Conferences and trade shows, held in interesting locations around the world, can be entertaining, informative and an opportunity to explore new places, meet new people and renew acquaintances. Three recent examples: Xponential, the mostly defense-related unmanned land, sea and air show, held in Dallas; Innorobo, focused on service robotics, in Paris; and ICRA, the IEEE’s premier robotics conference, in Singapore.

ICRA

The 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), the IEEE’s principle forum for robotics researchers to present their work, was held this year at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Convention Center in Singapore. ICRA continues to have the highest number of cited research papers in the robotics field of all the various global conferences (including IROS).

In an IEEE/Spectrum review of that portion of the conference that was biomedical-related, a swallowable capsule robot capable of needle aspiration, guided by magnets, and an autonomous snake-like colonoscopy robot were two of the hits. Another reviewer found the rehab exoskeletons, haptic interfaces, modular robot components and many of the ROS-enabled solutions of merit. Overall, almost 3,000 robotics researchers attended ICRA 2017 and most found many things of interest (including Singapore and the Marina Sands Hotel).

Xponential – all things unmanned

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems Internation, AUVSI, annual trade show and conference, Xponential, held this year in Dallas, Texas, showed the changing nature of the industry and offered suggestions (guesses) as to where they were going. 170,000 visitors attended while 100 speakers and over 650 exhibitors put on this choreographed show of military weaponry, defense and security systems and equipment, and commercial unmanned air, land and sea systems.

AUVSI’s membership fees are discounted for members of the military and first responders and the exhibitor list continues to favor military/defense-related companies, but most of those companies now have a growing commercial component.

Autonomous vehicles have always been the constituency of AUVSI but with all the money flowing into autonomous car startups, and the talent search to corral people to make this new industry happen, a small portion of this Xponential show was devoted to the prospect of that future (see chart above).

The folks at The National Robotics Education Foundation (NREF) produced a gallery of over 300 interesting photos from Xponential. They also produced a special set of pictures of UAS engines from the show. Unmanned vehicles used by the military, for search and rescue, in support of agriculture and mining, for infrastructure inspection, and in a variety of other circumstances must stay aloft for long periods, hence the interest in engines that can support that amount of air time.

Innorobo

I visited Innorobo. It is a necessary show in a rapidly changing arena. Over 7,000 visitors perused an eclectic group of 170 startups, integrators, component manufacturers and service robot providers exhibiting a wide range of products and services at a site on the outskirts of Paris. Over the 3-day show, 50 speakers explored topics from robotics-related AI to philosophical discussions about law and ethics to the latest innovations in personal and professional service robotics.

The IFR (International Federation of Robotics) says that robot installations in France increased by 22% to 1,400 units in 2016 (compared to 700 units in the UK), particularly within the car industry. France ranks 2nd within the EU for robot density (the UK is 10th). Innorobo started as a show to promote France’s robotics industry (there are 225+ French companies in The Robot Report’s Directories and on our Global Map). Held in Lyon, the show grew to its present size through the hard work and willpower of a small group of inventive women entrepreneurs. It grew and relocated to Paris where it’s been for the last two years. As the focus expanded from promoting in-country robotics to displaying global innovations in robotics of the startup companies, research labs and service robot companies beginning to make inroads aroud the world – the show has become a valuable mainstay for the European press, investors, business executives, students, and roboticists alike.

Events, Directories and The Robot Report’s Global Map

From time to time it becomes relevant to toot the horn of the free resources available on The Robot Report. Our events calendar, directory of companies and educational institutions involved in the robotics industry, and the global map for job seekers and researchers alike are free and always updated.

