including three awards for entrepreneurship, and the Entrepreneurship award – European Robotics Forum.

Sonia Chernova Assistant Professor at the School of Interactive Computing, Georgia TechSonia Chernova is the Catherine M. and James E. Allchin Early-Career Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. She received her Ph.D. and B.S. degrees in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and held positions as a Postdoctoral Associate at the MIT Media Lab and as Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute prior to joining Georgia Tech. She directs the Robot Autonomy and Interactive Learning (RAIL) lab, working on developing robots that are able to effectively operate in human environments. Her research interests span robotics and artificial intelligence, including semantic reasoning, adjustable autonomy, human computation and cloud robotics.

Maartje De Graaf Postdoctoral Research Associate Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown UniversityMaartje De Graaf joined Brown’s Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative in 2017 with a Rubicon grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to investigate the underlying psychological and cognitive processes of how people explain robot behaviors, and whether and how these processes differentiate from how people explain human behaviors. Before starting at Brown University, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication Science, University of Twente, The Netherlands. She has a Bachelor of Business Administration in Communication Management, a Master of Science in Communication Studies and a PhD in Human-Robot Interaction.

Kay Firth-Butterfield Project Head for AI and Machine Learning at World Economic Forum / Executive Committee Vice-Chair for IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems / CoFounder of AI Austin Kay Firth-Butterfield is a Barrister and Judge who works on the societal impact of AI and robotics. She is also a Distinguished Scholar of the Robert E Strauss Center at the University of Texas, where she cofounded the Consortium for Law and Policy of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. She is the former Chief Officer of the Lucid.ai Ethics Advisory Panel and Vice-Chair of The IEEE Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in AI and Autonomous Systems. Additionally, she is a Partner in the Cognitive Finance group and an adjunct Professor of Law. She advises governments, think tanks, businesses, inter-governmental bodies and non-profits about artificial intelligence, law and policy.

Gabby Frierson aka RoboGabby Student at Cane Bay Middle SchoolGabby is a young middle schooler who posts about building and programming robots as “RoboGabby”. Her goal is to attract more young girls, like herself, to exploring STEM. Gabby shares tutorials on VEX IQ, ROBOTC, Robot Virtual Worlds, Python, Java and is currently shooting some new tutorials. Her sheros are Katherine Johnson and Ayanna Howard who have proved that all girls of color, or just girls in general can be into STEM, robotics and more.

Frances Gabe VALE: 1915-2016 Inventor and roboticistFrances Gabe was a renowned inventor, and a woman ahead of her time. Daughter of a builder, she was happier on the building site than in school “which moved too slow for me”. As an adult she took issue with housework. “Housework is a thankless, unending job,” she told The Ottawa Citizen in 1996. “It’s a nerve-twangling bore. Who wants it? Nobody!” Touring the US speaking to women’s groups, she self funded, and over 15 years, built her prototype house, where she lived for most of her life. She patented 68 different inventions, perhaps most cleverly her insitu dishwashing drawer and clothes laundering cupboards. But by the time she died in Dec 2016 aged 101, few people remembered her passion for automating ‘women’s work’, let alone celebrated her as the world’s first self taught female roboticist.

Simone Giertz aka Queen of Shitty Robots Inventor, Youtuber and DIY Astronaut Simone Giertz started building robots as a child, however it wasn’t the career she had planned, which ranged from studying physics in Stockholm, to being an MMA sports journalist and working on Sweden’s website. She started a youtube channel for her comedy sketches and ended up showing off her ‘shitty robots’ and blowing up the internet. In an interview with Paper she describes how she got tired of being too serious and started to enjoy everything that she did. Now Simone is in San Francisco as a part time host of Tested and continuing her own Youtube. You can support her on Patreon.

Suzanne Gildert CoFounder & CSO of Kindred.AISuzanne Gildert is co-founder and CSO of Kindred AI building personal robots that use machine learning to recognize patterns and make decisions. She oversees the design and engineering of the company’s human-like robots and is responsible for the development of cognitive architectures that allow these robots to learn about themselves and their environments. Before founding Kindred, Suzanne worked as a physicist at D-Wave, designing and building superconducting quantum processors, and as a researcher in quantum artificial intelligence software applications. She received her PhD in experimental physics from the University of Birmingham and likes science outreach, retro tech art, coffee, cats, electronic music and extreme lifelogging. She is a published author of a book of art and poetry.

Raia Hadsell Research Scientist at Google DeepMindRaia Hadsell joined DeepMind in London in early 2014, to extend her research interests in robotics, neural networks, and real world learning systems. After an undergraduate degree in religion and philosophy from Reed College, Raia did a computer science PhD with Yann LeCun, at NYU, focused on machine learning using Siamese neural nets (often called a ‘triplet loss’ today) and on deep learning for mobile robots in the wild. Her thesis, ‘Learning Long-range vision for offroad robots’, was awarded the Outstanding Dissertation award in 2009. She spent a post-doc at CMU Robotics Institute, working with Drew Bagnell and Martial Hebert, and then became a research scientist at SRI International, at the Vision and Robotics group in Princeton, NJ. Her current work focuses on a number of fundamental challenges in AGI, including continual and transfer learning, deep reinforcement learning, and neural models of navigation.

Sarah Hensley MIT EECS Angle Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scholar at MIT & NASASarah Hensley is in the SuperUROP program at MIT which combines her undergraduate and masters EE studies with “real world research” at the Jet Propulsion Lab and the DARPA Robotics Challenge. Sarah is continuing to work on evaluating the force and torque control capabilities of Valkyrie’s series elastic actuators, in readiness for space-related tasks such as opening airlock hatches, attaching and removing power cables, repairing equipment, and retrieving samples.

Anjali Jaiprakash Advance QLD Research Fellow, Australian Center for Robotic Vision QUTAnjali Jaiprakash is a life sciences researcher who embraces novel technologies to solve medical challenges. She has experience in the fields of medical robotics, medical devices, orthopaedics, trauman, bone and cartilage biology, with research in hospital and clinical settings. Anjali is the core scientist for 2 research teams; Developing vision and control systems for robotic knee arthroscopy; and Developing a universal retinal diagnostic system. She was also a finalist for Imperial College London’s 2016 Best Project Award and recipient of the 2017 Tall Poppy Science Award from the Australian Institute of Policy and Science.

Leslie P Kaelbling Panasonic Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Research Director of CSAIL at MITLeslie Kaelbling has previously held positions at Brown University, the Artificial Intelligence Center of SRI International, and at Teleos Research. She received an A. B. in Philosophy in 1983 and a Ph. D. in Computer Science in 1990, both from Stanford University. Prof. Kaelbling has done substantial research on designing situated agents, mobile robotics, reinforcement learning, and decision-theoretic planning. In 2000, she founded the Journal of Machine Learning Research where she currently serves as editor-in-chief. Prof. Kaelbling is an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow, a former member of the AAAI Executive Council, the 1997 recipient of the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award, a trustee of IJCAII and a fellow of the AAAI.

Valery Komissarova Hardware VC at Grishin RoboticsValery Komissarova is a robotics investor with Grishin Robotics. Prior to that, she oversaw the internal and external relations at the internet company Mail.Ru Group, which is the biggest player in Eastern Europe, for 4 years, navigating the company’s communication policy through numerous M&As and IPOs as well as fast growth from 300 employees to 3,000. She has an extensive technological background in software engineering and systems architecture and has written books and articles about topics ranging from developing drivers to information security. Valery studied international business and management at Bournemouth University, and she also has a diploma from the Chartered Institute of Public Relations and Certificate in IR of the Investor Relations Society UK.

Sharon (Soon Bok) Lee CEO of Robot of the FutureThe first product from Korean startup Robot Of The Future is Windowmate – a robot windowcleaner. CEO Sharon (Soon Bok) Lee founded the company in mid 2014, developed the IP and prototypes and was selected by the Korean Govt for a Silicon Valley Startup Program. Since then, Sharon has been rolling out a global sales campaign starting with Japan and then moving to Europe, with use cases being both residential for high density apartment living and commercial. Sharon brings lengthy experience as a technology manager and CEO to Robot of the Future and was awarded the 2015 VIP ASIA Award for CEOs.

​

Wanxi Liu Systems Analyst at Intuitive Surgical and Robotics BloggerWanxi Liu graduated from Stanford as a Mechanical Engineering master in June, 2015, and is currently working at Intuitive Surgical as Systems Analyst (Control/Robotics Engineer). She did her undergraduate in Optical Engineering, but her strong interests in personal assistance or service robots and medical robots lead her to developing robotic simulations, haptics applictions, and mechatronic system design. She also write regular robotics blogs. “For those of you who are interested in robotics, read Chinese, and use WeChat – search for official account ROBOTICS and you’ll find all the interesting articles I wrote about various aspects of robots. Hit Follow if you like them!”

Linda Pouliot CoFounder of Neato & Dishcraft RoboticsLinda Pouliot is a serial entrepreneur with deep expertise in robotics, product management, operations and manufacturing. In 2004 she co-founded Neato Robotics and was VP Product Management and Operations, leading the design, development and manufacturing of Neato’s laser guided vacuum cleaner. The company is now the number two player globally in consumer robotic vacuums. After Neato, Linda became the Chief Operating Officer of Adiri (acquired by ReliaBrand), where she oversaw the redesign and manufacturing of the international award winning Adiri bottle. She then co-founded the game advertising platform Mahoot. Linda is currently the Founder/CEO of Dishcraft Robotics.

Julie Schoenfeld Founder & CEO of StrobeJulie Schoenfeld is a serial entrepreneur, and Founder and CEO of Stobe Inc., a technology company that develops laser-imaging for self-driving cars. Recently acquired by GM for an undisclosed amount, Strobe will be folded into GM’s self-driving subsidiary Cruise Automation. Schoenfeld has been CEO of four other companies in her career and is adept at raising venture capital and navigating aquisitions. Her first company, Net Effect, was acquired by Ask Jeeves for $288 million in stock. More recently she helped Perfect Market navigate its aquisition by Taboola.

Catherine Simon President and Founder of Innorobo / InnoEchoCatherine Simon is the President and Founder of Innorobo, one of Europe’s key events dedicated to the service robotics sector, which brings together robotics companies, laboratories, start-ups, inventors, SMEs and funding providers in order to drive innovation. She also founded InnoEcho, a business strategy consultancy for the new technologies sector. Innorobo began as a regional show in Lyon, France, and recently moved to Paris to reflect its recent growth; the 2017 Innorobo event ran over three days and attracted 170 exhibitors and over 7K visitors.

Raquel Urtasun Assistant Professor at University of Toronto, Head of Uber ATG, Co-Founder of Vector Institute for AIRaquel Urtasun is the Head of Uber ATG Toronto. She is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, a Canada Research Chair in Machine Learning and Computer Vision and a co-founder of the Vector Institute for AI. She is a world leading expert in machine perception for self-driving cars, and her research interests include machine learning, computer vision, robotics and remote sensing.

Stella Uzochukwu-Denis Program Coordinator at Odyssey Educational FoundationStella Uzochukwu-Denis is an electrical engineer and the founder of The Odyssey Educational Foundation, a Nigerian NGO that provides STEM education and robotics experiences to school children in Abuja – a region of Nigeria where militant attacks have kept hundreds of thousands of children out of school in recent years. The foundation’s main goal is to encourage children, and girls in particular, to pursue careers in science and technology. The foundation has trained well over 450 school age girls since its launch in 2013. “My utlimate goal is to ensure that kids become college-ready, career-ready and world-ready.”

Aimee van Wynsberghe Co-Founder of Foundation for Responsible Robotics, Assistant Professor at Delft University of TechnologyAimee van Wynsberghe is assistant professor of ethics and technology at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. She is co-founder and president of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics. She is also a member of the 4TU center for ethics and technology where she heads the robotics task force. With the help of an NWO personal research grant she is researching how we can responsibly design service robots. Her past research looked at evaluating and designing care robots.

Do you have a story to tell about how visibility helped your robotics career? Would you like to nominate someone for next year’s list? Do you want to help organize Women in Robotics events or join the Women in Robotics network? We’d love to hear from you. Know of any great women in robotics who should be on this list next year? Check the lists from our previous years (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016), and feel free to leave your nominations in the comments section below, or email us at nominations [at] womeninrobotics.org.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2013)
• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2014)
• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2015)
• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2016)
• How to hire women from Silicon Valley Robotics
• Five women robotics experts from Silicon Valley share their stories
• Steffi Paepcke on Robots, women and design: Opportunities abound

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Join us at the 2017 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2017) for a full day workshop that will bring together international stakeholders in robotics to examine best practices for accelerating robotics innovation through strategic policy frameworks.

Best practices in designing effective roadmaps for robotics innovation

IROS Workshop | 8:30-17:00 September 28, 2017 | Vancouver Convention Centre | Vancouver BC

This is a unique opportunity to learn from people who have played a significant role in designing and implementing major strategic robotics initiatives around the globe.

Objectives
In the past decade, a number of governing bodies and industry consortia have developed strategic roadmaps to guide investment and development of robotic technology. With the roadmaps from the US, South Korea, Japan and EU etc. well underway, the time is right to take stock of these strategic robotics initiatives to see what is working, what is not, and what best practices in roadmap development might be broadly applied to other regions.

The objective of this two-part workshop is to examine the process of how these policy frameworks came to be created in the first place, how they have been tailored to local capabilities and strengths, and what performance indicators are being used to measure their success — so that participants may draw from international collective experience as they design and evaluate strategic robotics initiatives for their own regions.

Program Part ONE — Morning Session: “Developing innovation policy for robotics, and establishing key performance indicators that are relevant to your region”
The morning session will feature international speakers who have played a significant role in launching and shaping major strategic robotics initiatives across the globe. The focus of this session will be on the history and process of designing the roadmap (rather than on merely presenting the roadmap itself) and key performance indicators of roadmap success. Via presentations and panel discussion, the outcome of this session will be an exploratory overview of best practices and key performance metrics, so that participants can apply knowledge gained from the workshop as they design strategic robotics policy frameworks for their own regional or national contexts.

Program Part TWO — Afternoon Session: “Towards a national robotics strategy for Canada”
The afternoon session will bring together leading Canadian robotics experts from academia, industry, federal/provincial policy, and the national research council to discuss and strategize the future of robotics in Canada, with an emphasis on addressing the social, economic, legal/ethical and regulatory issues, and the robotics strengths and capabilities specific to this country. The main goals of this session will be to 1) establish a clear picture of the internal Canadian robotics landscape and how it compares to other nations worldwide, 2) discuss lessons learned in the International session within the Canadian context, and 3) discuss and identify gaps and opportunities for a Canadian initiative. Ultimately the Canadian session will serve as a venue for collecting data and viewpoints to support the development of a Canadian Robotics Roadmap.

Who should attend
This workshop is open to all members of academia, government, and industry with an interest in funding, policy and research strategy.

Part One of the workshop (morning session) will be broadly applicable to anyone with an interest in robotics policy, partnerships and funding.

Part Two (afternoon session) will be of particular interest to Canadian conference-goers as well as those who are interested in Canadian research and industry partnerships.

Call for participation
We are actively seeking participants for this workshop. If you are …

… involved in developing or evaluating a major strategic robotics initiative in your region and would like to participate in our international discussion, OR …

… are a member of the Canadian robotics ecosystem or are a Canadian roboticist living abroad who would like to be involved in a national robotics strategy for Canada …

… then please send an email with your expression of interest to: info@canadianroboticsnetwork.com. We look forward to hearing from you!!

Workshop Organizers

• Elizabeth Croft, Director, Collaborative Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems (CARIS) Lab, UBC
• Clément Gosselin, Professor, Laboratoire de Robotique, Université Laval
• Paul Johnston, Research Policy Consultant, former President of Precarn Incorporated
• Dana Kulić, Associate Professor, Adaptive Systems Laboratory, University of Waterloo
• AJung Moon, Co-Founder & Director, Open Roboethics Institute
• Angela Schoellig, Assistant Professor, Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), University of Toronto
• Hallie Siegel, Strategic Foresight & Innovation @ OCAD U, former Managing Editor @Robohub

Workshop Registration

Registration for IROS workshops is separate from the IROS conference fee. Please see the IROS Website for details: http://www.iros2017.org/registration-travel/registration# 

Early workshop registration deadline: July 22nd.

More Info
http://canadianroboticsnetwork.com/iros-workshop/
http://www.iros2017.org/program/workshops-and-tutorials

Contact
info@canadianroboticsnetwork.com

A new white paper by the Robotics Industries Association (RIA) says that as many as 2 million US manufacturing jobs will go unfilled in the next ten years due to a lack of skilled workers. According to the paper: “80% of manufacturers report a shortage of qualified applicants for skilled production positions, and the shortage could cost US manufacturers 11% of their annual earnings.”

Sought-after skills include: computer vision, algorithm design, robotics, vision systems, motion control, robot design, safety expertise, application developers, human-robot interface design, PLC controls, mechatronics, networking, and integration.

According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Manufacturing Competitiveness Index, manufacturers rank talent as the most critical driver of global manufacturing competitiveness.

“The skills gap is the industry’s number one concern,” said A3 President Jeff Burnstein in an interview, “and it’s threatening the US manufacturing industry’s ability to compete globally.” According to a recent Deloitte study, that skills gap will be exacerbated as 2.7 million boomers retire from the US manufacturing industry over the next ten years.

Countries like China and Japan have already invested heavily in automation to help boost productivity and efficiency as their working age populations retire. In other regions, there is worry about robots taking people’s jobs. A recent economic study suggested that robots may have been responsible for eliminating between 360,000 and 670,000 manufacturing jobs in the US between 1993 and 2007, but Burnstein points out it’s important to look at both sides of the equation. Robots are creating jobs in the US manufacturing industry too, and companies pay well for these jobs because the competition for skilled workers is stiff.

The Deloitte study reported that, because of the skills gap, 600,000 manufacturing jobs went unfilled in 2011 alone.

***

RIA’s white paper was released at Automate, a bi-annual automation conference that recently took place in Chicago.

Download the RIA white paper here.

Editor’s note:

In celebration of International Women’s Day, we’re reposting our latest ‘25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About‘ list. Over the last four years, Robohub has featured 100 inspiring women leading future developments within robotics, with plenty more for the years to come!

Our next edition will be released on Ada Lovelace Day.

In celebration of Ada Lovelace Day, we’ve compiled our fourth annual ‘25 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About‘ list. That’s 100 women who have been featured to date. We’re showcasing women working in research, development, and commercialization of robotics. The role models are diverse, ranging from emeritus to early career stage. Even though the total number of women in robotics is still relatively small, we’re celebrating that women are leading the way within this field.

Role models are important. Countess Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer and an extraordinary mathematician, faced an uphill battle in the days when women were not encouraged to pursue a career in science. Fast forward 200 years, there are still not enough women in science, technology, engineering or math (STEM). One key reason is clear: a severe lack of visible female role models. Women in STEM need to be equally represented at conferences, keynotes, magazine covers, or stories about technology. Although this is starting to change, it’s not happening quick enough.

To address that challenge, Suw Charman-Anderson started Ada Lovelace Day in 2009 in response to the lack of visibility of women in STEM (not the lack of women). It’s an international day celebrating the achievements of women in STEM. Everyone is encouraged to add an event or a story to the Finding Ada site.

A recent study from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford found that visibility was the missing factor preventing women from moving into leadership positions within their organization. This has a cumulative effect on career progression and earnings. These findings support an earlier study with the Anita Borg Institute, who interviewed 1800 women in technology companies. According to the authors, women reported being less likely than male counterparts to be assigned to high visibility projects, which in turn, has a negative impact on their chances for future promotions.

We’d like to think that this annual list is opening eyes from within the robotics community, and beyond. One of our 2015 listees Spring Berman wrote to Robohub and said, “I’m so grateful for the mention in Robohub’s 25 women in robotics!  The president of ASU saw the article about it in our university news, and now he wants to visit our lab in mid-April to see our work. Hopefully we can get together a cool demo to show him!”

Without further ado, here are 25 women in robotics you should know about (in alphabetical order) for 2016. Enjoy!

Nora Ayanian Assistant Professor and Director of the ACT lab at USC Nora Ayanian’s research focuses on creating end-to-end solutions for multirobot coordination, to enable people to use teams of robots. Ayanian is the recipient of the 2016 Okawa Foundation Research Grant and is an MIT Technology Review TR25 Top Innovator.

Catherine Ball Founder & CEO, Remote Research Ranges / Managing Director, Elemental Strategy Catherine Ball won Telstra Queensland Business Woman of Year (2015) for her drone work. She is an environmental scientist, author and now the CEO of an Australian startup working with the application of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) across remote communities, schools, industry, and citizen scientists. Dr. Ball is leading the call for discussions around the ethics of spatial data, aka geo-ethics.

Margarita Chli SNF Assistant Professor at ETHZ, Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh Margarita Chli is an SNF Assistant Professor leading the Vision for Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich, Switzerland and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh in the UK. Previously, she was a Chancellor’s Fellow and Lecturer at the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, and before that, she was at the Autonomous Systems Lab (ASL) of ETH Zurich, where she held the post of Deputy Director, Senior Researcher and Lecturer. Her research interest is in Computer Vision for Robotics, focusing on real-time perception for micro-aerial vehicles. Over the years, she’s been involved in a number of European projects (AEROWORKS, SHERPA, myCopter,sFly).

Vivian Chu Graduate Research Assistant at Georgia Institute of Technology Vivian Chu is a Graduate Student Research Assistant at Georgia Institute of Technology, studying perception, AI and cognition, and interaction. Chu’s paper on “Using Robotic Exploratory Procedures to Learn the Meaning of Haptic Adjectives” was awarded the Best Cognitive Robotics Paper at ICRA 2013.

Mady Delvaux European Parliament MEP Mady Delvaux (S&D, LU) is a Member of the European Parliament. Alongside an extensive draft report on “Civil Law Rules on Robotics,” Delvaux proposes the creation of a legal framework for automation and ways to promote European industry.

Bernardine Dias Associate Research Professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University M. Bernardine Dias, Ph.D., served as a member of the faculty at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, primarily affiliated with the Field Robotics Center where Dias developed Trader Bots, a robotic task allocation system. Dias is currently founder and CEO of Diyunu Consulting, dedicated to bringing robotics to marginalized populations.

Sanja Dogramadzi Associate Professor / Reader in Robotics at UWE Bristol Sanja Dogramadzi develops medical and assistive robots at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. Her research focuses on the multidisciplinary use of robotics technologies in healthcare settings. Dogramadzi has been awarded funding in the range of £2.4M since 2009, currently supervising/managing a team of 15 post-doctoral and doctoral researchers and junior lecturers. Her team won the Best Medical Robotics Paper Award at ICRA 2016.

Anca Dragan Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley Anca Dragan runs the InterACT Lab at Berkeley, which focusses on algorithms for human-robot interaction. The lab works across different applications, from assistive robots, to manufacturing, to autonomous cars, and draws from optimal control, planning, estimation, learning, and cognitive science. Dragan also helped fund and servee on the steering committee for the Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Lab, and is a co-PI of the Center for Human-Compatible AI.

Kimberley Hambuchen Human Robotic Systems Deputy Project Manager at NASA Johnson Space Center Kimberly Hambuchen is an expert in developing novel methods for remote supervision of space robots over intermediate time delays. She has proven the validity of these methods through multiple NASA analog field tests with robots, including the JSC Space Exploration Vehicles, Centaur platforms and Robonaut 2, the ATHLETE rovers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Ames Research Center K-10s. She was the User Interface Lead for JSC’s entry into the DARPA Robotics Challenge, using her expertise in remote supervision of robots to guide operator interface development for the DRC robot, Valkyrie. She currently oversees NASA JSC’s participation in the collaboration of the Robot Operations Portal (ROP), which seeks to provide non-expert, web-based interfaces for operating remote robots unavailable to the greater public.

Kaijen Hsiao CTO at Mayfield Robotics Kaijen Hsiao has been leading innovations in robotics, artificial intelligence, and hardware/software design and development for over 15 years. Hsiao has a history of working on robotics projects that turn into well-funded startup enterprises in the US & Europe. Some of her credits include designing components for agricultural robots, home security and companion robots, service robots, and assistive robots for people with disabilities. Kaijen has worked on high-profile projects at Willow Garage, MIT (CSAIL and Media Lab), Bosch, iRobot, and now Mayfield Robotics.

M.Ani Hsieh Associate Professor at Drexel University Ani Hsieh focuses on bridging the gap between geophysical fluid dynamics, nonlinear dynamics and control, and distributed multi-agent robotic systems. Hsieh currently works in the Scalable Autonomous System Laboratory at Drexel University. She is a 2011 ONR Summer Faculty Fellow, the recipient of a 2012 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, and the recipient of of 2013 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award.

Wendy Ju Executive Director and Associate Professor of Interaction Design at Center for Design Research at Stanford University and California College of the Arts Wendy Ju works in the areas of human-robot interaction and automated vehicle interfaces, highlighting the ways that interactive devices can communicate and engage people without interrupting or intruding. Ju has innovated numerous methods for early-stage prototyping of automated systems to understand how people will respond to systems before the systems are built. Her monograph on The Design of Implicit Interactions was published in 2015.

Angelica Lim Making Pepper Sociable / Software Engineering Manager at SoftBank Robotics Angelica Lim builds artificial intelligence for robots to interact with humans in a smart, fun, way by combining neuroscience, machine learning, and developmental psychology to model emotion. She currently works as a Software Engineering Manager at SoftBank Robotics in Paris, France. Her previous creations include robots that play music in a human ensemble, speak and gesture with expression, and recognize emotion in movement.

Gudrun Litzenberger General Secretary and Director of Statistics at International Federation of Robotics Gudrun Litzenberger is on the Executive Board of the International Federation of Robotics, the global not-for-profit industry association for robotics formed in 1987. The purpose of IFR is to promote and strengthen the robotics industry worldwide, to protect its business interests, to cause public awareness about robotics technologies and to deal with other matters of relevance to its members. Litzenberger also oversees the collection and interpretation of market relevant data for world-wide surveys, studies, statistics and other data on the world-wide use of robotics.

Rosanna Myers Cofounder of Carbon Robotics Rosanna Myers is cofounder of Carbon Robotics, building Katia – a Kick-Ass Trainable Intelligent Arm. Myers is a self-taught software developer with a background in building innovative high tech startups. Carbon Robotics was recently named as one of the Top 50 “most influential public & private companies in the global robotics industry” by the Robotics Business Review.

Erin Rapacki Business Development at Pneubotics Erin Rapacki is a product storyteller with robotics experience across academia and industry, in both the Boston and Silicon Valley hotspots, with projects ranging from flexible logistics, supply chain, FDA approval, consumer products, military casualty extraction, assistive devices, robotic tele-presence, and warehousing. Rapacki finds ways to catalyze the robotics market by identifying unique value propositions for new robotic products, and by creating community and cooperation between companies and thought leaders.

Carol Reiley Co-founder / President at drive.ai Carol Reiley is the cofounder and President of drive.ai, an artificial intelligence self-driving car startup. Reiley is also a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins University in robotics and computer vision, and an NSF Graduate Research Fellow researching strategies for improving human and robotic interaction. Her previous works include underwater and industrial robotics at Santa Clara University, space satellites at Lockheed Martin, people detection at GE Research, and clinical development engineering as a consultant at Intuitive Surgical.

Simone Schürle Research Fellow at Koch Institute of Integrative Cancer Research, MIT Simone Schürle studies Micro- and Nanosystems Technologies with a focus on cancer research. In 2005 she completed a research stay at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, in the field of Bio Mechanical Engineering. She gained further practical experience during internships in R&D and marketing in Nano Imprint Lithography at SUSS MicroTec in Munich, Germany. Schürle was awarded the ETH Zurich Medal for distinguished doctoral thesis in 2014 for her PhD work on the magnetic control of microrobots. She was then awared a fellowship to go to MIT working at the interface between robotics and nanomedicine. Schürle was recently awarded a Branco Weiss Fellowship to work on merging wireless control of magnetic nanosystems with the engineering potential of synthetic biology. She is also co-founder of the microrobotics company MagnebotiX.

Katia Sycara Research Professor, Director of Advanced Agent-Robotics Technology Lab at Carnegie Mellon University / University of Aberdeen Katia Sycara is a Research Professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and holds the Sixth Century Chair (part time) in Computing Science at the University of Aberdeen in the U.K. She is also the Director of the Laboratory for Agents Technology and Semantic Web Technologies at CMU, researching multi-agent systems. Prof. Sycara is a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the recipient of the 2002 ACM/SIGART Agents Research Award. She is also the recipient of the Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University of Wisconsin in 2005. She is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of France Telecom, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Greek National Center of Scientific Research “Demokritos” Information Technology Division.

Adriana Tapus Vice Provost / Professor at INTERFACES Graduate School, UPSay / ENSTA-ParisTech Adriana Tapus researches the personalization of assistive robots, with a focus on life-long learning and adaptive robot behaviors. Tapus develops different models of personalized interaction applied to health-related applications, cooperation and driving tasks. Tapus currently has a HEROES grant for “Haptic Emotional Robot Experiments with Sensitive Body” as well as a DGA Fellowship, and is active as an academic journal editor, conference program chair and general chair.

Stefanie Tellex Assistant Professor at Brown University Stefanie Tellex works on constructing robots that seamlessly use natural language to communicate with humans, by applying probabilistic methods, corpus-based training, and decision theory to develop interactive robotic systems that can understand and generate natural language. Tellex has published at SIGIR, HRI, RSS, AAAI, IROS, and ICMI, winning Best Student Paper at SIGIR and ICMI and was named one of IEEE Spectrum’s AI’s 10 to Watch. Stefanie won the Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Award at Brown University and recently won a NASA Early Career Faculty Award for Human-Robot Collaboration on Complex tasks.

Patricia Vargas Associate Professor / Founding Director of the Robotics Laboratory at Heriot-Watt University, UK Patricia Vargas is the Founding Director of the Robotics Laboratory and Associate Professor/Reader in Computer Science and Robotics at the School of Mathematical and Computer Science (MACS) at the Heriot-Watt University, in Edinburgh, Scotland. She is particularly interested in: Human-Robot Interaction, Evolutionary Robotics, Swarm Robotics, Computational Neuroscience and Memory Modelling, Biologically-inspired algorithms in general, such as Artificial Neural Networks, Artificial Endocrine Systems, Artificial Immune Systems, and Learning Classifier Systems, and Data Mining and Machine Learning.

Hanna Wallach Senior Researcher / Assistant Professor / Cofounder at Microsoft Research / UMass Amherst / Women in Machine Learning Hanna Wallach develops machine learning methods for analyzing the structure, content, and dynamics of social processes. Her work is inherently interdisciplinary: she collaborates with political scientists, sociologists, and journalists to understand how organizations work by analyzing publicly available interaction data, such as email networks, document collections, press releases, meeting transcripts, and news articles. She also studies issues of fairness, accountability, and transparency as they relate to machine learning. Wallach’s research has had broad impact in machine learning, natural language processing, and computational social science. In 2014, she was named one of Glamour magazine’s “35 Women Under 35 Who Are Changing the Tech Industry”; in 2015, she was elected to the International Machine Learning Society’s Board of Trustees; and in 2016, she was named co-winner of the 2016 Borg Early Career Award. Hanna is committed to increasing diversity and has worked for over a decade to address the underrepresentation of women in computing. She co-founded the annual Women in Machine Learning Workshop, which is now in its eleventh year.

Lisa Winter Product Design Engineer at Mattel, Inc. A roboticist since childhood, Lisa Winter has 20 years experience designing and building robots. She was crowned the Robot Wars Middleweight World Champion and has been in many publications, including MAKE magazine. In 2012, Winter cofounded smart toy company Robot 11, building smart wearables and Bluetooth connected toys. She has been inventing and rapid prototyping connected devices since the beginning of the IoT movement. Winter is currently the Product Design Engineer at Mattel, developing a smart wearable baby monitor. At night she builds combat robots for ABC’s BattleBots, and dreams of ways to help animals and the environment.

Rosalie Wang Assistant Professor at Intelligent and Assistive Technology and Systems Lab, University of Toronto / Toronto Rehabilitative Institute Rosalie Wang’s focus is on developing and clinically evaluating intelligent systems for rehabilitation, and as clinical Occupational Therapist, she brings a unique approach to evaluating user-centered and context-relevant design for robotic assistive technologies.

Do you have a story to tell about how visibility helped your robotics career? Would you like to nominate someone for next year’s list? Do you want to help organize Women in Robotics events or join the Women in Robotics network? We’d love to hear from you. You can ask for an invitation to the Women in Robotics network here. Know of any great women in robotics who should be on this list next year? Check the lists from our previous years (2013, 2014, and 2015), and feel free to leave your nominations in the comments section below, or email us at info [at] robohub.org.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2013)
• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2014)
• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2015)
• Five women robotics experts from Silicon Valley share their stories
• Steffi Paepcke on Robots, women and design: Opportunities abound

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Occupational Therapist Rosalie Wang investigates how intelligent haptic robotic systems can benefit people recovering from upper limb disability due to stroke. Photo courtesy IATSL (Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab) at Toronto Rehab, University of Toronto.

Robotics has always been an interdisciplinary field – one that integrates knowledge from computer science, mechanical, electrical, controls, and other areas of engineering. But as robots move out of factories and research labs, and into our homes and workplaces, another breed of robotics expert is emerging – and an engineering or computer science degree is not necessarily part of their resume.

From occupational therapy to rehab robotics

Rosalie Wang is Assistant Professor at the Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab (IATSL), a multi-disciplinary research group at the University of Toronto made up of engineers, computer scientists, rehabilitation and medical researchers who leverage artificial intelligence and robotics to develop intelligent assistive and therapeutic devices. IATSL research runs the gamut, including obstacle avoidance and guidance systems for powered wheelchairs, fall detection solutions, intelligent haptic systems for stroke rehabilitation, personal robots to assist aging-in-place, assistive robots for people with dementia, and much more.

But Wang started her career working as an Occupational Therapist, supporting clients in long-term care. Her passion was helping seniors, and it was while working at a nursing home that she found herself tinkering with her clients’ wheelchairs. “I would come home with grease in my fingernails, having taken apart and put back together a wheelchair so that it would better fit my client’s needs.” One thing led to another, and soon she found herself doing a PhD on collision-avoidance technology for powered wheelchairs.

Translating tech into practice

Finding technical solutions to ‘people problems’ is a special skill that requires deep knowledge of both the end-user and their context, and an ability to work closely with engineers and computer scientists to understand the possibilities and limitations of the technology.

A common problem with powered wheelchairs, says Wang, is that they can be hard for someone who has physical and/or cognitive impairments to control; and because they are powered, they can also be more dangerous than manual wheelchairs, especially to someone who is already in a fragile state of health – one reason why some nursing homes have banned the use of powered wheelchairs altogether. And then there are the ethical aspects: “It’s hard to take a powered wheelchair away from someone once you’ve given them one. We want to enable mobility, and we want to keep people safe, and we want to do it in a way that respects the client,” says Wang.

Wang also points out that simply having technology that works under certain conditions doesn’t mean it will be taken up in practice; many contextual factors that lie outside the technology itself can get in the way. For example, most fall detection monitoring services tend to use a subscription-based business model, similar to home monitoring. But Wang has found that many clients prefer to have their personal care monitoring service trigger warning calls to a family member rather than a call center – even though this solution is less likely to be taken up by industry partners. “As you’re designing the system, you have to look at the whole picture. Clients feel there is a stigma attached to disrupting a call centre.”

Developing technology into systems and products that can actually be deployed into real world scenarios is a challenge, and it’s important to understand clients’ personal preferences and their physical and cognitive abilities, as well as contextual factors, such as nursing home architecture, routines and regulations, family and caregiver needs, ethics and more. This is why a critical part of the research at IATSL is also to develop frameworks, guidelines and methodologies for applying intelligent assistive technologies in nursing homes and at home.

Rosalie Wang speaks about her career path from Occupational Therapist to rehab robotics researcher at the Women in Robotics lecture series, hosted by Get Your Bot On and Women Engineers TO in Toronto, Canada. Photo via Nicole Proulx.

For Wang, the benefits of being an Occupational Therapist in the field of robotics and AI cut both ways: she can bring a user-centered perspective to designing the technology, but “Robotics and AI can also help to augment the work of the Occupational Therapist and advance the field as a whole,” she says. Wang’s research also includes clinically evaluating robots for upper limb stroke rehabilitation and assistive robots to help older adults with dementia. Her latest paper, just published last month, examines how older adults with Alzheimer’s and their caregivers feel about using robots to help them complete tasks at home, and is one of the few studies to give an in-depth perspective on the issue.

From an Occupational Therapist’s perspective, one of the key benefits of employing robotics and AI is that it can yield data for evidence-based therapy. “It used to be that we could only measure therapy results with very coarse snapshots … a client either could complete a task or they could not complete it. This kind of feedback is potentially very demoralizing to the client, and makes it harder for the therapist to perceive and record small changes in progress… Now we can collect continuous data, which lets us design more refined therapies, and gives clients a better sense of progress. A therapy robot can give you continuous clinical data, even when you can’t perceive it.”

When asked if she ever imagined she would be working in robotics one day, Wang gave a resounding answer: “No.” And she is reluctant to describe herself as a roboticist. Still, given the wide range of projects being undertaken at the Intelligent Assistive Technology and Systems Lab, it’s clear that it takes an interdisciplinary team with all kinds of expertise to translate robotics and AI into practical healthcare solutions.

Team members at IATSL have backgrounds that include occupational therapy, neuroscience, industrial design, biology, clinical psychology, experimental psychology, rehabilitation science, and nursing.

Nearly 60 years of American case law indicate that while robot technology has been developing by leaps and bounds, the courts’ concept of robots is confused and largely stuck in the past. If we are to depend on our legal systems for clarity — especially as new technologies take us into uncharted territory — the courts will need partner closely with technology experts to develop a more nuanced understanding of robotics. Legal scholar Ryan Calo shows us the way.

A new paper by Ryan Calo (University of Washington School of Law) suggests that judges and jurists have some catch up to do when it comes understanding what robots are, and what they can actually do.

Based on an analysis of hundreds of cases spanning roughly 60 years of American case law, the paper offers a clear and accessible account of how competing definitions of robot have blurred the line between people and machines, and have resulted inconsistent treatment of robots in the courts. Exacerbating this is the narrow conception judges and jurors tend of have of robots as “discretionless machines” that are incapable of spontaneity — even though the success of contemporary robotic systems hinges on their very ability to respond dynamically to their environment. Calo concludes that this growing “mismatch” will make it increasingly difficult for the judicial system to effectively grapple with advanced robotics in the future.

Don’t let the paper’s 44 pages intimidate you. Calo is a brilliant writer and keeps the pace moving — this is sure to be a classic reference in the legal scholarship on robotics.

…there is no doubt that the question ‘What is a robot?’ is at the heart of the issue.

Exciting new technology risks getting mired legal in battles precisely because it doesn’t fit the tight definitions our legal systems depend on. In all, the paper presents a straightforward and compelling case for American legal professionals— and policy makers in general — to get more subtle in their thinking on robots

It may seem like “just semantics”, but there is no doubt that the question ‘What is a robot?’ is at the heart of the issue. Indeed, in several of Calo’s case studies, the courts relied on dictionary definitions of robot to guide their decisions, even though these definitions often contradicted one another. For example, one case had jurors comparing the definition of robot in two different dictionaries …

… a 1958 Webster Dictionary, which defined a robot as:

Any automatic apparatus or device that performs functions ordinarily ascribed to human beings, or operates with what appears to be almost human intelligence. [emphasis mine]

… and a Funk & Wagnalls, which defined it as:

An automaton that performs all hard work; hence, one who works mechanically and heartlessly. [emphasis mine]

Note that Webster focused on what robots have in common with humans, whereas Funk & Wagnalls emphasized their difference.