There are still 28 robotics-related events remaining in 2017. Check them out:

• Hamlyn Symposium on Medical Robotics, June 25-28, London, UK
• Autonomous Systems World, June 26-27, Berlin, Germany
• Conf on Flexible Automation & Intelligent Manufacturing (FAIM), June 27-30, Modena, Italy
• Automation and Robotics Conference, June 28-29, San Diego, CA
• Industrial Automation Shenzhen (IAS), June 28-30, Shenzhen, China
• Forbes AgTech Forum, June 28-29, Salinas, CA
• RoboUniverse Seoul, June 28-30, Seoul, Korea
• Intl Symposium on Automation & Robotics in Construction (ISARC), June 28-July 1, Taipei, Taiwan
• China Intl Robot Show (CIROS), July 5-8, Shanghai, China
• Toward Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS), July 19-21, Guildford, UK
• RoboCup, July 25-31, Nagoya, Japan
• World Robotic Conference, August 23-27, Beijing, China
• Farm Progress Show, August 29-31, Decatur, IL
• InterDrone, September 6-8, Las Vegas, NV
• European Conf on Mobile Robotics, September 6-8, Paris, France
• Conf on Field and Service Robotics, September 12-15, Zurich, Switzerland
• RobotWorld, September 13-16, Seoul, Korea
• IEEE AFRICON 2017 and Robotics and AI, September 18-20, Cape Town, South Africa
• ROSCon, September 21-22, Vancouver, Canada
• IEEE Intl Conf on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), September 24-28, Vancouver, BC, Canada
• RoboBusiness, September 27-28, Santa Clara, CA
• Drone World Expo, October 3-4, San Jose, CA
• China Industrial Automation and Robotics Show, November 7-11, Shanghai, China
• AgriTechnica, November 12-18, Hanover, Germany
• Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL 2017), November 13-15, Mountain View, CA
• Collaborative Robots & Advanced Vision Conf, November 15-16, San Jose, CA
• Asian Robotics Exhibition AREX, November 23-24, Singapore
• iREX 2017, November 29-December 2, Tokyo, Japan

The next edition of IEEE 2017 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) is in Singapore! The event kicked off on Monday 29 May and is running until 3 June. ICRA is one of the leading international forums for robotics researchers to present their work.

The conference theme, “Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Real-world Solutions”, underscores the need for innovative R&D talent, dynamic and goal-driven entrepreneurs and practitioners using robotics and automation technology to solve challenging real-world problems such as shortage of labour, an ageing society, and creating sustainable environments.

ICRA 2017 will introduce a new Robotics Innovation & Entrepreneurship Forum, alongside an industry forum, a government forum, an ASEAN & emerging country forum, a public forum (ICRA-X) centred on the conference theme, and an ethics forum.

Plenary talks to feature: Chris Gerdes, Stanford University, USA, presenting on Modeling the possibilities: From the Chalkboard to the Race Track to the World Beyond (Tuesday morning); Hiroaki Kitano, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc., Japan, presenting on Nobel Turing Challenge: Grand Challenge of AI, Robotics, and Systems Biology (Wednesday morning); and Kerstin Vignard, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research presenting on Framing the International Discussion on the Weaponization of Increasingly Autonomous Technologies (Thursday morning).

The conference will also host a number of high-profile keynotes, technical paper sessions, workshop and tutorial sessions, and exhibitions.

There will also be four Robot Challenges to take place on 30-31 May:

• DJI RoboMaster Mobile Manipulation Challenge is a ground robot challenge that examines the application and competence of technologies that include positioning, object grasping, force control, target identification, and system stability.
• Humanitarian Robotics and Automation Technology Challenge 2017 this fourth HRATC edition will continue to focus on promoting the development of new strategies for autonomous landmine detection using a mobile (ground) robot.
• The Mobile Microrobotics Challenge 2017 in which microrobots on the order of the diameter of a human hair face off in tests of autonomy, accuracy, and assembly.
• Soft Material Robot Challenge aims to promote research in the field of soft robotics and applicability to on‐field competence.

Workshops & Tutorials

25 workshop/tutorial sessions are available for junior researchers. The sessions are to provide interaction and foster collaboration between young researchers, with the opportunity to listen to, and closely interact, with senior experts. The next set of workshops will be on Friday, 2 June.

Special sessions on Emerging Robotics Technology

This year, ICRA 2017 has invited robot experts to share the recent technological advancement in the field of robotics. These special sessions will focus on novel and creative approaches in designing or developing robots for automation, medical or surgical tasks, and space exploratory mission. The event will be held on Tuesday, 30 May.

Audrow will be on site interviewing for upcoming Robots Podcasts; check back for the latest coverage and highlights!

Tweets by ICRA2017

Shakey the Robot, the world’s first mobile, intelligent robot, developed at SRI International between 1966-1972, was the first robot to be honored with a prestigious IEEE Milestone in Electrical Engineering and Computing. The IEEE Milestone program honors significant inventions, locations or events related to electrical engineering and computing that have benefitted humanity, and which are at least 25 years old.

“Shakey was groundbreaking in its ability to perceive, reason about and act in its surroundings,” said Bill Mark, Ph.D., president of SRI’s Information and Computing Sciences Division. “We are thrilled that Shakey has received this prestigious recognition from the IEEE as it is a testament to its profound influence on modern robotics and AI techniques even to this day.”

The original Shakey robot is on display at the Computer History Museum where it is the centerpiece of the Artificial Intelligence portion of its “Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing” exhibition.  In 1970, Life magazine referred to Shakey as the “first electronic person”, and National Geographic also carried a picture of Shakey in an article on the present uses and future possibilities of computers. Shakey was also inducted into the Carnegie Mellon’s Robot Hall of Fame in 2004.

The Shakey project was initiated by Charles A. Rosen, who envisioned it not just as a “mobile automaton”, but as an experimental platform for integrating all the subfields of artificial intelligence as then understood. Logical reasoning, autonomous plan creation, robust real-world plan execution, machine learning, computer vision, navigation, and communication in ordinary English were integrated in a physical system for the first time. Nils J. Nilsson, Bertram Raphael and Peter E. Hart led the project subsequent to Rosen.

In more specific technical terms, Shakey is historically significant for three distinct reasons: (1) Its control software was structured—a first for robots—in a layered architecture that became a model for subsequent robots; (2) Its computer vision, planning and navigation methods have been used not only in many subsequent robots but in a wide variety of consumer and industrial applications; and (3) Shakey served as an existence proof that encouraged later developers to develop more advanced robots.

The significance of these contributions is captured by an unsolicited quote from James Kuffner, who as of 2016 has led robotics research at Google for seven years. In a private communication, he wrote: “It is truly amazing how both in terms of architecture and algorithms the Shakey project was ahead of its time and became a model for future robot systems for half a century”.

1.1 Layered Control Software for Robots

Shakey’s control software was structured as a multi-level hierarchy with physical actions at the lowest levels, autonomous planning in a middle level, and plan execution (with error recovery) at the top level [Ref. 1: SRI-AIC Tech Note 323]. This design has been adopted by many subsequent robots. An outstanding example is STANLEY, the self-driving vehicle that won the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005 for driving itself across the Mojave Desert. Sebastian Thrun, the project leader wrote (in a personal communication), “…at the core we had layers just like Shakey. Figure 5 in this paper summarizes the high-level software architecture, which should look familiar.” Ref. 2: Thrun] An inspection of Figure 5 will confirm the layered software design at the core of the “Planning and Control” section.

1.2 Shakey’s Algorithms

Of the many computational methods developed in the course of the Shakey project, three in particular have had long-term impacts on both technology and in the daily lives for all of us.

1.2.1 The “Hough” Transform for Detecting Lines in Images

In 1962 Paul Hough patented a method for detecting co-linear points in images by transforming image points to straight lines in a transform space. His method was not widely used because his transform space is infinite in extent and therefore computationally infeasible. In 1972, Peter E. Hart and Richard O. Duda introduced a new sinusoidal version of the transform that eliminated this difficulty (though they did not rename the transform) [Ref. 3: Hough]. The history of this invention was later documented by Hart. [Ref. 4: Hough History]

Hart’s version of the Hough transform is one of the most widely-used algorithms in computer vision. It has been used for decades in applications like visual inspection in manufacturing. By 2014 it started appearing in automobiles, where it enables a safety feature that alerts the driver if the car is drifting out of lane.