The question of whether robots are extensions of humans — or mere tools for them to use — is central to many of the cases discussed in Calo’s paper. And while the state of the arts in robotics has developed a lot since 1958, dictionary definitions have not.

The reality of robots today is that they exist along a continuum, and the definition of robot is a can of worms even for robotics practitioners. Some robots, like those found in traditional assembly-line manufacturing really are best understood as tools. Some are better understood as extensions of our personhood, such the telepresence device that former-NSA-contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden used to beam into a TED conference. And some — like robotic surgical devices, robotic prosthetics, and the current crop of collaborative robots — fall into that murky place in between.

The question of whether robots are extensions of humans — or mere tools for them to use — is central to many of the cases discussed in Calo’s paper.

It all seems to depend on where you are standing.

Defining that murky place that exists between ourselves and our technological tools is a difficult process, but sociologists like Sherry Turkle and Clifford Nass have been delving into the broader question of our relationship with computers for over thirty years. In The Second Self (1984), Turkle explores the computer as both an external tool that exists in the world AND and extension of our selves. Nash, a media theorist at Stanford, pioneered our understanding of human-computer and human-robot interaction in his book The Media Equation (1996), where he advanced the idea that people perceive and interact with computers and robots as real social actors, even when they logically know that they are not.

This process of defining our relationship to technology is not just happening at a socio-anthropological level, but it’s taking shape in more practical ways for specific robotics technologies as well. For instance, in 2013 The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a policy identifying five distinct levels of autonomy cars, and the following year SAE International (an engineering association focused on developing standards and best practices) released its own report recommending six distinct levels. Various efforts (ANSI, ISO) toward developing international safety standards for manufacturing robots likewise account for varying levels of risk to human operators, particularly as robots and humans come to work more closely together.

According to Calo’s paper, the courts, too, are grappling with this murky relationship.

Columbus-America Discovery Group, Inc. v. Abandoned Vessel, S.S. Central America

One hundred and thirty years after the S.S. Central American steamship sank in the Atlantic Ocean, the Columbus-America Discovery Group located the sunken ship and used an autonomous underwater robot equipped with cameras and actuators to explore and document the wreck. Because other search teams were actively looking for the Central American at the time, the Columbus-America Discovery Group submitted a request to the courts to prevent other teams from entering the salvage area. Under maritime law, first salvage rights would have entitled Columbus-America to a significant proportion of the value of the salvage, and the right to exclude other groups from salvaging the wreck.

From Calo’s paper:

The usual way for custody, possession, and control to be achieved at this time was by human divers approaching the vessel and either recovering property over time or, if safe, lifting the wreck out of the water. The salvage team in Columbus-America, however, was not able (or willing) to send anyone that far down — nearly one and one half miles below the surface. It sent down its robots instead.

The court decided that, in light of the conditions, sending the robots counted for purposes of effective control and possession. They were, after all, able to generate live images of the wreck and had the further “capability to manipulate the environment” at the direction of people.

The court fashioned a new test for effective possession through “telepossession,” consisting of four elements: (1) locating the wreckage, (2) real-time imaging, (3) placement of a robot near the wreckage with the ability to manipulate objects therein, and (4) intent to exercise control.

As maritime law scholar Barlow Burke, puts it: “This is as close as the court can come to creating a new legal basis for establishing possession without actually doing so. On the basis of the new test, which has been cited by other courts since, the court granted salvage rights to Columbus-America Group and enjoined its competitors.

This case shows the courts working through the human-robot relationship as a series of steps: note that the court decision seemed to hinge on the range of control the operators exerted over the robot. But Calo points out that there is yet more clarification needed: how should the range of physical risk the human puts themselves in influence decisions related to possessibility? — ie. a high seas tele-operated mission is inherently more dangerous than a fully autonomous mission conducted from land; should salvage rights apply in the former case but not in the latter?

Most importantly, this example serves to illustrate how cases involving novel technologies set precedence by clarifying language and developing legal tests.

Calo’s paper highlights the role of robots as both objects and subjects of American law. The first six case studies (based on an analysis of over 200 cases involving robots and their analogues) deal with robots as “things” that animate, perform and manipulate their environment as this relates to legal issues such as taxation, culpability, and ownership … as in Columbus-America Discovery Group, Inc. v. Abandoned Vessel, S.S. Central America described above, for example.

The second set of case studies examines robots as metaphors and mental analogies that drive the decisions of the courts, for example whether a witness who acts “robotically” during testimony can be trusted, or whether a defendant acting in subordination of another had free-will or whether they were being used a robotic puppet.

At first glance the leap from court cases involving real robots to court cases involving metaphoric ones may not seem relevant. After all, as Calo acknowledges, “a judge may invoke robots in one way but decide robot related cases in another”.

After all, as Calo acknowledges, “a judge may invoke robots in one way but decide robot related cases in another”.

However, Calo argues that it is reasonable that a judges’ mental concept of what a robot is (or is not) could come to bear on their decisions in cases involving robots. Perhaps more importantly, he points out that when it comes to determining how to treat new technologies, judges “rely specifically on metaphor and analogy when reasoning through the protection law should afford” them. Taken in this light, the metaphors and analogies of robots used by the judiciary become highly relevant.

It thus begs the question: When even cases involving very simple robot toys have the power to confound the courts — Calo’s paper describes a number of taxation-related cases where the courts were confused over whether the robot was a mechanical apparatus or a representation of a person (ie. a doll), or even more absurdly, whether the toy robot was a robot itself, or just a simulation of one — how will they cope with the much more complex multi-agent dynamic systems that are coming down the pipeline?

Robots are challenging precisely because they can’t be neatly defined by the legal structures we depend upon to keep us safe.

One thing for certain is that it will take visionary thinking to chart out the new territory robots are leading us into. Technologists are already developing more complex metaphors — think swarms — to improve their understanding of the technical possibilities and build better tools. The courts, too, will need to develop a new language and new metaphors for thinking about robots if they are to keep pace.

Robots are challenging precisely because they can’t be neatly defined by the legal structures we depend upon to keep us safe.The only answer we have is to clarify our definitions of robots and autonomy — but that requires a partnership between those who really understand the technology and those who really understand the law.

Thank goodness legal scholars like Ryan Calo are already on the case.

John Markoff filing story from airport. Image credit: Joi via Wikimedia Commons

If you are working in the field of robotics or AI, you may be used to fielding calls from journalists wanting to better understand the technology. But not all journalists are created equal. Pulitzer-Prize-winning John Markoff (@markoff) has been covering the technology beat at the New York Times for almost three decades, and recently published Machines of Loving Grace – a book that chronicles the evolution of computer science, robotics and AI. In this interview we turn the lens around and ask Markoff about what motivates his interest to report on robotics, and how he sees trends in robotics today being informed by people and events from the past.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

[HS] Can you tell us about your early days writing about the fields of AI and robotics?

[JM] I began writing about Silicon Valley in 1977 and spent most of my time writing about personal computing and the Internet. In the ‘80s there was a lot of controversy around the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and many computer scientists and AI researchers were opposed to it – it was the first big AI issue in the news. Then in 2004 there was the DARPA autonomous vehicle challenge, and I began covering those events.

Engelbart’s prototype of a computer mouse, as designed by Bill English from Engelbart’s sketches. Image: Wikipedia via Macworld

It wasn’t until a bit later that I really made AI and Robotics my first interest, though. I’d covered computer security for the New York Times forever, but I began feeling that I’d written the same story just too many times. I needed to do something different, and it seemed like AI and robotics were making more progress.

I’ve always loved the social history of the Valley, and trying to understand how things are connected there. Often technologies will bubble around for decades before they actually gain broad consumer acceptance. Look at the mouse, for example. Engelbart invented it in ’64 but it really didn’t become a mass consumer product until Microsoft Windows and Mac adopted it 20 years later. I’m interested in what causes things to gain acceptance even though there were people who believed in them for years beforehand.

There are other examples … In 2010, the historian David Brock came across a 1951 memo written by William Shockley describing an “Automatic Trainable Robot”. Shockley had always been known for his work on transistors, but what the memo showed was that he had really set out to build a robotics company. To discover that early ideas in robotics were at the core of creating Silicon Valley was a bit of a revelation that nobody had really noticed until then.

Shockley’s 1951 memo to president of Bell Labs Mervin Kelly described an “automatic trainable robot” that sounds eerily similar to trainable products on the market today, such as Rethink’s Baxter. For more details, see the IEEE Spectrum article by David Brock How William Shockley’s Robot Dream Helped Launch Silicon Valley.

Your book describes a funny anecdote around that revelation … when Rod Brooks shared that memo with his employees and asked them to guess when it had been written…

Rod gave the memo to his employees, and nobody could figure out the timing of it, because if you just read the memo and don’t think about the date, it reads like a product description of Baxter. So here we have an idea for a “trainable robot” from 1951 … and 65 years later it looks like the timing is finally right.

Machines of Loving Grace starts out describing the tension between two researchers doing early work in computer science – John McCarthy and Douglas Engelbart – whose work eventually led to the creation of two philosophical “camps” in AI research. What was that tension about?

In the ‘60s McCarthy was involved in setting up the Stanford AI Laboratory, and Engelbart set up the Augmentation Research Center at SRI. They were each were about a mile from Stanford, but they had very different approaches. Whereas McCarthy had set out to build a working “artificial intelligence” that could simulate human capabilities (he thought this could be done within a decade), Engelbart was going in the opposite direction – he wanted to use technology to augment intellectual workers.

I came to realize that these two approaches – artificial intelligence (AI) and intelligence augmentation (IA) – went in two philosophically different directions … and that two distinct research communities emerged from those early laboratories – communities that don’t really speak to each other.

The paradox we see now is that the same technologies that extend our abilities can also displace us – and that was the puzzle I wanted to solve in my book.

There were several key figures in your book – Norbert Wiener and McCarthy come to mind – who really broke over differences in their philosophical approach to AI … Can you describe what was at the root of their polarization?

Read Frank Tobe’s review: New book by John Markoff explores common ground between humans and robots

Wiener was an interesting character – an outlier in his day, and rather eccentric.

In 1948 Wiener wrote ‘Cybernetics’, a book that outlined his approach to control and communication engineering. That work led him to believe that it was possible that humans could one day be designed out of the future, and so two years later he wrote a second more philosophical book called the ‘Human Use of Human Beings‘ about the AI/IA dichotomy, where he attempted to lay out the choice we have in terms of how we use technology.

At that point, technological unemployment was a new concern. Industrial automation had already been happening for decades, but Wiener was the first one to really understand the potential of software-controlled machines and he brought that alarm to the US labour movement. He actually wrote letters to many labour leaders to warn them that the technology was going to have an impact on the workforce, saying “This may end up destroying much of your union membership’s jobs.”

We know Wiener was a very controversial character within the engineering and academic communities; he had lots of enemies and his ideals were never mainstream. He was seen as a radical, going all the way back to his opposition to the technical community designing weapons in the wake of World War II.

On the other hand, McCarthy was very clear about saying that he deliberately coined the term “artificial intelligence” in order to set his ideas apart from Wiener. He felt that Cybernetics leaned too far towards the analogue. On a personal level, McCarthy really disliked Wiener, too; he thought that Wiener was bombastic and a bore, and he wanted nothing to do with him.

So there was this tension right at the root of artificial intelligence, and it has all kinds of significance for the field.

For the most part your book chronicles events that take place in the US. Was the same tension between AI and IA happening in other places, too?   

That’s an interesting question. Cybernetics was more appealing to the Europeans, and there are Departments of Cybernetics in universities across Europe to this day. I am fascinated by that, even though I really did focus on the US in my book.

Sir James Lighthill. Image via Wikipedia. Watch the BBC Lighthouse Debates on YouTube.

AI actually had its first big failure not in the US but in England as a result of Lighthill Report, which assessed the claims made by the AI researchers in the early 1970s and then cut off government funding for their research, causing what we now call the “AI Winter”. That collapse of funding had a big impact on many people’s careers. Geoffrey Hinton for example is now a well-known Google researcher, and is one of the key figures in development of advance neural net technologies, but early in his career he really was an outcast as a result of that report.

Then there was Joseph Weizenbaum, who had a similar outlook to Wiener. He ran the famous ELIZA experiment at MIT and was aghast that a simple text bot was able to convince his students that they were having real conversations with it. In his book ‘Computer Power and Human Reason’ he was very critical of AI research on a philosophical and ethical level for ignoring human values. He left the US disgusted, and ended up being much more widely accepted in Europe. 

What about Japan? Fast forwarding to the present, your book mentions Toyota’s current corporate philosophy of kaizen (or “good change”) as a shift that suggests there are limits to automation. Can you describe that philosophy and how it’s influenced Toyota’s policies?

While Toyota had at one time been pushing towards fully automated assembly lines, more recently they have begun to systematically put humans back into their manufacturing processes. They have come to see that if you fully automate a production line, it might be extremely reliable, but it’s frozen … an automated assembly line doesn’t really improve.

But skilled workers who are on the production line are intimately familiar with the manufacturing process, and can suggest ways to improve efficiency and productivity. So Toyota is rebalancing automation with craft in order to get a more cooperative relationship between humans and robots.

In September 2015 Toyota announced a substantial investment in robotics and AI research to develop “advanced driving support” technology, with former Program Manager of DARPA’s DRC Gill Pratt directing the overall project as Executive Technical Advisor. Toyota will allocate USD$50M over the next five years in a partnership with MIT’s CSAIL (headed by Daniela Rus) and Stanford’s SAIL (headed by Fei-Fei Li) to develop research facilities in Stanford and Cambridge. Photo: Kathryn Rapier

What’s interesting is that just this past fall Toyota invested in the AI departments of both MIT and Stanford to do research on an intelligent car that they clearly describe as being on the IA side of the AI-IA debate. They are not looking to build pure self-driving cars, but instead want to give you a kind of guardian angel that will watch over you as you drive. They really want to design humans “in” rather than design them “out”.

I spend a lot time with the AI community in my research, and I think half of the field really feels strongly that you should use AI technologies in an IA format, keeping humans in the loop. People like Adam Cheyer, Eric Horvitz and Tom Gruber are all well-known AI researchers who see Engelbart as their hero. Horvitz in particular feels strongly about approaching things from that direction.

In 2009 after the AAAI Meeting on Long Term AI Futures you wrote an article for the New York Times with the headline ‘Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man‘. More recently, covering the DARPA challenge, your headline was ‘Relax, The Terminator is Far Away’. Has your perspective on robotics and AI changed in that time period?

The AAAI Alisomar meeting was really motivated by Eric Horwitz in response to WIRED article the founder of Sun Microsystems Bill Joy wrote in 2000 about Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us, where he raised concerns about AI and robotics as threats to human survival.

Horvitz felt that he needed to respond to Joy’s concerns, so in 2009 he called together a group of the best AI researchers in the country to explore the issue of how fast AI technologies were developing and whether they indeed posed a serious threat to humanity. That was where the first headline came from, and I was really a messenger in that case.

Funny enough, the final report from the meeting was somewhat anti-climactic: they basically came to a consensus of that the kind of scenario Joy had sketched out was not an immediate worry.

Now fast-forward to last year, when my article about the DAPRA Robotic Challenge came out. This was toward the end of the renewed AI debate that had just been touched off by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Stuart Russell, Nick Bostrum, and others at the Future of Life Institute who were arguing that, based on half a decade of success in the neural network community, they foresee an exponential increase in the capability of machines coming in the near future.

But many computer scientists think that the possibility of self-aware thinking machines is vastly overstated, and my experience watching the DARPA Robotics Challenge supported that view. You just had to look at the falling robots, and the fact most of them couldn’t even open a door. That’s the state of the art.

I guess it’s still an open debate, but as for my own feelings, I’m sceptical about some of the claims being made about AI.

Douglas Hofstadter was one of the philosophers who originally called out the AI researchers in 1960s and 1970s for over-promising and under-delivering. He argued that the assertions about AI programs and their progress is a little bit like someone who climbs to the top of the tree, saying he is making steady progress on the way to the moon. But at some point the tree stops. I feel like that statement still holds.

I thought it funny when Elon Musk was quoted last year as saying “We will be like a pet Labrador if we’re lucky” and how close that was to Marvin Minsky’s famous in the 1970s saying “If we are lucky they will treat us like pets.” But you seem to be saying that these kinds of statements aren’t just attention-grabbing or click bait – they are also over-promising what AI can do, albeit in a negative way … 

Elon has this wonderful ability to say evocative things like “we are summoning the demon”.

Some people have criticized the media for their reporting of the Future of Life Institute’s activities, but I felt that the Institute may have brought this on themselves to some degree. They talk about the “existential risks” of AI, so it’s no surprise that some of the media picked up on this and jumped immediately to The Terminator. Afterall, what is The Terminator if it’s not an existential threat?

I don’t think that existential threat is a bad motif for people’s concerns, but I also think this is a field that routinely over-promises. It’s true that we have seen significant progress in terms of machines that can see, listen and understand natural language. But cognition reasoning systems are still making baby steps.

That said, I’m supportive of the efforts of Elon Musk and his colleagues at the Future of Life Institute because I do believe that machine autonomy is increasingly becoming a reality in everything from the workplace to weapons, and it’s worth talking about these issues whether autonomous machines are self-aware or not.

As a journalist following the field, you’ve had a unique opportunity to watch a whole new crop of roboticists and AI experts mature. Is this next generation continuing to fuel the polarization between AI and IA, or are the two camps starting to merge?

It’s hard to predict what will become of this current debate. Looking at the issue of technological unemployment in particular, I’ve come to feel that the actual impact of automation technologies on the workforce is a much murkier question than either the press or the science community seems to believe.

Once you start reading the economists, you realize there is a multiplicity of issues going on, including things like tax policy and changing demography, and picking it apart is very difficult. It’s a huge debate, and I’ve come away feeling I know less than when I started.

But I’ve spent a lot of time talking to people working in this field – mostly around Stanford and Berkeley – and it makes me hopeful because there is a generation of young scientists and engineers who are actually exposed to some of the issues we’ve been talking about and are really thinking about them. Ultimately, these machines are being built by humans, so it comes down to individuals having to make decisions about how to design their machines, and their values become really important.

Thank you! It was such a pleasure to read your book and to have a chance to talk to you today.

It was great talking to you – I enjoyed it.

Machines of Loving Grace was released in August 2015, and is available in hardcover, softcover and e-book formats. 

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy:

• New book by John Markoff explores common ground between humans and robots

• Talking Machines: History of machine learning, w. Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio, Yann LeCun
• Funding high risk proposals at the National Science Foundation: A brief history
• Passion for utility drove Engelberger’s vision for robotics
• Should cars be fully driverless? No, says MIT engineer and historian David Mindell
• DARPA’s Gill Pratt on Google’s robotics investments
• From pencil and paper to hands-on making, a brief history of MIT’s legendary MechE 2.007

Forbes has once again expanded their “30 under 30” list this year to celebrate the achievements of the up and coming; the main list now covers 20 different sectors, and an inaugural European edition has also been released, with 10 sectors. While the expansion of the list dilutes the brand (it’s more like “900 under 30”), it does highlight some interesting trends in robotics, AI and automation. Advanced manufacturing, conversational systems and human-augmented AI are key themes on this year’s list. And you’ll recognize some of these bright young minds from their contributions on Robohub.

Advanced manufacturing, 3D printing and rapid prototyping

Tim Sandy and Markus Giftthaler were honoured on Forbes “30 under 30” list for their work on the In Situ Fabricator mobile construction robot.

• Karishma Shah – Google[x] Rapid Evaluation Program Manager
  Google Alphabet’s youngest hire, Shah cofounded a natural language processing project at Google[x], led operations for the Project Wing drone delivery service, and now is program manager for Google’s rapid prototyping team.
• Markus Giftthaler and Timothy Sandy, PhD candidates at ETH Zurich’s Digital Fabrication lab
  Giffthaler and Sandy are developing techniques and tools for robotically fabricating complex structures on building construction sites as part of the Swiss National Centre of Competence (NCCR) in Digital Fabrication. You may have read about their work with architect Kathrin Dörfler on the In-situ Fabricator at Robohub.
• Danny Cabrera and Ricky Solorzano, Cofounders BioBots
  This company makes 3D printers and inks that can print living tissues.
• Phil DeSimone, Cofounder Carbon3D
  Carbon3D builds 3D printers for manufacturers that use a chemical process so that printing can be achieved 25 to 100 times faster than traditional 3D printing methods.
• Ionut Budisteanu, Founder VisionBot
  VisionBot has developed an affordable pick-and-place machine for automatically assembling integrated circuits; the machine is aimed at makers, hobbyist and SMEs looking to turn their prototypes into products.
• Max Friefeld, Cofounder Voodoo Manufacturing
  Voodoo Manufacturing offers scalable 3D printing services for single part prototyping up to high volume production.
• Maxim Lobovsky, Cofounder Formlabs
  Formlabs makes desktop 3D printers.

Drones

Philipp Oettershagen was honoured by Forbes 30 under 30 for breaking the solar powered UAV flight endurance record – 81 continuous hours of autonomous flight!

• Philipp Oettershagen, PhD Candidate ETH Zurich AtlantikSolar Project
  Oettershagen has been busy breaking solar powered UAV flight endurance records with the Atlantik Solar Project, which you may recall seeing on Robohub.
• Tom Brady and Danny Ellis, Cofounders SkySpecs
  SkySpecs makes software for inspection drones, allowing end users to automate inspection and analyze inspection data.
• Yash Mulgaonkar, PhD Candidate at U Penn
  Mulgaonkar’s research is focused on developing rapid fabrication methods for drones and other robots, and on training robots to coordinate together on tasks.
• Alec Momont, Founder Drones For Good
  Drones for Good leverages open source drone technology to explore how drones can be used for social good, such as delivering emergency supplies and medication.
• Sampriti Bhattacharyya, Founder Hydroswarm
  You may recall hearing from Bhattacharyya on Robohub — she’s made our Women in Robotics list in 2014, and also did an ICRACam pitch at IROS earlier that year. Her company, Hydroswarm, makes autonomous underwater drones for swarming applications.

Health and medicine

Luna is a rehabilitation robot for orthopedic and neurological patients by EGZOTech.

• Harbaljit Sohal, Postdoc at MIT
  Sohal develops neural implants that can be more easily integrated by the human body.
• John Barrett, PhD at Newcastle University
  Barret’s research focuses on neuroprosthetics and brain-machine interfaces
• Michal Mikulski, Founder EGZOTech
  EGZOTech is developing physical therapy robotics for automated diagnostics and treatment of neurological disorders.
• Patrick Slade, Cofounder PSYONIC
  PSYONIC develops low cost artificial hands
• Dhananha Jayalath and Chris Wiebe, Cofounders Athos
  Athos develops smart clothes that use sensors to help athletes understand which muscles they are engaging.
• Ben Harvatine, Founder Jolt
  Jolt develops sensors for detecting sports concussions.

Conversational robots for customer service

A Skolkovo startup, Promobot makes retail robots with conversational capabilities.

• Dmitry Aksenov and Mikhail Naumov, Cofounders DigitalGenius
  DigitalGenius provides natural language processing to provide big companies with conversational software robots for customer service that can answer questions in real time.
• Oleg Kivokurstev, Cofounder Promobot
  Russia’s answer to retail robotics, Promobot is designed to answer customer queries, distinguish between repeat customers and new ones, and learn people’s shopping preferences.
• Andrew Flachner, CEO and Cofounder RealScout
  RealScout is a service for realtors and their customers that uses machine learning to respond to natural language queries, to help home buyers to personalize their search criteria and find features that may not be included in a standard MLS listing.
• Matthew Ramirez, Cofounder WriteLab
  Writelab uses algorithms to provide immediate feedback to students about the grammar, spelling and structure of their writing assignments.

Human assisted AI for augmenting and automating bespoke products and services

• Navid Hadzaad – Go Bulter
  The concierge app GoButler launched in 2015 uses “human assisted AI’ to fulfill requests such as dinner or flight reservations via text messaging.
• Marcela Sapone – Co-founder Hello Alfred
  Hello Alfred is another concierge service that combines ‘intuitive technology with human intuition’ to anticipate your needs. The service offers home cleaning, dry cleaning, errand delivery, grocery shopping and other services.
• Maran Nelson, CEO and Cofounder Clara Labs
  Another example of “human assisted AI”, Clara Labs offers virtual administrative assistant services to executives and enterprises. NLP and AI are used to automate and streamline, while professional human assistants handle complex requests and do quality control.
• Kieran O’Neill – CEO and Co-founder of Thread
  Thread combines the savvy of human stylists with algorithms that track your style preferences and can quickly search through millions of products to hone in on items that meet your personal taste.
• Levi Young and Dana Zingher, Cofounders Enclothed
  Enclothed efficiently pairs personal stylists and customers by using algorithms to build a profile of your style preferences, size and budget, and searches for products to deliver to your door.
• Miles Penn and Rafi Witten, Cofounders MTailor
  MTailor is an app that uses the camera on your smartphone to measure your size and use the data to create custom-fitted clothing. YCombinator startup
• Caroline Walerud, Cofounder Volumental
  Volumental uses 3D scanning technology to find (or create) the perfect fitting pair of shoes, and they are looking to adapt the technology to eyewear next.
• Ben Alun-Jones, Kirsty Emery and Hal Watts, Cofounders Unmade
  Unmade offers custom machine-made knitwear; users pick and upload designs, sizes, yarn-type and colours, and Unmade uses a combination of knitting machines and knitware experts to finish your garment for you.

Smart homes and connected devices

• Will McLeod, Cofounder Keen Home
  Keen home makes smart vents to help you control the temperature of your home, room by room. McLeod is also cofounder of SmarterShade, a company that manufactures smart windows that respond to light and temperature by changing their tint.
• Michael Wang, Cofounder FutureAir
  FutureAir makes connected fans and air conditioners for efficiently managing indoor air quality.
• Kristjan Maruste, Founder CoModule
  CoModule offers a hardware/software package that bring connectivity to electric bikes and scooters, providing theft protection for users and vehicle diagnostics to manufacturers to help them improve their products.

Machine learning and algorithms 

• Scott Clark, Cofounder and CEO SigOpt
  SigOpt uses algorithms to optimize A/B testing for websites and applications.
• Nicole Hu and Ahmad Wani, Cofounders One Concern
  One Concern uses machine learning and predictive analytics to asses damage after natural disasters in order to help emergency service workers.
• Alexander Lavin, Research Engineer at Numenta
  Lavin is working to develop artificial intelligence by reverse-engineering the human cortex.
• Rob Bishop, Founder Magic Pony
  Magic Pony develops machine learning approaches to video enhancement, prediction and compression.
• Lucy Stonehill, Founder BridgeU
  BridgeU uses algorithms to match prospective students to the universities that best match their interests and career choices.
• Steve Marsh, Founder Geospock
  Geospatial data in real time for autonomous vehicles and other applications.

Photo credit: Pierre-Yves Guernier

With their near-vertical walls and deep fractures, glacier crevasses are dangerously narrow ice caves that present a huge risk to search and rescue teams. In a partnership between Flyability (Winner of the 2015 UAE Drones for Good Award) and the Zermatt Glacier mountain rescue team, drones were used to explore a remote crevasse in the Swiss Alps. The goal is to one day use the drones to help locate injured parties before dispatching a rescue team into dangerous territory, and also to help refine rescue techniques related to crevasse fall emergencies.

Photo credit: Pierre-Yves Guernier

Until now, crevasses have been largely inaccessible (both to people and to robotic technologies) because their uneven narrow walls make them extremely difficult to navigate. The Flyability drone, however, turned this to advantage by using its spherical, freely rotating protective cage — called a gimbal — to bump its way safely down into the crevasse and back up to the surface, capturing a rare view of the landscape along the way. The embedded full HD camera, digital live video transmission, and powerful lighting system allowed the drone to operate in the heart of the mountain glacier, tens of meters below the surface.

The gimbal also makes the drone safe to fly close to humans, even while being remotely operated by an untrained pilot — another feature of critical importance in search and rescue operations.

Flyability SA develops collision-resistant drones for the inspection and exploration of inaccessible and confined environments such as those found in industrial inspection and search and rescue scenarios, in order to quickly and cost effectively provide crucial image and thermal information needed to locate damage or victims.

Photo credit: Pierre-Yves Guernier

Photo credit: Pierre-Yves Guernier

Photo credit: Pierre-Yves Guernier

Photo credit: Pierre-Yves Guernier

https://youtu.be/S3vsrbkbbd4

Interested in other ways that drones and robots are being used in marketing and advertising? Check out:

• Robot as marketing strategy: Bosch takes a bet on Rotimatic’s consumer flatbread maker
• No drone experts were harmed in the making of this video 
• Shopping via telepresence makes for good PR; how long before it’s mainstream?
• There’s no business like show business
• From sideshow to main event, drones are making their mark in entertainment

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox. 

Significant investments in Silicon Valley

DJI and Toyota both announced this November that they will be setting up large R&D centers in Silicon Valley, with Toyota promising to spend $1 billion on AI research in the area. Toyota’s announcement comes on the heals of formalizing their new partnership with MIT’s CSAIL and Stanford’s SAIL labs to develop advanced driving technology.

Check out other investments and acquisitions from this fall here.

Meanwhile in China

Swiss industrial robot manufacturer ABB announced plans for rapid expansion into China.

The Chinese robotics market is booming and, according to the IFR, one third of the world’s installed industrial robots will be located in that country by 2018. So it is no surprise that Swiss industrial robot manufacturer ABB announced it is planning rapid expansion into China to capitalize on this growth. But the South China Morning Post argues that China is still reliant on importing key aspects of industrial robotics technology, and that it will have to significantly develop its competence in-house if it hopes to transform the country’s manufacturing sector and rival foreign competitors.

Amazon’s robots have competition

Locus Robotics Corporation announced the first deployment of its new multi robot warehouse fulfillment system, just in time for critical holiday season shipping.

Amazon may have doubled the number of robots in its warehouses in the past year, but new robotic solutions are emerging to rival the internet giant’s Kiva system. Startups from around the world, including the US, Europe and Asia, are developing clever systems to fill the gap left by Kiva when it was acquired by Amazon. Readers are probably already familiar with the Fetch and Freight system from Fetch Robotics and the Butler from GreyOrange. The newest player on the scene is Locus Robotics, which does fulfillment for Zara, Bonobos and Bluefly, and which claims to offer the “world’s first robotic fulfillment solution built by warehouse people for warehouse people”.

Service robots are catching on

Deliverbot, by Starship Technologies

Indeed, as tracked in a new case study on service robots by Silicon Valley Robotics Director Andra Keay, robot helpers are making the move from factories and into warehouses, retail stores and beyond. Take Simbe Robotic’s new inventory tracking robot, Tally, for example. This little bot is being trialled by several retailers in North America, helping to keep track of stock, fill inventory gaps and ensure good product placement.

The ‘last mile’ of the delivery chain is another area being targeted by automation. This month Amazon revealed a new design for its Prime Air drone delivery service, and Starship Technologies (created by two of the founders of Skype, Janus Friis and Ahti Heinla) unveiled its plans for self-driving delivery bots. Their slogan: “A new era in local delivery.”

Jobs and economies debate continues

Martin Ford’s ‘Rise of the Robots’ named most influential business book of the year by Business Insider.

With service robots taking on tasks traditionally done by humans, the debate about robotics’ impact on jobs and economies has once again gained momentum. A newly published Merrill Lynch report on how automation technology is disrupting markets paints a not-so-rosy picture. However, earlier this year a report by Deloitte argued that robotics creates more jobs than it takes. Whichever side of the argument you fall on, it is clear that jobs and robots are top of mind — probably the reason why Martin Ford’s ‘Rise of the Robots’ was named the most important business book of the year by Business Insider.

Consumer robots, by the numbers

While the debate on robots and jobs raged on, 1,000 busy human workers produced the latest batch of 1,000 Pepper robots – which flew off the shelves in just 1 minute. An even more remarkable number is the 180,000 robotic vacuum cleaners that were sold on Singles Day, a consumer holiday for the Chinese singles and youth market.

Hasbro’s new $99.99 robocat for seniors: Is it Fur Real?

When it comes to holiday shopping, it’s debatable how big the market is for Hasbro’s new $99.99 robotic cat for seniors. However, the FAA is expecting more than 1 million drones to be sold this season, a number that lit a fire under the FAA and the US Department of Transportation to finalize rules for consumer drones. This month the DOT’s 25-member Drone Regulation Task Force announced 11 key recommendations, the most notable of which is that drones weighing more than 250g will need to be registered. The 18-page report recommends that there be no fee for registration, however it suggests a $25,000 penalty for non-compliance. It will be interesting to see whether these new registration requirements will impact sales this holiday.

Another key number in consumer robotics is 2020 — the year by which Google’s robot group is looking to create new consumer robot technology. But according to Business Insider, its ability to do so will depend on whether they can fill the leadership vacuum left by Andy Rubin.

News from the research front

MIT’s “Shrinking bull’s-eye” algorithm speeds up complex modeling from days to hours. Image: Wikipedia/Almoz

With sales in consumer robotics booming this season, those working at the other end of the spectrum – researchers and developers – are busy inventing the next big thing. This month both Google and Microsoft have opened up their machine learning libraries to stimulate development. Meanwhile, MIT researchers have developed a new algorithm that vastly reduces the computation of virtually any computational model. Also at MIT, researchers in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) have built a drone that can competently navigate through a tree-filled field, and have just received a humanoid robot from NASA, which they will test and develop for use in space travel.

Events

New collaborative robots — and product lines — were unveiled at iREX this year.

European Robotics Week 2015 spawned more than 600 robotics events and activities right across the region this November. The focus of this year’s event was ‘Robots and Society’. Also taking place in November was the Humanoids conference in Seoul, Korea, and ending last week was iREX in Japan.

International events coverage is important to our readers — why not consider writing about an event you have attended recently? Send your draft or pitch to info@robohub.org. And don’t forget to take photos!

Coming up this December:

• The Robot Performance Festival | Prague, Czech Republic, through Dec 12
• RoboUniverse Shanghai | Shanghai China, Dec 8-10.
  Use discount code ROBOHUB for 10% off passes.
• Manufacturing Summit: Robotics, Automation and Development | Berlin, Germany, Dec 10-11
• RoboUniverse San Diego | San Diego, CA, USA, Dec 14-16.
  Use discount code ROBOHUB for 10% off passes.

Miss a previous digest? Don’t worry! Check out our archives. 

According to a recent press release,

PRENAV and partner Hawk Aerial today announced that they have been granted the first Section 333 exemptions from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate the PRENAV precision drone system.  PRENAV drones are capable of autonomously navigating in complex, cluttered, or GPS-denied environments.  The two companies plan to use the system to perform close proximity visual inspections of cell phone towers, wind turbines, bridges, oil tankers, industrial boilers, and other large structures. 

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• From sideshow to main event, drones are making their mark in entertainment
• Self-flying drone dips, darts and dives through trees at 30 mph: Video demo

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

October 19, 2015. US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announces unmanned aircraft registration requirement.

Following informal reports on Friday, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) officially announced yesterday the creation of a task force that will guide the development of a registration process for recreational UAVs. Until now, only commercial drone users were required to register their aircraft with the FAA. The task force, comprising representatives from government and industry stakeholders, has until November 20 to deliver its report. UPDATE 30/10/2015  FAA announces UAS Registration Task Force members. 

“It’s really hard to follow rules if you don’t know what the rules are, or whether those rules apply to you,” said US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx at the press conference, reiterating one of the main criticisms that has been lobbied at the FAA since 2012 when it was first tasked with the job of integrating commercial drones into US airspace.

The FAA is under pressure to show progress on the drone file having already missed their September 30 deadline to fully integrate commercial drones into US airspace. With an anticipated 1 million recreational drones to be sold this holiday season, the DOT’s goal is to have registration rules in place by mid-December. “We feel the level of urgency here is sufficient to move this process as quickly as we possibly can,” said Foxx.

Though a registry is by no means a new idea (and many are wondering why it’s taken so long), the DOT did not deviate from its main message that registration is a necessary first step in regulation. “Registration will help enforce the rules for those operating unsafely by allowing the FAA to identify the operators of unmanned aircraft,” said Foxx. “There can be no accountability if the person breaking the rules can’t be identified.”

Offering assurances that the registration process will not slow down their broader mandate to develop general rules for small UAVs, Foxx said the task force will also be looking for ways to streamline the existing registration process for commercial UAVs.

Few specifics about the actual registration process were revealed at the press conference, however this is what we know or can surmise so far:

• This is about registration, not licensing. “We are not requiring licensing,” Foxx said at the press conference, acknowledging that the FAA does not have the legal power to require licensing for recreational drones flying below 400 feet. However, “when it comes to registration, this is a safety authority that the FAA has, and it’s one that we’re exercising,” he said.
• One of the main jobs set to the task force will be classification, and this won’t be easy. Acknowledging that many UAS are “toys that pose little to no risk,” task force member Rich Hanson (Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Academy of Model Aeronautics) said that the challenge will be to set the threshold for registration at an appropriate level. The task force will not only have to tackle the issue of what constitutes a toy, but also how to classify and regulate the many DIY and homemade drones that are out there — no small feat.
• Personal identifying information will be collected at registration, although exactly what data will be collected is yet to be determined by the task force. Said Foxx: “We don’t want it to be cumbersome for people to register, but we will be collecting enough information to clearly identify them.”
• Existing recreational drone owners will still need to register. Even if you purchased your drone before registration becomes mandatory, you will still need to register retroactively. According to Foxx, however, there will likely be a grace period for retroactive registration.
• There will be penalties for not registering, though exactly what these will be, and the details of who will be responsible for enforcing them — and how — remain unclear. Foxx was clear to position the FAA as a regulator and not an enforcer: when asked about who the “drone police” would be, Foxx said that while the FAA sees itself as a “partner” in law enforcement, its role is to primarily develop the framework and rules, and it will be up to the Department of Justice and local authorities to actually enforce the law. Given the difficulty of enforcement, it could be that the DOT views the registration process more as a means of enforcing broader public awareness of the safety issues related to recreational drones than as a means of policing nefarious use.
• How registration will be facilitated, and by whom, remains unclear. While Fox said the FAA believes most users will voluntarily comply with the new registration requirement, significant emphasis was put on the need for public education. With the DOT sidestepping enforcement question (for now at least), we can only conjecture. Following the lead of the Know Before You Fly campaign, which promotes giving consumers the information they need to fly safely at the point of sale, it is conceivable that some expectation of registry facilitation could fall to manufacturers and/or sellers — and with regulation coming quickly down the pipeline just as prime holiday shopping times arrives, it would certainly be in their commercial interest to do so. In an interview yesterday, Lia Reich, Senior Communications Director at Precision Hawk (a drone manufacturer that will be represented on the new task force) said that, at least on the commercial side where drone users have been required to register for some time, sellers are already helping buyers with their registration requirements: “We make sure we’re equipping our buyers with the information and tools they need so they can register easily.”
• It also remains unclear whether there will be a technical solution to the enforcement problem. Unlike a car, which is relatively easy to identify from its license plate, drones are too small to be able to visually identify from a distance, so if you wanted to report a drone incident, or quickly identify a drone and its operator, how would you do it? A technical solution would be to require some kind of transponder that broadcasts the vehicle’s registration identification number, and indeed task force member Tim Connell (President of the Airline Pilots Association International) said that they would be looking to “allow authorities to immediately identify an owner.” Note also several of the larger drone companies have been proactively working on tech solutions that could help with this sort of identification, for example Precision Hawk’s LATAS project, a real time tracking air traffic control for UAVs. However, when pressed in question period about transponders and other tech solutions, Foxx refused to answer directly, saying only that “this is about having a national registry” and “finding the drone has not been as much of a problem as finding the person who was using the drone.” He also clearly stated that geofencing is not part of this initiative. These mixed messages suggest that this is politically sensitive territory for the DOT at this time.
• Who exactly is on the task force? Somewhere between 25-30 individuals representing various stakeholders from government and industry are expected to form the task force, and at the press conference Foxx was joined by representatives from the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), the Academy of Model Aircraft (AMA), the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), the American Association of Airport Executives, Helicopter Association International, PrecisionHawk, AirMap/Small UAV Coalition, and the Consumer Electronics Association. At the time of publication, the DOT had not yet released a full list of task force members.