According to Google Scholar, the referenced paper has been cited nearly 5,000 times as of 2015. According to the US Patent and Trademarks Office database, 2,115 US patents reference the Hough Transform by this same date.

1.2.2 STRIPS “Rules”; Real World Plan Execution and Error Recovery

Shakey’s planning system was named STRIPS [Ref. 5: STRIPS] (for Stanford Research Institute Problem Solver). STRIPS represented the logic of actions available to it by a set of three “Rules”: The Pre-conditions, Delete List, and Add List of the action. This representation is a practical solution to a famous problem in Artificial Intelligence called the Frame Problem. STRIPS, and particularly STRIPS Rules, were the basis of many subsequent planning systems, as this quote shows: “…. the STRIPS representation and reasoning framework was used as the basis for most automatic planning research for many years.“ [Ref. 6: STRIPS Retro]

STRIPS plans were “learned” so they could be used in future problems and they also were integrated into a plan execution monitoring and error-recovery system called PLANEX. A seminal paper [Ref. 7: STRIPS.PLANEX] on this system is among the most re-published papers in the history of artificial intelligence, the most recent re-publication occurring more than 20 years after initial publication.[Ref. 8: Re.Pub]

1.2.3 The A* Shortest Path Algorithm

The A* algorithm [Ref. 9: AStar] provably computes the shortest (or in general minimum cost) path through a network, and probably does so with minimum computation (as measured by the number of branch points considered). These attractive properties have made A*, and its later elaborations and variants, the path-finding algorithm of choice for a wide variety of applications. These include computing driving directions (whether by a web service or a car navigation system), planning the paths of characters in video games [Ref. 10: Woodcock], parsing strings, or plotting the path of Mars rover vehicles [Ref. 11: DStar].

By 2015, according to Google Scholar, the referenced A* paper has been cited nearly 5,000 times. By the same date, according to the US Patent and Trademarks Office database, 460 US Patents reference A*.

1.3 Shakey as an Existence Proof for Intelligent Robots

At the 2015 meeting of the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, there was a special session called a Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Shakey. The session included a discussion by a distinguished panel: Prof. Ruzena Bajcsy (UC Berkeley, Director of CITRIS), Rodney Brooks (former head of the CS/AI Lab at MIT, founder of both iRobot and Rethink Robotics), Peter Hart (Shakey project leader and the most-cited author in the field of Robotics according to Google Scholar), Nils Nilsson (Shakey project leader, former Chair of CS at Stanford), James Kuffner (Director of Robotics Research at Google), Prof. Benjamin Kuipers (University of Michigan), and Prof Manuela Veloso (endowed Chair in AI and Robotics at CMU). The panel was asked to name Shakey’s biggest impact or major contribution. The panel’s consensus was that the totality of Shakey—the first physical system with computational abilities to perceive, reason and act—was the single biggest contribution. A video of the panel discussion can also be viewed here.

As cast on a bronze plaque at SRI International, the IEEE Milestone’s citation reads: “Stanford Research Institute’s Artificial Intelligence Center developed the world’s first mobile, intelligent robot, SHAKEY. It could perceive its surroundings, infer implicit facts from explicit ones, create plans, recover from errors in plan execution, and communicate using ordinary English. SHAKEY’s software architecture, computer vision, and methods for navigation and planning proved seminal in robotics and in the design of web servers, automobiles, factories, video games, and Mars rovers.”

References:

http://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Milestone-Proposal:Shakey:_The_World%E2%80%99s_First_Mobile,_Intelligent_Robot,_1972

https://www.sri.com/work/timeline-innovation/timeline.php?timeline=computing-digital#!&innovation=shakey-the-robot

https://www.sri.com/newsroom/press-releases/sri-internationals-shakey-robot-be-honored-ieee-milestone-computer-history

In general, as any robotics and/or AI PhD student knows very well, replicating the research results of other labs is quite difficult. The information you can customary find in a reputed journal paper is usually not enough to reproduce the experimental results claimed by the authors, let alone to make comparisons of the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods proposed in the literature in term of performances.

This is a serious issue, as the possibility to reproduce results is the cornerstone of the scientific method. Science is defined by the possibility to experimentally verify, Karl Popper would say ‘falsify’, ‘theories’. This is even more striking when at least part of robotics research is more and more regarded as ‘science,’ as for example, it is witnessed by the recent launch by AAAS with the new journal Science Robotics. By the way, what’s a ‘theory’ in robotics and AI?

This uncomfortable situation not only makes the cumulative process of research difficult, it also severely impairs technology transfer and industrial exploitation. It is worth noting that while everybody includes a state-of-the-art section in grant applications or business plans, the sad truth is that state-of-the-art is (more or less) insightfully guessed as published results cannot in many, if not most, cases be checked objectively.

And what about the TRLs (Technology Readiness Levels) at the core of SPARC Strategic Research Agenda? The community has been aware of this problem for a long time. In 2008, the European Robotics Network (EURON) started a Special Interest Group on Good Experimental Methodology and Benchmarking (coordinated by me and co-chaired by John Hallam and Angel P. Del Pobil), and the following year within IEEE RAS, the TC Pebras started, that is still active today. In 2012, the Euron GEM SIG led to the establishment by euRobotics aisbl of the Topic Group on Replicable Robotics Research, Benchmarking and Competition, which I coordinate.

Series of workshops at IROS, ICRA and RSS have debated the related issues and proposed examples of reproducible experiments and measurable results. We are now at a point where we can provide concrete directions and guidelines for reproducible research in robotics and AI. In September 2015, the first ever “Special Issue on Reproducible Robotics Research” was published in the IEEE RAS Robotics and Automation Magazine. Reproducible research is becoming an IEEE priority, there are no more excuses to indulge in ‘proof by video’ and ‘it worked once in my lab’ attitudes.

Please check the links below if you want to learn more.

1. Bonsignorio F., Del Pobil A., (Eds.), Replicable and Measurable Robotics Research, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 22(3), 2015 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7254310
2. Bonsignorio F., del Pobil A.P.,Toward Replicable and Measurable Robotics Research [From the Guest Editors], Robotics & Automation Magazine, 22 (3), 32-35, 2015 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isnumber=7254280&punumber=100
3. Stoelen M. F. , de Tejada V. F., Huete A. J., Balaguer C., Bonsignorio F., Distributed and Adaptive Shared Control Systems: Methodology for the Replication of Experiments, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 22(4),137âAS146, 2015 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7307132/
4. The IEEE RAS TC Pebras website: http://www.ieee-ras.org/performance-evaluation
5. The Euron GEM Sig website page still listing related events http://www.heronrobots.com/EuronGEMSig/gem-sig-events

A 3-DoF holonomic hexapod robot. Source: Cagdas Onal

Though recent advances in design, fabrication, and programming technologies promise to enable rapid digital manufacturing of functional robotic systems, many challenges need to be addressed to realize the dream of fully functional print-on-demand robots. The creation of robotic systems requires expertise in diverse areas, including mechanics, electronics, software, and control theory. Contributions from all of these 
fields will be required to automate 
or greatly simplify direct robot fabrication.

This paper won the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine Best Paper Award at ICRA 2016.

Figure 1: Examples of origami-inspired robots: (a) a two-wheeled “Seg” vehicle, (b) a 2-DoF non-holonomic hexapod robot, and (c) a 3-DoF holonomic hexapod robot. Source: Ankur Mehta and Cagdas Onal

Design

Designing a robotic system requires translating the definition of the desired electromechanical device between various types of specifications, often starting from a functional specification describing the system’s intended behavior. The ultimate goal of design in this context is to end up with a set of fabrication specifications that can get sent through a manufacturing process to make a robot. This flow can be split with an intermediate structural specification that realizes the functionality in terms of mechanisms and assemblies. Research into design systems for robots aims to assist users in the creation of fabricable drawings directly from the structural or functional specifications.