UPDATE: On October 29th, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta released the list of task force members, which includes a mix of government, pilot association, and industry representatives, as promised. On the industry side we see a mix of traditional drone manufacturers (DJI, 3DR, Parrot and PrecisionHawk), drone-as-a-service companies (PrecisionHawk and Measure), new players (GoPro — which is scheduled to release their new quadcopter early next year) and big retail (BestBuy, Amazon, and Wal-Mart — which earlier this week applied for permission to test drones for home delivery). Here is the list:

• Nancy Egan – 3D Robotics
• Richard Hanson – Academy of Model Aeronautics
• George Novak – Aerospace Industries Association
• Chuck Hogeman and Randy Kenagy – Air Line Pilots Association
• Jim Coon – Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
• Sean Cassidy – Amazon Prime Air
• Ben Gielow–Amazon Retail
• Justin Towles – American Association of Airport Executives
• Brian Wynne – Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International
• Parker Brugge – Best Buy
• Douglas Johnson – Consumer Electronics Association
• Brendan Schulman – DJI
• Paul Feldman – General Aviation Manufacturers Association
• Dave Vos – GoogleX (Co-Chair)
• Tony Bates – GoPro
• Matt Zuccaro – Helicopter Association International
• Mike Fergus – International Association of Chiefs of Police
• John Perry – Management Association for Private Photogrammetric Surveyors
• Brandon Declet – Measure
• Randall Burdett – National Association of State Aviation Officials
• Sarah Wolf – National Business Aviation Association
• Baptiste Tripard – Parrot
• Tyler Collins – PrecisionHawk
• Gregory McNeal – Small UAV Coalition
• Thomas Head – Walmart
• Along with the FAA and DOT, the following federal agencies will provide expert support to the Task Force: Department of Commerce, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, Office of Management and Budget, National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of State.

Task force members are set to begin formal meetings next week.

The US drone industry will be watching closely to see how the issue unfolds over the next several weeks, as will industry members and regulators in other countries. Says drone law expert Diana Cooper: “We may see convergence on the registration requirement.”

https://youtu.be/ohkIMnImhE8?t=10m22s

News Brief:

According to Dyson:

Bosch has installed control electronics into some of its machines to wrongfully increase energy consumption when in use – to cheat the EU energy label … Their behaviour is akin to that seen in the Volkswagen scandal.

Bosch denies the allegations, stating that:

We do not understand these assertions by Dyson and we strenuously reject them. All Bosch & Siemens vacuum cleaners are measured in compliance with European energy regulations. Appliance performance at home is consistent with laboratory performance – and any suggestion to the contrary is grossly misleading.

Read more:

• James Dyson accuses Bosch of cheating ‘like Volkswagen’ | The Telegraph
• Dyson’s robot vacuum is finally here…in Japan…for $1,200 | Mashable
• Bosch sues Dyson for “completely unfounded accusations of cheating” | Ars Technica

You might also be interested in:

• Why is Japan the first to get Dyson’s new 360 Eye?

Who’s driving?

Former DARPA Program Manager Gill Pratt will direct Toyota’s new $50M robotics research investment

Auto giant Toyota announced that it will invest $50 million to develop “advanced driving support” technology in partnership with MIT’s CSAIL and Stanford’s SAIL, and has hired Former DARPA Program Manager Gill Pratt as their new Executive Technical Advisor to direct the project. And Google announced former Hyundai CEO John Krafcik as its new self-driving car chief executive, a decision that could take this Google’s research enterprise one step closer to becoming an actual business.

Meanwhile, ride share service Uber hired two security experts — Charlie Miller from Twitter and Chris Valasek from IOActive, who in July demonstrated they could hack a moving Jeep — to join the growing team of researchers at their company’s Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburg, notorious for having recruited dozens of experts from Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics department.

All the corporate interest would suggest that the technology is rapidly maturing, but is it a good thing for basic research? While the New York Times Magazine speculates whether high tech academia can survive poaching from Silicon Valley, others suggest that there will always be a need for early stage research that only university labs can cater to.

Cleaning up

What does the VW scandal mean for robocars?

Volkwagen made headlines when it was discovered that millions of their vehicles used software to cheat during emissions tests. Unfortunately this was not the first time an automaker used software to break the law. Brad Templeton muses on what the scandal means for the future of robocars.

On a tidier note, Volvo announced it would team up with the Chalmers University of Technology, Mälardalen University of Sweden, Penn State, and recycling company Renova to develop a new project called Robot-based Autonomous Refuse handling (ROAR). The hope is to have supervised robots collecting your garbage soon.

Meanwhile Peloton Technology, a developer of adaptive cruise control systems for trucks, cleaned up when they secured $17 million from several strategic investors, including Japanese robot maker Denso.

Retailing robots

Using a BeamPro, Brianna Lempesis waits in line to buy an iPhone6s from the Apple Store in downtown Palo Alto. Photo: Suitable Technologies.

While department store giant Target announced plans to test robot workers in its upcoming concept store, Chloe the robot has already started work at Best Buy in New York city, and in San Francisco, at a fully automated restaurant called Eatsa, guests can order their meal via in-store iPads and collect their food from small glass compartments with no human staff in sight.

And robots aren’t just working behind the counter these days. This September shoppers used telepresence devices to queue up at their local Apple stores to buy the newly released iPhone 6S.

Talking robots

IBM’s Rob High chats with Nao during RoboBusiness 2015 keynote.

Mattel, manufacturer of the iconic Barbie doll, is planning to use AI to help conversational dolls to get to know their human playmates. Every little girl’s dream? Maybe, but critics have already raised concerns about the talking doll’s impact on privacy and gender perceptions.

Meanwhile, the makers of Jibo are working hard to make their social robot sound lifelike, and a chatbot named Rose came out tops to win the Loebner artificial intelligence prize despite not convincing the judges she was actually human.

The push towards conversational systems should not come as a surprise to anyone who attended RoboBusiness this year. In the keynote talk, IBM‘s Robert High posited that “Cognitive computing will be to computing what transaction processing is today.”  (Check out more Robobusiness coverage, including Rethink’s Sawyer and the new OTTO from Clearpath here).

Winners’ circle

Cleverpet wins the 2015 Robot Launch international startup competition.

The Robot Launch international startup competition announced its winners this September. CleverPet’s smart pet feeder took first prize, with judges citing the how product’s adaptability and focus on play distinguished it from other robotic pet products. First runner up was Preemadonna’s Nailbot — a robot that lets you paint custom designs on your fingernails.

euRathlon 2015 Grand Challenge Winners

Meanwhile in Europe, euRathon — the world’s first outdoor land, sea and air disaster competition — came to an end. Using teams of land, air and sea robots, participants were required to locate missing workers, map a building and identify critical hazards, and inspect land and underwater pipes and stem a leak, all within 100 minutes. The multi-domain partnership Cobham (land), Universitat de Girona (sea) and ISEP/INESC TEC (Air) were crowned Winners of the Grand Challenge.

Fast moving prosthetics

Jason Barnes, an amputee drummer who tours nationwide by playing with a robotic arm.

Robotic prosthetics are fast becoming one of the most exciting developments in rehabilitation, giving hope to thousands of amputees. This was beautifully demonstrated in a short documentary exploring the life of ‘cyborg drummer’ Jason Barnes.

If you think those drumsticks are moving fast, so is the research. A hand developed at Johns Hopkins using DARPA technology gives its wearer sense of touch, and researchers from CNIB and EPFL have developed a brain-controlled prosthetic that learns from its mistakes, adapts to changing conditions, and speeds up the prosthetic training process for patients.

Hot and bothered

Nothing will generate headlines like sex. Except maybe robots and sex.

This September robot sex hit the news when robot ethicist Kathleen Richardson launched the Campaign Against Sex Robots. Drawing parallels between robot sex and prostitution, Richardson argued that sexbots reinforce asymmetrical relationships and could exacerbate gender inequalities. Others disagreed, arguing that fringe sex toys could hardly doom all of humanity to exploitation and empty relationships, and that they may offer a safe environment for fulfilling sexual fantasies.

Then, just when we thought the topic was going limp, a paper titled ‘The Future of Sex Report’ stoked the fire again by claiming that by 2050, people will be having more sex with robots than with each other.

All this pillow talk was clearly too much for some: SoftBank reportedly issued a clause in their purchasing contract that bans users from having sex with Pepper, and Malaysian authorities withdrew their support for the Love and Sex with Robots conference, which was planned for November.

Want tease out the finer points of the debate? Check out the Robot-Human Love episode from the Robots Podcast.

Events to watch for this October:

• RoboUniverse Tokyo – Tokyo, Japan – Oct 7-11
• Maker Faire Pittsburgh – Pittsburgh, PA, USA – Oct 10-11
• Maker Faire Seoul – Seoul, South Korea – Oct 10-11
• National Robot Safety Conference – Pittsburg, PA, USA – Oct 12-14
• International Collaborative Robots Workshop – Pittsburg, PA, USA, Oct 25
• Maker Faire Rome – Rome, Italy – Oct 16-18
• Robotics Innovation Show – London, UK – Oct 20-21
• International Conference of Social Robots in Therapy and Education – Almere, Netherlands – Oct 22-23
• International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) – Paris, France – Oct 26-30
• Field and Assistive Robotics 9 – Lahore, Pakistan – Oct 30 – Nov 1

Miss a previous digest? Don’t worry! Check out our archives. 

It’s time to get your feedback about how we are doing at Robohub. What do you like? What would you change? Take Robohub’s annual reader survey to get your voice heard and earn a chance to win a $50 Amazon gift card! 

The survey should take just over 5 mins to fill out, and will provide us with really valuable information about how to best program our content. We really want to hear from you!

Trouble with the embedded survey? Take the survey here.

Leo Trottier of CleverPet accepts the RobotLaunch 2105 Grand Winner trophy from Rich Mahoney, Director of Robotics SRI International.

From smart forklifts and web-based simulation interfaces, to assistive walking devices, robotic companions — even one for your pet! — the range of mature robotics that made it to the 2015 Robot Launch international startup competition was astounding. Now in it’s second year, the competition attracted more than 75 startups from 19 countries covering the gamut of medical, educational, consumer, industrial and service robotics. The finalists pitched to a live panel of judges and robotics entrepreneurs in Palo Alto, CA. Find out who judges picked for the winning RobotLaunch 2015 startups! 

The Grand Winner for Robot Launch 2015 was CleverPet, a smart dog feeder that lets you play, teach, and connect with your pet all day. More than just an automatic dog feeder, CleverPet teaches your dog games, dispenses rewards, and adapts the gameplay as your pet gets more skilled. Robot Launch judges said they picked Cleverpet because they were “a polished company that is poised to serve a big market that people take seriously,” noting that the CleverPet’s adaptability and focus on play distinguishes it from other robotic pet products, and that the team understands the needs of both pets and their owners.

“CleverPet is grateful for the opportunity to present for such a smart group of investors,” said CEO Leo Trottier. “We’re honored to be selected from among companies committed to incredible, game-changing innovation.” CleverPet receives a prize combination of $5000 in cash and $5000 in Amazon Web Services, courtesy of c/o CSIRO, SMBC, iRobot, and Runners Up (full list below) eached received $1000 in Amazon Web Services.

Rich Mahoney (Director of Robotics, SRI International) presents the 1st runner up award to Pree Wallia, CEO & Founder of Preemadonna, inventors of the NailBot.

The 1st Runner Up was Preemadonna, for their nail decorating robot aimed at girls and young women. Nailbot uses Hewlett Packard thermal technology, computer vision and a smartphone to allow you to paint custom designs on your fingernails. CEO Pree Wallia told judges she is excited by the opportunity to introduce girls to coding and hacking hardware through creative technology. The Nailbot is one to watch: Preemadonna has also progressed into the finals of the TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield.

Something for every investor

While the consumer focus of the first and second place winners shows investors’ strong interest in large and mature markets, the competition from service and industrial startups was fierce, indicating that robotics ecosystems and supply chains are growing at a healthy pace.

“There were winning startups in every category,” said competition organizer Andra Keay. “Every investor could find something to interest them, from cloud based simulations and new sensing technologies to eldercare, rehabilitative and social robotics.”

Packed house at WilmerHale for the Robot Launch 2015 judging – although 2/3rds of the participants were attending and pitching remotely via video and web conferencing.

 Winners by Category

Grand Winner ($5000 cash & $5000 Amazon Web Services c/o CSIRO, SMBC, iRobot)

Cleverpet, for their smart dog feeder that lets you play, teach, and connect with your pet all day. Judges said they picked Cleverpet because they were “a polished company that is poised to serve a big market that people take seriously,” noting that the CleverPet’s adaptability and focus on play distinguishes it from other robotic pet products, and that the team understands the needs of both pets and their owners.

Runners Up ($1,000 Amazon Web Services x 5)

1. Preemadonna, for their Nailbot, which lets you print art on your nails using your phone. Judges cited their huge but hard-to-access market as key factor in their decision.
2. Zyrobotics, for their Zyro Robot Therapy System, a personalized robot coach that gamifies therapy for kids with disabilities. Judges cited Zyrobotics’ social impact as a key factor in their decision.
3. Luvozo, for SAM, a robot concierge that provides affordable support to senior living communities. Judges cite social impact and the fact that Luvozo is addressing a huge market that has many needs.
4. Mecademic, for their compact and accurate tabletop collaborative robot arm. Judges cited near-term applicability of their product as a winning factor.
5. Mobotech, for Mobot, a compact smart forklift. Judges cited viability of their emerging market as a key factor.

Best Industrial Startup (Siemens Frontier Program)

The Construct, for their web-based robot simulator. Siemens Announcement here.

(Honorable Mention: Mecademic, for their compact and accurate tabletop collaborative robot arm.)

Best Use of ROS (10 hours of Clearpath ROS Consulting)

Luvozo, for SAM, a robot concierge that provides affordable support to senior living communities.

“The company that does the best job of addressing a real-world need within the mobile robotics space is Luvozo PCB – Robotic Concierge. This is the team to which we would like our consulting services awarded.”  – Julian Ware, Clearpath.

Best Social Robot (mentoring from Silicon Valley Robotics)

Blue Frog Robotics, for their open source BUDDY companion robot

Best Modular Robot (mentoring from Silicon Valley Robotics)

MUSE Robotics, for their complete package of plug and play actuators, motor control and sensory modules for building custom robots

 Regional Awards

“Robot Launch 2015 demonstrated an impressive collection of disruptive business and technology ideas, not only in the Silicon Valley but throughout the world.” – Glenn Luinenburg, WilmerHale.

Best European Startup (mentoring from Robolution Capital)

ArtiMinds, for their semi-automatic control interface for complex industrial tasks.

Best Canadian Startup (legal services from La Barge Weinstein)

GaitTronics, for their rehabilitative robot walke, which speeds recovery by making mobility therapy safe and secure for patients and caregivers.

Best Australasian Startup (mentoring from QUT Bluebox)

Mobotech, for Mobot, their light and compact all-electric smart forklift for maneuvering in tight places and preventing workplace injuries.

Best US Startup (legal services from WilmerHale)

Zyrobotics, for their Zyro Robot Therapy System, a personalized robot coach that gamifies therapy for kids with disabilities.

Robohub Readers Pick ($500 for the 1st place winner c/o Robohub)

1. The Construct, for their web-based robot simulator. (2488 votes)
2. Erle Robotics, for their artificial brains for robots and drones that run on Linux and are based on ROS. (2299 votes)
3. Zyrobotics, for their Zyro Robot Therapy System, a personalized robot coach that gamifies therapy for kids with disabilities. (1875 votes)

The Olander Company Award (custom industrial products)

Cleverpet, for their smart dog feeder that lets you play, teach, and connect with your pet all day.

The krktl snickerdoodle Award (snickerdoodle boards)

Redtree Robotics, for their suite of interchangeable robot components

 The Awards

A series of regional awards for best US, Canadian, Australian and European startups are geared toward developing local partnerships between tech clusters and mentors who can provide regional business, legal or investment support. For example, the law firms WilmerHale and LaBarge Weinstein will provide the regional US and Canadian winners (respectively) with free legal startup services; the regional Australian winner will get business mentoring from QUTBluebox ; and Robolution Capital will provide pitch coaching to the best European startup. Awards such as these help get more robotics startups onto the global stage while supporting entrepreneurship locally.

Siemens is offering the winning industrial robotics startups membership into their new Frontier Program, which includes access to Siemens’ PLM software suite and mentorship with industrial manufacturing partner companies. Robotics is a new area in the Frontier Program, which was initially only for 3D printing startups. The first robotics startup in the Frontier Program was Clearpath Robotics (Canada), who is also an award sponsor in the Robot Launch competition. Learn more.

Clearpath Robotics is sponsoring the Robot Launch ROS Award to the startup best using the Robot Operating System. The availability of the open source Robot Operating System ROS has played an important role in speeding up the growth of startups (including Clearpath Robotics), and more than 1/3rd of the Robot Launch startups use ROS in some way. Clearpath will be providing 10 hours of ROS consulting to the winner.

The Olander Company are providing custom fasteners and krtkl are providing ‘brains’ for robotics startups in the finals of Robot Launch, showcasing how even early-stage robotics companies can help each other get to market faster.

The Robohub Readers Pick award celebrates the crowd favorite through online voting. Now that crowdfunding can play a significant role in the pathway for many startups, success in attracting votes here sends a strong signal of support to CEOs and potential investors.

What do our startups, judges and sponsors think about Robot Launch 2015?

“CleverPet is grateful for the opportunity to present for such a smart group of investors, and we’re honored to be selected from among companies committed to incredible, game-changing innovation.” – Leo Trottier, CEO

“Zyrobotics is very excited to have made it to the finals of Robot Launch 2015. As this is our first public introduction of the Zyro Robot Therapy System, we feel incredibly privileged to have been selected for this amazing opportunity.” – Ayanna Howard, Ph.D., CTO/Founder Zyrobotics

“ArtiMinds is thrilled to present its ArtiMinds RPS to a world-wide robotics audience, so shortly after market introduction.” – Sven Schmidt-Rohr, Artiminds

“Fantastic global event and award to showcase Mobotech’s smart robotic supply chain solution. Just what every start-up dreams of” – Steve Haythorne, CEO

“We are really excited to see Erle Robotics among the 15 top Robohub startups worldwide, this is a proof of the real impact our brains and robots are making in robotics landscape” – Carlos Uraga, CEO & Co-founder

“Luvozo is thrilled to be selected as a finalist in the global Robot Launch pitch competition. Support for early-stage robotics ventures is important and we’ve appreciated all the feedback from judges and RoboHub readers.” – David Pietrocola, CEO & Founder

“Robot Launch 2015 gives us a chance to expand our network showing the great work we’re doing to make STEM engaging for students!” – Michael Predko, Jade Robot

“Robot Launch 2015 demonstrated an impressive collection of disruptive business and technology ideas, not only in the Silicon Valley but throughout the world.” – Glenn Luinenburg, a Partner at WilmerHale, a Silicon Valley law firm that works with robotics companies, and which awarded a legal startup package and mentoring to Zyrobotics.

If you’ve been following the twittersphere you’ve heard the story of Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old boy who was arrested after the digital clock he built to impress his highschool teachers was mistaken for a bomb. There has since been a large public outcry and outpouring of support for Mohamed, whose story prompted invitations by US President Obama to visit the White House, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to visit Facebooks’ headquarters, as well as invitations from MIT and NASA. This is a great story of the science community rallying behind one unjustly accused boy, but what of the many young students from outside the ‘mainstream’ population whose creativity and proclivity for science flies under the radar, or worse, who never bother to study STEM subjects in the first place?

Public rallies of support may promote good feelings, but they do not necessarily effect change. Take the movie Spare Parts, for example. The movie was based on the true story of a group of illegal immigrants from Mexico who built an underwater robot for a NASA-sponsored robotics competition, and against all odds won. “When the movie ends in 2004, their future is bright,” said a NTY op-ed titled The Cruel Waste of America’s Tech Talent by Joshua Davis, author of the book on which the movie was based. “Unfortunately, that’s not how the story really ends.”

Davis goes on to describe the fate of the boys on the winning team: “After the event, lower ranked contestants went on to rewarding jobs at tech companies and research institutes. Meanwhile, the Carl Hayden students struggled to afford tuition for college.”

The STEM fields in general, and robotics in particular, have a miserable record for diversity. Despite commendable efforts to change that — including initiatives like AFRON‘s ultra-affordable educational robot challenge, TechBridgeWorld, and ICRA’s historic all-female organizing committee in 2015 — tangible evidence of progress is difficult to find. One need only attend a conference or trade show to see that diversity in robotics is severely lacking.

Source: Scientific American. Diversity in Science: Where are all the Data?

There are many reasons why this matters, and to name them all here only gets us caught in the hamster wheel of justification. Can’t we get past that? Put simply:

Diversity matters because the future genius behind the next big development in robotics might just have been belittled out of the field by an insensitive elementary school math teacher, or frustrated out of a career in robotics by the proverbial glass ceiling. There is just too much intellectual capital at stake — and too many research problems to solve — to ignore the issue.

How can we broaden participation in the field? 

First, data matters — because without it we have nothing to measure our progress against. True, there are studies on diversity in STEM (such as this NSF report) but there is little information out there about how many women, minorities and people with disabilities participate specifically in robotics education and employment. Meanwhile, though evidence suggests that while diversity in the broadly defined sciences is slowly improving, it may in fact be reversing in fields like engineering and computer science (e.g. the number of computer science degrees in engineering dropped by 12% between 1991 and 2013). What is responsible for this downward trend? How does this map onto the field of robotics? Finer grained tracking of participation in the field at the government and institutional level would set a baseline against which to measure progress, and could help shape educational policies to encourage more people of differing backgrounds to enter, and stay in, the field. (If you are looking for evidence, however, a great start can be found in this post by Andra Keay.)

Mentorship — It’s difficult to overestimate the value of mentorship, and its effects are catalytic when it happens at a variety of levels: at the student/peer group level, with ones’ parents and school teachers/professors, and reaching up to the highest levels in academia and business. How many young people were inspired to pursue a career in robotics when Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas gets onstage at a FIRST competition to rally the students? How many young women were encouraged by seeing the women of ICRA’s 2015 organizing committee at the tops of their careers?

Collaboration — Consider the huge range of application areas that robotics is trying to address, and the fact that many of these applications are either specifically designed for or highly relevant to the very communities that are underrepresented in robotics: exoskeletons and robotic prosthetics for the disabled, robots for removing landmines in war torn countries, or drones that monitor drought conditions in subsaharan Africa or deforestation in the Amazon, to name a few.

Does it not make sense to develop technology solutions in conjunction with these communities? In the words of Bernadine Dias, founder of TechBridgeWorld, the key is “changing technology to fit communities rather than forcing communities to change to fit technology.” This is how innovative initiatives like Cybathlon – a competitive sporting event that teams disabled athletes with teams of roboticists to develop advanced assistive devices — take root. And they are all the more powerful when the end-users themselves are directly involved in the research, such as the work being done by Kavita Krishnaswamy in collaboration with Tim Oates on robotic assistive devices for people with severe disabilities.

Funding — Bernadine Dias said that the biggest lesson she has learned working with developing and disadvantaged communities is “how incredibly resourceful people are. We travel the world and we work with communities where I just cannot imagine what I would have done in that situation, and they come up with very brilliant ways to do things.” Similarly, AbdulAziz wrote about to us about the obstacles he faces as he builds a robotics ecosystem where none currently exists, but he also about his advantage: “low developing and operation cost.” 

Yet whether it’s about supporting a local hacker space for inner city kids, or doing field research in a developing region of the world, at the end of the day it all comes down to funding. Expertise costs money, and paying for people’s time is difficult when resources are limited. Even a volunteer’s travel costs can be insurmountable. In this way, lack of funding also undermines efforts in mentorship and collaboration. And while seed funding can get exciting projects off the ground, it’s the decidedly unsexy sustained funding for long term operating costs that are mostly like to make a difference in the end.

Jonathan Ledgard, Director of Afrotech, a future Africa initiative based at EPFL tells us that “Inventiveness often comes from the margins, but we need to invest much more seriously in the tools that allow for inventiveness, which is why ultimately a Facebook Internet providing drone over Burundi with free access to astrophysics MOOCs may have more effect than any gestures.”

The elephant in the room

Ahmed Mohamed’s school board stands behind its original response to the ‘bomb’, stating that “Out of an abundance of caution, we had to take action.” The latest development in the story is that Mohamed’s parents are reportedly withdrawing him from the school. This is to be expected: the fury of attention and the divisiveness would be overwhelming to anyone at this age. Most teens would rather fit in than be the centre of a national controversy.

It may come as a surprise, but for some, Ahmed’s story is familiar. Mahmoud AbdelAziz, founder of EG Robotics and coordinator of the Minesweepers competition for developing de-mining robots in war torn regions wrote to tell us that: “Ahmed’s issue, for me, is a normal situation. Through the robotics competitions I organize in Egypt, I know many students who faced the same situation due to lack of knowledge from the police.” (You can read about his fascinating efforts to build a robotics ecosystem in Egypt here.)

Personally, I have heard organizers of other competitions describe the difficulty foreign teams can face trying to bring equipment and people over borders, and professors describe their frustration at having their students’ visa applications rejected when they have applied to attend a conference in order to present their first paper — a critical milestone for any young academic.

These stories and Ahmed Mohamed’s share a common theme: they are not so much about ‘ignored potential’ as they are about ‘potential perceived as threat’. Would Ahmed have been arrested if he were a nerdy white kid? What these stories remind us is that racial stereotyping is not just career limiting in an abstract sense.

The handcuffs make it all too real.

Many thanks to the Robohub core team — especially Andra Keay, Sabine Hauert and Yannis Erripis — for their help shaping this essay, as well as Mahmoud AbdulAziz and Jonathan Ledgard for generously taking the time to share their thoughts.  

The Robot Launch 2015 Finals are on! Follow the event live on twitter #RobotLaunch2015. 

#RobotLaunch2015 Tweets

ETH Zurich, 2015.

Using quadrocopters and some rope, researchers have woven together a bridge strong enough to walk across.  Made at the ETH Zurich Flying Machine Arena in Switzerland, the bridge joins two scaffolds, and is the first full-scale load-bearing structure autonomously built by flying machines. The feat represents one more step in the field of robotic aerial construction [1, 2].

Except for the metal scaffolding at either end of the structure, the bridge itself consists exclusively of Dyneema rope, a tensile material with a low weight-to-strength ratio that makes it ideal for aerial construction. Weighing just 7 grams per meter, a 4 mm diameter Dyneema rope can sustain up to 1300 kg. The 7.4 m long bridge uses various rope techniques – knots, links and braids [3] – and has a total rope length of about 120 m.

How it works

The project was developed at the Flying Machine Arena [4], a research and demonstration platform for aerial robotics. The arena is equipped with a motion capture system that provides vehicle position and attitude measurements for the small custom quadrocopters. An offboard computer runs the algorithms and sends commands out to the flying machines via a customized wireless infrastructure.

Flying machines cooperate to create a braid and brace the structure together.

Before construction begins, the location of the scaffolding is measured and input to the system. Once the anchor point locations for the rope are known, all the connections and links of the bridge’s primary and bracing sections are — without human intervention — autonomously woven and secured into place by the quadrocopters, which are each equipped with a motorized spool that allows them to control the tension of the rope.

A quadrocopter equipped with a motorized spool for rope deployment.

A plastic tube guides the rope to a release point located between two propellers. The system estimates the external forces and torques exerted on the quadrocopter by the rope during deployment, and takes this into account in order to ensure that the quadrocopters behave as desired [5].

The researchers then walk across the bridge to demonstrate its load-bearing ability.

Once the bridge itself is constructed, stabilizers are added to make it easier for a person to cross. Because there are no sensors to detect the rope’s configuration, the locations of the narrow openings of the bridge must be measured and input to the system, which then adapts the quadrocopters’ trajectories in order to weave the stabilizers.

The team also developed a series of computational tools to help identify and design the kinds of novel structures that are buildable using flying robots. Using these tools, the researchers can simulate their designs, determine feasible construction sequences, and evaluate the structure before they begin building [6].

More information and related publications can be found on the project websites:

• http://www.idsc.ethz.ch/research-dandrea/research-projects/aerial-construction.html
• http://www.gramaziokohler.arch.ethz.ch/web/e/forschung/240.html

Credits

Aerial Construction is a collaboration between the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control and Gramazio Kohler Research at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, 2015.

Researchers: Federico Augugliaro, Ammar Mirjan, Fabio Gramazio, Matthias Kohler, and Raffaello D’Andrea.

Related work

[1] F. Augugliaro, S. Lupashin, M. Hamer, C. Male, M. Hehn, M. W. Mueller, J. Willmann, F. Gramazio, M. Kohler, and R. D’Andrea. “The Flight Assembled Architecture Installation”, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 2014

[2] A. Mirjan, F. Gramazio, and M. Kohler, “Building with Flying Robots”, FABRICATE: Negotiating Design and Making, 2014

[3] F. Augugliaro, E. Zarfati, A. Mirjan, and R. D’Andrea, “Knot-tying with flying machines for aerial construction”, IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2015

[4] S. Lupashin, M. Hehn, M. W. Mueller, A. P. Schoellig, M. Sherback, and R. D’Andrea, “A platform for aerial robotics research and demonstration: the flying machine arena”, Mechatronics, 2014

[5] F. Augugliaro and R. D’Andrea, “Admittance control for physical human-quadrocopter interaction”, European Control Conference, 2013

[6] A. Mirjan, F. Augugliaro, R. D’Andrea, F. Gramazio and M. Kohler,” Building a Bridge with Flying Robots”, Robotic Fabrication in Architecture, Art and Design 2016, in press

Article in preparation:

1. Augugliaro, M. Schulz, A. Mirjan, F. Gramazio, M. Kohler, and R. D’Andrea, ”Building a Rope Bridge with Flying Machines”

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy:

• Multiple tethered quadrotors performing high-g, high-speed formation maneuvers 
• Quadrocopter failsafe algorithm: Recovery after propeller loss
• Video: Throwing and catching an inverted pendulum – with quadrocopters
• Quadrocopters learn from prior experience to improve slalom flying

The Snapdragon Flight developer platform had its first public demo today at Qualcomm’s Robotics Accelerator event, Techstars Demo Day. Designed specifically for the consumer drone market, Snapdragon Flight provides 4K Ultra HD video, computer vision, communication, navigatrion and real-time flight assistance, engineered with reduced weight, size and power consumption for use on small drones. In a video shot on Demo Day you can see the drone stabilizing against strong gusts of wind from a leaf blower.

(video courtesy Andra Keay)

An in-depth article on FastCompany says that Snapdragon Flight’s first customer is DJI’s Chinese rival Yuneec; and in a post at DIYdrones, Chris Anderson mentions that this new platform will ship with PX4/Dronecode, and that Qualcomm is an investor in 3DR.

More details about Snapdragon Flight and Techstars Demo Day can be found on the Qualcomm website.

Snapdragon Flight robotics development platform. Source: Qualcomm

If you liked this post you may also be interested in:

• Qualcomm Robotics Accelerator announces first startups
• Qualcomm acquires KMel Robotics
• Corporations and governments stimulating robotics and AI development
• Fotokite PhI: Interview with Segei Lupashin
• Competition heats up for consumer-friendly aerial photography drones
•  Price wars: Counting the cost of drones, planes and satellites
•  Tiny 4K Z camera could be the perfect drone partner
  

ArtiMinds is redefining how we program robots with their intuitive and semi-automatic interface for controlling complex industrial robot tasks , including sensor-adaptive motions. (Germany)

Blue Frog Robotics is the company behind the open-source BUDDY companion robot , whose crowdfunding campaign recently ended with over 6 times their original funding ask. (France)

https://youtu.be/51yGC3iytbY

CleverPet has built a smart dog feeder that lets you play, teach, and connect with your pet all day. (USA)

Erle Robotics creates artificial brains for robots and drones that run on Linux and are based on ROS. (Spain)

GaitTronics is helping patients recover more quickly and with their rehabilitative robot walker , which makes early mobility therapy safe and secure for both patients and caregivers. (Canada)

Mimetics is the company behind the Jade, a fully-developed educational robot designed to engage and excite the next generation of scientists and engineers. (Canada)

Luvozo is developing SAM, a robot-based concierge for senior living communities to supplement staff with non-medical tasks and activities. (USA)

https://youtu.be/7b3dVHYzeR4

Mecademic has built an exceptionally compact and accurate tabletop collaborative robot arm for education and research. (Canada)

https://youtu.be/aKMpMYWniA8

Mobotech is the company behind the Mobot, a light and compact all-electric smart forklift for maneuvering in tight places and preventing workplace injuries. (New Zealand)

https://youtu.be/KSPOKlBv9a4?list=UUCMzA9Kphlgs1jeqH_weRDA

MUSE Robotics enables developers to build custom robots with less time and money using their complete package of plug and play actuators, motor control and sensory modules . (formerly SkyRobotics of Greece; USA)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sXlsH6PaNg

Redtree Hydra lets developers easily connect sensors, actuators, components and other parts to the robot without all the hassle of complicated circuits, specialized hardware or device drivers. (Canada)

Scannable are reinventing LiDAR so that low cost ground and aerial vehicles can avoid obstacles and create precise maps . (USA)

https://youtu.be/y3HL0IcbfPk

The Construct lets developers run simulations in the cloud and share them with colleagues via web interface. (Spain/USA)

Zyro Robot Therapy System is building a personalized robot coach that addresses a variety of educational, social and therapeutic needs. (USA)

PLUS a stealth female-led startup (USA) that we will share with you after the finals!! TBA!!

***

“These are all high quality early stage robotics startups, and that’s about all they have in common!” says competition organizer Andra Keay (Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics). “They address all areas of robotics … This an incredibly positive signal for investors and the robotics industry as a whole.”

The finalists will pitch to an audience of investors and robotics entrepreneurs on September 18 at WilmerHale in Palo Alto, CA. The winners will receive around $100,000 in prizes and services tailored specifically for robotics companies, from sponsors that include CSIRO, Siemens, Amazon, WilmerHale, SMBC, iRobot and Robolution Capital.

Judges include Shahin Farshschi (Lux Capital), Rich Mahoney (SRI International), Peter Kambouris (CSIRO), Glenn Luinenburg (WilmerHale), Hanns Anders (iRobot) and Carolin Funk (Siemens).

Providing global reach to local tech clusters

The Robot Launch global startup competition is co-organized by Silicon Valley Robotics, a regional robotics cluster, and Robohub.org, a global robotics research and community news network. Both are not-for-profit organizations supporting innovation in robotics, and together they form a strong bridge between robotics innovation and entrepreneurship.

“Silicon Valley is ideally positioned to connect robotics startups to investors, and the global robotics research community is producing some exciting new business ideas. But while there is now more money flowing towards early stage startups, robotics and hardware entrepreneurs need to be incredibly focused in how they move from prototype to beta customer and business model,” says Keay.

“Robot Launch connects clusters of robotics innovation at the critical early seed stage, and showcases the best new robotics businesses from around the world.”

Meaningful prizes for robotics startups

Robot Launch prizes are geared toward providing real business acceleration for the winners, such as:

A series of regional awards for best US, Canadian, Australian and European startups are geared toward developing local partnerships between tech clusters and mentors who can provide regional business, legal or investment support. For example, the law firms WilmerHale and LaBarge Weinstein will provide the regional US and Canadian winners (respectively) with free legal startup services; the regional Australian winner will get business mentoring from QUTBluebox ; and Robolution Capital will provide pitch coaching to the best European startup. Awards such as these help get more robotics startups onto the global stage while supporting entrepreneurship locally.

Siemens is offering the winning industrial robotics startups membership into their new Frontier Program, which includes access to Siemens’ PLM software suite and mentorship with industrial manufacturing partner companies. Robotics is a new area in the Frontier Program, which was initially only for 3D printing startups. The first robotics startup in the Frontier Program was Clearpath Robotics (Canada), who is also an award sponsor in the Robot Launch competition. Learn more.

Clearpath Robotics  is sponsoring the Robot Launch ROS Award to the startup best using the Robot Operating System. The availability of the open source Robot Operating System ROS has played an important role in speeding up the growth of startups (including Clearpath Robotics), and more than 1/3rd of the Robot Launch startups use ROS in some way. Clearpath will be providing 10 hours of ROS consulting to the winner.

The Olander Company and KRTKL are also providing custom hardware for robotics startups in the finals of Robot Launch, showcasing how even early-stage robotics companies can help each other get to market faster.

The Robohub Readers Pick award celebrates the crowd favorite through online voting. Now that crowdfunding can play a significant role in the pathway for many startups, success in attracting votes here sends a strong signal of support to CEOs and potential investors.

Key Info

The finals will take place online and in person on September 18, 2015 at WilmerHale in Palo Alto, CA. Videos from the event will be available on Robohub, data and time TBA. See Twitter hashtag  #RobotLaunch2015 for details.

***

About Silicon Valley Robotics

Silicon Valley Robotics (SVR) is the not-for-profit organization supporting innovation and commercialization of robotics technologies in Silicon Valley. SVR organizes investor and startup events, networking and a job board for robotics companies, and strategic reports on the robotics ecosystem.

http://svrobo.org

About Robohub

Robohub is a non-profit online communication network for the international robotics community. With over 70K unique visitors each month, Robohub features news and opinion from experts in all facets of robotics, including research, ethics, law, start-ups, business, arts and education.

http://robohub.org/

Follow Robot Launch on Twitter  

#RobotLaunch2015 https://twitter.com/hashtag/RobotLaunch2015

@svrobo https://twitter.com/svrobo

@Robohub https://twitter.com/robohub

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news  our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

Money flowing into robotics startups

Money was flowing into robotics startups this August. You’ll recall that in July, Softbank’s Pepper gained a rival when Japanese telco NTT announced it was launching a competing consumer robot called Sota. Well, now a third consumer robot is entering the frey: this month Boston-based Jibo received $11 million from leading Asia-Pacific investors to bring its robotic smart assistant to Asian markets. Although a full version is not available just yet, the investment means that Jibo is now poised and ready to go on sale in Asia as soon as the robot is ready.

Look familiar?

Also this month, GreyOrange – a company focused on materials and handling based in India and Singapore – received $30 million to produce more of its Butler mobile robot. Similar to Amazon’s Kiva Systems robot, Butler is a shelves-to-picker robot system designed to support transportation and logistics in warehouses. Frank Tobe asks: Does their technology infringe on Kiva’s IP?

Meanwhile in the US, Carnegie Mellon University and GE Ventures announced a for-profit $20 million venture fund, coupled with a new accelerator program called “The Robotics Hub”, which aims to bring leading robotics firms to Pittsburgh. The Robotics Hub will also help CMU’s robotics institute to spin off ideas from their lab. (We couldn’t help but notice that the name of the program shares astonishing similarities with a certain non-profit online communication platform focused on robotics news and developments.)

Combined with the many trade shows, conferences and reports of sales records, investments such as these seem to be building the business case for robotics. And some are taking a bet on it: the InterContinental Group just introduced Savioke mobile delivery robots at the 300-room Crown Plaza in Silicon Valley, hoping to showcase the cutting-edge technology produced in the region (not to mention offering guests a unique experience).

Research buzz

Russia’s ExoAtlet takes its first steps into clinical trials.

A team of scientists have begun a clinical field trial of Russia’s first medical exoskeleton, the ExoAtlet-Med. Backed by Skolkovo, this is the first exoskeleton from Russia, and the scientists hope the trial will enable them to demonstrate its ability to support movement and rehabilitation in patients with restricted limb function or spinal injury.

Elsewhere, experts in swarm robotics have developed a new programming language for heterogeneous robot swarms called Buzz. This novel language allows developers to create, modify and disband swarms as needed, with the freedom to choose the most appropriate approach to behavior development and learning.

Biologists have long hoped to learn more about cooperation and complex social behaviors in nature from robot swarms. Digital antlike robots created by a team of computer scientists at Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom have now brought them one step closer to this goal. The robots mimic leafcutter ants and allow scientists to explore how cooperation and division of labour might evolve over hundreds of generations.

Another research team is looking at evolution, too, but this time the evolution is in the robots themselves. In their paper, the researchers from Zurich and Cambridge describe how they built a robot arm that creates “babies” that are better adapted to their surroundings than their “mother”  – and all this without human input. Fascinating as this may sound, lead researcher Dr Fumiya Iida reassures us that the days of robots independently producing superior offspring are still a long way off.

Finally, it’s not just us humans who can learn from robots. MIT’s new robot called “Hermes” borrows its quick and graceful reflexes from a human controller. Hooked up to the human pilot, it mimics the controller’s movements in real time. In future, this robot may be useful to support search and rescue operations.

Robocar roundup

“A” is for autonomous.

This August Google X was made a subsidiary of the new Alphabet holding company, which is no longer part of the Google family. Brad Templeton (Robocars.com) explored what the decision means for Google’s robocars and came to the conclusion that, despite a number of drawbacks, the move could be a positive one.

And at Bloomberg Business, Noah Buhayar and Peter Robinson discussed whether the insurance industry will survive autonomous cars. Arguing that increased autonomy will result in fewer accidents and a subsequent drop in insurance premiums, they warn that if the industry does not adapt, it will nosedive.

Killer robots

Last month’s debates on killer robots, including IJCAI’s open letter calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons and Elon Musk’s investment in research to keep “AI robust and beneficial”, sparked further discussions this August. In an article in The Conversation, for example, the authors encouraged researchers to engage with military robots and to ensure that these robots act as ethically responsible as possible. Also in response to the open letter, Erik Sofge argued that a ban on killer robots is inevitable, and critically explored what such a ban could look like.

Hitchbot’s demise

Following successful trips across Canada, Germany and the Netherlands, Hitchbot was supposed to trek across the US from Boston to San Francisco, but the robot was found decapitated in Philadelphia, bringing its latest trip to an abrupt end. The ensuing hunt for Hitchbot’s killer heated up when one of its last companions’ claimed to have found a video showing Hitchbot’s attacker. However, the video turned out to be a hoax, even if Hitchbot’s unseemly decapitation was not.

Hitchbot’s family, a group of researchers from Canada, soon confirmed that the robot was beyond repair. A Kickstarter campaign to revive Hitchbot (started by some Philadelphia techies bent on restoring their city’s honor) far exceeded its goal, but was soon cancelled when the Canadian research team said that it was still deciding what to do next.

An untimely end.

The robot’s earlier adventures stand in stark contrast to its violent and untimely end. But Hitchbot knew the risks and continued on its journey in spite of them: designed primarily as a social experiment, some argued that it was only a question of time before Hitchbot met its demise. Whatever the reason for the attack, Hitchbot’s travels and even his destruction have taught us much about human behavior, just as the researchers intended. Talking about their loss, the researchers highlighted the many questions the robot helped to answer, and discussed possible future incarnations for the project.

If Hitchbot is indeed resurrected, we suggest that before it sets off on another journey it should get some self-defense lessons from this Tokyo robot that has learned to avoid bullies and flee from physical abuse.

New books

Several new books on robotics came out this August.

First among them is “Machines of Loving Grace” by Pulitzer-Prize-winning science writer John Markoff, which examines the history of automation and explores the paradox between “artificial intelligence” (AI) and the more human-centered concept of “intelligence augmentation” (IA).  Jerry Kaplan’s “Humans need not apply: A guide to wealth and work in the age of artificial intelligence” reviews advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence and looks at how these have (and will) transform the world economy. And author Murray Shanahan takes on the Singularity debate in his primer “The Technological Singularity”, outlining a series of scenarios that raise philosophical, ethical and pragmatic questions we, as a society, should consider.

At the other end of the spectrum, Jonathan Ledgard, former Africa correspondent for The Economist walks readers through his vision of how robotics – and cargo drones specifically – could transform the African continent and its economy. In a series of three essays, titled Terra Firma Triptych, Ledgard builds on his journalistic practice tracking the mass adoption of mobile phones throughout Africa, and predicts that cargo drones could have a similar impact on the region’s economy and productivity by bringing goods into regions where roads are poor or non-existent.

Events

The Robot Launch finals will be held on Friday Sept 18 when a selection of great startups will pitch live to an investor panel. Are Robohub readers on the same wavelength as our expert panelists? This week is the final vote for the Robot Launch “Readers’ Pick”, so vote now to have your say.

Other events this month to watch for:

• IFA Consumer Trade Show– Berlin, Germany – Sep 4-9
• IMA Conference on Mathematics of Robotics – Oxford, UK – Sep 9-11
• InterDrone – Las Vegas, USA – Sep 9-11
• Robo-Revolution – Karnataka, India – Sep 12-15
• Drone Apps Conference – Lausanne, Switzerland – Sep 14-15 (Use the discount code “Robohub” when registering for a 150CHF discount at checkout.)
• euRathlon Challenge – Piombino, Italy – Sep 17-25
• Robot Launch Finals – Robohub – Sep 18
• RoboBusiness – San Jose, CA, USA – Sep 23-24
• IROS – Hamburg, Germany – Sep 28 – Oct 4
• RTEX – Dubai, UAE – Sep 29 – Oct 1

Miss a previous digest? Don’t worry! Check out our archives. 

Launched in 2009 by a group of Waterloo engineering students, Clearpath‘s unmistakeable bright yellow and black robots have become synonymous with unmanned vehicle research in university research labs around the world. Now, as the field of robotics matures, Clearpath is forging into industrial applications, too. We caught up with CTO Ryan Gariepy at the 2015 Field and Service Robotics conference (FSR), to talk about their roots in research, the role of ROS and open source in their business model, and the challenges and opportunities of launching a robotics startup in Canada.

[HS] You got your start in the business of robotics while you were still a student at Waterloo. What made you decide to launch a robotics company at that time? Did you have a specific project or technology you were developing that made you think, “Hey, this could actually be useful out there!” …? Or was it that you saw the potential in the field more generally?

[RG] We started Clearpath right out of university in 2009 as we finished our undergraduate degrees – I did my Masters at the same time as we were getting off the ground, which is generally regarded to be a bad idea in terms of stress levels. It’s hard to believe that we just celebrated our sixth anniversary this year.

Starting the company was less about the technology and more about the potential … we just looked at everything around us and said, “Why do we have to shovel snow? This can be automated. Why do we have to do any work that does not require human creativity?” There are a lot of dangerous jobs out there that most people don’t realize are performed on a daily basis by tens of thousands of people in order to keep society going, like mining, farming, construction, stocking warehouses. And yet we need fuel and food and buildings, and we want our same-day deliveries from the Internet. There is a demand for this kind of work to take place.

Around the time we were starting out, Google Maps was getting off the ground. The concept of having information available at your fingertips was also becoming compelling and valuable to people, and the best way to get information about the world on a constant basis is to involve robotics or automation in some form. At the same time, sensors and the cost of sensing were improving due to the rapid uptake in smart phones; we were seeing advances in laptops, smartphones, and electric and hybrid vehicles driving down costs and improving battery density.

People now accept that robotics, automation, and intelligent systems can actually solve some of their problems.

All of this was coming together and we felt that autonomous robotics was possible at a relatively high reliability and low cost, especially when compared with what had been done before.

What would you say have been the biggest changes that you’ve seen in the field of robotics since then?

I think one of the biggest changes is simply that people now accept that robotics, automation, and intelligent systems can actually solve some of their problems.

This recognition means that there are a lot of opportunities out there, both in terms of hardware and software. In some industries – ones that have been around for a long time – they already know how to build solid hardware that could be made robotic, but they need the right parts and the right software to automate it. Then there are other industries that need full solutions. There are a lot of pieces starting to come together now.

Your early customer base was made up of mainly universities and research labs. Do you find yourself getting pulled into a different direction now that you’re expanding more into industry?

The research market is definitely maturing and our product development cycle within that side of the business is very well understood. We’ve released two completely different platforms in the last eight months alone.

Now we are in a position where we can leverage the experience we gained from the R&D market to address challenges in industry. We are actively pushing the development of full robotic solutions (including software), and will soon be releasing a new platform along these lines.

How do you manage the problem of building in more than one direction at the same time?

One of our biggest challenges is that there is no one single clear challenge, especially at the scale we’re at right now. At this stage there are many things that need to be focused on: sales, operations, quality assurance, new features, understanding where the market’s going, product management, marketing … so the challenge is more about managing the priorities of any given department.

How do I provide guidance to the team so that they can spend their time on the right tasks? How do we remain dynamic as a startup? How do we remain flexible enough to change direction quickly if we need to, but still be stable enough to stick to our core values? These are the kinds of questions we are dealing with.

Speaking of core values, Clearpath took a chance from the beginning by focusing on open source and ROS. Does open source make for a good business model?

Why open source? No matter how large a company we become, there will always be more smart people who can build and program robots outside our company than within it.

One of the reasons we looked at open source was the philosophy that no matter how large a company we become, there will always be more smart people who can build and program robots outside our company than within it. So it’s only logical that we work with whatever the community ends up creating around open source robotics, both to reinforce the community, and to hire from it.

That said, from a business model perspective it is more complicated. There are many companies that succeed with open source, but there is still no clear-cut model for building an open source company – and that tends to make people nervous. And yet by now we’ve seen several companies build on open source, including Google and Facebook, and it’s the same thing as building a startup on a LAMP stack: yes, you use open source and you may push back some code to open source, but you still have value you’re bringing on your own.

Earlier on we sold only hardware, which is easier to protect. Now that we’re getting into software sales, open source creates additional considerations for us, but it still hasn’t been an issue. Building on open source makes us more effective, and it certainly helps us engage much more with the robotics community.

Now that you’ve done all the legwork of developing the product and proving the market, do you have any concerns that another company with more resources could just come along and say, “We know who their buyers are, and we know what their markets are, and we can imitate their products …”?

Clearpath is sponsoring the 2015 Robot Launch “Open Source Robotics” Award, offering 10 hours of ROS consulting services to the winner.

ROS is open source and we contribute a lot back to it. We test a lot, we support people, we contribute drivers, and we contribute utilities back. However, the work that we do on autonomy and in controls –planning, mapping localization, interfacing, vehicle management – is not open source. We may open source parts of it in the future as we advance our state of the art, but the ‘secret sauce’ is still closed, even though it’s built on ROS middleware.

Could it make life easier for our competitors in some cases? Yes, but by the same token nobody makes money on having a better robot-logging framework, for example, and everybody saves money by having a good free robot-logging framework. If a better logging framework is your only competitive advantage, it’s not really an advantage, is it? Personally, I’d rather not spend money on a logging framework, and spend more to compete on the actual value that we bring to our clients.

You mentioned snow shoveling as one of your inspirations, which is a stereotypically Canadian problem. Did the Canadian climate and landscape figure into your business plan from the beginning? Is that why you wound up in field and service robotics, as opposed to some other application area?

Of course our robots can survive the winter – we’re Canadian!

One of our competitive advantages is the terrible weather we have in Canada. We have harsh winters, we have a lot of forestry, a lot of primary resources to mine and harvest, and we have a lot of space that is sparsely populated, which makes it easier to do testing. We also happen to have a very well developed technology ecosystem here. When you put those things together, it’s natural to lean towards field robotics.

When we started there were very few platforms out there that could actually do field robotics, and so we set that as our first niche.

How is the Canadian business landscape for robotics?

Many of our first customers were Canadian universities, some of which are leading the way in robotics integration and research. Meanwhile, Industry Canada is looking at how robotics technology can be adapted to existing manufacturing clusters in Southwestern Ontario, like the auto sector, which took a hit when the North American auto industry had a downturn. Canada also has strengths such as communications and optics, which naturally extend into robotics. It also helps when we can do business with Canadian suppliers; we get our GPS’ from NovAtel, which is based in Calgary, for example.

That said, as a Canadian company you’re forced to go multinational almost instantly because there isn’t enough of a robotics market in Canada to stay Canadian for long. We recently announced that we’ll be expanding office space into Silicon Valley and a primary reason for that is because of the opportunity that is available in the US market. Regardless, the Waterloo Region will continue to be Clearpath’s ‘home base’ for the foreseeable future.

People now refer to Waterloo as ‘Silicon Valley North’. What’s changed in the incubation space where Clearpath grew up since you launched?

It used to be that investors would demand that you move to the area where their office was, which was typically Boston or New York City or Silicon Valley, but that’s not always the case anymore.

It used to be that investors and venture capitalists would demand that you move to the area where their office was, which was typically Boston or New York City or Silicon Valley, but that’s not always the case anymore. Investors are starting to recognize that there are also benefits to being in other locations, especially for startups. Waterloo has a very dynamic tech community. It’s also a quarter of the price to buy a house here than in some of those larger US cities, and the time it takes me to get to work is 10 minutes, which makes it pretty livable and affordable compared to Silicon Valley. We found that VCs are now willing to accept that good ideas and businesses can grow and thrive in other areas as long as these areas have the right attitude – and Waterloo certainly has that.

Take the displacement of BlackBerry employees for instance – quite a few very smart people who were working at Blackberry have moved on to bring their skills and experience to other industries. We’ve hired a number of them, and a number of them have gone off to launch their own startups.

On top that is the continual increase in the brand of the Waterloo Region, and specifically the University of Waterloo (UW), as the place to go for getting a great education and practical experience that can lead to entrepreneurship. YCombinator’s Paul Graham has noted that UW has a fantastic record for turning out very strong companies, specifically hardware companies.

The other change worth mentioning is that Clearpath isn’t alone. The first group of startups that came out of UW includes Pebble, Vidyard, and more recently Thalmic Labs. These are all people who have graduated from UW’s engineering program within a few years of each other.

Does that help, too? Having a cluster that’s grown up together?

It certainly does.

Take recruiting, for example. When you’re hiring someone it helps prospective employees to know that there are other options. Clearpath has hired quite a few people from outside the region and if you’re taking a risk and moving a few thousand kilometers to join us, it’s good to know that there are other companies around, whether it’s for future growth opportunities, shared interests, or participating in knowledge transfer. For prospective employees, knowing that you can get back on your feet if you need to, or that your partner can find a job in the region, is very useful.

There is also something to be said for being part of a startup community. We all know each other, and we try to mentor each other. Even if you’re not working in exactly the same market, you can look at other startups and see them succeeding – and this is evidence that you can do it too.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

A new battle for consumer marketshare is on

Japanese telcos vie for share in consumer robot-as-a-service business. Source: Getty Images

First it was Google, Amazon and Apple. Now it’s Japanese telcos that are jockying for position in the robotics game. In early July, SoftBank announced that they will produce and sell 1,000 Pepper robots per month starting August 1. Then, a few weeks later rival Japanese telco NTT launched a competing consumer robot called Sota. Not to be outdone, Softbank responded the next day by announcing they will take preorders for the enterprise version of Pepper starting in October. Both companies will be using the robots to sell data subscription services. Could it be that it’s not just about Google vs Amazon, or Softbank vs NTT anymore, but about telcos vs big data companies? Robohub will be reopening its focus series Big deals: What it means to have the giants investing in robotics to explore how telcos might be changing the game.

At your service

Cyberdyne’s waist-based mini-exoskeleton for airport employees charged with moving and lifting baggage and goods. Source: Getty Images.

Pepper and Sota aren’t the only robots Japanese consumers will be seeing more of soon. Haneda Airport is about to deploy three robots made by Cyberdyne, including an autonomous floor cleaner, a mobile luggage porter and an exoskeleton to help employees handling baggage and goods. And then there is Japan’s new fully robotic Henn na Hotel, which developers hope will change the face of low-cost travel accommodation.

Several market research reports are predicting impressive growth rates for service robotics generally.

Cooking up a storm

Robot as marketing strategy: Bosch takes a bet on Rotimatic’s consumer flatbread maker

But there is more news in service robotics.

This month Robotic flatbread maker Rotimatic (by Zimplistic) received $11.5million from two venture funds. The company took more than $5M in pre-orders of their cooking robot at their launch in 2014 and already has $72M worth of backorders. It seems that robots are back in the popular imagination as household helpers, and investors are taking a bet on leveraging consumer interest in robots as a viable marketing strategy.

But the Rotimatic is not the only cooking robot vying for our attention this month. At the PRISMA lab in Naples, Italy, researchers have chosen to study robotic dynamic manipulation through the task of making pizza (how very Italian!). They hope their RoDyMan robot will provide answers to key problems related to robot gripping.

Major milestones

Industrial robotics pioneer Joe Engelberger turned 90 this July. Image courtesy of Ars Electronica.

One of the pioneers of industrial robotics, Joe Engelberger, celebrated his 90^th birthday this July. Industrial robotics has come a long way in the sixty years since Engelberger founded Unimation, the world’s first robotics company: Financial Times analysts are now predicting that the payback period for industrial robots with a 10 year life cycle is just 1.7 years in 2015, down from 11.8 yrs in 2008. Meanwhile, Siemens announced a new Robot Launch “Industrial Robotics Award” as part of their Frontier Partner program.

T=81 hours. Thunderstorm clouds and winds up to 60 km/h make landing the AS-2 challenging.

Another major milestone was met when ETH Zurich’s fully solar powered UAV AtlantikSolar achieved a full day/night flight. Then, just two weeks later, they achieved solar powered flight for 81 hours, setting a new endurance world record for UAVs in its class. Demonstrating this kind of endurance has been called the ‘holy grail of perpetual flight’ because overcast skies can inhibit recharging and poor weather or high winds can effect power consumption.

In other news, ReWalk Robotics’s new exoskeleton allowed paraplegic Robert Woo to take a walk on the streets of New York, and the very first robot-aided paediatric surgery was performed at Brooke Army Medical Centre in the US.

Robots making (more) headlines

Is the intense focus on safety and effectiveness compromising training opportunities for new robotic surgeons?

A study on adverse events in robotic surgery released this month reported that between January 2000 and December 2013, FDA records showed that robotic surgical procedures were linked to the deaths of 144 people, 1,391 injuries, and involved 8,061 malfunctions – this is out of a total of more than 1.7 million procedures performed in that time period. The report made headlines in mainstream news outlets, including MIT Technology Review. But is the intense focus on safety and effectiveness compromising training opportunities for new robotic surgeons?

In an unfortunate incident this month, a 21-year-old contractor was killed while installing a robot at a VW assembly plant in Germany when he was accidentally struck in the chest and pinned against a metal plate. The story was tweeted by Financial Times employment reporter Sarah O’Connor, whose name coincidentally shares striking similarities to Sarah Connor, the lead female protagonist in the Terminator movies. In the ensuing hours, O’Connor’s Twitter feed unwittingly received a barrage of Skynet references, the story went viral in the media, and robots got a lot of negative headlines in the process, causing some to question whether the story would have received the same attention had it been labelled as an ‘industrial accident’.

And at the end of July, the IJCAI in Buenos Aires kicked off with an open letter organized by the Boston-based Future of Life Institute (FLI) calling for a ban on offensive autonomous weapons. The letter was signed by over a thousand individuals, including prominent researchers, technologists and thought leaders such as Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, Erik Brynjolfsson, Eric Horvitz, Geoff Hinton, Yann LeCun, Stuart Russell, and many others. The letter generated headlines across the globe warning of an “AI arms race”, and was celebrated by some as a bold move, but it was taken to task by Automaton’s Evan Ackerman, and criticized as a PR stunt in Pando. Meanwhile, the Future of Life Institute named 37 research teams that will be awarded a share of $7 million from Elon Musk and the Open Philanthropy Project to support research on “keeping AI robust and beneficial”.

Space

In June, Philae made headline news when it woke up after a crash landing that had left it silent for months. But now the lander has gone silent once again. Despite the lack of communication, engineers keep transmitting commands to Philae, in hope that it will continue to carry out measurements and eventually send results back to Earth.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX have been analysing the CRS-7 explosion and have tentatively proposed that a faulty strut may be to blame. Investigations into the incident are ongoing.

The art of the real, and the art of CGI

National Geographic’s new movie, Robots 3D, proves that robots don’t need to be sci-fi to be compelling.

We are used to seeing robots with astonishing powers running around on film and TV screens, but National Geographic’s new movie “Robots 3D” is different. It takes us on a tour of real robots in their labs around the world, explaining how far we have really come in the field of humanoid robotics without the need for special effects. We were impressed!

But if you’re into deconstructing sci-fi, check out this article by special effects expert Graham Edwards, who explains – from script writing and robot design to filming and post production – what goes into making the robots in movies like “Robot Overlords” look so real.

Enjoy the digest? Don’t miss the next issue! Sign up to get it in your inbox every month.

Upcoming robotics events

• Robotronica – Brisbane QLD, Australia – August 23, 2015
• TRADR Summer School on Autonomous Micro Aerial Vehicles – Sankt Augustin, Germany – August 24-28, 2015
• IEEE Intl Conf on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE) – Gothenburg, Sweden – August 24-28, 2015
• IEEE Ro-Man Socially Embedded Robots Conference – Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan – August 31 – September 4, 2015
• IFA 2015 Consumer Trade Show – Messe Berlin, Germany – September 4-9, 2015

NTT’s recent entry into consumer robotics suggests that it’s not just about Google vs Amazon, or Softbank vs NTT anymore, but about telcos vs big data companies. With two major and distinct sectors now competing for market share in consumer robotics, will this impact the way the whole robotics industry evolves?

In the winter of 2013/14 major league US-based big data companies like Google, Apple and Amazon propelled robotics into mainstream news when they started buying and investing in robotics companies like Boston Dynamics, Kiva and Nest. The world was wondering: why do all these consumer-focused big data companies suddenly care so much about robots? Now it seems that the big data sector is not the only one with its eye on robotics. This spring Japanese telecommunications firm Softbank acquired Aldebaran’s Pepper robot, and just yesterday, the competing and much larger Japanese telco NTT announced it would be partnering with consumer robot manufacturer Vstock to offer its Sota robot to consumers on a subscription basis.

Is this a signal that the telecommunication sector will become just as interested in robotics as big data companies are?

The two Japanese telcos will be leveraging their robotic acquisitions/partnerships to market their core business – communications services like networking, broadband and data delivery – to their massive existing consumer base. For telcos, this seems a logical extension of the cell phone business model: the device itself is a loss leader and the revenue earned is in the subscription fees. Softbank will be charging about $1600USD plus a $30USD subscription fee for the consumer model of Pepper, and  about $440USD/month for the recently announced enterprise model. NTT will be charging about $800USD with a monthly service fee of about $30USD for Sota.

These rates are far higher than a smartphone, and so it remains to be seen whether customers can see added value in the service over existing ones. Success may hinge on first developing niche markets, for example healthcare. Indeed NTT says it will roll out Sota as a companion robot in seniors homes next March, and Softbank’s first corporate customer is Nestle, who will be soon be launching Pepper as a marketing and service assistant in its Nescafe stores.

It remains to be seen whether, when, and how far telcos in other countries will latch on to the same trend. Softbank and NTT are located in Japan, whose population has a general love and affection for robots, and has traditionally had a strong consumer support for technology. The government of South Korea is active in marketing robotics to its people (they are even building a giant theme park dedicated to promoting robot tourism) and also seems like a good candidate. South Korea’s two top telcos, SK Telecom and KT, have both launched consumer robots. About taking Kibot into global markets, Seo Yu-Yeol, president in charge of KT’s Home Business Group has said:  “We continue to conduct market surveys on each country’s network infrastructure such as broadband and WiFi services.”

There are surely others.

But returning to the original question of telcos vs big data companies … is it a stretch to say this is a game changer? Compare the fledgling consumer robotics industry to the early auto industry, where the oil, gas and electricity sectors all fought for influence. The oil sector largely won out and we have the gasoline-powered car; and it’s no coincidence that Elon Musk is invested in both electric cars and solar power … Through the eyes of the energy producers, the car is just a delivery vehicle for energy consumption.

Or perhaps it’s not telcos vs big data companies at all, but rather telcos AND big data companies. As evidenced by the Uber and Airbnb, the continuum between carrier, medium, data and service is getting blurrier by the day.

Either way, with these sectors driving the next wave of the consumer robot economy, how will this shape how we use, interact with and consume robotics technology? To paraphrase Frank Tobe in his recent Robot Report newsletter, it could be that: “We are watching robotics turn from industry to ubiquity before our eyes.”

Following an in-depth discussion on the topic at Robohub’s editorial meeting today, it seems at this point there are many more questions than answers …

• Is this even a game changer? or is it just hype?
• Which sector – big data or telco – is better positioned to capitalize on consumer robotics? Or will these sectors work together in partnership?
• Will we see a ‘dumbing down’ of social robotics systems as they become mass marketed consumer products? Or will the competition between telcos and big data inject energy and money into R&D ?
• How will niche markets, such as healthcare or service industry, impact the development of social robotics?
• Are there substantive differences between social robots vs. the other smart devices that telcos are currently using to deliver their services? Or in Noam Chomsky’s words: Is the medium the message?
• How will all this impact robotics research and development? Will it benefit or harm the robotics community?
• Will we see a regional consolidation of telco investment, for example in Japan? When will telcos from other countries jump into the market?
• How does telco involvement impact privacy issues?
• Will this help usher in robot-as-a-service (RaaS) as an accepted business model?

To explore these questions, and many others, Robohub will be renewing our focus series Big deals: What it means to have the giants investing in robotics (started back when the Googles and the Amazons were first getting into the fray) to explore how telcos might be changing the game.

Interested in joining the discussion? Leave a comment below or email us at info@robohub.org with your contribution ideas.

A special thanks to Robohub team members Andrea Keay (@robotlaunch), Sabine Hauert (@sabinehauert), Adriana Hamacher (@AdrianaHamacher), John Payne (@lacyiceplusheat) and Audrow Nash for their stimulating discussion and input. 

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Japanese telcos vie for share in consumer robot-as-a-service business
• Softbank will take pre-orders for enterprise version of Pepper starting Oct 1
• Forget Google and unicorns, Asian dragons are going to dominate robotics
• Foxconn and Alibaba invest in SoftBank Robotics as Pepper goes on sale in Japan
• Nestlé 1st big buyer of Softbank’s Pepper robot
• Natural language: The de-facto interface convention for social robotics
• The second wave of social robots is here

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Both Softbank and NTT, with their large existing consumer bases, both seem to be vying to develop the robot-as-a-service market.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Japanese telcos vie for share in consumer robot-as-a-service business
• Forget Google and unicorns, Asian dragons are going to dominate robotics
• Foxconn and Alibaba invest in SoftBank Robotics as Pepper goes on sale in Japan
• Nestlé 1st big buyer of Softbank’s Pepper robot
• Natural language: The de-facto interface convention for social robotics
• The second wave of social robots is here

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Yesterday a second Japanese telecommunication firm entered the consumer robot-as-a-service market when the state-owned Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) announced it would partner with its subsidiary NTT Data and robot maker Vstone to develop a tabletop companion robot that can talk and communicate with smart devices. NTT joins Softbank in the move to market networking and cloud computing services to a massive existing consumer base using consumer robotics. NTT says its Sota companion robot will cost about 100,000 JPY (~$800USD), with a monthly service fee of a few thousand JPY (~$30). UPDATE:  Softbank will take pre-orders for enterprise version of Pepper starting Oct 1 

NTT seems to be betting that a simpler, smaller and less expensive device will be more appealing to Japanese consumers than Softbank’s larger (and mobile) Pepper, which costs about $1600 for the robot, plus $200 per month for the online service and maintenance contract. Japan, with its high housing costs, is notorious for its small apartments, and a table top robot that doesn’t need to navigate stairs or take up precious real estate might be just the competitive advantage NTT needs. Sota weighs about 1kg and is only 11″ (28cm) high.

Hiroshi Ishigura announces Sota at a press conference in January 2105. Source: Japan Times.

It remains to be seen how the two devices will compare in terms of their conversational abilities. In January of this year, Japanese robotics researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro – known for his work on extremely life-like humanoid robots – announced at a news conference that he was developing Sota (which stands for ‘social talker’) in collaboration with Vstone. At the news conference Ishiguro said that Sota’s conversational system was programmed to talk primarily with other robots, and not humans. “Voice recognition has always been very difficult for robots … Human beings should instead adjust to what robots can do.” In the video below, you can watch Sota interacting with CommU, another of Ishiguro’s robots that was unveiled at the same time. According to a story in the Japan Times, CommU and Sota “cannot understand what people are saying and are just acting out programmed conversations.”

This might suggest that Sota’s conversational abilities would be on the vacuous side, but this statement was presumably made before NTT and NTT Data entered the picture. One would expect NTT Data will bring its expertise in voice recognition and speech synthesis technologies to bear on the problem. NTT Data says it will develop apps for Sota, and deliver these via its parent company’s cloud networking services.

Sota’s conversational system. Source: NTT Data

NTT says Sota will be deployed in seniors’ homes as early as next March, and can be connected to medical devices to help monitor health conditions. This plays well with Japanese policy to develop and promote technological solutions to its aging population crisis.

It will be interesting to watch these two companies battle it out. Like Softbank, NTT is a Japanese telco providing phone, mobile, internet and network/technology services throughout Japan, but NTT has been around far longer, since 1952. According to Bloomberg, NTT’s 2014 earnings (10.9 trillion JPY) handily outstripped Softbank’s (6.7 trillion JPY), and the company ranks as one of the largest telcos in terms of revenue worldwide. While NTT is publicly traded, the Japanese government owns about one third of NTT’s shares. Sota is not NTT’s first foray into conversational robotics. Their subsidiary, NTT DoCoMo, have developed OHaNAS (video below) and Shabette.

Softbank, on the other hand, is somewhat smaller, but perhaps more agile. It has grown very quickly since its launch in 1981, and has made some astute moves in its short history, including partnering with Apple in 2008 to be the only official carrier of the iPhone in Japan (at least until the release of iPhone 4S). Softbank is also widely recognized in Japan for its forward thinking, creative and extremely popular marketing campaigns. While Softbank’s first big customer is Nestle (which is deploying Pepper as a customer service robot in its Nescafe stores this year), it’s clear from their recent promotional video (below) that they are still hoping to get a significant piece of the consumer pie by marketing Pepper’s abilities to recognize and appropriately respond to human emotions. 

https://youtu.be/3a4sZnLRvqk

Sota is joining a number of tabletop companions, including Jibo and Amazon Echo, in the race to market. Where Sota stands apart, though, is in its backing from a major telco (Pepper has this, too, but is not a tabletop device). In this sense Sota becomes not so different from a cellphone or tablet with voice recognition – it’s simply a marketing vehicle through which data services are sold. With a major telco and its existing customer base onside, Sota could be poised to grab a significant slice of the companion robotics pie.

On the other hand, consumers might be wary of “yet another” talking device if it fails to provide real social benefits over other technology forms, like cellphones and tablets. While Cory Kidd (Catalia Health) has shown through evidence-based research that social robots can offer measurable benefits over software alone, the ability to supply meaningful companionship or effect health benefits through behaviour change will surely depend on the sophistication of the conversational system. As Andra Keay of Silicon Valley Robotics puts it: “Social robotics right now is like the early days of the mobile phone industry. When many companies brought handsets to market that basically all provided the same core functionality. However, some models of phone became phenomenally popular and others sank like stones. It remains to be seen where Sota fits in the new social device spectrum.”

Whether or not NTT succeeds, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more telcos entering the consumer robotics space .

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Forget Google and unicorns, Asian dragons are going to dominate robotics
• Foxconn and Alibaba invest in SoftBank Robotics as Pepper goes on sale in Japan
• Nestlé 1st big buyer of Softbank’s Pepper robot
• Natural language: The de-facto interface convention for social robotics
• The second wave of social robots is here

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

DRC denouement

The robots may have been falling down, but DARPA left a brilliant PR legacy for robotics. Image source: DARPA.

Kicking off the month was the climax of the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) – possibly the most anticipated robotic contest ever. The competition to develop a mobile robot capable of operating in hazardous environments saw 25 finalists compete for $3.5M in prize money, with KAIST (the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) crowned as ultimate victors. Although we did see a lot of robots falling down and staring at locked doors, the contest was deemed a success in community building and public relations. Rethink Robotics’ Rodney Brooks came up with what has to be the quote of the contest: “Anyone who is worried about the robot apocalypse just needs to keep their doors closed.”

That’s somewhat reassuring considering the Moscow Times reported that Russia is building a humanoid combat robot, which it says will be able to run and complete an obstacle course by the end of this year.

In the end, though, are humanoids are finally leaving the lab and doing useful things? SRI’s ultra-efficient DURUS robot (which was demoed at the DRC), and recent major funding announcements for Fetch and the developer of the Pepper robot Softbank (see below) suggest that may soon be the case.

Asian dragons

Chairmen from SoftBank, Foxconn and Alibaba pose with Pepper during the announcement of .

In June, Fetch announced new funding of $20M from Japanese multinational SoftBank, as well as O’Reilly AlphaTech and Shasta Ventures. Then Softbank itself received funding injections from Foxconn and Alibaba, who each invested $118m, providing further evidence that Asian forces are gearing up to dominate the robotics industry. This builds on news from April that Russia’s Skolkovo Foundation and the Chinese Cybernaut Investment Group signed an agreement to create a joint Russian-Chinese business incubator, a robotics accelerator program, and an investment fund worth $200m — essentially to import Russian tech and know-how into Chinese production facilities.

Currently, Japan leads in industrial robots, with the US second, according to figures from the Robotic Industries Association. But by 2017, China will have more factory robots than any other country. For more facts and figures on the rise of industrial automation, take a look at the Wall Street Journal, which devoted a whole section to the topic last month.

Funding and IPOs for medical robotics

Transenterix’s SurgiBot system is presently awaiting FDA approval. They plan to use the $50M raised in their IPO to ramp up a sales force to market the new system.

Funding and IPOs for medical robotics this month: Corindus Vascular Robotics raised $42M, not to be outdone by surgical device maker Transenterix, which raised $50M from their IPO. The two join a growing list of publicly-traded robotic healthcare companies such as Accuray, Cyberdyne, Mazor Robotics, Hansen Medical, Stereotaxis, Intuitive Surgical, Titan Medical, Stryker and Johnson & Johnson.

Good news and bad for robots in space

There was jubilation at the European Space Agency when unmanned comet lander Philae made contact after seven months of hibernation, having finally recharged its batteries after a bumpy landing left it on its side where sunlight had a hard time reaching its solar panels. The mission is now set to resume.

But the challenges of space flight were once again thrown into sharp relief when an unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, bound for the International Space Station, exploded over the Atlantic, and a number of planned commercial operations were placed under threat.

European attitudes to robots

The Special Eurobarometer 427 on Autonomous Systems shows a slight decline in people’s attitudes towards robots since 2012, when the study was first conducted.

Back on the ground a major study reported that public perception of robots in the EU, while overall positive, is in decline. However, the study also showed that people’s exposure to robots is on the rise, and the more personal experience they have with robots, the more favourably they think of them.

Robocar news

This June the New York Times informed us that the future of transportation is already here and agricultural equipment manufacturer John Deere said nevermind Google’s small fleet of autonomous cars, it already has tens of thousands of self-driving tractors in service around the world.

Meanwhile Google appeared to be taking liability concerns head on by announcing it would release regular accident reports, while the head of its autonomous car programme, Chris Urmson, told the world in his TED talk that, statistically speaking, the least reliable part of the car is the driver. And keynoting at the Field and Service Robotics conference this month Urmson said his goal is to get the project on the road before his 12-year-old son needs to take a driving test.

Meanwhile, Chinese web services company, Baidu, announced a collaboration with BMW.

Research roundup

Controlling a mobile telepresence device through obstacles like doorways can be difficult when fine motor skills have been compromised, but this BCI device has shared control, making it far easier to navigate. (Photo: Alain Herzog, EPFL)

A shared-control BCI telepresence robot held out the promise of increased independence for those with mobility problems; robots learnt to push heavy objects with their bodies and a new algorithm helped a “Tailsitter” flying robot hover and recover easily.

Summer entertainment

Gemma Chan plays the synth Anita in Humans. Source: Channel 4

We were left unsettled but gripped by the new UK robot drama Humans, enlightened by 2015’s summer reading list, open-mouthed at the Yaskawa robot learning the art of the samurai, and fascinated by Andrew Whitehurst’s account of the visual effects in Ex Machina.

Robot Launch 2015

Last but by no means least came the good news that the deadline for applications for Robohub’s and Silicon Valley Robotics’ very own startup competition – Robot Launch 2015 – has been extended to 12 July 2015. With a prize pool of more than $50K, what are you waiting for?! Get those entries in!

Events this July

• International Conference on Computer Vision Systems (ICVS) – July 6-9 -Copenhagen, Denmark
• CIROS 2015 – July 8-9 – Shanghai, China
• 2015 Robotics: Science and Systems Conference – July 13-17 – Rome, Italy
• IEEE CIS and RAM Conference – July 15-17 – Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia
• International Conference on Advanced Robots (ICAR) – July 27-31 – İstanbul, Turkey

Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

A major study into European attitudes toward automation has found that while almost two thirds of people polled feel generally positive about robots, public acceptance of them in the EU is in decline. This comes despite the finding that personal experience with robots is on the rise, and the more personal experience people have with robots, the more favourably they tend to think of them.

The study looks at ways in which public attitudes about robotics may have changed over the last two years. In the last quarter of 2014, the Special Eurobarometer polled some 27,801 people from the 28 Member States of the European Union to gauge public attitudes and acceptance in regard to robots and automation. While 64% of people interviewed in the recent poll have a positive view of robots, this is down from the 70% reported in the previous 2012 study. With the exception of Malta, where figures remain at 2012 levels, all countries experienced a decline in the proportion of respondents who have a positive view of robots.

Views about robots, by country. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Though the public continues to see robots as beneficial, regulation and jobs remain key issues 

While 85% agreed that robots are necessary to do dangerous or difficult jobs, this has declined 3% since 2012. Similarly, while 72% now think they are a good thing for society, 76% believed this to be the case in 2012.

A vast majority (89%) of respondents believe that robots are a form technology that requires careful management, similar to 2012 levels (91%). Likewise, 70% of respondents believe that robots steal people’s jobs – the same as in the previous study.

Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Mixed feelings on workplace assistants

People’s attitudes are shifting on the acceptance of robots as workplace assistants. Since 2012 several countries have recorded a sizeable decline in the proportion of respondents who say they would feel comfortable using this technology at work, including Slovakia (61%, -19 pp.), Finland (55%, -11 pp.), Slovenia (52%, -8 pp.), Denmark (65%, -8 pp.) and the Czech Republic (63%, -8 pp.). However, noticeable increases were also recorded in Luxembourg (49%, +12 pp.), Austria (49%, +8 pp.) and Malta (42%, +5 pp.).

Greater acceptance of autonomous cars for transporting goods than for people

The study also looked at whether respondents would be willing to accept self-driving vehicles in the future. While only 35% of respondents reported that they would feel comfortable travelling in an autonomous car themselves, 42% were warm to the idea of having goods transported this way.

Comfort level (1-10) with travelling in an autonomous car. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Comfort level (1-10) with transporting goods in an autonomous car. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Drones seen as bad for privacy but good for delivery

While 66% of respondents are concerned that civil drones are a threat to privacy, a majority (57%) also believe that they are an efficient way of transporting and delivering goods.

Attitude to civilian drones. Source: Special Eurobarometer 427 – Autonomous Systems

Divided continent?

The study makes use of extensive comparisons: between European states, in terms of age, employment, income and internet use. Geographically, analysis shows that people polled in southern European countries tend to be more negative and less engaged with robotics than their northern counterparts. And certain social groups also emerge as more negative and less engaged: “house persons” (42%), retirees (37%), unemployed respondents (35%) and manual workers (29%).
Robot use is on the rise, and the more people know them the more they like them

One European in seven has now used a robot either at home, at work or elsewhere; up from one in eight in 2012. Overall, when looking at the total use of robots, 24 Member States recorded an increase in the level of use of robots since 2012, with the largest increases occurring in the Czech Republic (21%, +7 pp.), Luxembourg (17%, +7 pp.) and Italy (24%, +6 pp.). Only Germany (7%, -2 pp.) registered a fall in the level of use.

The research shows that the more exposure to robots you have, the more positively you feel about them ; 82% of respondents have a positive view of robots if they have experience with them, where as only 60% of respondents have a positive view if they lack robot experience.

And experience with robots maps to consumer interest, too: 29% of respondents say they would purchase a robot if they have used one already, but only 7% of respondents would do so if they have no experience.

Access the full report: Special Eurobarometer 427: Autonomous Systems

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Europeans attitudes towards robots 2012

• A crisis of expectations

• What does the UK public think about robots? Sciencewise wants to know

• Driven by care needs, will it be the booming senior population that spurs wider acceptance of robots?

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news 

Let’s get down to business

Danish co-bot maker Universal Robots sold to Teradyne for $350 million.

Plenty of business news this month. Big stories included the sale of the privately-owned Danish collaborative systems pioneer Universal Robots to Massachusetts-based Teradyne, a provider of electronic testing equipment. And another European robotics manufacturing pioneer, Swiss-based ABB, opened its first US plant.

But it wasn’t all about the manufacturing sector: social robotics startup Jibo got a new high-profile CEO, Steve Chambers, who previously headed sales, marketing, and business development for Nuance, the publicly held speech recognition company. Jibo’s former CEO and founder, Cynthia Breazeal, is returning to her roots as Chief Scientist at Jibo. Chambers helped Jibo raise a handy $25m in new funding earlier this year.

Drones taking off

CyPhy Works raised 230K in first two days of the crowdfunding campaign for their new autopilot drone, LVL 1.

Drone startups had a stellar month with CyPhy Works raising over half a million in crowdfunding for their new autopilot drone – and still two weeks of the campaign to go. Learn more about the campaign and the technology behind it in Robohub’s upcoming podcast with CyPhy Works founder Helen Greiner, who we nabbed after she delivered her plenary at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) last week.

But CyPhy Works was surely dwarfed by the funding received by fellow drone makers DJI, 3DR, and Airware – who raised $75m, $64m, and  $40.5m respectively. With this kind of financial interest, surely no further market validation is required to prove this industry is taking off. Meanwhile, on the research side, multiple tethered quadrocopters, foldable quadrotors and autonomous airborne docking all made headlines.

Car-eering around

Mercedes/Daimler and Freightliner are testing a self-driving truck in Nevada.

Back on the ground, Tesla was purporting to be solving liability issues for self-driving vehicles with clever software this month. Commenting on Robohub, Bryant Walker Smith was doubtful of the legal validity of the approach, but manufacturers surely need to get their heads round this tricky issue, particularly with the news that Google’s self-driving cars have crashed 11 times in recent years (even if it’s because humans keep driving into them, as the company claims). So watch out if you’re in California, as Google plans to begin testing on public roads there this summer. And pay attention if you’re in Nevada, as a combined Mercedes/Daimler and Freightliner project is testing a self-driving truck in the state.

With all the action on the autonomous car front, you might be thinking of a career in this area … Last February the ride share service Uber announced a strategic partnership with Carnegie Mellon University to undertake autonomous car research. Now, according to an article in the Verge, Uber is recruiting from CMU’s robotics center, with whole research teams decamping to the Uber Advanced Technologies Center just down the road – though publicly both Uber and CMU are maintaining a positive spin about the relationship. While we can’t be certain where Uber is looking for hires, we can say for certain that they are looking; they were seen actively recruiting at the ICRA career fair last week in Seattle.

We’re getting excited about the DRC Finals

Three years in the making, the DRC finals are nearly upon us and it all comes to head on 6 June. DARPA says it wants to create a “lasting legacy,” not only for robot hardware capabilities, but also for robotics simulation software. But what will DRC software contractor OSRF do now that the DRC Finals are coming to an end? IEEE Spectrum’s Evan Ackerman and Brian Gerkey have been finding out.

Meanwhile OSRF and DARPA have launched a Robotics Fast Track program for projects that could deliver prototypes and proofs of concept in six to 12 months.

Be sure to check out Robohub for a live stream of all DRC Finals in action – you can see all the Robohub coverage about the DRC here.

Picking your way to the top

RBO Team from TU Berlin wins the Amazon Picking Challenge at ICRA 2015. Photo Credit: RBO.

There was action aplenty during Amazon’s picking challenge at ICRA and two things stood out: how many different arm grippers there are, and just how difficult the challenge still is. But that hasn’t stopped Amazon, eBay, and Google ramping up the development of their own speedy warehousing operations to satisfy an increasing customer expectations. UK online retailer Ocado has now also joined the gang.

Shaping our robotic future

Audi is testing the Noonee “chairless chair” exoskeleton at their production facilities. AdPhoto: Courtesy Audi.

There was a revolutionary flavour to May. For the developers behind SIRI, Apple’s smart talking phone was never going to be the end of the story – now they’re on the verge of releasing Viv, their bid for world domination. Meanwhile in China, they’re playing supercomputer trumps, and Baidu’s Minwa system has just produced the best image recognition scores to date. Deep learning is clearly here to stay.

This has obvious implications on the job front: one Chinese company this month reported that it’s replacing 90 per cent of its workers with robots. If this leaves you feeling uneasy, head on over to Forbes, where the verdict is that you will need to get close and friendly robots if you want to have a job in the future; take for example Audi, who are busy testing a wearable sitting exoskeleton to ease the strain of people working on construction lines.

Meanwhile John Markoff brings some pragmatism to the AI and robot debate. Not to be outdone, Huffington Post columnist Robert Kuttner outlines what we need to do to secure our future. And, in Nature, Robohub’s own Sabine Hauert explains why we need to shape this debate and not shy away from it.

Startup opportunities abound

Robot Launch, the global robotics startup competition by Silicon Valley Robotics and Robohub, opens June 1.

On that cheery note, let’s turn our attention to new opportunities for improving the future: The Soft Robotics Toolkit announced two competitions for robotics research and design; the Techstar-powered Qualcomm Robotics Accelerator declared their first intake of 10 startups; and IdeaHub went public with an accelerator programme run on behalf of ABB Robotics. And for the agriculturally inclined, the 2016 agBOT Robotic Seeding Challenge is now open.

But what’s the one contest you cannot miss? Today Silicon Valley Robotics and Robohub announced the 2015 edition of Robot Launch, a global competition for robotics startups with innovative technologies and strong business models. So get your application together – we want to hear from you!

Events

ICRA took place May 26-30 in Seattle.

ICRA was the big robotics event this May, and Robohub ran a social media workshop, tweeted about the plenaries, and clocked up some impressive footage of the Best Paper Finalists – coming to Robohub soon under the tag: ICRA 2015. And in case you missed them, you can catch all the ICRA plenaries and keynotes here.

On the whole, while 2014 set new records for all types of robotics events, 2015 is set to be even better. Coming up this month alone:

• DRC Finals – Pomona, CA, US – June 5, 2015 – June 6, 2015 – Check out our coverage here.
• Innovation in Autonomous Systems – London, UK – June 22, 105
• Haptics 2015 – Evanston, IL, US – June 22, 2015 – June 25, 2015
• Solid Con 2015 – San Francisco, CA, USA – June 23, 2015 – June 25, 2015
• RoboUniverse Seoul – Seoul, South Korea – June 24, 2015 – June 26, 2015
• Robot Ethics: Personal Perspectives – London, UK – June 24, 2015 – June 24, 2015
• Field and Service Robotics (FSR) 2015 – Toronto, Canada – June 24, 2015 – June 26, 2015
• Bioinspired Robotics: Softer, Smarter, Safer – Wyss Institute, Boston, MA, US – June 29

ICRA | May 26-30, 2015 | Seattle, Washington.

Roboticists have amazing stories that the public wants to hear about, but many researchers worry that their work will be oversimplified, misrepresented or misunderstood. By engaging directly with the public, in their own words, roboticists can explain the importance of tax-funded projects, attract students and collaborators, spur innovation, facilitate technology transfer, and take part in the discussion of issues that are important to the community.

In this crash course, you will learn the tools and techniques to efficiently promote your robotics research to the public and the media via the main social channels and tech news aggregators such as Twitter, Facebook, Hacker News, Reddit, YouTube and Slashdot. We will walk you through the development of past successful research promotion campaigns in robotics so you can see how to turn your research into a social media headline that is clear, concise, and tells a story that readers want to hear.

Time/Location

Tuesday, May 26
12:00-13:30
Room WSCC 620
http://icra2015.org/conference/forums/11-conference/51-social-media-workshop

Attendance is open to all; lunch will be provided to participants registered to the workshop through the conference CVENT registration system.

Outcomes

Our goal is to leave you feeling confident about using social media to promote your research, and to help you promote your recently published ICRA paper using at least one social media platform before the end of the conference.

In this crash course you will:

• learn about the top communication platforms that are most relevant to the robotics community, and build confidence in using these platforms to extend your reach
• identify pitfalls in communicating about robotics via social media, and how to avoid them
• discover how to craft a headline or tweet that will drive traffic and improve awareness about your work
• learn how to approach journalists about your research
• if you wish, receive one-on-one follow up advice and coaching from experienced science communicators

Presenters

Sabine Hauert, Bristol Robotics Laboratory Lecturer, Robohub Founder
Hallie Siegel, Robohub Managing Editor
Evan Ackerman, Senior Writer at IEEE Spectrum Automaton Blog

Format

The foundation of this crash course is a 90-minute lecture-based interactive session. Come prepared to think about how to turn your ICRA paper into a tweet!

For anyone seeking to further advance their social media skills after the lunch time session, Robohub staff will be available at a specially marked stand in the exhibit hall throughout the remainder of the conference. Here we will provide one-on-one follow up advice and coaching on how to craft a tweet or write a headline to submit to a news aggregator such as Slashdot or Hacker News.

We will also have an “ICRA Cam” set up where you can pitch your research on video for publication to YouTube.

Who’s It For

This crash course is for any roboticist who would like to learn more about how to use social media to communicate about their work.

CyPhy Works raises 230K in first two days of the crowdfunding campaign for their new autopilot drone, LVL 1.

Competition is fierce in the world of consumer drones these days, especially among companies marketing products than can produce pro quality video and photography without having to hire a drone operator or a camera person.

April saw the launch of new Phantom UAVs with suped up cameras from DJI as well as the Solo drone by 3D Robotics, whose products will be available on the shelves at 400 locations of retailer Best Buy starting in May.

Also just launched is a new Kickstarter campaign by CyPhy works for their new LVL 1 drone, which they hope will have you filming “right out of the box”. Launched only two days ago, the campaign has already reached more than 90% of its ambitious $250K goal. All 200 early bird packages are sold already, and are slated to ship in February 2016 (unfortunately just a bit too late for holiday shopping). The crack team at CyPhy is lead by Helen Greiner, who co-founded iRobot with Rodney Brooks and Colin Angle, and co-designed the first version of the Roomba.

Aerial photography simplified

The idea behind LVL1 is clever and simple. The norm on multicopters is to have the propeller discs on the same plane. This simplifies construction and dynamics, but in order to move sideways a multicopter must apply differential thrust and tilt its thrust vector (and body), and so most have a lateral thrust component. Keep in mind that a small UAV must make micro corrections continuously just to stay in the same place. This is very troublesome for aerial photography, and especially videography: the image will be jittery unless an expensive gimbal is used to counteract this motion. Otherwise the brushless motors and very high disc loading of most multicopters make up for a very stable platform.

CyPhy bypasses this problem by placing each rotor of its hexacopter in a different plane. Each rotor creates a thrust vector with a lateral component; by applying the same thrust across all the rotors, each lateral vector counteracts the others. Altering the thrust distribution between two sets produces the same vertical component (thus retaining the same altitude), but disrupts the balance of the lateral vectors. The result is lateral thrust without tilting the aircraft. The difference is obvious in the following animated GIF:

The trade-offs to this system are a slightly lower efficiency and the need for more advanced control algorithms.

Other systems have used a different approach to solve the problem, with the DJI Inspire being the most obvious. With the Inspire, rotors are on intersecting planes, but this introduces only a slight instability that counteracts the very low center of gravity when the rotors are raised (similar to the anhedral angle on high mounted wings of airplanes).

DJI Inspire

In their newest report on drones, Texas research firm Markets and Markets, projects that the global commercial drones market will grow to $1.27 billion by 2020. Andra Keay, Managing Director of Silicon Valley Robotics, expects that the gradual lifting of regulatory roadblocks to commercialization in the US will see the market for drones expand significantly.

“The ability to film from the air is incredibly useful in a wide range of industries, from utilities and agriculture to forestry and mining. But I’m very excited about the potential new technology users out there,” says Keay. “In the near future, we’ll think nothing of every realtor, maintenance or yard crew lifting a drone out of their trunk to get photos of your roof, your gutters or trees. We’ll know that robots are mainstream when a drone is just an accessory for your smartphone.”

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

April Fools’

Domino’s was just one of the many robot hoaxes that came out this April Fools’ Day.

April began (how could it not?) with April Fools’ Day and an impressive range of robot-related hoaxes, inlcuding a “Domi-No-Driver” robotic pizza delivery vehicle, and a “parking ticket avoidance system” upgrade for Tesla’s Model S.

While these hoaxes were mostly just about fun, Frank Tobe argues in The Robot Report that the Domi-No-Driver is not so farfetched given the number of established companies – like FedEx, UPS, DHL and a myriad of restaurant chains in the US and especially China – that are all working on the concept.

Lost together

Tepco sent a snake robot inside Fukushima’s Reactor 1 this April to measure radiation levels.

Two robots were sent in to explore the stricken Fukushima power plant this April. Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) sent a shape-shifting snake robot into the plant’s highly radioactive Reactor 1 to assess damage and radiation levels, but lost control of it three hours into the mission. They tried again with a second robot and were able to capture some haunting images before they lost control of this robot, too. Both robots remain inside the plant and Tepco has given up on recovery attempts. The mission is being hailed a success by the company despite the robots being lost; Tepco plans to use the data to inform the future decommissioning of the plants.

Google gets personality

Google gets personality.

Google was awarded a “robot personality patent” this month that outlines ways to download and customize the personality of a robot or computer. The general idea is to leverage cloud-robotics to build, store and download robot personalities that can adapt to owners’ personalities, habits and moods. Needless to say, the patent approval received significant media attention. In Automaton Blog, Kate Darling argued that the patent impedes innovation because Google got the patent without actively pursuing the technology. And on Robohub Mark Stephen Meadows points out that the patent is less about developing robot personalities, and more about collecting data about owners’ personalities – something that could ultimately be used to influence our purchasing decisions. Given that Google’s business model centers around data collection, this does not seem so far fetched.

More big player news

Google is not the only big player in the data business, however. This month IBM teamed up with Apple on an artificial intelligence health program set to glean life-saving insights by tapping into the vast amounts of health data available through personal devices and digital records.

On April 29, 2015, Blue Origin (founded by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos) conducted its first successful test of a reusable rocket designed to take tourists into space.

Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services made its Amazon Machine Learning available to developers looking to use AI modelling in their own apps and web-services. And another branch of the internet giant got an FAA exemption, allowing it to test Amazon Prime Air delivery drones in US airspace, albeit under tight restrictions. The exemption came one week after Amazon had criticized the FAA’s rulemaking process in a U.S. Senate hearing. Also connected to Amazon was Blue Origin’s successful test of its New Shepherd rocket – Blue Origin was founded in 2000 by Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos. The vehicle is designed for commercial space flights and could one day take up to six tourists into space at a time.

Industry launches

Robotics startup Fetch gets into the warehouse fulfillment game with its flexible two-robot system.

In other industry news, Fetch Robotics launched its Fetch and Freight robot system for warehouses. The system comprises two separate robots, one mobile manipulator (Fetch) to get items from shelves, and a much smaller, faster robot base (Freight) to move and deliver items. The two collaborate to form a system that is intended to be more flexible than existing warehouse fulfillment solutions, giving competitors like Kiva and Swisslog a run for their money.

Another launch came when global leader in power and automation technologies ABB showcased their new two-armed YuMi robot at this year’s Hannover Messe, at the same time announcing they had bought German start-up gomTec, maker of the one-armed “co-bot”.

And Ekso Bionics, a manufacturer of wearable robots, announced their new “Works” exoskeleton aimed at the industrial and construction markets. They are also planning a new robotic body suit to support the elderly.

Consumer drone competition heats up

Solo is 3D Robotics’ most consumer friendly drone yet.

Competition is fierce in the world of consumer drones these days, especially among companies marketing products than can produce pro quality video and photography without having to hire a drone operator or a camera person. April saw the launch of new Phantom UAVs with suped up cameras from DJI as well as the Solo drone by 3D Robotics, whose products will be available on the shelves at 400 locations of retailer Best Buy starting in May. Also just launched is a new Kickstarter campaign by Helen Greiner’s Cyphyworks for their new LVL 1 drone, which they hope will have you filming “right out of the box”.

With all these developments and no sign of slowing down, it is no wonder that the commercial drone market is expected to grow by 109% annually.

Autonomous Driving

Delphi completed its transcontinental test drive this April.

You may recall the announcement last February that Uber is partnering with CMU to develop autonomous cars; this month the company is hiring engineers for its robotics centre in Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, Deplhi has successfully completed the trans-continental test drive of its robocar, and Hyundai is planning to invest $70 million to ensure the first commercialised robocars hit our roads by 2020.

Asia news

Chinese VCs are shopping for global robotics ventures.

With notable buyouts including Segway and SMD, and a $200M partnership with Russia’s Skolkovo Foundation, Chinese venture capital firms have been busy this month working to import foreign robotics tech and knowledge into the country. The Chinese robotics market is growing fast and robot deployment within the manufacturing sector is being actively encouraged to boost capacity.

Elsewhere in Asia, initiatives are underway to train workers in automation and robotics with the goal to boost the use of technology within manufacturing and service industries.

UN debates killer robots

United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons meeting, discuss Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWS). Credit: United Nations.

On the 13^th of April, delegates from the United Nations came together to discuss Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). As calls to stop killer robots got louder, representatives from member states outlined their nations’ stance on the subject, listened to expert presentations and developed a framework for future debates.

To help people learn more about the issues, the Centre for the Study of the Done published a primer outlining the current knowledge of and experience with killer robots. See also the Open Roboethics Initiative’s survey exploring attitudes about autonomous military weapons versus remote-controlled ones.

AI

Talking Machines is a new bi-weekly podcast series featured on Robohub that brings you clear conversations with experts in the fields of AI and machine learning.

Much like killer robots, AI has long been a controversial topic, with big names like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk voicing concerns. This month, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak joined in, wondering out loud in an interview with the Australian Financial Review whether AI could turn us into “family pets”. Oxford Professor Nick Bostrom also suggested caution, and calling on Google and Facebook to help ensure AI stays friendly and safe.

Despite the worries and warnings, engineers working at the cold face of AI are feeling positive about their work and don’t tend to agree with the fears and concerns that surround the field. To learn more about AI’s early days, we recommend the Star’s article on one of the grandfathers of deep learning, Geoffrey Hinton, and Max Welling’s video primer on the subject.

Women in robotics

Steffi Paepcki from OSRF argues that robots designed and built exclusively by men (or exclusively by women, for that matter) will fail to meet the needs of half their users.

Robotics, like many of the related STEM subjects, is a field dominated mostly by men. And yet there are an increasing number of women who have dared to venture into this male domain and who have persevered. This month Lauren Orsini shared the encouraging stories of four women and their pathways into a successful robotics career, OSRF’s Steffi Paepcke outlined the many opportunities for women in robotics, and Silicon Valley Robotics Director Andra Keay hosted a panel discussion titled “Women in Robotics: Challenge or Opportunity?” as part of her Influencers series.

And the all-women organising committee at ICRA is in the final preparations for the premiere academic robotics event coming up this May in Seattle, WA. Preview the latest in robotics and AI in the video trailer:

(Multiple languages available here.)

Robots on campus

People and Robots: UC’s new multidisciplinary CITRIS initiative wants humans in the loop. Photo credit: Aaron Bestick, UC Berkeley.

In the world of academia, the University of Michigan has approved the construction of a new $54 million research facility for its robotics program. The high-tech centre will house office space, classrooms and state of the art laboratories. Meanwhile, the University of California’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) has launched an initiative that wants to keep “humans in the loop”.

Finally, a computer programme developed at Carnegie Mellon University called “Claudico” is facing human poker pros Doug Polk, Dong Kim, Bjorn Li and Jason Les in a two week no-limit Texas Hold’Em poker competition. Set to end on 7^th of May, the competition will test Claudico’s intelligence and ability to call a bluff.

Events

April saw the University of Washington host 2015’s We Robot conference, an event focused on robotics, law and policy. Kate Darling of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, discussed her research on how anthropomorphic framing can affect our behaviour with respect to robots. Tweets from the event can be found here and more coverage of the event will be published on Robohub in the coming month.

The US National Robotics Week also took place this April with a myriad of activities and presentations across the country.

Upcoming events

• AUVSI Unmanned Systems Conference & Trade Show – Atlanta, GA, USA
  May 4, 2015 – May 7, 2015
• Binaural Hearing for Robots – MOOC – hosted by INRIA
  May 11, 2015 – June 12, 2015
• RoboUniverse New York – New York, NY, USA
  May 11, 2015 – May 13, 2015
  Use discount code ROBOHUB for 10% off all pass types.
• Mobile Robots and Autonomous Vehicles – MOOC – hosted by INRIA
  May 18, 2015 – June 21, 2015
• 2015 CES Asia – Shanghai, China
  May 25, 2015 – May 27, 2015
• ICRA 2015 – Seattle, WA, USA – Check out the ICRA video trailer!!
  May 26, 2015 – May 30, 2015
• Communicating robotics in 140 characters or less: Strategies, pitfalls and success stories in leveraging social media to promote your research – ICRA Social Media Workshop – hosted Robohub @ICRA, Seattle, WA, USA
  May 26, 2015
  This noontime workshop includes a light lunch for registered participants.

The Baxter robot hands off a cable to a human collaborator – an example of a co-robot in action. Photo credit: Aaron Bestick, UC Berkeley.

Since 2001, the University of California’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) has leveraged multi-disciplinary research to tackle large societal problems like IT for healthcare, and intelligent infrastructure for public safety, water management and environmental sustainability. Now CITRIS is launching a new initiative that will focus on robotics research that benefits humans and involves humans in the loop.

Sensitivity to human issues is a key aspect of the new robotics initiative, which has been created under the premise that for robotics to reach its potential, humans – and human needs – will have to be integrated into the picture. Ken Goldberg, one of the CITRIS faculty, explained in a phone interview that while there have been many exciting developments in robotics in recent years thanks to the confluence of a thriving research community, new software packages, open source systems, and the availability of low cost components, fearful public sentiment has also been growing in parallel.

“There has been a lot of press about the issue of jobs, loss of privacy, and the idea that as robots advance they will becoming threatening to humans,” he said. “We want to be able to focus on robotics applications that are beneficial to humans, and that have humans uppermost in mind. We firmly believe that humans are essential to the operation of robots – and that robots will be far more effective as tools that enhance humans rather than as something that replaces them.”

The program will draw from the expertise of over 60 faculty from across four UC campuses, covering the fields of control theory, optimization, computer vision, machine learning, statistics, law, philosophy and art. “It’s a very broad group,” said Goldberg. “We can be blinded when we are all thinking along similar lines and we all have similar assumptions and experiences. It’s helpful to bring people together from different backgrounds – that diversity often leads to insight.”

Adding robotics as a focus area may be an important step for CITRIS, but it is not a very large one given the background of some of CITRIS faculty and emeritus directors. Ruzena Bajscy, the founding Director of CITRIS, is known for her research in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence and machine perception, but her credentials reach into neuroscience, applied mechanics and computer science as well. “She’s an expert in computer vision and perception, and she teaches and continues to do research on human-centered robots, which is one of the themes of this new initiative,” said Goldberg, who had Bajscy as an undergrad advisor.

CITRIS was formed in 2001, when researchers within the UC system realized that the real opportunities lay not just in developing new and innovative technologies, but in applying them. It is one of four California Institutes for Science and Innovation that were created to leverage private and government resources and shorten the path to entrepreneurial investment. The CITRIS plan involves three main pillars: sensitivity to human issues; rigorous theory evaluated on standard benchmarks; and modular systems built on shared software toolkits. Goldberg’s interview (continued below) sheds light on how these pillars fit into the CITRIS model.

Excerpts from Ken Goldberg’s interview:

How does the CITRIS initiative define what is “robotic work” and what is “human work”?

In the past there was this idea that you put the robots in the cage in the assembly line and you had to keep humans away from them because they were doing something dangerous – like spot welding or machining. But with companies like Willow Garage and Baxter and others, we are starting to think about robots differently – as something that can work side by side with humans. So we have to design them differently, we have to think about the issues of safety, privacy and security. We are also looking at the potential that humans could be involved in teaching robots by going through demonstrations and having robots learn by observation. With robots in the home, for example, one project that we’re interested in is decluttering. 

We’ve gotten used to the idea of robots doing dangerous jobs, but in that capacity they are very separate from us. Now that we want collaborative robots – robots that can work alongside humans – we seem to be OK giving them the boring jobs (the jobs that are “robotic”, to use the word as it is currently applied). But by definition those jobs are not creative, communicative or social. If we are working alongside robots, and even teaching them, will we be looking for robots that are able to be more than just “robotic”?  

I think that creativity, and to a large degree, sociability, is something that humans are going to have a great advantage in (as we should), and I hope we continue to have the edge in those areas. But I think we can develop robots that are more responsive. Maybe they won’t be able to express or innovate themselves, but they can start to observe nuances of manipulation by observing and measuring human performance, for example. Essentially, we want them to assist us.

One example would be surgery, where the surgeons are performing a complex operation. Certain aspects of the operation that are monotonous and tedious, but there are also many aspects of the surgery that require extremely specialized skills. So the key is to balance those two things out. You don’t want the robot to do the things that require skill, but you do want it to be able to perform something like suturing, or debridement – tasks that take up valuable time in surgery.

It’s the same analogy with what’s happening with driving. There’s been a lot of talk about the fully autonomous car, but I think what we are going to see is much more practical – the idea of driver assist. For example, when I’m driving to work, there’s a certain period when I’m on the freeway and it doesn’t require as much attention. Or when I’m stuck in traffic, it’s very tedious to be inching along. These things require attention, but really we could have an automated system do that.

One of the key pillars of the CITRIS initiative is modular systems built on shared software toolkits. Given the rapid advances in robotics over the past five years, where is that headed?

The major development has been with ROS – the Robot Operating System – which has been a tremendous benefit for the field. When I was a grad student, and for many years thereafter, when you wanted to build a robot system you started from scratch. Now you can go and get libraries and pull lots of components.

I think what’s exciting is the question of how to take that to the next level … how to have systems that use a software-as-a-service (SaaS) model where the entire software is maintained in the cloud. You could send out data to be processed in the cloud and you would get back results, such as motion plot plans or grasp plans. And just like with Google docs, the benefit is that all the software maintenance, installation, and updates are done in the cloud so that the end user or the robot that is operating in the field doesn’t have to worry about all that, and can essentially just access the latest software.

Consolidating that is a major benefit and would certainly fast track things for the end user. But it can be a battle to find group willing to undertake this kind of consolidation and support that. Are you seeing more interest from large companies in supporting software as a service for robotics?

A number of programs have had company and industry support for open source software at various levels of development. Because we are a public institution, Berkley has always championed is the idea of open source – of putting code out there and making it publicly available. We’d like to continue in that direction by having software that we can support and make available as packages. One thing that industry seems interested in is that, as certain piece of software builds momentum, a startup might form around it to take it to the next level. We want to be open to that and put together software and data resources as part of the new initiative. Pieter Abbeel is going to be leading that aspect.

Many more startups are leveraging ROS now, but at the ultimate commercializing level there is still hesitancy from the larger companies, and sometimes it means that ROS is being used as a development environment rather than being seen as the final endpoint because of issues around maintaining its commercial viability. Is open source more likely to be part of the commercialization process if more public institutions are supporting it?

I think an example of this is the AMP lab at UC Berkley – the Algorithm, Machines and People lab. They have been putting out [[software for systems]] in machine learning and they’ve been extremely successful. The SPARK package has millions of users now and has been incorporated into commercial products, and they’ve created a spinoff – Databricks – that is is taking that to a new level. So I think that a first step is to put out software that people can use. And then entrepreneurs and investors can see that there is a demand for it – that’s what takes it to the next step where it can be commercialized.

This example points out that robotics isn’t developing in isolation and is able to leverage so many of the things that have been able to roll out in software and mobile technologies. This brings me to another area that you’ve outlined for CITRIS: rigorous theory evaluated on standard benchmarks. I think that’s critically important. What’s leading towards this, and how will you follow through?

Let me give you an example. One of my areas of research is grasping, and I feel that this field has never had a very solid benchmark of objects to test grasping on. There are some datasets … for example, the field of machine vision has been doing this very effectively for many years, and there are beautiful datasets for testing machine vision algorithms. But grasping hasn’t had that yet, so this is something we are pursuing. For example, Pieter Abbeel is working with colleagues at CMU and Yale to develop a kit of parts that are common to home and medical environments, and he is going to make this available as a suitcase or box of parts. The goal is to get funding so that he can make it available at very low cost and send it out to research groups around the world so that they could test their algorithms on common parts and compare them. 

We are excited because now we have a critical mass of faculty and students who can use these benchmarks and begin producing their own benchmarks.

Another example is the Amazon Picking Challenge that will be at ICRA this year. Interestingly, one of Pieter’s students did a very detailed scan of each of the objects from the picking challenge, using multiple cameras with 3D sensors on a nice white background, and made them available to the community. That kind of data set is very difficult for any individual lab to produce on their own. So our idea was: we will do that scanning and share it with everybody. And our hope is that it could be used again as a nice benchmark set.

Unfortunately those objects are not particularly interesting from a grasping perspective. In fact we were just lamenting that they are very interesting from a computer vision perspective, but they are all very similar in shape so they don’t really give us a lot to work with in terms of grasp algorithms.

They are being driven by a particular commercial area – logistics and warehousing – aren’t these a set a of the most common objects in that environment?

They are common in that environment, but boxes and books and are pretty rectilinear, and from a grasping perspective, we are interested in things that are a little more challenging.

So in terms of benchmarks you’d be calling for something like the agriculture industry – where the variety of shapes and the delicacy of the objects creates a lot of interesting challenges – to sponsor a grasping challenge? 

Yes, that’s a great example. Or a company like an assembly, automotive or electronics assembly company present us with a really complex set of objects that need to be grasped and manipulated. That would be really interesting. A lot of companies are nervous about doing that because for proprietary reasons they don’t want to share their objects, and so this is where a university lab can help out because we can actually do the dirty work of collecting all that. We’d like to work with industry and we see this as filling a gap that industry hasn’t set itself to do yet.

You have mentioned that when robotics research is confined to very small labs, the resources are simply not there to develop standardized benchmarks and problem sets. How are virtualized environments extending the reach of these benchmarks to greater section of the research community?

There’s a need for standardized simulation environments and we have seen a lot of progress there in the last few years. There is indeed a bigger community of users sharing tools that can start to become more widely accepted. Again, the key advantage is that you can start comparing results across groups and labs. The key is having a diversity of ideas and perspectives brought together. I’m a firm believer that we can be blinded to insights because we are all thinking along similar lines and we all have similar assumptions and experiences. So it’s helpful to bring people together from different backgrounds and that diversity often leads to an insight. We’ve always assumed things are one way, and this encourages to try things another way. That’s the benefit. There are so many researchers working in these areas. To some degree everybody is working in their own labs, but we want people to share, interact and communicate between the labs and students. That’s where I think we have enormous possibility.

As one of Skolkovo’s resident companies, ExoAtlet – which builds medical exoskeletons – stands to benefit from the new agreement. ExoAtlet’s team hopes to create an exoskeleton that will cost as little as $10K.

Russia’s Skolkovo Foundation and the Chinese Cybernaut Investment Group signed an agreement yesterday in Beijing to create a joint Russian-Chinese business incubator, a robotics accelerator program, and an investment fund worth $200M. 

The partnership aims to bridge the two countries, with the business incubator supporting at least 15 companies resident at the Skolkovo Innovation Center, and a robotics center located in China that will help accelerate the Skolkovo residents into the Chinese market. The $200M venture fund, provided by Cybernaut, will invest in Skolkovo residents that are conducting research into IT and robotics, space, energy-efficiency technologies and new materials.

The agreement comes into force in the third quarter of 2015 and Skolkovo Senior VP for Innovations Vasily Belov estimates that as much as $50M will be funnelled into Skolkovo companies before the end of the year, but says that it’s too early to say how much of this will go into robotics ventures specifically.

Founded in 2005, Cybernaut is one of China’s largest venture capital and private equity firms, currently managing more than $500M in US funds, and more than ¥50B in RMB. According to Cybernaut Project Manager Xiang Li, the fund “will incubate and help 3-5 companies be listed in China or foreign capital market” each year. Based in Hangzhou, a city known for its manufacturing capabilities in hi-tech sectors such as electronics and medical engineering, the fund typically invests in domestic companies, and is interested in personal service and industrial robotics in China “because China has a huge domestic demands for robotics”. The fund recently created a platform company called their “Cybernaut robotic group” that aims to develop and upgrade the Chinese robotic market: “We are trying to acquire related robotic companies to develop our product line,” said Li.

The Skolkovo deal, which has been in negotiations since 2013, is Cybernaut’s first Russian venture. “The collaboration with Skolkovo is very important for Cybernaut,” said Li. “We are providing the conditions for close collaboration between Russian and Chinese scientists, developers and entrepreneurs, which will allow us to develop and market cutting-edge technology together.”

According to Skolkovo’s Chief Roboticist Albert Yefimov, Cybernaut is now actively negotiating deals in Russia. In an email interview, Skolkovo’s Executive Director of the IT cluster Igor Bogachev said that Cybernaut is “focused on investing in wide range of service robotics, ranging from robotics for mining industry to educational robotics.”

The agreement brings benefits to both parties.

Russia will gain from the influx of cash, as well as access to China’s manufacturing pipelines and marketplace. According to Bogachev, Skolkovo resident companies “will have a chance to continue their development in the Chinese branch of the robotics center in order to get easier access to the local market … like searching for an investor, or locating production lines [and] access to buyers.”

And China stands to gain, too. According to a report in the Chinese-language Economic Observer, and summarized in Want China Times, despite the 36 industrial parks developed for the robotics sector in recent years, “some companies that claim to be creating robots do not have labs, research teams, or the ability to conduct tests.” From that article:

“In China, 50% of the robot makers produce pirated products. They either reverse engineer existing products of foreign companies or buy old robot designs to manufacture as their own,” said QKM Technology president Shi Jinbo.

It would appear that Cybernaut aims to reverse this trend by importing Russian research and technical expertise.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Skolkovo conference seeks to jumpstart new areas of expertise for Russian robotics
• Robots Podcast: Russian robotics
• 25 Russian companies added to The Robot Report’s global map of robot providers
• Russia looks inward and outward at Moscow’s 2013 Open Innovations Forum

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

In the air

Amazon takes its drone delivery research to Canada.

This month closed with a positive announcement from European stakeholders as they agreed on the basic principles for a regulatory framework on RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems) use. The focus of the new framework is on safety, integration and liability, and could govern RPAS operations in Europe from 2016.

In the US, the FAA is currently consulting on its proposed rules for UAVs, which were published last month and have been hailed as a start to more clarity on drone operations in the country. Drone flights beyond visual line of site remain an unresolved issue under the new rules, but are already possible in Canada, Australia, France, Israel, Poland and other countries. These FAA restrictions on flights beyond visual line of site are the main reason why internet giant Amazon has decided to move their outdoor trials of drone delivery service Prime Air to Canada. Meanwhile, investment in drone ventures continues despite the uncertainty, with Matternet going into production with their new drone delivery platform.

On the road

Delphi goes on a cross country road test.

Last month saw Uber joining forces with Carnegie Mellon University, possibly to compete with Google in the race to get the first robotaxis on the road. But can a robotaxi business model work? Brad Templeton did the number crunching for us this month and found that an UberX flag drop now costs as little as $0.18 per minute / $0.90 per mile. This could mean that we will soon start seeing people deliberately dropping cars for Uber, and that robotaxi services could be available for even less.

But it could be that the first robotaxi on the road will be from neither Uber or Google, but from Nissan. Documents obtained by IEEE Spectrum show that the car manufacturer is working with NASA, and they are aiming to have the first fleet of robotaxis ready in as little as two years from now.

Meanwhile, Delphi took their sensor-laden vehicle on a test drive from New York to San Francisco, and Tesla’s Model S is about to go semi-automatic when a new software update is released later this year. The company’s CEO Elon Musk even went as far as to predict a future where it is illegal for humans to drive.

With robocars and robotaxi services no longer just an idea for the distant future, it is no surprise that some have started to call for regulations to be put in place. Questions about safety features, possible certification of robocars, or even special drivers licenses for operating autonomous cars have been raised. But in an essay about regulating autonomous cars, Brad Templeton argues that it might be too early for such strict rules to be put in place, as too little is known at this point about the technology and how it will work in the real world.

On the job front

The impact of automation on jobs was the topic of the opening session at this year’s European Robotic Forum. Credits: Viennamotion KG.

With increasing investment and big names pushing forward innovation in automation, it is no wonder that critics are voicing concerns, fearing the loss of many jobs and mass unemployment. Neil Jacobstein explains the risks of automation and artificial intelligence on Sigularityhub.com, but maintains an overall positive outlook if humans manage to adapt.

Forbes writer John Tammy even goes so far as to suggest that robots will become the biggest creators of jobs in history. He argues that when robots take on jobs traditionally done by humans, we will be freed to pursue new and more exciting careers that could take humanity to the next level. On a similarly positive note, research by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) indicates that the use of robots could boost manufacturing productivity by up to 30 per cent by 2025, while lowering total labour costs.

The impact of automation on jobs was also the focus of the opening sessions at the EU Robotics Forum held in Vienna this month. During the opening session a panel of experts discussed whether fears of mass unemployment were justified and how they might be addressed. More coverage from the ERF can be found here.

In Russia

The Skolkovo International Robotics Conference took place this March, to promote innovation and robotics startups in Russia. Credit: sk.ru

Kalashnikov Concern – maker of the infamous AK-47 automatic assault rifle – has decided to purchase a majority stake (51%) in ZALA Aero, a Russian company that specializes in producing unmanned aircraft. The company hopes to enter the robotics market by producing reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles.

While such military robotic ventures are nothing new for Russian manufacturer, the recent Skolkovo International Robotics Conference sought to stimulate innovation in other areas, such as recognition, artificial intelligence and personal service robotics.

Robotic personal assistants

All three hundred units of Pepper sold out this March in Japan.

Globally, teams working on AI solutions for personal assistance robots are racing to develop a product that satisfies businesses, end users and consumers alike. At the moment it is still unclear whether virtual or physical solutions will be favoured. Meanwhile in Japan, all three hundred units of Pepper sold out quickly, showing just how much demand there is for social robots. Why are such products so popular? With Pepper it may well have something to do with the novelty of this type of robot.

A study by a team from the University of Manitoba presented at the recent HRI conference showed that humans empathize more with robots when they can interact with a physical entity, rather than just a software simulation.

Tiny medicine

There was exciting news from the medical robotics front this month. One of the most exciting recent inventions in medical robotics is a nano-device that can disarm drug resistant cancer cells and then deliver targeted chemotherapy. The approach has recently been shown to work in mice by MIT researchers and could offer hope to patients with recurring drug resistant cancer in the future. Google’s Deep Mind is also joining the fight against cancer with a similar project, attempting to develop nanotechnology that can switch off cancer cells. Alan Winfield outlined the future of robotics surgery and the potential of surgical micro-robot swarms from a presentation at the Royal Society of Medicine.

More Google News

Google scraps original Project Wing design.

This month Google declared that they will scrap ‘Project Wing’ design in favour of a secret new design the company is now testing in Australia. The switch was motivated by problems with high winds and control, something designers are now working to overcome with the new design.

Another team at Google is rethinking the way office space is used. They are working on Crabots, small robotics cranes that can move floor tiles and furniture to completely transform offices of the future. And that’s not all, as Google is also looking to get into robotic surgery by joining forces with Johnson & Johnson to develop a robotic-assisted surgical platform.

Business News

Intuitive Surgical wins a lucrative contract with the US Department of Defense.

The move by Google and Johnson & Johnson means they are now competing with surgical robotics manufacture Intuitive Surgical, who have managed to grow and thrive despite various setbacks over the years, most recently winning a lucrative contract with the US Department of Defense.

Other robotics companies also managed to obtain additional funding, with Hansen Medical selling shares worth $35 million and Clearpath Robotics receiving $11.2 million to create a swarm of self-driving carrier robots for factories.

In other business news, Samsung just launched a $100 million laboratory dedicated to drones, robotics, 3D printing and virtual reality.

New in arms

Rethink launches their new single-armed Sawyer.

Universal Robots have developed a universal robotic arm that can be programmed by almost anyone by simply grabbing and moving it. The UR-5 arm is compact and lightweight and can be used to automate many manufacturing tasks. Meanwhile, Rethink Robotics launched their new single armed robot, Sawyer, designed to take on precise, repetitive tasks, particularly in the assembly of electronics.

But robotic arms don’t all have to be about manufacturing, as was amply demonstrated at London’s Wearable Tech Show this month. At the event, Grace Mandeville presented Open Bionics new 3D printed Swarovski-crystal-adorned prosthetic arm, demonstrating that prosthetics can be about glamour just as much as they are about functionality.

People with disabilities are no longer waiting for health services to catch up – they are dragging their medical devices into the future on their own.

On the red carpet

Alex Garland’s first feature film as a director, Ex Machina, had its US debut at SxSW on March 14.

Two much anticipated robot movies hit the big screens this March. Neill Blomkamp’s CHAPPiE is an action packed movie about a robot that learns to think and feel for himself, while Alex Garland’s Ex Machina is a beautifully framed film about human-AI-interaction.

Robohoax at SxSW

On the subject of entertainment, at this year’s SxSW event in Austin Texas, a small group of protesters wielding signs saying “Stop the Robots!” descended on the grounds outside the event, saying they represented a group of students who were concerned about the future impact of robots on society. The protesters received attention from the International Business Times, PC Magazine, TechCruch, USA Today, Yahoo News, and Fox News even did a TV segment, but it turns out it was all a viral marketing stunt by a new online dating app called Quiver that uses humans to do the matchmaking instead of algorithms. Quiver admitted to the hoax a few days later, but it turned out theirs was not the only robot PR stunt at SxSW – promoters for the new film Ex Machina got into the game too.

DARPA Robotics Challenge

Photo: DARPA/Team WPI-CMU

Finally, DARPA announced that a total of 25 teams will be participating in the finals in June, and they can expect a surprise task will be waiting for them at the end of the trials. Tech writer Eric Sofge predicts that the robots will be falling all over themselves in the final stages of the competition when the training wheels finally come off. Whether this comes to pass is hard to tell, but we’re certainly looking forward to an exciting end to the competition.

Events to watch out for in April

• National Robotics Week, April 4-12, across the US
• How to Integrate & Leverage Robotics in Warehouses, April 6, RBR Webinar
• Xconomy Forum: Robo Madness West, April 7, Menlo Park, CA
• Ground Robotics Capabilities Conference and Exhibition, April 7-8, Arlington, VA
• CRUSER TechCon 2015, April 7-8, Monterey, CA
• Silicon Valley Robot Block Party, April 8, Palo Alto, CA
• 5th Annual “Robots in the Roses” Research Fair,  April 9, Menlo Park, CA
• We Robot 2015, April 10-12, Seattle, WA
• 2015 UN CCW meeting on killer robots, April 13-17, Geneva
• Gulf Coast MakerCon 2015, April 18, Tampa, FL
• RoboCupJunior US Competition, April 19, Bronx, NY
• New Frontiers in Human-Robot Interaction, April 21-22, Canterbury, UK
• VEX Robotics World Championships, April 22-25, Anaheim, CA
• RoboBusiness Europe, April 27-30, Milan, Italy

Participants line up early to register for the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

Part startup/investor mixer, part public showcase, part industry/academic workshop, part hackathon, the Skolkovo International Robotics Conference has its sights on becoming the largest robotics gathering in Europe. Held March 20-22 at the Hypercube on the Skolkovo campus outside Moscow, the event drew over one thousand visitors – this despite the campus largely being a construction site in the middle of a semi-forested area a 40 minute drive from Moscow city centre.

“Our goal is not to be a scientific conference, but to bring talent, money and startup companies together to search for a new generation of ideas,” says Skolkovo Chief Roboticist Albert Efimov, who brought more than 50 speakers from six countries to the event.

Skolkovo Robotics is part of the Skolkovo Innvoation Center, a state-financed tech incubator that is currently home to about 1K startups spread across several tech clusters including IT, biomed, space, nuclear and energy efficient technologies. The Innovation Center is the entrepreneurial-facing branch of the Skolkovo Foundation, a double-sided institution that also administers Skoltech University.

“We are building a city,” says Skolkovo Vice President of Public Relations Alexandra Barschevskaya. Building plans for the technopark include social infrastructure like housing, hotels, shopping, and even onsite schools for the children of Skolkovo’s faculty, students and entrepreneurs. “Participants of Skolkovo (SK) will have access to housing and facilities for a period of ten years, to give them time to organize their science and their business, and then they will move on to make room for the next generation.” The grand vision, which is the brainchild Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and has support from the highest levels of government, is to jumpstart the Russian economy by nurturing technology that will create export opportunities at an international level.

Speakers were treated to a rare sighting of a solar eclipse from the roof of the Hypercube on the first day of the conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

Russia has a long history developing military robotics – according to Efimov, its first military application was during the Soviet-Finnish war in the 1940s delivering explosions to the enemy’s heavily fortified points of defence – and its current fleet of firefighting robots is a testament to its ongoing efforts to remain a global leader in this area. “But how many firefighting robots can you sell?” asks Efimov.

Efimov points out that unlike the American DARPA programs, which have a track record for spinning off defence research into commercial civilian applications, the Russian military doesn’t really invest in or open up new fields for startups.

“There are about 120 government-funded research institutions that are engaged in robotics at the moment, and they are all trying to get through the same small bottleneck of the military budget,” said Efimov, who believes this is the reason why Russia lags behind the US in commercialization despite its military robotics expertise.

Webot telepresence robot by Wicron, at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

So if not military robotics, then what? Efimov would like to see Russia playing to its strengths in recognition, artificial intelligence and mechatronics, and suggests that a good niche for the nation could be in telepresence, promotional robotics and personal assistants because the risks are lower in these areas, and the commercial opportunities are growing quickly. But he also points out that falling back on traditional areas of strength, such as AI, is not enough. To create commercial products that can compete in a global consumer marketplace, Russia needs to step up its game in design.

“We want to sell thousands of intelligent assistants and we believe we are as good at AI as Jibo,” said Efimov. “But Jibo has got better design.” These sentiments explain why Efimov’s conference program included a design hackathon and multiple sessions on human-robot interaction (HRI). “Designers and engineers never talk to each other, so Skolvovo needs to be a meeting place where they can get together.”

Students brainstorming for the design hackathon at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

In a panel discussion titled “Robotics and its role in the revival of Russia,” representatives from the Russian government said that they are currently in the process of writing the nation’s roadmap for developing robotics. Though they were not yet able to release specific details, a comprehensive plan is being cross-coordinated across various branches of government, from the military to the Ministries of Health, Communications and Education, suggesting a shift in spending priorities to include application areas beyond military. “We have good potential on the global level, and so robotics will be included in the list of priority areas for investing in technology,” said Nikolai Kuteev, from the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Cranes at work on the Skolkovo campus. March 2015. Photo credit: Hallie Siegel.

Whatever path to innovation the robotics roadmap eventually suggests, it is clear Skolkovo will play a role in it. But as evidenced by the cranes and earth-moving equipment that surround Hypercube, Skolkovo’s biggest problem right now is that it doesn’t have enough physical infrastructure.

“We were expecting that the construction would be finished between 2017 and 2020 but the economy is so difficult – we know that there will be a transformation here but we don’t know exactly when it will be finished,” said Barschevskaya. The falling ruble, which has impacted building costs, has been a factor in the construction slow down.

Still, the energy at Skolkovo is high, and Efimov isn’t afraid to do the heavy lifting required to keep things moving in the right direction. I look forward to visiting Skolkovo Robotics again soon to see just how far he can take it.

Chief Roboticist Albert Efimov carries a robot at the 2015 Skolkovo International Robotics Conference. Photo credit: Skolkovo.

#skrobotics Tweets

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

Spot on

Spot on.

With robots like BigDog and Wildcat, Boston Dymanics has already made a name for itself in the world of four-legged, life-like robots. This February, the team released a short video of its latest tech, another four-legged robot, named “Spot”. Spot certainly looks like he is related to his predecessors BigDog and Wildcat, but he is much smaller and lighter, and quieter too – his power comes from electricity, rather than an internal combustion engine.

Pass the Pepper

Bye bye, Bruno.

Sobering news from Aldebaran this February. First, SoftBank confirmed that deliveries of Pepper will be delayed until the summer, and then two of Aldebaran’s top executives, Bruno Maisonnier and Jean-Christophe Baillie, left the company. The reasons for the shakeup are not yet completely clear, but a story in the French startup blog Rude Baguette, with information obtained from anonymous current and former employees of Aldebaran, suggests that internal turnover and disorganization were important factors. It was sad month for France’s startup community.

Business and funding

$50M in series C for 3DR.

Beyond Aldebaran, there were a few downs and mostly ups for robotics business news this February. While Intuitive Auotmata unfortunately closed its doors this month, SeeGrid had its reorganisation plan approved by a judge and is now looking to get back on its feet.

February also saw some headliners: Qualcomm acquired Kmel Robotics, a company famous for its flying quadrocopters; 3D Robotics raised $50M in a series C funding, also mostly from Qualcomm; and Fetch Robotics was granted $3 million to support the roll-out of its mobile platform and manipulator.

Plus, a number of new research reports released this month are predicting growth for the industry, covering a wide range of robotics markets, including exoskeletons, pharmacy automation, and mobile robots.

On the move

More mobile manipulators coming to market.

The $3 million investment in Fetch Robotics might just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of excitement for mobile manipulators. Spanish company PAL Robotics released its very own mobile manipulator “Tiago” (take it and go); mobile robots and mobile manipulators featured prominently in RBR’s latest Top 50 list; and Silicon Valley Robotics Director Andra Keay predicts that 2015 will see more mobile manipulators coming to market.

And while mobile robots usually have wheels to get around, one very special robot has proven that you don’t need wheels to get around. HitchBot has been hitchhiking its way across Germany this month, visiting Neuschwanstein Castle, joining the Rose Monday Parade in Cologne, and crashing a wedding near Frankfurt. Now safely back in Munich with some of its creators, we are sure that HitchBot has already started to plan its next adventure.

Whitehouse drone crash fallout

Drone crash: who is liable?

At the end of last month a Phantom drone crashed at the Whitehouse; shortly thereafter drone maker DJI announced a mandatory firmware update that would prevent its drones from flying near downtown Washington. Legal experts questioned the move, suggesting that by the company may be opening itself up to liability concerns, and then DJI rolled back the update amid bug concerns.

FAA leak and proposed regulations

A leak of proposed FAA drone regulations this month prompted a surprise weekend conference call by the organization to release its first official proposal for how the FAA will govern commercial UAVs. In the aftermath, first reactions came from many stakeholders, including the small UAV Coalition, the Professional Society of Drone Journalists, and the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue to name a few. While there was general hopefulness toward the proposed rules, key concerns about lack of clarity remained, including limits on flying after dark, beyond visual line of sight, and over private property. A further criticism was that the proposed rules do not reward safe drone use – something Canadian regulators do. The public has 60 days to comment on the proposals.

Uber gets into robocars

Back on the ground, cab service Uber announced a robocar collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University. The move has caused speculation that Uber plans to compete with Google, just as Google itself seems to be planning a cab-hailing service using its own driverless vehicles. Others argue that the companies are unlikely to split just yet, given that much research is still needed before we will be hailing a self-driving cab from the curb.

Another company that could soon join in the robocar race might be Apple. Amind claims that Apple has started looking at self-driving cars surfaced rumours that sensor-laden vehicles spotted in the US are operated by the company. More robust evidence that Apple is moving into the transport market came later this February from the Wall Street Journal, which reported that Apple is apparently working on an electric vehicle. Although this car may not be self-driving (yet), the tech giant is clearly expanding beyond its traditional remit of producing small consumer electronics.

In other robocar related news, the Lutz pod, a driverless car produced in the UK may soon be roaming the streets of Milton Keynes and Greenwich. Discussions and research are on-going as to whether self-driving vehicles should be using V2V (vehicle to vehicle) communication, how AI might be used to programme safety into robocars, and what kind of sensors are required for various levels of autonomous driving.

Fire fighting bots and other robots for good

SAFFiR’s hands are strong enough to grip and hold a firehouse blasting water.  Source: Virginia Tech.

February saw the release of a video showing a humanoid robot on board a US Navy ship extinguishing an actual fire. The adult-sized “SAFFiR” robot, built by students from Virginia Tech, could walk, stop, turn, locate the heat source of a fire behind a door, and (once the door opened) take a hose and blast the flames with water, all without falling or stopping. And in a related project CMU researches released details of an autonomous drone that can fly through narrow, dark and smoke-filled corridors to map fires and find victims. The drone and SAFFiR could, in future, be linked up as a team to support human fire fighters.

Other good news stories include that of Robots For Humanity (R4H.org) and Henry Evans, who was left paralysed after a stroke in 2002 and now uses robotics to help him live his life as independently as possible. potential. Or, DARPA’s HAPTIX project, which is developing prosthetic hands that can actually ‘feel’. And let’s not forget that Baxter the robot has now been recruited to help fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa by looking at ways that robots could take over high risk activities, such as handling contaminated materials, from health workers.

Good news comes in threes.

Amidst all these good works, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced the winners of its ‘Drones for Good’ competition (with Flyability winning the $1M prize with its crash-resilient drone “Gimball”), following up shortly thereafter with an announcement for a spin-off $1M competition ‘AI and Robotics for Good’. The UAE is on a robotics roll this month, also announcing the new $5M Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge (MBZIRC), as well as opening a brand new science and technology museum in Dubai with a focus on robotics, drones and robocars.

Forget the singularity, let’s talk multiplicity

Ken Goldberg’s session at the WEF was released on YouTube this month.

This month Google’s DeepMind team published an article in the journal Nature this month introducing their “novel artificial agent”, which is a combination of a deep neural network with a reinforcement-learning algorithm. The publication of DeepMind’s article coincided with a podcast on the history of machine learning and a livestream event with Rodney Brooks, Abhinav Gupta, Andrew McAfee on AI and the rise of robots.

You may recall that AI was a hot topic last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Some videos from this event were released on YouTube this month, including one with Ken Goldberg – don’t miss Audrow Nash’s interview with Ken, where he describes his impressions of the event.

STEM and Education

New Arduino tutorial at Robohub.

In STEM and education news, the popular Rasberry Pi platform released a Pi 2 Model B, which offers hugely increased performance compared to the Pi 1 Model B+. While the release came as a surprise to many, it marks a new era for Rasberry Pi, as the increased performance means it has now become a usable PC.

And at Robohub we have just launched a new Arduino tutorial series. Look for new posts every 2-3 weeks.

Events to watch out for in March

• Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) – Mar. 2-5 – Portland, OR, USA
• AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Europe – Mar. 3-4 – Brussels, Belgium
• European Robotics Forum – Mar. 11-13 – Vienna, Austria
• SxSW – Mar. 13-22 – Austin, TX, USA
• AUTOMATION – Mar. 18-20, Warsaw, Poland
• Skolkovo International Robotics Conference – Mar. 20-22 – Moscow, Russia
• Automate – Mar. 23-26 – McCormick Place, United States
• Ferrara Drone Show – Mar. 28-29 – Ferrara, Italy

This fall, Fjuze – an entertainment company from the Netherlands – hopes to launch a massive drone entertainment show at the Amsterdam Arena. Aptly called AIR, the event is slated to feature an as yet unspecified (but presumably large) number of drones performing “ballet and battles,” “races and lasers,” and “circus and illusions.” That such a large-scale entertainment event featuring drones is even being planned at all speaks volumes about the mainstreaming of drone culture.

The Amsterdam Arena is the largest stadium in the Netherlands and is typically used to host football matches and concerts. “The Amsterdam Arena is suitable for a show like this because it’s a big indoor football stadium,” explained Pim Jansen of Fjuze, the entertainment/event company behind the AIR project. With the stadium’s capacity pegged at 50K for this show, AIR organizers will be banking on the surge in drone popularity to fill seats.

This is ambitious for a drone-focused event.

To give some perspective: AUVSI’s Brett Davis is expecting their upcoming Unmanned Systems Show (one of the largest drone-focused events in terms of attendance and square footage) to attract 8K attendees; likewise UAVSA’s Nicco Bugarin reports that they are the fastest growing commercial UAV association in the US, with their 2014 Drone Expo attracting over 3K attendees and their 2015 show expecting ~5K. Events such as these have been increasing their efforts to feature more commercial drones and broaden their appeal base. “There’s a lot of excitement and enthusiasm for the civil and commercial uses of UAS,” said AUVSI President and CEO Brian Wynne. Many different industries, including agriculture, oil and gas and even the movie industry, are looking to use UAS once the regulatory framework is in place.” 

Yet while events such as these are in essence trade shows and thus tend to attract a niche audience, AIR is seeking to entertain the masses. And this puts it into a whole other category.

If you are looking to gauge drones’ potential for mass appeal, Andra Keay of Silicon Valley Robotics suggests that it may be best to look beyond trade events to the growing number of major entertainment and events companies that are using or plan to use drones to attract attention:

• Spaxels and the ARS Electronica Future Lab have been partnering to light up the night sky with drones at festivals and events since 2012;
• KMel (recently acquired by Qualcomm) likewise got their claim to fame doing a drone light show at Cannes in 2012 and have gone on to develop many notable drone promos, including this Lexus ad, for example;
• Disney applied for three drone-related patents in 2014 that include possible use of “aerial display systems”;
• Paramount partnered with Ascending Technologies to promote the Star Trek movie “Into the Darkness”;
• Maker Faire has been hosting Game of Drones, a drone flying competition featuring aerial combat, and obstacle courses;
• Cirque du Soleil has partnered with Verity Studios and ETHZ to produce a short film, and according to Cirque’s Science and Technology Advisor Bill Keays “the project demonstrates a whole new avenue for channeling creativity” … suggesting that more drone projects may be in Cirque’s future;
• and though the swarm of drones in this Subaru ad are CGI and not real, the automaker clearly wished to associate itself with the trend.

“We’re just starting to see arenas turned into 3D entertainment units, where every drone is effectively a pixel in a giant array,” says Keay.

If one broadens the scope to look at robotics in entertainment more generally, there is every reason to believe that drones could one day soon move from side show to the main stage. Sarcos (which was recently bought back from Raytheon) has seen its robots put to use in attractions at Disney, Universal Studios and the robotic fountains at the Bellagio casino. In May of last year, Royal Carribean announced a partnership with Robotic Arts to bring “high tech entertainment” to its cruise guests aboard the Quantum of the Seas, and just last fall announced a partnership with the developers of the bartending MakrShakr robot. Perhaps most spectacular, however, is South Korea’s $666 million USD public-private investment in Robot Land – a theme park dedicated to creating large-scale consumer demand for robotics in that country.

Safety considerations will always have to be taken into account in any public event that includes drones; no event organizer would want a repeat of the Australian triathlete who was struck by a drone during a marathon, or the Virginia man who was hit in the face by a drone while watching Virginia’s bull run. But the drones that caused accidents at both these events were interlopers and outside the control of the organizers. At controlled events such as AIR, or this TED demonstration by Raffaello D’Andrea, drones are piloted by experienced operators and/or autonomous systems, and spectator safety may not be any more of a concern than it would be at other events featuring airborne projectiles (think baseball).

“Of course we have to guarantee visitors’ safety,” says Jansen, who explained that AIR will have safety nets to protect spectators.

At the moment, AIR’s only official partner is The Dutch Royal Air Force, which according to Jansen, is looking for new ways to communicate with their target audience and to recruit the “pilots and techs of the future”. With AIR scheduled to launch at an as-yet undetermined date this fall, organizers will need to get cracking! Ticket sales are slated to start soon.

Other drone events to watch out for this year:

• AUVSI’s Unmanned Systems Europe – March 3-4 Brussels, Belgium
• The New York City Drone Film Festival – March 7, New York City, NY, USA
• Cabourg Drones Festival – May 2-3, Cabourg, France
• AUVSI Unmanned Systems Conference & Trade Show – May 4-7, Atlanta, GA, USA
• Drone Apps Conference – September 14-15, Lausanne, Switzerland
• UK Drone Show – December 5, Birmingham, UK

The competition is slated to be held annually and is open to students, individuals and institutions, and the winner is expected to be announced during the UAE Government Summit next year.

Judges for the new award include such notable figures as: David Peters (Chief Executive Officer, Universal Robotics), Kim Jong-Hwan (Chair Professor Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Matthew Grob (Executive Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer Qualcomm Incorporated), Corinna Lathan (Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer AnthroTronix), Bruno Maisonnier (Founder and Chief Executive Officer Aldebaran), Stuart Russel (Professor University of California, Berkeley), and Paolo Dario (Director, The BioRobotics Institute Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna Pisa). A complete list of judges can be found here.

iCAIR was formed by the UAE in partnership with the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, and includes founding members from leading institutions in robotics and AI from around the world.

This has been a big week for robotics in the UAE; this month the Museum of Future Government Services also opened its doors for the first time. With a focus on robotics, drones and self-driving cars, the new museum hopes to give visitors a “glimpse into the future of services in the UAE through interactive designs and real prototypes” according to Gulf News.

Registration for the UAE’s Robotics for Good award is now open.  http://www.roboticsforgood.ae/en/register

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bkVq1lvKjo

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Flyability wins $1M Drones for Good competition
• Drones For Good Award announces semi-finalists
• Minesweepers 2014: Outdoor robotic competition on humanitarian demining
• Aerial drone maps show Philippine typhoon devastation, aid in reconstruction
• The latest in ultra-affordable robots: AFRON competition announces winners
• Fukushima photo essay: A drone’s eye view

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

Politics and intrigue

Slide from US President Barack Obama’s 6th State of the Union address.

The New Year got off to political start, with robotics featuring high on the agenda for many world leaders this January. In his State of the Union address, US President Barack Obama spoke about how new technology can benefit the economy, specifically referring to the value of new robotic prosthetics and developments in space exploration, and encouraging Americans “to win the race for the kind of discoveries that unleash new jobs”. And at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, world leaders discussed the impact of robotics, AI and Big Data and their potential to disrupt the global economy.

While leaders were preparing to discuss AI at the WEF in the public eye, the Future of Life Institute (FLI) – a privately funded non-profit whose mission is to “mitigate existential risks facing humanity” – held a closed (some would say ‘secretive‘) conference in early January to discuss AI safety. The speakers roster was a who’s who list of tech and AI influencers, including Demis Hassabis, Thomas Dietterich, Erik Brynjolfsson, Nick Bostrom, Peter Norvig, Stuart Russell, and Elon Musk, and the goal of the conference was to identify promising research directions that will “maximize the future benefits of AI while avoiding pitfalls.” (The conference was closed to the media in order “to facilitate candid and constructive discussions”, however, some of the speaker’s presentations can now be found online here.) Following the conference, the FLI issued an open letter that outlined research priorities for robust and beneficial Artificial Intelligence. While the open letter itself seemed to illustrate a desire on the part of those working in AI to hold themselves to high ethical standards, it generated a flurry of hyped headlines from a jilted media that had been left to speculate in the vacuum. Days later, Elon Musk added to the media frenzy by donating $10 million to fund a global research program aimed at keeping AI beneficial to humanity, and Tom Dietterich and Eric Horvitz of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) published an article discussing the risks of advancements in AI, arguing that “we must not put AI algorithms in control of potentially-dangerous systems until we can provide a high degree of assurance that they will behave safely and properly”. Meanwhile, Lee Gomes wrote that the Turing test is not robust enough to test the intelligence of computer programmes and welcomed the efforts by a group of roboticists now looking into alternatives.

Lifting the AI veil

With all the AI intrigue afoot, it’s refreshing to note that January also brought forth two new efforts to demystify the topic. Robohub’s newest syndicated podcast, Talking Machines, will be bringing listeners clear conversations with experts in the field of AI. Since kicking off on January 1, the podcast has featured interviews with Ilya Sutskever, who thinks that a little bit of magical thinking is crucial to work in AI, and Kevin Murphy, who spoke about how to learn about machine learning. Look for new episodes every other Thursday.

The AAAI video competition was also held this month in Austin, Texas, to spread the word about research and applications in AI through exciting educational videos. The Best Video award went to the Cowriter Project, an initiative through which children learn to write by teaching a robot to write.

Other winners included a video about adaptive learning through a Mario game (People’s Choice Award) and a video about self-organising collective decisions in swarms (Best Student Video).

Re-usable space tech: One step closer

autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS)

This month, SpaceX’s 7^th Dragon mission successfully sent another spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station (ISS) – the fifth successful dock under NASA’s CRS program. More remarkable was SpaceX’s ambitious attempt to return the first stage of the Falcon9 rocket back to earth. The rocket performed a successful re-orientation maneuver and controlled decent, and almost landed as intended on an unmanned ocean barge. Unfortunately the rocket lost control – possibly due to insufficient hydraulic fluid – just before the final touchdown and was lost at sea. Although the project did not achieve its ultimate goal of a safe landing, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk hailed the mission an overall success.

In other space-related news, NASA teamed up with Nissan for a robocar project, seeking to a zero-emission self-driving car, and announced that it is planning to build a helicopter scout to travel aboard the next Mars rover, in order to help explore and map the Red Planet.

Future thinking

Raffaello D’Andrea speaks to the Boston Consulting Group about the future of robotics.

If the new year is a time for resolutions, it is also a time for looking ahead, and many have been tempted to name 2015 “The Year of the Robot”. This is what MIT Mechanical Engineering Professor John Leonard discussed on Bloomberg Business this month, addressing issues such as Google’s secret robot plan and the regulation of drones.

Meanwhile, Peter Diamandis published his eleven top tech picks for 2015, including virtual reality, 3D printing and drones. Similarly, Raffaello D’Andrea shared his views on robotics’ past and what developments in robotics we might expect to see in the future.

Consumer Electronics Show (CES)

Mercedes F105 at CES 2015.

January also saw this year’s CES, which boasted an exciting range of new gadgets and inventions, including a Mercedes concept car and several demos of supervised traffic jam assist. Also notable was the variety of drones at CES, including self-flying, personal camera and follow-me drones, and the drone rodeo was one of the show’s most exciting events.

Yet while drones, robocars and consumer electronics were certainly exciting, according to a Fortune survey, what users are really looking for is longer battery life. The reason? Gadgets are great, but they would be so much more fun if you didn’t have to charge them every few hours.

Social robotics

Pepper goes on sale in February in Japan.

Personal robots could rival drones and robocars as the autonomous tech to watch for in 2015. Two of the first personal robots are set to go on sale soon, including a new low-tech “baby robot” designed to curb loneliness in senior citizens, and Pepper the robot, which goes on sale in Japan in February.

While social robotics will be tested in the marketplace this year, several challenges remain. One of these is the refinement of speech, as natural language is the key interface paradigm for social robotics. Another challenge will in be developing social and regulatory norms around how much interaction with robots is safe and acceptable. As we introduce social robots into our lives, we will have to figure out what kind of relationships we want with them.

Business and government

In the world of business, The Robot Report looked back on 30 fundings, acquisitions, IPOs and failures of 2014, providing figures and statistics to understand last year’s robotics market. Despite a few setbacks, investment in robotics was booming overall, with more than $1 billion in acquisitions and $100 million in IPOs. Several new funding announcements were also made in January.

The EU has co-funded 17 new robotics-related projects under Horizon 2020.

Looking forward, China predicts forty per cent annual growth in their robotics market and US-based Rethink Robotics got a $26.6 million Christmas gift to ensure that its operations can continue. Also in the US, iRobot founded a new venture capital firm and Ford is opening a new 25,000 sq ft Research and Innovation Center in Palo Alto, creating new jobs for 125 researchers, engineers and scientists. In the EU, governments have now invested $87 million for European robotic projects under Horizon 2020. However, this kind of support may now reduce as European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker proposed legislation to pay for economic stimulus using funds previously allocated to scientific research.

The rise of the drone

More than a dozen agents searching WH north lawn, w/ flashlights into the bushes. Source: Nedra Pickler.

As things are looking up for most robotics markets around the world and drones are quickly becoming one of the most sought after consumer products, it’s no wonder then that Scott Mayerowitz compared today’s drone market to Silicon Valley in its early days, suggesting that drones will soon become a permanent fixture in our lives.

The FAA, the body that has been looking at drone regulation in the US, granted two further exemptions for commercial drone use, for real estate and agricultural crop scouting. The organisation had also found a journalist who used a drone to film a car crash last year not guilty of recklessness, a fact only recently revealed through a FOIA request filed by Conneticut television station FoxCT. These events may indicate that things are moving forward in the hotly debated area of drone regulation – we may be on our way to further exemptions and clearer rules in 2015.

Despite the forward movement, a quadrocoper crashed onto the White House this month, bringing the issue of drone safety and regulation to the forefront once again.

Meanwhile in the lab…

The e-Dura is able to function while being bent (photo: © EPFL 2015)

A team from EPFL and NCCR Robotics in Switzerland working on a spinal cord implant to treat paralysis have reported on a major breakthrough, publishing proof that their device, the e-dura implant, is viable for months in animals. The team is now moving on to the next stage of research, which will involve testing of the implant in human subjects.

In other research news, a team from the University of Maryland and NICTA, Australia, is teaching robots how to cook by showing them YouTube videos of cooking shows.

Robotainment

Spare Parts opened January 16th in US theatres.

2015 is promising to be a big year for entertainment with, by and about robots. The latest in a series of movies tackling robot-related topic is a feel-good Hollywood movie called Spare Parts, about a group of young immigrants who against all odds win a major US robotics contest. While the movie concludes on a happy note, the real life ending is less positive, as highlighted in the NY times by the story’s author.

In other robotainment news, CBC launched a new documentary called Robotize Me, which explores our desire to develop intelligent and emotional machines. It turns out that Roboticize me is co-hosted by RoboThespian, which was just featured this month on the Robots Podcast.

Events to watch for in February

• The Unmanned Systems Expo TUSEXPO – Feb. 4-6, The Hague, Netherlands
• World Ag Expo – Feb. 10-12, Tulare, CA
• ATX Automation Technology West Trade Show – Feb. 10-12, Anaheim, CA
• RE.WORK Internet of Things Meetup – Feb 18, 2015, London, UK
• Intl Expert Days Service Robotics – Feb. 26-27, Laufin, Germany

US President Barack Obama linked robots and jobs in his sixth State of the Union address this Tuesday. The State of the Union Address is usually delivered annually by the President in a joint session of the US Congress, and is a platform for highlighting the President’s legislative agenda and national priorities.

Obama began by offering a positive link between technology as a driver for employment and business opportunity. “I want Americans to win the race for the kind of discoveries that unleash new jobs,” he said, giving the examples of DARPA’s robotic prosthetics program and NASA’s program to send US astronauts to Mars.

However, following these remarks he immediately launched into cautionary words about the negative effects of income inequality on the moral state of the country: “When it comes to issues like infrastructure and basic research, I know there is bipartisan support in this chamber. Where we too often run into the rocks is how to pay for these investments. We don’t mind paying our fair share of taxes as long as everybody else does too.” He went on to discuss the need to end tax breaks that encourage companies to shift profits overseas and to support small businesses and entrepreneurs.

Tweets about “Roboticize Me”

We will posting televised sessions, links to robotics related WEF blog posts, and the full list of robotics, AI and Big Data themed sessions in the program below so that you can follow the #WEF15 sessions that matter to the #robotics community. 

All times CET. Note that televised sessions will load when they are aired.

Non-televised sessions and relevant WEF blogposts

Extreme Robotics – Robotics legend William “Red” Whittaker reveals how robotics is revolutionizing humanity’s ability to explore and master its environment on Earth and beyond. Introduced by Subra Suresh, President, Carnegie Mellon University, USA.

Related blog posts:

• Why we invite scientists to Davos – David Gleicher
• How to maximise the benefits of a new space age – Thomas Cremins

Human vs Artificial Intelligence with the University of California, Berkeley – Will machines make better decisions than humans? Discover and debate in the IdeasLab: Machine learning from 18th-century automata to self-driving cars; The realities of artificial superintelligence; The prefrontal cortex and how we make decisions; The mind’s ability to rapidly form, test and revise causal theories.

Discussion leaders:

• Ken Goldberg, Professor, University of California, Berkeley, USA
• Alison Gopnik, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, USA
• Robert Thomas Knight, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience; Director, Knight Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, University of California, Berkeley, USA
• Stuart Russell, Professor, University of California, Berkeley, USA; Global Agenda Council on Artificial Intelligence & Robotics

Related blog posts:

• AI: how can we manage robot risk? – Stuart Russell and Bernhard Petermeier
• What babies tell us about artificial intelligence – Alison Gopnik
• Two mistakes about the threat from artificial intelligence – Luke Muelhauser

Mastering the Machines – Are we the masters of our fate or will our technologies take over?

Discussion leaders:

• Eric David, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Organovo, USA; Technology Pioneer
• Corinna E. Lathan, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, AnthroTronix, USA;  Young Global Leader Alumnus; Global Agenda Council on Artificial Intelligence & Robotics
• Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin, Ireland
• Illah Nourbakhsh, Professor, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
• Sophia Roosth, Assistant Professor, Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, USA

Related blog posts:

• Will the computers of the future read our minds? – Corrina E. Lathan
• The Internet of Things: Making us more human – Corrina E. Lathan
• Why artificial intelligence isn’t a threat to humankind – Tony Prescott
• What risks does artificial intelligence pose? – Toby Walsh
• What is the age of conscious-technology? – Jerome Glenn
• Can robots be managers, too? – James Young and Derek Cormier
• Is artificial intelligence the biggest threat to jobs? – Bernard Marr
• How can we ensure that robots make the right decisions? – Sandor Veres

The Promise and Peril of Exponential Technologies – Visionary entrepreneur Peter Diamandis reveals how emerging exponential technologies could rapidly converge to
reshape our world.

Related blog posts:

• How will automation affect society? – Jill Wong
• Will robots make our lives better or worse? – J. Bradford DeLong

Robots vs Humans with Carnegie Mellon University – Do risks outweigh opportunities in today’s advanced robotics? Debate in the IdeasLab: Worker robots and the automated economy; Power dynamics ±who controls the robots, controls the future; Humanitarian crises and disaster response robotics; Robotic assistance where we live, work and play.

Discussion leaders:

• Justine Cassell, Associate Vice-Provost for Technology Strategy and Impact, Carnegie Mellon University, USA; Global Agenda Council on Artificial Intelligence & Robotics
• Illah Nourbakhsh, Professor, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
• Anthony Stentz, Research Professor, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, USA
• William Whittaker, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Facilitated by Erik Brynjolfsson, Director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, Massachusetts, Institute of Technology, USA; Global Agenda Council on the Future of IT Software & Services.

Related blog posts:

• Forum Live Interview With Justine Cassell
• What does the second machine age mean for our jobs? – Erik Brynjolfsson
• How will the second machine age affect jobs? – Dalia Marin
• Are machines to blame for a shrinking wage gap? – Dalia Marin
• Is technology to blame for the decline of labour’s income share? – Nick Bunker

A quick, hassle-free way to stay on top of robotics news , our robotics digest is released on the first Monday of every month. Sign up to get it in your inbox.

Moving inventory

December is one of the busiest months of the year when it comes to shopping. While millions of us managed to avoid the rush to the shops this year by purchasing our gifts online, 15,000 Kiva bots worked overtime at Amazon fulfillment centres to convert our virtual clicks into actual presents in our homes. In Amazon’s pick and pack areas, these bots worked alongside high-end computer systems and human employees to make sure those all important gifts arrived in time for the holidays.

And while the parcels this year were still being delivered by humans, next Christmas may be a different story, as Amazon has now started looking for “Flight Operations Engineers” to test their drone delivery system PrimeAir. With the costs for such a system being estimated at 20 cents/ package by Kiva co-founder Raffaello D’Andrea, it is no surprise that interest in drone delivery is great; however others disagree with this figure and see drone delivery as more of a niche market.

Though we will have to wait and see who will be delivering the presents next year, the Fraunhofer Institute is developing flying robots to keep tabs on warehouse stock and to take over the dreaded task of taking inventory. While these robots won’t have direct contact with customers, their help will undoubtedly be welcomed by the many stores that must close their doors (and lose business) when taking inventory.

Meanwhile, diners in Singapore’s Timbre Group restaurant can expect to be served by indoor delivery drones from autumn 2015.

Ag tech making news

December isn’t a month we traditionally associate with harvest, but agricultural robotics was a hot topic in the news this month, exploring how technology has changed and is changing the age-old traditions of farming. High-tech farming is poised to change the way the world eats. In the New York Times, Quentin Hardy outlined how computer monitoring and data collection have increased productivity for some farmers, but are leading to the demise of others. He further suggested that technology encourages farmers to grow “easy” crops at the cost of diversity and tradition. But Hardy also acknowledges that tech can be advantageous, making farming easier, safer and more efficient.

A good example of robotics’ beneficial impact in the world of farming is robotic weeding. Traditionally a time-consuming and labour intensive task, particularly in organic farming, technologies for intra-row weed removal have the potential to transform farming in an environmentally friendly manner. Furthermore, with robotic nursery plant pot movers, autonomous tractors and self-driving harvesters, there’s a lot more in the pipeline that will change the way we look at agriculture.

To help figure out how it will all happen, the Australian Centre for Field Robotics is planning an IEEE RAS Summer School on Agricultural Robotics this February (it’s summer there!) to bring together experts in this area and to discuss the potential and future of robots in agriculture.

AI future

In a BBC interview in early December, Professor Stephen Hawking warned that artificial intelligence could end mankind. According to the famous theoretical physicist, humans could be superseded by AI as the former are limited by slow biological evolution, while the latter is not. The BBC later followed up with James Barrat (author of Our Final Invention), who agreed with Hawking, and with Professor Joanna Bryson, who felt that his view was too pessimistic. Then, Demis Hassabis, founder of DeepMind, said that AI has huge potential to be amazing for humanity, and Oren Etzioni, head of the Paul Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, emphasised that AI won’t eliminate us, but will rather empower us to be better. Even NASA scientists added to the debate by suggesting that the dominant form of intelligence in the cosmos are most likely to be artificial.

The discussion surrounding AI is set to continue into the New Year and beyond.

Advances in space

Following the recent success of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission that saw spaceprobe Philae land on a comet, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched an asteroid-chasing probe this December to meet asteroid 1999 JU3 and (eventually) bring back samples of rock in late 2020.

While ESA and JAXA focus on comets and asteroids, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft just woke from hibernation 2.9 billion miles from Earth, the farthest any space mission has ever traveled. The mission now prepares for its exploration of the Pluto System in 2015, which will bring us completely novel and unique insights into the far sight of our solar system.

A little closer to home, NASA’s Curiosity is already sending back data from Earth’s neighbour Mars. The unmanned probe found spikes in atmospheric methane and some organic compounds in drill samples that could indicate that there was once life on the Red Planet.

And back here on Earth, DeepSpace Industries partnered with 3D printing company Solid Prototype to reduce fabrication costs, speed turnaround times for new designs, and eliminate mass from spacecraft structures, with a view to revolutionising spacecraft design in the future.

Government and institutional news

As 2014 drew to a close, many countries were planning for a future in robotics.

The South Korean government increased robotics funding for 2015 by 8.3% from $134.3 million to $145.8million. The UK robotics strategy outlined how the country plans to make more use of its expertise in robotics and autonomous systems (RAS) to increase its market share. In Switzerland, ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich announced that they are founding a new translational research centre, bringing together expertise in medicine, engineering and robotics. In Europe, the EU Robotics Brokerage Day held this December provided an opportunity to meet and network with a view to encouraging new partnerships that can compete for the 561 million Euro funding available in the ICT 2015 grant round.

Robotics education

Two MOOCs on robotics led by Peter Corke were announced by Queensland University of Technology this December and registration is now open for the courses “Introduction to Robotics“ and “Robotic Vision”, which will run in early 2015. Registration is free.

Meanwhile, other initiatives sought to encourage younger minds to take an interest in robotics this December, including CompuGirls – a project based at Arizona State University that supports girls to develop culturally relevant technical and computer skills. Other initiatives use robotics gaming platorms to teach STEM, and GraspIO, a part hardware, part software DIY electronics platform. Check out also our new educational robotics review series by Kidbotics, who looked at the Thymio II from the perspective of a robotics novice.

Year end accounting

2014’s last set of business news included a variety of announcements, sales and new business ventures. iRobot announced the launch of a new robot “Create 2”, twenty-five per cent of KUKA shares traded hands for 555M Euros, Foxconn found that their robots are unsuitable for iPhone assembly and will be working on next generation robots to increase productivity in coming years, and finally, in an interview with Robohub’s Andra Keay, Carl Vause of Soft Robotics speaks about the challenges of commercializing the soft actuators he is developing.

With so many business related activities (not only this December but throughout 2014), it is very helpful that Frank Tobe summarised 2014’s robotics business news in his annual review, published this month on Robohub.

Autonomous cars: Prototypes and business models

It probably would not be a complete digest if we did not mention autonomous cars – one of the recurring topics of 2014. Just before Christmas, Google revealed their actual self-driving prototype which, after some drives on the closed off test track, they plan to take out on public roads in 2015. With autonomous car developers, such as Google, pushing forward, Brad Templeton from robocars.com discussed possible business models for self-driving cars, and used the recent controversies surrounding online ride service provider Uber as a basis to explore the challanges facing robocars.

Drone startups carving out niches

CyPhy Works, led by Helen Greiner, is coming out with a tethered pocket-sized drone. The new pocket drone is designed to support search and rescue efforts by allowing rescue workers to stay safe and let the drone explore territory and buildings lying before them. Also this December, Skysense says it is releasing a charging pad for charging multiple drones at the same time, as well as a hangar for storing and recharging drones between flights.

Meanwhile, GoPro (a camera manufacturer favoured by extreme sports and aerial photographers) announced it will start making its own drones. Some drones currently on the market, such as the amphibious HexH2o drone (which can shoot both aerial and underwater videos), are already able to carry a GoPro camera, but the manufacturer now wants to capitalise on the rapidly growing hardware market and hopes that their own drone will be ready for Christmas 2015.

Swarming and swimming

Some robots can fly, some robots can swim, some can do both – and some can do it together with others. This ability to work together and function as a swarm is something which roboticists such as Dr Sabine Hauert of Bristol University are looking to use to fight cancer. Hauert is working on tiny particles that could be programmed to swarm and mount a determined attack on cancer in a patient’s body.

On a much larger scale, others have already built an ocean-going robot fleet, that saw three marine robots successfully complete a fish-tracking mission coordinated by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC). It is hoped that swimming robots will be used more often in biology in the future. For example, evolving swimming robots may be used to study the origins of extinct vertebrates.

And with a new low-cost open source underwater robot kit now available, even hobby roboticists can now join the underwater exploration.

Holiday content

December is Christmas season – and so we could not end our December digest without mentioning some of the interesting gift ideas, season greetings and suggestions to pass the time until Santa comes to visit. Among the gift ideas for Christmas 2014 were essential reading for robot fans, 20 books to get kids into robotics and unique wardrobe ideas for the robot enthusiast. For those looking for something to do over the holiday, we pulled together a list of robot movies to watch and of course recommended our festive greeting video compilation.

And finally, if the last digest of the year hasn’t satiated your need for robotics news, we’ve compiled a list of  Robohub’s most viewed articles of 2014, covering topics from Cyborgs and AI to Facebook and Fukushima.

Events to watch out for in January

• AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference – January 5-9, FL, USA
• 2015 International CES – Jan 6-9, Las Vegas, NV, USA
• A3 Business Forum – Jan 21-12, Disney’s Yacht Club Resort, Lake Buena Vista, FL
• Call for Innorobo Startup Competition Closes – Jan 31, Lyons, France

Because you can never get enough of robots we compiled this list of fashion and accessories so you can show off your addiction. Ugly robot christmas sweater, anyone? 

t shirts $13.72 – $29.99

hoodies $27.99 – $34.95

ugly christmas sweaters $25.95 – $29.99

women $10.05 – $35.66

socks $4.50 – $14.99

bling $7.99 – $165.00

kids $14.99 – $46.95

babies $9.99 – $43.19

Robohub is an online platform that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world. Learn more about us here. If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• 25 holiday gift ideas for RoboGeeks (2014)
• Holiday reading for robot fans: 24 books to inspire, educate and provoke
• 20 great books to hook kids and teens on robotics
• Still looking for last-minute holiday gifts? 15 ideas for robot fans (2013)
• 8 Robotic Gifts for the 2013 Holiday Season

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Kids love robots! And they love reading too. Ranging from preschool to teen, this selection of books includes fiction and nonfiction, activity books and maker manuals, all to help inspire the kids in your life to get into robotics.

“On the ground and in the air, Robots, robots everywhere! . . . Up in space, beneath the seas, Robots make discoveries . . .” A nice little board book for little kids.

A sweet story about a boy and his bot – a great bedtime story for little ones.

Robots build the alphabet! Featuring hilarious robots making goofy noises, this book is perfect for young readers.

When this robot goes out of date, a child helps him find a new lease in life. From the award-winning author of Corduroy.

A girl and her mother turn a simple cardboard box into the robot of their dreams. Half story book, half activity book, this is perfect material for a fun family activity day or a kids workshop.

Simple descriptions and designs for creating your own Lego robots.

Photo-packed book showing kids real robots, and the science behind them.

How to make ten different robots—that move—out of the most ordinary things from around the house.

LEO the Maker Prince teaches children (both young and old) about 3D printing.

Learn about incredible space robots and the amazing things that they have discovered about our solar system.

Sammy’s mother is an inventor, and their house is filled with her robots, which do everything from housework to tutoring. Plenty of humor of the same genre as Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Fifteen colorful punch-out robot designs with interchangeable parts make a great rainy day activity.

A mystery story that contains the blueprints to build five different robots projects. Make bristlebots that buzz, hoverbots that float above the ground, battlebots that duke it out, and more! Can Nick and Tesla catch the criminal mastermind—and foil his army of rampaging robots—before it’s too late?

Step-by-step instructions for building real robot models using ordinary craft materials and parts salvaged from recycled toys and other household devices. Kids will learn how to create working robot hands, hydraulic arms, sensors, solar-powered robots, light-seeking robots and more.

A collection of hundreds of working examples of simple Technic models of gears, shafts, pulleys, turntables, connectors, that you can build based on their pictures alone.

A look at the early visual development of the Pixar film Robots. If you loved the movie, you’ll love the book.

Who could be more inspiring to a budding young roboticist than sociable robotics expert Cynthia Breazeal? Though this book was written in 2005 and looks at her earlier work, Jibo’s emergence is bound to make this book resonate once again. If you’re looking to inspire a girl, check out also Dazzling Women Designers by Jill Bryant.

A classic introduction to building robots – now in its 4th edition. Well organized, easy to understand and fun!

An easy and fun introduction to building Arduino by the author of the classic Robot Builder’s Bonanza – no special tools or knowledge required!

Caleb-Seven isn’t just another robot, he’s been created to be given to the king, who is childless, and who wants this robot to be blank slate that can be molded into a surrogate son. But Caleb is bent on escaping his fate.

Robohub is an online platform that brings together leading communicators in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from around the world. Learn more about us here. If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• 25 holiday gift ideas for RoboGeeks (2014)
• Holiday reading for robot fans: 24 books to inspire, educate and provoke
• Ugly robot christmas sweaters and other bling for your robot wardrobe
• Still looking for last-minute holiday gifts? 15 ideas for robot fans (2013)
• 8 Robotic Gifts for the 2013 Holiday Season

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Touchdown!

The biggest robotics story of November came on the 12^th when Rosetta’s Philae space probe touched down on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – the first time that­­ a manmade spacecraft has ever landed on a comet. A project of the European Space Agency, the mission is primarily scientific, and serves as a proof of concept that landing on a comet is, in fact, achievable. Given that 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was far more difficult to reach than most asteroids would be, for those in the commercial space industry the feat also represents an important step toward a future where mining precious metals and rare materials from space is feasible, and perhaps even profitable.

Drone regulation: Incremental change?

Pirker case overturned

Flying a little closer to earth, drones (and specifically, they regulation) continued to make the news this month. In the US, the FAA announced on November 5^th that they would be set to publish new rules before the end of 2014 that “will open the door to a lot of commercial applications that aren’t authorized today,” according to Jim Williams, who manages the FAA’s UAS integration office. Two weeks later, the National Transportation Safety Board found that unmanned aircraft (including drones) fall under the jurisdiction and rules of the FAA, overturning the Pirker case in which a judge had previously found that FAA rules did not apply to model aircraft. In response, the Small UAV Coalition urged the FAA to not get distracted by this latest ruling, and warned that the new draft rules “will not address the realities of today’s UAV technology, such as varying degrees of autonomy and the ability to perform operations beyond line of sight,” and are “costing US competitiveness in the global market place.” Meanwhile, the Brookings Institute published a 34-page report on drones and aerial surveillance this month, outlining the specific considerations legislators should take into account when making drone laws.

Elsewhere, incremental change was afoot. In Australia, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority proposed a new class of “low-risk” aircraft that would require no special certification and would include any remotely piloted aircraft under 2kg. Canada similarly announced a new regulation exempting commercial and hobby users of UAVs weighing less than 2kg from the Special Flight Operations Certificate.

On the medical front

Advances were reported this month in robotic surgery: researchers from UC Berkley’s Center for Automation and Learning for Medical Robotics released a video showing that repetitive surgical tasks like suturing, cutting and debridement of deformable tissue can be automated; and Aeon Scientific won a Swiss Technology Award in the startup category with Phocus, its magnetically-guided robotic surgical system.

Strides have also been made in the rehab sector. The Robot-Aided Gait Training and the ARMin neuro-rehabilitation device were designed to help patients who have lost full use of their arms or legs. And in Japan, the Muscle Suit just came to market, designed to prevent injury in those who regularly have to lift heavy loads, such as nurses, factory workers and farmers.

Governments boost robotics

Be it for research or commerce, governments around the world are looking to give a boost to robotics. The fourth annual EU Robotics Week, which ran this month, showed off what European robotics is all about. In the UK, Imperial College London is set to build a £1.25 million state-of-the-art drone lab. Japan is planning to boost investment in order to triple its robotics market to $22 billion by 2020, and sees deregulation as key to ensure that the country remains competitive in the global marketplace. And in the US, the National Science Foundation and partners just announced a $31.5 million investment in co-robots, robots that work cooperatively with people, including those for eldercare, surgery and disaster relief.

Co-robots

While the NSF hopes its recent investment will help bring more robots into people’s workplaces and homes, co-robots (or cobots) are already a common sight in some places. At Carnegie Mellon University in the US, a group of co-robots has been navigating the university’s halls and corridors since 2011, guiding visitors and running errands. On the 18^th of November, the combined distance travelled by the three co-robots involved in the project reached 1000km of autonomous operation, an exciting achievement for PI Manuela Veloso. You can learn more about this research in an interview with two of Veloso’s PhD students.

And in case you thought co-robots were only to be found in research labs, food and drinks giant Nestle announced that it will use Softbank’s Pepper the robot to sell Nescafé products, and diners at a café in Ningbo, China are now being served by robot waiters.

Business news

Google subsidiary Planetary Ventures has committed to a 60-year $1.16 billion lease of the 1,000 acre Moffett Field Naval Air Station.

November was a good month for robotics business, with a range of deals, collaborations and investments. One of the biggest news items was Google’s new lease on NASA’s Silicon Valley airfield, which the company plans to use for research and testing of technologies, including robotics, aviation and space. Google committed $1.16 billion for the 60 year lease and will even spend money on refurbishing the site, with $200 million earmarked for improving the facilities.

Investment news includes ABB Technology Ventures’ $12million contribution to AI start-up Vicarious’ fundraising campaign, and the new ROBO-STOX® for EU investors, which opened at the London Stock Exchange on the 27th of November. The stock specifically offers investment opportunities that are compliant with the European UCITS requirements.

With all new developments, it’s no wonder that the latest report from the Boston Consulting Group (BSG) predicts a 10.4% Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) in the robotics sector. While the fastest growing market according to BSG is likely to be personal robotics, other markets are also up and coming; agricultural robotics is an area that is often overlooked, yet may benefit substantially from robotic solutions. To keep track of it all, trade show organizer MecklerMedia is launching a new three-day, two-track workshop, seminar and exhibition on most verticals in robotics (other than heavy industry, military and space) to be held May 11-13 at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City.

Sucking it up

On Singles Day, Ecovacs sold $24.8 million worth of robotic products, mostly their robotic vacuum cleaners.

As if to prove BSG’s prediction that personal robotics will be the fastest growing market, the personal robotics market experienced an unexpected boost this month in China. The 11^th of November is “Singles Day” in the country, a made-up online shopping holiday for singles and young people. On this one day, more than 70,000 robot vacuums were sold (mostly online). The exact connection between Singles Day and robovacuums is anyone’s guess, but the global upward trend in robovacuum sales is set to continue with new releases by Dyson and Samsung, and Sharp, which is releasing a premium model of their COCOROBO series called COCOROBO Imouto (“little sister”), which will be available for a limited time only.

Smart homes and connected devices

Would you invite a device that is always listening into your home?

Vacuums aside, the personal robotics market has a broad variety of autonomous devices to offer, from lawn mowers and pool cleaners to rocking baby chairs. Taking it one step further is the idea of smart homes with features such as remotely controlled heating, blinds and security cameras. Despite the convenience, inviting such technologies into your home can change the way your home feels – and the way you live. Robohub readers had their say in a poll about smart homes in November, with the majority indicating that it’s all about comfort.

A robot for grand-dad

A robot hands a medication bottle to a person. Photo credit: Keith Bujak. Source: Georgia Tech News Center

On the subject of comfort and convenience, in the past we’ve discussed the potential of robots to enable the elderly to live independently in the comfort of their own homes for longer. This month was no exception: Nate the robot took on eldercare with a sense of humour, our readers confirmed that they were optimistic about the role of robots as care assistants for seniors in our reader poll, and our podcast team explored an RFID system that allows robots to precisely locate and identify tagged objects. This could be used, for example, to help a robot find a bottle of medication in a cupboard – and make sure it’s the correct medication – before bringing it to a person.

The AI debate continues

Nick Bostrom’s new book “Superintelligence” was released this fall.

While being able to move around and map an environment is a pretty nifty trick, improving the intelligence of robots is still a hotly debated topic. Following Elon Musk’s and Stephen Hawking’s public remarks earlier this year about the potential dangers of AI, there has been a flurry of mainstream debate about where AI is headed and what we should be doing about it. Kurt Andersen of Vanity Fair wrote that “AI is suddenly everywhere” and the New York Times columnist John Markoff wrote about “bombs that can pick whom to kill”, while David Crookes of the Independent argued that now is the time to get involved in AI, which in his opinion is one of the most exciting areas of the field of robotics. Released this fall, Nick Bostrom’s book “Superintelligence” takes a critical look at the future of artificial intelligence and what it may mean for humanity. Rodney Brooks also took up the debate, concluding that it is a tool, not a threat.

In the movies

A new action/sci-fi thriller by Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium) is due in theatres March 6, 2015.

Soon to be on the silver screen are two movies that explore both the dark and light sides of AI: “Chappie”, a new action/sci-fi thriller by Neill Blomkamp, and “Ex Machina,” which has a distinctly darker tone. Both films are set for release this spring. If you can’t wait until then, try “Robots, Botox and Google Glass” – a lively short documentary about the uncanny valley by Ken Goldberg and Tiffany Shlain – or the new Disney release of “Big Hero 6”, whose main supporting character is a big soft inflatable robot called Baymax.

Seasonal Robotics

If all this talk about robots and movies has inspired you, then check out our call for holiday robot videos. You’re officially invited to make your short movie about robots to get you in the holiday spirit!

And if you are not feeling festive enough yet, Robohub has created a list of holiday gift ideas for the robogeek in your life. Keep an eye out also for our holiday reading and movie list, coming soon.

Events to watch out for in December

• RE.WORK Cities Summit – Dec. 4-5, London, UK
• IFA 2014 – Dec. 5-10, Berlin, Germany
• RobotsConf 2014 – Dec. 6-7, Amelia Island, FLA
• NERVE Center Open House – Dec. 9, Lowell, MA
• LA Drone Expo UAVSA – Dec. 13, Los Angeles, CA
• ICIAFS – 7th International Conference on Information and Automation for Sustainability – Dec. 22-24, Colombo, Sri Lanka

A new action/sci-fi thriller by Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium) is due in theatres March 6, 2015. Starring Sharlto Copley, Hugh Jackman, Dev Patel, and Sigourney Weaver, Chappie follows an experimental humanoid as it learns to think and feel for itself, and explores the resulting awe and fear that comes from the humans that encounter it on its path to “the next step in evolution”. Watch the trailer.

For another, darker, take on AI, check out also this trailer:

Ex Machina is due for release April 10, 2015.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Automata: The new “sci-fi” blockbuster set to put robot ethics under a spotlight
• Facebook – Our ffriendly automated identity bender
• Robot love: Spike Jonze’s new sci-fi film ‘Her’ may be closer to reality than you think
• Robot and Frank review

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

All about 3D printing

Opensource 3D printed “Poppy” humanoid hopes to enable experimentation in robot design.

October’s robotics news was awash with stories about 3D printing, which is being used for anything from building houses from mud to assisting in teleoperation and giving UAVs their wings. One of the most popular pieces was a feature on Poppy, a 3D printed open source humanoid, which will enable researchers to quickly print custom body parts and experiment with design in ways that weren’t possible before. And with Arduino’s launch of an open source, reasonably priced 3D printer, making those body parts will now also become much easier and more affordable.

The possibilities of 3D printing are huge and some users have already sprinted ahead. Joel Gibbard was recently recognized as young designer of the year for the 3D printed bionic hand he developed, and also made the Intel finals.

Regulating Robotics

Readers may recall that regulation was a hot topic last month, largely stemming from Ryan Calo’s Brookings paper The Case for a Federal Robotics Commission. The debate continued this month, with Frank Tobe questioning the need for a new regulatory body in the US, and Andrea Bertolini from the EU’s RoboLaw project explaining why and how robotics should be regulated.

Drone regulation in particular (rather than robotics regulation in general) also received some attention this month, as Skyward announced the first ever commercial drone network demonstration project in Las Vegas, Vancouver, London, and Portland, and Airware said it is joining forces with NASA to develop a drone air traffic control system.

Drones for your pocket

Anura pocket drone.

While discussions about drone regulation are on-going, drone developers continue their work, launching a new tethered mini-drone that can fly for two hours straight and introducing Anura, the first foldable pocket drone.

Mixed news in space

The last week of October was not a good week for the commercial space industry. On October 28 Orbital Sciences corporation lost its Antares launcher Cygnus spacecraft in an explosion. Orbital Sciences was one of two private companies under contract from NASA for supplying the International Space Station with cargo, supplies and secondary experimental, and commercial ISS payload, and many science experiments were lost in the explosion, including 26 cube sats from Planet Labs. Then on October 31, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo broke apart in midair, leaving one pilot dead and another seriously injured, leaving many to question the future of the private space industry.

Earlier in the month had cheerier news, with various new players announcing their entry into space exploration. Luxembourg and China teamed up in a bid to launch a private mission to fly around the moon, which will be the first of its kind. At the end of September, India joined the “Mars Club” when its Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) probe arrived safely on Mars. And the United Arab Emirates have now started building their first probe destined for Mars, which they hope to launch in 2021.

Meanwhile, the European Space Agency is planning to make history as well, as it confirmed the primary landing site for Philae, the first ever lander to attempt soft touchdown on a comet. Philae will be released on 12^th of November and we will know whether the mission was successful by around 15:30 GMT.

Robocars

SMART-NUS enhanced driverless buggy. The steering wheel has been removed and replaced with an in-vehicle touchscreen for alternate selection of destination. Researchers will shadow the buggy on electric bicycles during the demo.

While some are hoping to advance robotics in space, others are firmly planted on this planet’s surface. In Singapore, autonomous golfcars are currently being tested publicly in the Singapore Chinese and Japanese Gardens, and in Michigan, the state university is now building an entire town to test driverless cars.

Others renewed their commitment to developing autonomous vehicles this October, with various announcements of plans and advances in the robocar industry, including news from Audi and Tesla. This despite doubts whether autonomous cars will ever fulfill their promise.

Nursing grandma with a robot

All this talk about being replaced by robots is getting old.

For the elderly, autonomous cars could mean more independence andfreedom, whilst allowing residents of retirement communities to stay safe on the road, and some are suggesting that robocars could be a natural fit for retirement communities. Beyond providing transport, robots have plenty more potential to contribute to the care of the elderly; with this population increasing to a predicted 1.6 billion by 2050 in the US alone, they could offer a solution to the dilemma many family carers face today: to work or to provide care. Some have gone as far as to say that it may be the retirement communities that will drive the wider acceptance of robots in society.

Japan pushes the robot agenda

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivering an address at the Robot Revolution Realization Council. Source: Prime Minister’s Office.

When it comes to accepting robots as part of everyday life, Japan certainly is a step ahead of many other countries. This fall, the country’s “robotics evolution” council met for the very first time to discuss how to promote measures to increase the use of robots and related technologies with the goal to make Japan a showcase for service robots by 2020.

Befittingly, October was also the month in which the Japan Robot Week was hosted in Tokyo, with a special focus on assistive (service) robots, such as nursing robots, life support robots, disaster response robots, and even a robot by Kawada Robotics that sold coffee to visitors. Kawada’s NEXTAGE robot already has competition, however, as Softbank struck a deal with Nestlé to bring Pepper to 20 of its stores by year end to help them Nescafé products. Nestle hopes to deploy them in over 1000 of its stores within the next year.

Industry News

At your service: OSHbot by Fellows Robot.

Robot assistants aren’t just selling coffee. Fellow Robots, in partnership with Lowes Hardware, launched the OSHbot this October to help assist customers at their Orchard Supply Hardware store in San Jose. OSHbot will help customers search for items and find information about products, and will also help store employees with inventory management.

At the Robobusiness convention in Boston, the winners of Pitchfire were announced, with a Norwegian startup company called NLink taking first prize for their robotic drilling and measuring system for ceiling work. Two other startups from Boston and Helsinki received honourable mentions.

Robobusiness also saw the launch of Qualcomm’s robotics accelerator, which seeks to fund ten companies that create smart machines and robots. Applications will be open until February 22^nd 2015. This came on the heels of an announcement by Robot Labs that it is looking to fund robots that can change the world with its latest round of seed stage funding. Up to $350,000 are up for grabs and applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

Overall, business news this October were positive with reports showing an increase in robot sales and experts predicting steady growth for the sector. Additionally, a number of acquisitions and new partnerships promises exciting developments. Kuka bought Swisslog for $357 million, adding a mobility arm to its product line. Robotshop, a Canadian company, proceeded with its expansion, adding FlyingEinstein to the growing list of companies it acquired over the last few months, becoming the exclusive source for FlyingEinstein’s products, such as the Quadrino Nano Flight Controller. Finally, Google added two British startup companies to its robotics arm. The startups are Dark Blue Labs (a developer of systems to understand natural language) and Vision Factory (a developer of systems capable of the visual recognition of objects). Google also partnered with Oxford University, giving substantial contributions to the education hub to expand its AI and deep learning capabilities.

Perhaps the biggest business shakeup this month, however, was the news that Andy Rubin has departed Google to start a tech incubator focused on hardware. Rubin was the Google executive who was in charge of the company’s robotics group.

Ada Lovelace Day celebration

This October many celebrated Ada Lovelace Day, an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). Although we can’t do justice to the many things that went on during the Ada Lovelace celebrations, we will mention some.

Steve Henn, NPR’s technology correspondent, published an interesting story exploring why the number of women taking up computer science suddenly dropped in the 1980s and hasn’t recovered since. A recently published book, “The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson, praises the contribution of many women in robotics and emphasises that most robotics developments come out of collaborations of people (many of whom were female).

At Robohub, we also joined in the Ada Lovelace spirit, publishing this year’s list of the 25 women in robotics everyone should know about, and the Robots podcast aired a special episode on how to engage girls in robotics.

Competitions

Registration for Cybathlon is now open.

It wouldn’t be a proper digest without mentioning some of the exciting robotics competitions that are happening all around the world. In Spain this month, the winners of the five euRathlon 2014 sea competition scenarios were unveiled and are now invited to attend the euRathlon Grand Challenge 2015. In the United Arab Emirates, the Drones for Good Awards announced its list of semi-finalists who will enter the next stage of the competition, and registration is now open for the Cybathlon in Switzerland, which will be held in 2016. Finally, the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) RobotX competition started by publishing a video about the boating platform given to all the teams

Robohub Birthday

Last but not least, October was also a very special month for us at Robohub, as we celebrated our second birthday. We have come a long way from our humble beginnings and now have over 50,000 unique visitors each month and hundred of robotics experts contributing. We hope to continue on this trajectory with the help of our loyal readers, so to find out how we are doing and how we could improve, we have launched our second annual reader survey, open to all visitors of our site. Your feedback will help us immensely, so if you have a spare minute or two, why not complete the survey and tell us what you think?

Events to watch for in November

• Humanoids 2014 – IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots – Nov 18 – 20, Madrid, Spain
• National Robotics Initiative Principal Investigators Meeting – Nov 19-20, Arlington, VA
• The Road Ahead | MIT Senseable City Lab – Nov 21, Boston, MA
• European Robotics Week 2014 – Nov 24-30, Europe-wide
• RoCKIn Competition 2014 – Nov 26-30, Toulouse, France
• Curtin Robofair 2014 – Nov 30, Bently WA, Australia

Our hypothesis is that the body is an essential variable in the acquisition of motor and social skills in humans. To study this theory, we needed to create a platform allowing fast experimentation of new robot morphologies.

Oudeyer explains how open-source robots can help us better understand how humans learn and acquire language in his recent TEDxCannes talk.

Arduino-compatible, Poppy can be assembled in about seven hours, and can interface with other electronic devices, including smart clothing, lights, sensors and musical instruments, making it an affordable humanoid platform for research, experimentation and education.

To test the platform, Oudeyer and his fellow researchers Matthieu Lapeyre and Pierre Rouanet used Poppy to study the impact of leg shapes in biped locomotion. By modifying the COA files, they were able to quickly change the robot’s thigh design, print new mechanical parts and study the impact of the design change. (See research results here.)

Poppy with bent thighs. Source: www.poppy-project.org.

Poppy with straight thighs. Source: www.poppy-project.org.

The Poppy community

Poppy’s developers hope that the robot will also be used in schools for learning about robotics, and as an experimental platform in the arts; the 3D printing and open source aspects of the project are part of that vision. To facilitate collaboration and experimentation, they have created an open source dedicated web platform that combines hardware, software and webtools. Says Oudeyer:

The advances offered by 3D printing have already revolutionised design and industry. However, only very little has been done to explore the benefits of 3D printing and its interaction with computer science in classrooms. With our Poppy platform, we are now offering schools and teachers an adequate tool to cultivate the creativity of students studying in fields such as mechanics, computer sciences, electronics and 3D printing.

Both hardware and software are open source. There is not one single Poppy humanoid robot but as many as there are users. This makes it very attractive as it has grown from a purely technological tool to a real social platform.

More info

Website: http://www.poppy-project.org/

Video: http://vimeo.com/76917854

Pictures: http://www.poppy-project.org/gallery/

Twitter: @poppy_project

Development team: M. Lapeyre, P. Rouanet, S. Nguyen, S. Ribas, J. Grizou, A. Le Fahler, F. Depraetre, C. Moulin-Frier, P-Y. Oudeyer.

Just last week at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella gave women some questionable career advice: “It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. Because that’s good karma.” The event moderator, Professor Maria Klawe, president of Harvey Mudd College and a Microsoft director, immediately disagreed with Nadella’s advice, suggesting instead that women do their homework on salary levels and practice asking for pay raises. 

Indeed, good karma seems to be slow coming. Women account for only 17% of Microsoft’s management and technical staff. It’s been calculated by the National Women’s Law Center that women still earn only 78c on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. And the consequences of not negotiating a starting salary at the beginning of one’s career can amount to the loss of millions in earnings over a woman’s lifetime.

From Hypatia to Grace Hopper, there have been many amazing women who have carved themselves out a name in the fields of science, engineering, mathematics and technology, despite the lack of financial reward. However, these comparatively few women can easily be lost from the pages of history without an ongoing push to make sure that they are represented; women are still well under 20% of the tech workforce, and role models are important.

And yet there is movement in the right direction: This spring, Harvey Mudd College broke new ground when 56% of its engineering degrees were awarded to women – the first time the college’s women graduates have outnumbered men in this discipline. And this fall, Lynne Parker announced a 50 strong all-female organizing committee for ICRA – one of the premier academic robotics events worldwide.

If Ada Lovelace Day is about sharing stories of women in science, technology, engineering and math to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields, stories like these can only inspire us to keep pushing.

In celebration we’ve once again created a short list of women in robotics that everyone should know about (see also 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2013)).

Although all the women listed here are doing great things, our list isn’t by any means a ranking. Rather, it is a range: from early stage to emeritus, from many different countries and in a variety of robotics disciplines; researchers, entrepreneurs and academics, innovators, artists and policy makers. In short, here are 25 more reasons why women can do anything. Please share. 

25 women in robotics you should know about (in alphabetical order)

Ruzena Bajcsy
	Ruzena Bajcsy took the helm at CITRIS in November 2001, after devoting more than 30 years of her life to research in the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence and machine perception. Bajcsy’s credentials reach across the traditionally discrete fields of neuroscience, applied mechanics and computer science. She is a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, a distinction few people can match.
Berkeley	Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences | Director of CITRIS
Sampriti Bhattacharya
	Sampriti Bhattacharya is a PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the department of Mechanical Engineering doing research on underwater robotics for nuclear reactor inspection. Coming from a small college in Kolkata, India, Bhattacharya realized that the opportunities for engineering research and creativity were too limited in her country. This led her to start the Lab-X Foundation to provide hands-on engineering training to those with limited resources, and to bring world class education into developing countries.
MIT	PhD Student | Director & Founder of Lab-X Foundation
Maren Bennewitz
	Maren Bennewitz developed several innovative solutions for robotic systems co-existing and interacting with humans. Among them are probabilistic techniques for navigation with humanoid and wheeled robots as well as for reliably detecting and tracking humans from sensor data and analyzing their motions. She is currently PI on EU projects Squirrel and Rovina and the German cluster BrainLinks-BrainTools.
University of Freiburg	Juniorprofessorin of Computer Science | Head of Humanoid Robots Lab
Ekaterina Bereziy
	Ekaterina Bereziy graduated from from Moscow State University’s mechanics and mathematics faculty, before founding ExoAtlet, Russia’s first exoskeleton startup. ExoAtlet features maneuverability, brain-to-computer interface and comfort, and the startup has won a spot in the Skolkovo IT cluster, beating 750 other startups.
ExoAtlet	Founder & CEO
Alicia Casals
	Alicia Casals is currently leading the research group on Robotics and Medical Imaging program of the Institute for Biomedical Engineering of Catalonia (IBEC), and the research group GRINS: Intelligent Robots and Systems (UPC-IBEC). The research is oriented to improve human robot interaction through multimodal perception, focused mainly in the area of medical robotics. In this field she is working in robotic systems and control strategies for rehabilitation, assistance and surgical applications. In 2001 she was one the founders of the European Robotics Network, Euron, being part of its Board until 2008. In 2004 she created the Spanish Robotics Chapter, which she led until 2006. She was Vice-President of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society in the period 2008-2009. Among other prizes, she received the Narcís Monturiol Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya in 1998.
Technical University of Catalonia	Full Professor in the Automatic Control and Computer Engineering Dept | Leader of the Robotics Group at IBEC
Elaine Chen
	Elaine Chen is an MIT-trained engineering and product development executive. She has over 20 years of experience building great teams and developing disruptive products with hardware and software components in a startup setting. She has served as a product management and product development executive for several startups at the VP level, including SensAble Technologies (now part of the Geomagic division of 3D Systems), Zeemote, Zeo, and most recently Rethink Robotics, the company that brought the revolutionary Baxter collaborative robot to market.
MIT Sloan School of Management	Senior Lecturer | Entrepreneur in Residence at Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship | Consultant at Concept Springs
Marita Cheng
	Marita Cheng is currently the founder and CEO of 2Mar Robotics, making robotic arms for people with disabilities. In 2008, while a mechatronics undergraduate at University of Melbourne, Marita founded Robogals, a university club to encourage girls into STEM. Robogals is now a global program of volunteers with branches at 21 universities in 5 countries. Cheng was named Young Australian of the Year in 2012.
2Mar Robotics	Founder & CEO | Founder of Robogals
Vanessa Evers
	Vanessa Evers likes to take theories on human behaviour from social psychology and see if similar processes occur when we interact with technology. Her research focuses on Human Interaction with Autonomous Agents such as robots or machine learning systems and cultural aspects of Human Computer Interaction. Vanessa won the best thesis prize awarded by the Dutch National Society of Registered Information Specialists, was co-author of the James Chen best paper award of the journal on User Modeling and User Adapted Interaction together with her Ph.D. student Henriette Cramer. She is a member of the ACM International Human Robot Interaction Steering Committee and Associate of the Human Robot Interaction Journal.
University of Twente	Professor of Computer Science at Human Media Interaction Group
Silvia Ferrari
	Silvia Ferrari’s research aims at providing intelligent control systems with a higher degree of mathematical structure to guide their application and improve reliability. Decision-making processes are automated based on concepts drawn from control theory and the life sciences. Recent efforts have focused on optimal control problems in computational geometry and multiscale dynamical systems aimed at improving the effectiveness of mobile sensor networks, such as, acoustic and demining sensors installed on underwater vehicles and ground robots. New methods for neural network training are also being developed to retain long-term procedural memories, solving partial differential equations online, and training in-vitro and in-silico spiking neural networks to solve complex sensorimotor learning problems.
Duke University	Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science | Director Laboratory for Intelligent Systems and Controls & WISeNet
Maria Gini
	Maria Gini’s research covers multi-robot systems, swarm robotics, behavior-based robots, autonomous agents, multi-agent systems, auctions, distributed planning and decision making. She is the Winner of the Inaugural Distinguished Women Scholars Award, University of Minnesota, 2001, AAAI Fellow, ACM Distinguished Scientist and is the chair of ACM Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence (SIGART), a member of the AAAI Executive Council and of the board of the International Foundation of Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems. Gini is also on numerous editorial boards for journals.
University of Minnesota	Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Computer Science
Ayanna Howard
	Ayanna Howard’s area of research is centered around the concept of humanized intelligence, the process of embedding human cognitive capability into the control path of autonomous systems. This work, which addresses issues of autonomous control as well as aspects of interaction with humans and the surrounding environment, has resulted in more than 130 peer-reviewed publications about a number of projects—from scientific rover navigation in glacier environments and intelligent terrain assessment algorithms for landing on Mars to assistive robots for the home. She was named a top young innovator of 2003 by MIT Technology Review, recognized as Educator of the Year in 2009 by NSBE and received the Georgia Tech Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award in 2013.
Georgia Tech	Motorola Foundation Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering | Director Human-Automation Systems (HumAnS) Laboratory
Noriko Kageki
	Noriko Kageki is the business development manager for Kawada Robotics Corp, makers of Nextage, Japan’s newest two-armed industrial collaborative robot. Nextage is very good at electronics assembly and other tasks in manufacturing facilities, but has potential service applications as well. Noriko’s background is in physics, engineering and science communication. Before joining Kawada, Kageki was a robotics and technology journalist for the Nikkei and founded GetRobo, an online publication focusing on news about robots for the home and community.
Kawada Robotics Corp	Business Development Manager
Kendra Kerrisk
	Kendra Kerrisk has contributed significantly to the national and international knowledge regarding application of Automatic Milking Systems with pasture-based dairying. Kerrisk has developed a set of Management Guidelines for Pasture-Based AMS farms, which have been an extremely valuable tool for farmers adopting (and contemplating adopting) AMS across Australia and further abroad. One of the highlights of the work conducted within FutureDairy has been the involvement with the co-development of the world’s first Robotic Rotary (Automatic Milking Rotary, DeLaval AMRTM). This internationally recognised work will increase the feasibility of robotic milking for large dairy herds that are more common within the Australian and New Zealand industries.
University of Sydney	Associate Professor of Veterinary Science | Lead Researcher Future Dairy
Maarja Kruusma
	Maarja Kruusma co-founded Intelligent Materials and Systems Lab at the Tartu University of Technology Estonia, focusing on modeling, control and mechanical design of electroactive polymer artificial muscles. In 2008, she founded the Center for Biorobotics in Tallinn University of Technology, which is an interdisciplinary research center for conducting research and development on the borderline of science and technology. Her research interests include biologically-inspired underwater robotics, computational and experimental fluid dynamics, flow sensing, robot learning and adaptation, soft body modeling and control. She is an R&D director of Fits.me, a start-up company using robotics technology for virtual online fitting rooms. She is also a member of ISTAG, an advisory body to the European Commission in the field of Information and Communication Technology, the General Chair of the 15th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics held in Tallinn at 2011 (ICAR 2011) and the coordinator of several EU projects; Fishview, Robocademy, ARROWS, FILOSE, SAFROS, and I-SUR.
Taillin University of Technology	Professor | Head of TUT Biorobotics
Tessa Lau
	Tessa Lau is currently at Savioke creating easy-to-use robots for the services industry, like SaviOne. Lau was formerly a research scientist at Willow Garage where she developed simple, usable interfaces to robots. Before that, she was a research staff member and manager at IBM Research, leading the Smarter Web research group within Almaden’s Computer Science department. Her research goal is to develop innovative interfaces for enhancing human productivity and creativity through the use of techniques drawn from human-computer interaction and artificial intelligence. Lau is also on the board of the CRA-W, the CRA’s committee on the status of women in computing research, and has played several organizational roles in the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
Savioke	Chief Robot Whisperer
Rezia Molfino
	Rezia Molfino is professor of Robot Mechanics, Industrial and Service Robotics, Automation and Robotics and Control of Mechanical Systems at the University of Genova. Holder of 12 patents and author of hundreds of publications, she has held numerous positions and is among other things responsible for the PMARlab (Laboratory of Design and Measurement for Automation and Robotics), President Siri (Italian Association of Robotics and Automation) Italian coordinator in IFR (International Federation of Robotics).
University of Genova	Full Professor of Robotics | Director of the PMARlab Robotics
Mihoko Otake
	Mihoko Otake’s research topics include modeling and simulation of cognitive function of humans and electroactive polymers and their applications to design and control of intelligent systems and services. She has been an Associate Professor with Department of Mechanical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Chiba University, Japan since 2012. She is concurrently the Founding Director of the Fonobono Research Institute (FRI) since 2007. She has been a Principal Investigator of the PRESTO Program of JST from 2010 to present on “Individually Adapted Cognitive Activity Support based on Large Scale Conversation Data”, and since 2004 to 2008 on “Development of Bilateral Multiscale Neural Simulator” respectively. For her contributions in electroactive polymer gel robots, involving beam-shaped gels curling around an object and starfish-shaped gel robots turning over, Otake was awarded the Young Investigator Award from Robotics Society of Japan.
Chiba University | University of Tokyo	Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering | Founding Director NPO Fonobono Research Institute
Lea Rosen
	Lea Rosen is an attorney who specializes in drones and aerial robots, privacy, data security, freedom of expression and the right of anonymity, software licenses and users’ rights, corporate liability for human rights abuses, government liability for unwarranted surveillance, and legal developments around UAS integration into the national airspace. She is a licensed member of the CA state bar. Rosen is also the Head of Research at Freedom of the Press Foundation and Director of Research at DARC. DARC is a multidisciplinary conference about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and drones—with an emphasis on civilian applications.
Attorney	Director of Research | DARC Drones and Aerial Robotics Conference
Julie Shah
	Julie Shah has developed innovative methods for enabling fluid human-robot teamwork in time-critical, safety-critical domains, ranging from manufacturing to surgery to space exploration. She previously worked at Boeing Research and Technology on robotics applications for aerospace manufacturing. Her group draws on expertise in artificial intelligence, human factors, and systems engineering to develop interactive robots that emulate the qualities of effective human team members to improve the efficiency of human-robot teamwork. Shah is the recipient of a 2014 NSF CAREER Award, and her work was recognized by the Technology Review as one of the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2013.
CSAIL MIT	Boeing Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics | Lead of the Interactive Robotics Group
Inna Sharf
	Inna Sharf has addressed numerous problems associated with the development and control of autonomous systems. Her research expertise lies in dynamics and control of robotic, mechatronic and autonomous systems and her focus in the last several years has been specifically in the areas of dynamics and control of small highly maneuverable unmanned (i.e. remotely piloted) aerial vehicles. Sharf has been involved in many collaborative projects with industry, including MDA Inc., Quanser Consulting Inc., CSA, and DRDC, four NCFRN partners, as well as academic partners in the US, Europe and Israel. These collaborations and the work of her research group resulted in numerous publications in leading conferences and journals. Sharf’s work is currently funded by NSERC and FQRNT.
McGilll University	Professor of Mechanical Engineering | Cofounder of Aerospace Mechatronics Lab
Mari Velonaki
	Mari Velonaki has worked as a researcher and artist in the field of interactive media since 1995. Velonaki has created interactive installations that incorporate movement, speech, touch, breath, electrostatic charge, artificial vision and robotics. In 2003, Velonaki’s practice expanded to robotics, when she initiated and led a major Australian Research Council art/science research project “Fish-Bird: Autonomous Interactions in a Contemporary Arts Setting” in collaboration with robotics scientists at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR, University of Sydney). In 2007, Velonaki was awarded an Australia Council for the Arts Visual Arts Fellowship, and in 2009 she was awarded an ARC Australian Research Fellowship. In 2006, Velonaki co-founded the Centre for Social Robotics (CSR). Velonaki is also the Director of the recently established Creative Robotics Lab (CRL) at NIEA.
University of New South Wales | NIEA	Director of CRL, NIEA | CoDirector Centre for Social Robotics, USYD | Adjunct Assoc. Prof. Australian Center for Field Robotics, USYD
Barbara Webb
	Barbara Webb’s main research interest is in perceptual systems for the control of behaviour. The work is largely concerned with building computational and physical models of these mechanisms to explicate and evaluate hypotheses. In particular Webb focuses on insect behaviours, as their smaller nervous systems may be easier to elucidate. Recent work has focussed on some of the more complex capabilities of insects, including multimodal intergration, navigation and learning. She also has an interest in theoretical issues of methodology; in particular the problems of measurement, modeling and simulation.
University of Edinburgh	Professor of Biorobotics
Holly Yanco
	Holly Yanco’s research interests include human-robot interaction, better visualization of sensor data, adjustable autonomy, urban search and rescue, assistive technology, and robotics education. Her lab is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Army Research Office, Microsoft and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. She founded the Robotics Lab, which consists of students at all stages of their careers, from freshmen to doctoral candidates. Research focuses on human-robot interaction (HRI), which includes multi-touch computing, interface design, robot autonomy, trust, and evaluation methods. Application domains include assistive technology, telepresence, and urban search and rescue (USAR). Yanco is also the director of the New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center.
U Mass Lowell	Professor of Computer Science | Director New England Robotics Validation and Experimentation (NERVE) Center
Xiaorui Zhu
	Xiaorui Zhu’s research interests include control and localization of mobile robots, flight control of unmanned helicopter, mechatronics, and medical robotics. In 2012, Zhu won the Award for National Science and Technology of China.
Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen	Associate Professor | Chair Women in Engineering IEEE RAS
Girls of Steel
	Girls of Steel is an all girl FIRST Robotics Competition team, founded in Pittsburgh in 2010. Initially, the team consisted of 24 girls from 12 different high schools, and 4 different educational options. The team now numbers almost 60 girls, with FIRST LEGO League teams. The Girls of Steel mission is to empower women in STEM, giving girls skills that go beyond building robots and last longer than high school.
FIRST Team 3504	Pittsburgh, PA

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• 25 women in robotics you need to know about – 2015
• 25 women in robotics you need to know about (2013)
• Mentors of Steel: The role of mentoring in robotics education
• Getting into the driver’s seat: Girls of Steel tell us how they got hooked on robotics
• Robot Launchpad on Robots Podcast
• Jobs isn’t the issue for robotics

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Business by the numbers

Just as September came to a close the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) released its 2014 reports on Industrial and Service robots, revealing strong growth in robot sales in 2013 across all sectors. While the total sales value for service robots decreased slightly in 2013 (to US$ 3.6 billion), the number of units sold was up 4% over 2012 data, and sales forecasts up to 2017 are optimistic. On the industrial side, the IFR reports a 15% increase in industrial installations in 2014 over the previous year, with growth that will “likely continue at about 12% on average per year”.

New investments in robotics also provided hope for the future: Jibo’s crowd funding campaign coming to a close at a whopping $2.3 million, making it the most successful technology campaign on Indiegogo to date; Precision Hawk raised $10 million to expand its work in aerial data collection, processing and analysis; and ReWalk Robotics and Corindus Vascular Robotics sold shares for $36 million and $26.6 million to fund their work on exoskeletons and percutaneous coronary intervention devices, respectively.

But it wasn’t all good news in robotics business this September: Microsoft laid off its entire robotics team in a tactical move to focus on core areas of strength. The robotics team was not working on robotics systems per se, but rather on tools for robot developers.

Housework 2.0

The battle of the household robots has finally begun – at least when it comes to vacuuming. This September, vacuum giant Dyson launched a new robotic vacuum cleaner, the Dyson 360 Eye. Their campaign began with a short teaser video early on in the month, followed by a public launch at IFA in Berlin – the very same day that Samsung announced its own Powerbot VR9000 – signalling that robotic vacuums are transitioning from geek-niche to mainstream consumer product.

Due to their long-standing history with Dyson and their huge consumer interest in new technologies, Japanese consumers will be the first to get the 360 Eye, while the rest of us will have to wait a little longer.

Meals on (robot) wheels

Vacuuming isn’t the only chore robots are taking on: this month a hospital in Paris is trialling two robots to help transport endoscopes throughout their facility; and Korean robotics company Yujin Robot launched GoCart, a meal transport robot designed for service in eldercare, health care and other hospitality facilities. Robots are helping with mealtime in other ways too: Google just bought smart spoon maker LiftLabs, a company that develops smart spoons for people with neurodegenerative diseases; and Hellospoon, a mealtime assistant robot is currently fundraising on Indiegogo.

To regulate, or not to regulate?

As more products like the 360 Eye and GoCart enter our homes and workplaces, calls to regulate robotics have become louder. This month Ryan Calo made the case for a federal robotics commission. However, others called into question whether this would be the right move, suggesting that we should avoid precautionary, top-down regulation that could stem innovation. Concurrent to the US debate, the European Robolaw project published an EU Roadmap for developing guidelines to regulate robotics.

Robohub’s Andra Keay summarised the debate about robot policy for us, calling for change and reform in the robotics policy agenda. We have invited key experts in this debate to contribute to a new focus series on the topic, so watch this space!

Ethical by design

Researchers continue to develop robots and intelligent systems with surprising capabilities, including systems that can play Atari video games, and or find connections between fine works of art.

But just as the the movement of robots into human environments is prompting calls for robot regulation, advances in AI are prompting many argue that robots must be capable of acting ethically if we are to ensure the safety of the people relying on and working with them. Alan Winfield and his team at the Bristol Robotics Lab are trying to figure out how do just that: design a robot that can exhibit ethical behaviour.

Despite have built a minimally ethical robot that appears to implement Asimov’s first and third laws of robotics, Winfield argues that people should not fear the evolution of robots or technological singularity. Rather, they should look at current AI and think about how this might be made safer and more ethical.

Accurate fiction?

To discourage unwarranted fears of robot terminators taking over the world, a group at Arizona State University is hoping to improve our image of the future – through sci fi! Project Hieroglyph brings together top science fiction authors and researchers to encourage realistic, rather than pessimistic, storytelling. It is hoped that this approach will help to explore how societies might react and change with technological advances.

Meanwhile, on the screen, US hit TV series “Person of Interest” is set to explore questions about AI in its new season, and the new movie “Automata” seeks to stimulate a moral debate about robot ethics.

Drones, drones, everywhere!

While the abilities of robots portrayed in movies are often enhanced by CGI, real robots can feature in a very different way. A new short film by Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich, and Verity Studios released this September used real quadrocopters to demonstrate how inspiring human robot interaction can be. In an interview with Robohub, Bill Keays, technical advisor at the Cirque du Soleil, explained why they chose to use real robots instead of CGI for the film.

Real robots in front of the camera may still be relatively rare; however, robots behind the scenes may soon be commonplace. The FAA is now set to approve drones for use in the film industry in the US, although a number of rather strict requirements must be met for their use to be legal.

Summarising the key issues affecting drone use and its history, the Centre for the Study of the Drone at Bard College released “The Drone Primer”. This document offers a comprehensive overview and discussion about drones, including their use in the military, journalism and art.

September also saw various other drone related news and features, including: the announcement of the winners of the Drone Social Innovation Award, with a landmine detection project and a project providing disaster relief in the Philippines sharing the $10K prize; the Robots Podcast interview with AirDog, a soon-to-be-released quadrocopter designed to video sports; the announcement by DHL that it is now testing drone delivery, initially transporting medications to an island in the North Sea.

Eye-openers at IROS

The International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) took place from September 14-16 in Chicago, Illinois, and was kicked off by Peter Corke who gave the plenary session on the first day with an eye-opening history of computer vision; he also announced a new MOOC he is planning to launch soon. You can learn more about Corke’s talk and his MOOC in our Robots Podcast interview. Also announced at IROS was MIT’s robot cheetah, which can run and jump across grass, and Clearpath’s new Jackal ground vehicle.

This year presenters were asked to prepare 3-minute mini pitches that would serve as teasers for the interactive sessions, and Robohub captured some of these with our first-ever IROS Webcam, including pitches from Ryan Wolcott (winner of the best student paper award) and Mike Tolley (you may have seen his untethered soft jumping robot on Automaton Blog) – among many others. We hope to bring our webcam to more conferences – so look out for us!

With exhibitors such as Rethink Robotics, Kuka, Schunk, Clearpath and many more, experts from the industry track offered advice for startups and entrepreneurs – see our coverage of the IROS Industry Forum. Check out also the winners of the IROS 2014 Baxter contest and the Microsoft Kinect Challenge.

Last but not least, it was announced at the IROS Women’s lunch that the next International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) will have a 50-strong all-women organizing committee – a historic decision for the robotics community. For more stories from IROS have a look at Robohub’s complete event coverage.

Upcoming events in October to watch out for:

• RE.WORK The Future of Robotics Forum – October 14
• Open Innovations Forum 2014 – October 14-16
• The End of Transit and the Beginning of the New Mobility: Policy Implications of Self-Driving Cars – October 14
• CARPI2014 – October 14-16
• RoboBusiness 2014 – October 15-17
• ICSR 2014 – Fifth International Conference on Social Robotics – October 27-29
• Robot Expo – РоботЭкспо – 2014 – October 29-30

We’ve been working hard all year to make Robohub great, but we’re missing out on your feedback. What do you like? What would you change? We’ve got some great robot swag including a copy of Robogeneis by Daniel Wilson, and a Thymio II robot! They’ll be randomly allocated to some of our fabulous survey takers, so get started!

THANK YOU for making our second year such fun, and here’s to many more!

A camera man gets up, close, and personal with the human and machine actors on the “Sparked” set.

If you thought “SPARKED” – the new short film by Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich, and Verity Studios – is too real-looking to be CGI, you were right. But why go to all the trouble of using quadrotors to get those lampshades dancing in the air for real? We asked Bill Keays, Science and Technology Advisor at Cirque du Soleil, to give us an insider’s perspective about Cirque’s motivation for the film and how it came together.

Bill Keays on the SPARKED film set.

[Robohub] What was the inspiration for the film?
[Keays] The combination of autonomous flying machines with Cirque du Soleil magic was so evidently bursting with potential we committed ourselves to make something original together not knowing what it would be at first. An iterative creative process ensued involving all participants, and what emerged was a wonderful script that carried the talent from both sides of the formula to a whole new level.

Who are the main partners on the project? 

It was a highly democratic and highly collaborative process. Raffaello D’Andrea of ETH Zurich and Verity Studios, and Welby Altidor of Cirque du Soleil were the project leaders, but the true collaborative nature of this project is reflected in the fact that no participant roles are specified in the credits.

Who initiated the project? 

The very first discussions were held between Prof. Raffaello D’Andrea at ETH Zurich and myself as Science and Technology Advisor at Cirque du Soleil in March 2012. After ongoing discussions and considering various options, the two organizations eventually committed to a creation project in January 2014.

The “Sparked” film set. The shoot took place in the Flying Machine Arena at ETH Zurich, a portable space devoted to autonomous flight.

Why was the film made?

For Cirque the project demonstrates a whole new avenue for channeling creativity. It allows Cirque to reach a new audience externally and provides inspiration internally to push the creative envelope in new directions.

As such is a highly effective, multifaceted communications vehicle, and it will certainly be submitted for competition.

What were the production costs? 

The large bulk of the cost came in terms of human resources split between three organizations. The exact figures cannot be known.

How long did the project take from first concept to finished film? What were the major steps/milestones?

The whole project, from go-ahead to YouTube release, took under 8 months. It was a back and forth process whereby content was driven by discussions between Cirque, Verity, and the film director. Through this method we progressed through initial concept design, script development, set and prop design, and finally the shoot, with intense hardware and software development taking place throughout. The product was then handed off to post production and then to distribution.

Setting up before a flight scene.

Who designed the lampshades? The photos show researchers from ETH and Verity fitting the quads with them. Did you provide dimensions to props experts and iterate? How did that process work?

It was indeed an iterative process. The lampshades were designed and produced by the creative team at Cirque in Montreal who used their own quadrocopters for flight tests to ensure that they would be compatible with the flight environment at ETH Zurich. Guidance from the ETH and Verity teams was indispensable of course.

Was the actor controlling the quads with hand motions (via Kinect)? Or was this pre-programmed and choreographed? At times it looks like he is ‘conducting’ their movements …

The Flying Machine Arena fully possesses the ability to control the flying machines with a Kinect or other similar devices, or even hand gestures. But given that this is a movie production, the movements of the actor and the flying machines were choreographed as is the convention in film practice.

Was there any CGI at all in the film? How much is real?

None whatsoever, it’s all real; and even though it looks terrific in the movie, this pales in comparison to seeing it in the round. It was mindboggling to watch live.

Has Cirque worked with robots before?

Yes, Cirque has experimented with robots in the past, but never flying ones.

What were the biggest challenges of putting live actors together with the quads on stage?

Given that this is such an unusual circumstance for making a movie, we didn’t know how our lead actor would react to the flight environment. But the high precision of the flying machines and terrific expertise of ETH Zurich’s Flying Machine Arena staff quickly inspired confidence. By the second day, remarkably, our actors, both human and mechanical, were moving about the set with terrific ease, paying little attention to each other.

Was safety ever an issue?

The design of the lampshades was convenient in that it shielded the blades of the quadrocopters, thus making them far less likely to strike anyone or anything. There were a couple of crashes and a few low passes, but at no point was there any real apparent danger.

What about lighting?

Believe it or not, all the scenes with the flying lampshades are completely lit by the lampshades themselves! Another fortuitous design feature.

Changing batteries.

Were there any other challenges?

The rapid power consumption of the flying machines meant that battery changes would be frequent. With time, the switch-overs began looking like Formula 1 pit stops, performed with great speed and precision.

What was it like for the researchers from the lab to have to ‘perform’ for the camera? How long did they have to rehearse before you were ready?

The lampshades arrived in the weeks prior to the shoot so there was time for Verity Studios and ETH Zurich to fully test their aerodynamic abilities, and to run through the choreography. In the days preceding the shoot we performed flight tests according to the story board and had one practice day with the lead actor. However, due to the extreme time constraints imposed by the film crew, the control software had to be designed such that flight plans could be altered at a moment’s notice to meet specific requests from the director. This proved to be an invaluable tool and was instrumental in completing the shoot in the allotted time.

Had your previous work (e.g. demos, presentations) prepared you for working with quadrotors on a film set?

Absolutely, the Flying Machine Arena team had performed extensively with flying machines in public spaces and conferences (including TED), so much of this experience transferred well onto the movie set.

An early flight test in the Flying Machine Arena.

The quadrotors peek through in the film at times, as do the retro reflective markers for the motion capture system – was this intentional?

It is true that the quadrotors are sometimes visible, but the visual quality of the movie is so overwhelming that it is difficult to remain focused on technical bits. We actually liked the fact that they were occasionally visible; as sort of a wink to those of us who are knowledgeable about them.

With previous demos, the quadrotors played a leading role – but in this film, they are literally hidden behind lampshades. How does it feel to see them step back into a supportive role for this film?

But the flying machines are not hidden. They are in dress like all actors in this movie; they have character, motivation and certainly no lack of presence. As the devil’s advocate, I would be inclined to challenge the assumption that they are playing a supporting role.

Why not just do it with CGI?

There are at least two good reasons:

First of all, because the Flying Machine Arena is not about CGI. It’s about control systems, aerodynamics, and sophisticated algorithms that yield a physical manifestation of uncommon beauty.

The second reason is because you can’t do CGI in front of a live audience and Cirque du Soleil is in the business of live entertainment. Even though this extraordinary little movie is a gem in its own right, it is primarily the proof of concept for something far more powerful; something that must be seen live.

All images credited to the “Sparked” team. For more insight on the film see also New quadrocopter video points to a future for flying machines in entertainment by Markus Waibel of Verity Studios. 

Updated 24/09/14 Do robots need to be regulated? Several legal and policy experts think that robot regulations should be developed early and revised often. Others – especially those working on research and development – worry that regulation could put a damper on advancement in robotics before it even has a chance to take off. At Robohub we’ve been following this topic closely and are planning to bring you more views on the issue – so watch this space. In the meantime, check out these recent articles and reports on regulating robots .

Roadmap for developing guidelines on regulating robotic
| EU RoboLaw consortium  
September 23, 2014

The main goal of the RoboLaw project is to achieve a comprehensive study of the various facets of robotics and law and lay the groundwork for a framework of “robolaw” in Europe. When there is no specific legislation aimed at regulating these new technologies, the problems they pose need to be confronted in the frame of extant legal systems; an objective of the research is, therefore, to verify the applicability of current rules and use the present instruments and categories to formulate possible solutions. This preliminary investigation will also point towards areas of regulation that are in need of adjustment or revision in order to accommodate the issues opened up by innovation in the field of robotics.

Problems with precautionary principle-minded tech regulation and a Federal Robotics Commission
| Adam Thierer
September 22, 2014

If there are two general principles that unify my recent work on technology policy and innovation issues, they would be as follows. To the maximum extent possible:

1) We should avoid preemptive and precautionary-based regulatory regimes for new innovation. Instead, our policy default should be innovation allowed (or “permissionless innovation”) and innovators should be considered “innocent until proven guilty” (unless, that is, a thorough benefit-cost analysis has been conducted that documents the clear need for immediate preemptive restraints);

2) We should avoid rigid, “top-down” technology-specific or sector-specific regulatory regimes and/or regulatory agencies and instead opt for a broader array of more flexible, “bottom-up” solutions (education, empowerment, social norms, self-regulation, public pressure, etc.) as well as reliance on existing legal systems and standards (torts, product liability, contracts, property rights, etc.).

Future of robotics debate stumbles over question: What is a robot?
| Wayne Rash
September 15, 2014

Some people are saying that it’s time to regulate robots. But it’s hard to determine how to regulate this technology when there is precious little agreement on what constitutes a robot … When a prestigious organization such as the Brookings Institution here in the nation’s capital decides to study civilian robotics, you know that at the very least the organization will present some thought-provoking views. In that sense, Brookings delivered. Unfortunately, the analysts who were delivering the results of their studies on the Future of Civilian Robotics have yet to agree what actually constitutes robotics.

The case for a federal robotics commission
| Ryan Calo
September 14, 2014

I have argued in a series of papers that robotics enables novel forms of human experience and, as such, challenges prevailing assumptions of law and policy.5 My focus here is on a more specific question: whether robotics, collectively as a set of technologies, will or should occasion the establishment of a new federal agency to deal with the novel experiences and harms robotics enables. In this paper, I explore whether advances in robotics also call for a standalone body within the federal government. I tentatively conclude that the United States would benefit from an agency dedicated to the responsible integration of robotics technologies into American society.

We need to pass legislation on artificial intelligence early and often
| John Frank Weaver 
September 12, 2014

Economists and historians traditionally claim that the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution led to the creation of a large middle class in the United States. That’s only partly true. The technology certainly made that middle class possible, but the legal innovations that we created following the Industrial Revolution made possible the widespread prosperity of the mid-20th century American middle class: minimum wage laws, child labor laws, laws protecting unions, regulations governing workplace safety and environmental protection, etc. All of these laws tried to help average Americans benefit from the new system that the Industrial Revolution introduced. But those laws took 100 years. We don’t get that much time anymore.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below, or contact us at info [at] robohub.org if you would like to contribute to our upcoming series.

The public may be expecting to see robot cyborgs battle it out in distant galaxies, but back here on earth the battle of the robots is taking on a distinctively quotidian reality. The double announcements today of Dyson’s 360 Eye and Samsung’s Powerbot VR9000 come as a challenge to robot vacuum market leader iRobot’s Roomba, and hails the arrival of a new competitive era of the robot-as-appliance .

http://youtu.be/OadhuICDAjk

While Dyson is a relative giant on the appliance scene, and Samsung is an electronic powerhouse in its own right, Roomba currently boasts dominance in the more niche robot vacuum market. In a recent report, iRobot claims to have sold over 10 million robot vacuum cleaners since 2002, and counts more than 50 countries in its distribution network.

With those figures in mind, it’s no wonder that iRobot responded to today’s announcement of the 360 Eye in lock step with a video riposte that subtly pokes at Dyson for its appliance-based roots:

http://youtu.be/SYm4oLyHpCA

While the video suggests that iRobot’s advantage is that it has always been a robot company (their YouTube description says: “We’ve always believed certain tasks are better left to a robot”), it’s ironic that iRobot only started to make money once it realized that people didn’t want to buy robots as much as they wanted to buy appliances. As iRobot CEO Colin Angle has been quoted as saying:

It took me becoming a vacuum cleaner salesman to actually have some success for my company, my investors and myself.

Andra Keay from Silicon Valley Robotic comments on how tough it can be for a high-tech startup to break into the more traditional appliance market: “iRobot didn’t really start making money until they embraced online sales; the established appliance market was too tough to make a big dent in. Yet they’ve now become the most widely distributed robot in the world.”

Is there room for two more robot vacuums in what many have previously thought of as a novelty market?  Or is the “novelty” market now becoming mainstream?

Clearly Dyson and Samsung have done their homework, or they wouldn’t have launched competing products. And with Dyson investing £5m in a lab at Imperial College London, they obviously have their longterm sights set on the robotics community.

iRobot has been doing its own market research, too. In the above-mentioned report, iRobot claims that the robot vacuum business is at an explosion point, with a “huge addressable market” and a “$7 billion annual market opportunity”. With those kinds of numbers, it’s no wonder that other players are jumping into the game.

Which company is likely to emerge victorious in this battle for the consumers pocketbook? It may be too early to tell. Keay says that “Dyson is definitely upping the ante though with a smart phone connected vacuum cleaner. And with Dyson’s distribution networks and reputation, it will be interesting to see how the public adopts Housework 2.0.”

One thing is for certain, though: competition is a sure sign of growth in this space.

With contributions by Yannis Erripis, Andra Keay, John Payne, and Frank Tobe.

If you liked this article, you may also be interested in:

• Why is Japan the first to get Dyson’s new 360 Eye?
• Recent robotic vacuum launches change industry from niche to mainstream
• Has Dyson’s robotic dream become reality?
• Dyson launches new robotic vacuum cleaner
• Dyson invests £5m in robot lab

See all the latest robotics news on Robohub, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Fighting for lift-off

As predicted in our July digest, this August once again saw a flurry of activity around drones and drone regulation.

In a bold move, Amazon, 3D Robotics, DJI (which just released their new Spreading Wings S900), Parrot and others came together to form a “Small UAV coalition” to speed up federal action on drone regulation. With their eye squarely on the consumer market, the new coalition has hired DC-based lobbying firm Akin Gump in an effort to smooth the way for civil drone development in the US; you can learn more about why the coalition members felt such a step was necessary here.

The following week, the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) wrote an open letter to the FAA in support of Amazon’s bid to test its PrimeAir drone delivery service, and just days later, Google revealed that it was also getting into the drone delivery game, having secretly developed their own platform in Australia for the past two years. Commercial drone advocates are hoping that the heft of these big players will spur US regulators into action.

In labs around the world, researchers are focusing on making drones safer and more efficient for these kinds of applications. At MIT, roboticists have been looking into allowing delivery drones to monitor their own health and, if necessary, reroute to a recharge station to avoid running out of fuel mid-mission. Similarly, a paper recently published by John Daly explored how UAVs might pair up with unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) to extend the range of UAV delivery systems. Finally, students at the University of Leuven have developed VertiKUL, a new drone with two modes that can lift off like a helicopter, but fly like a plane.

Although it will be some time before these innovations make it to market, it’s clear that progress toward commercial drone systems is being made on all fronts. And this is great news for the many businesses and industries that stand to benefit from their widespread use. And not all benefits will be solely for commercial gain: as ecologist Lian Pin Koh explained this month, drones have the potential to be used as conservation tools. In Namibia for example, drones have just been used for nature conservation mapping, allowing scientists to map the vast area of Kuzikus Wildlife Reserve. Similarly, many believe drones could support humanitarian aid efforts. For instance, researchers from the University of North Texas are now developing a drone that expands the wifi range for zones hit by disasters.

And from the frontiers of research …

Of course robotics research is not all about drones, and this month saw developments in other exiting areas of robotics too. Roboticists in Harvard have produced a swarm of over 1000 robots that can self-assemble into arbitrary shapes without the need for an operator. Also at Harvard, graduate students have developed an Origami-inspired robot that can fold itself and start working without any intervention from a human controller. Scientists at the University of Houston in Texas are looking into developing mind-controlled robotic legs, and in France, a group of researchers at the Sorbonne have built a robot that can learn to walk again after breaking its leg.

More ups than downs for robot businesses

The sudden announcement of Unbounded Robotics’ shut down took many in the robotics community by surprise, especially given its star status as a Willow Garage spinoff. Despite this upset, robotics business is looking bright: the North American Robotics Industries Association announced that the first half of 2014 set a new record in robot sales, and Korea announced a $2.6 billion public-private investment in robotics by 2018, following various other countries and governments that have promised more funding for robotics over the past few months.

Jobbing robots

While businesses and industries are clearly excited by the potential of robotics, a report this month by the Pew Research Center asked robotics experts whether robots will create more jobs than they will take, highlighting the risks for blue-collar workers in particular.

Broadly speaking, there appear to be two camps: those who take the dystopian view, believing that mass unemployment will result as robots replace human workers; and those who see things more positively, arguing that robots will augment our work rather than replace us, and that they will be needed to maintain productivity in the face of a rapidly ageing workforce. A summary of some of the arguments used by both camps can be found in a series of videos about robots and jobs.

To be fair, the PEW report also emphasised some of the positive potential of AI and robotics in the workplace; however, since its publication it has been heavily scrutinized, namely by Erik Sofge in his blog Zero Moment. He argued that the report was nothing more than “speculative fiction” and that it fell prey to some of the most common myths about robotics. Erik’s article was welcomed by many who say that robotics and its impact on the economy is a complex matter that is far harder to predict than one might first believe.

At your service

Which camp is right about the future of robots and their impact on the economy remains to be seen. However, there can be no doubt that service robotics has made a giant leap over the past decade, and the latest industry to embrace a robotic workforce is the tourism industry. Starwood hotels have teamed up with Savioke and are now trialling robot butlers at the Aloft Cupertino hotel in Silicon Valley. Guests can now look forward to receiving room service from a new member of staff – a robotic butler called botlr. Similarly, at the Edmonton airport in Canada, travellers who are lost or need directions can now get help from a multi-lingual customer service robot called Furo. Furo can not only give you directions, but might even accompany you to where you have to go – just to make sure you find the right gate in time.

Demerit points, anyone?

The safety record of autonomous may not be as squeaky clean as has been previously suggested, as Quartz revealed that Google kept minor accidents of its vehicles secret. Although these accidents happened while the cars were disengaged (being driven by a human rather than in autonomous mode), these incidents may have serious implications for situations in which transition from autonomous to manual mode are necessary, for instance when the car enters an unmapped area. Further safety risks relating to cars already on the market today, such as Cadillac Escalades, Jeep Cherokees or Infiniti Q50s, were exposed this month as these vehicles may be at risk of hack-attacks.

Perhaps unsurprisingly in light of such reports, Robohub readers were split as to whether they would miss their good old manual cars. Adding to the discussion around autonomous driving, Brad Templeton wondered how cities and city transportation might change to take advantage of autonomous cars, and Patrick Lin asked whether adjustable ethics settings in self-driving vehicles would be a good idea.

Have heart, dear robot

This month Waterloo-based Clearpath Robotics made a public pledge that it will not develop lethal autonomous weapons, despite holding various military contracts. The move sets a precedent in corporate responsibility, disclosing the company’s stance on roboethics and supporting the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.

And speaking of corporate responsibility, Slate magazine argued this month that if US federal law extends ‘legal personhood’ to corporations, it should do the same for robots as well.

Upcoming events in September to watch our for:

• Minesweepers: Towards a Landmine-Free World; September 1-3; Coimbra, Portugal
• IFA Consumer Electronic Show; September 5-10; Berlin, Germany
• IMTS 2014 – International Manufacturing Technology Show; September 8-13; Chicago, USA
• 2014 The Second Machine Age Conference (IDE / MIT); September 10-11; Cambridge, USA
• IROS 2014 – IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems; September 14-18; Chicago, USA – Hope to see you there!!
• Spatial Cognition 2014; September 15-19; Bremen, Germany
• RE.WORK Technology Summit; September 18-19; London, UK
• World Maker Faire – New York; September 20-21; NYC, USA
• Robot Technology Exhibition (RTEX); September 28-30; Dubai, UAE

In addition to contending with the FAA, the group must also gain traction with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which manages the communication frequencies that drones would use, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which will be ruling on privacy issues. With multiple government bodies to lobby, Drobac believes it makes sense to work together in a concerted effort.

According to Drobac, there was already an appetite for a coalition among those in the small UAV business, whose needs differed somewhat from the larger UAV firms with aerospace and defence contracts. “The coalition members are all extremely consumer-focused,” he said, pointing out that the first priority of the group will be to lobby for clear safety and privacy guidelines, both of which are key concerns for consumers. The coalition has already filed several petitions for exemption with the FAA, and hopes to influence and educate policymakers and consumers about the commercial opportunities of small UAVs.

Patrick Egan from sUAS News thinks this consumer focus makes the coalition’s lobbying needs distinctly different from the needs of the UAV “old guard” of Department of Defence (DoD) vendors. “Previous lobbying efforts have been working to regulate 10-year-old aviation technology,” he says, pointing out that, by contrast, members of the Small UAV Coalition want to invest in new technology and new applications that haven’t even been discovered yet, and for that they will need extremely broad and inclusive regulatory definitions.

It therefor matters that they have their own representation. “If you’ve successfully lobbied to have the standards built around your product or business needs, you will have an edge,” says Egan, pointing out  that while current regulations tend to focus on the fixed wing products common to DoD vendors, the regulations don’t even consider the multirotor devices that are common to the small UAV industry right now.

Image is another factor that may be drawing the coalition together. “A lot of small UAV companies have avoided aligning themselves with DoD vendors because of their military focus,” says Egan. “They just don’t need the controversy.”

Amazon retained council from Akin Gump when it filed its petition for exemption with the FAA this past July to begin tests with drones that weigh less than 55 pounds and fly below 400 feet. In its letter to the FAA, Amazon said that so far it has only been able to test its drones inside its Seattle R&D lab or in other countries, but would “prefer to keep the focus, jobs, and investment of this important research and development initiative in the United States by conducting private research and development operations outdoors near Seattle – where our next generation R&D lab and distinguished team of engineers, scientists and aeronautical professionals are located.”

Earlier this week, the Economic Times rumored that Amazon will begin testing drone delivery in India. If true, Amazon is pulling all punches. The threat of losing talent, R&D and investment to other countries is one of the key arguments of commercial drone advocates in the US. Andra Keay of Silicon Valley Robotics says, “Going to India sends a strong message to the FAA, and it makes so much sense. India is well-known for the high calibre of their roboticists, engineers and developers. And yet parts of the country still have very rudimentary infrastructure, which actually makes it easier to do disruptive innovation there. It’s harder to patch existing legacy building and transport technologies than it is to start afresh.”

Drobac says that allowing private testing facilities is key to keeping UAV innovation in the US: “Sure the FAA has some test sites, but it’s much more pragmatic to have testing near to where your headquarters are.”

For companies that are pushing innovation in this space, distance is not the only issue with testing facilities. New technologies such as sense-and-avoid will need to be peer reviewed to meet (as-yet unspecified) safety regulations, and private companies like Amazon don’t want to go to public testing facilities. Says Egan: “Even though they might need an independent 3rd party to review their safety record, they still want to keep their proprietary data safe. We don’t know how safe that data is at a public site.”

The high cost of using the FAA testing sites (according to Egan, $5-10K per day) presents another obstacle. “I’m not sure that the FAA took into account how prohibitive these costs could be to a small company that is just getting off the ground,” said Egan. “This is really a hold-over from the days when most UAV operators were Department of Defence vendors.”

According to the US Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan organization that tracks lobbying expenditures in the US,  Amazon has significantly increased its lobbying expenditures in recent years (see chart). In the USA Today article, Chris Anderson from 3D Robotics was quoted as saying that Amazon’s interest “lets people realize how big it can be … They have a well-established presence in Washington and they were able to kick-start the mechanics of this coalition so we could quickly join and get moving.”

Egan agrees that the influence of a big player is critical to the future success of the coalition, saying that “Amazon has a lot of horsepower and the White House has now renewed its interest in the issue,” however he points out that in the longer term it could be difficult for companies with such different applications and financial resources to keep their interests aligned.

Drobac could not comment on the price of entry for joining the coalition, and would not speculate on how much money would have to be spent to smooth the way for the small UAV industry in the US. “It’s not about how much money will be required to change lawmakers’ minds, ” he said. “The question will come down to whether we can educate people about the tremendous benefits of UAVs to society, and we’re confident that we will because technology always wins.”

So far in 2014, Amazon has spent $40K on lobbying for Prime Air – a number that is likely to increase now that the coalition is official.

Whatever future challenges may exist between coalition members, Drobac insists that their focus will be on their common objective of opening up US airspace to small commercial UAVs: “If we can crack that door open, all boats will rise.”

“I just hope they don’t get frustrated at the pace the FAA operates at,” says Egan, who has been advocating for commercial UAVs for over ten years. “The movement towards the integration of US airspace has been slower than glacial.”

Excellent video by CPGrey about the inevitability of automation and its impact on human employment.

NBC clip following the recent release of the Pew Research Center’s report on robots and jobs. Check out also this audio clip from CBC radio on the same topic.

DNews discusses how robots might make our lives easier.

In a press release today, Savioke unveiled its new robot, SaviOne, a robot butler that was designed for the hospitality industry. Starting August 20, guests requesting items from the front desk at Aloft Hotel in Cupertino, California can have that item delivered by a robot butler.

Savioke is partnering with Starwood Hotels and Resorts, the parent company of Aloft Hotels, and has plans to expand its pilot program to include additional hotels early next year. According to the press release:

the robot is approximately 3 feet tall, weighs less than 100 lbs., has a carrying capacity of 2 cubic feet, and is designed to travel at a human walking pace.  It can even travel independently between floors via the hotel elevator.  When Aloft’s A.L.O. arrives at the appropriate guest room, it phones the guest to announce its arrival, delivers the goods and makes its way back to the front desk.  A.L.O. will know when a guest opens the door via an onboard camera. Once the door opens, A.L.O. will unlock, open its lid and provide instructions through onscreen prompts for guests to remove the item and close the lid.

We believe the staff has more important things to do than deliver a toothbrush or a package of chips to a room, and that they would prefer to spend their time creating a more personalized experience for guests.

Aloft will be the first major hotel brand to hire a robot for both front and back of house duties.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F70He3mVrUQ

The rise of social robots

Robohub’s Andra Keay called it the second wave of social robots: on the heals of Pepper’s unveiling last month, July saw the launch of Cynthia Breazeal’s new start-up, “Jibo”, and Honda announced that its social robot Asimo has a new upgrade.

The Jibo crowd funding campaign is now in full swing, having surpassed its initial target of $1 million within its first week. In an article about Jibo’s potential on Forbes, Ryan Calo even wondered whether Cynthia Breazeal could be the Steve Wozniak of robots.

Robohub crowd funding

In other crowd funding news, July also saw the launch of Robohub’s Indiegogo partner page for robotics startups. Our first campaign, featuring Jerry the Bear, has already hit its crowdfunding target and is still going strong. We hope there will be many more crowdfunding success stories to come in the future. Watch this space!