Design for manufacturability (DFM) considerations impose constraints on functional and structural specifications based on the limits of fabrication technology. By expanding the manufacturing capabilities, these constraints can be relaxed or, ideally, eliminated. For example, three-dimensional (3-D) printing technology allows for nearly any rigid body to be fabricated, thus allowing for the direct realization of arbitrary functionally specified solid structures.

However, in addition to 3-D printing, other approaches exist for the rapid fabrication of mechanical structures. For example, recent work has investigated folding of structures from a rapidly patterned two-dimensional (2-D) sheet in a manner similar to the Japanese art of origami. This process has been used to create robotic bodies out of sheets of paper, plastic film, and multilayer laminates employing a variety of materials including carbon fiber. This process has advantages over other rapid manufacturing techniques: it is faster due to a subtractive rather than an additive process (or a combined additive/subtractive process in the case of multilayer laminates), and it allows for inbuilt compliance due to the flexible stock material. However, generating a correct 2-D unfolding to realize an arbitrary 3-D structure poses a significant design challenge. In addition to the structural elements, robotic designs must also take into consideration the electrical and software subsystems. In our recent work, we developed a high-level programming environment that allows the modular cogeneration of electronic and software blocks to control a more general collection of robots from a description of its mechanical structure.

Fabrication Techniques

New approaches to additive manufacturing are key enablers for the rapid fabrication of robots. Advances in 3-D printing technology have allowed the direct manufacture of devices from audio speakers to batteries and to soft strain sensors. Current research has just begun to explore the range of printable materials, processes, and designs that may be possible. Besides 3-D printing, another additive manufacturing technique of particular interest to robotics is shape deposition manufacturing (SDM). SDM systematically combines material deposition with material removal to enable the rapid fabrication of complex, multimaterial parts.

Recent work has employed additive–subtractive processes similar to the SDM called printed circuit microelectromechanical systems (PC-MEMS), which are used to manufacture the electromechanical laminates that are subsequently folded into robotic systems. This approach has been employed to fabricate insect-like walking and flying robots.

Finally, soft robotics offers an unconventional, emerging approach to incorporating compliance into future robotic systems. There are many open research questions on the appropriate methodologies to create not only passive bodies but also active and functional elements interacting safely and seamlessly with the environment. The resulting bioinspired robots aim to demonstrate the impressive mobility and manipulation capabilities observed in nature.

Figure 2: A soft quadruped robot composed primarily of silicone rubber and actuated by pressurizing patterned internal pneumatic networks in the legs and along the spine. This robot demonstrated resilience to a variety of conditions including exposure to snow, fire, water, and large compressive loads. Source: Michael T. Tolley

Software Environments

Software plays an important role both in the design and in the implementation of robotic systems. From a design perspective, several tools are currently available to aid a user through the process of creation, drawing, and automatic generation of mechanical, electronic, and software specifications. Software should support design and code reusability, simplify the design process, automate the design and generation process as much as possible, and eventually support verification and validation of the developed final product.

By taking advantage of the Robot Operating System (ROS) we have developed a modular programming environment for robotic applications called ROSLab that enables users to model the architecture of an application that consists of a set of computational nodes and communication channels between them and automatically generate the skeleton code of robotic applications. Recent work extended ROSLab to provide a design environment for creating the mechanical components of robots. This work incorporated a component library of the predesigned parametrized robotic building blocks into ROSLab. In this interface, desired blocks can be dragged into a workspace and parameters can be set by the user based on target specifications. Once a robot has been designed, it can be compiled to generate the manufacturing specifications.

From an electronic perspective, two main cogeneration philosophies are available, a modular approach and the embedded generation of the PCBs. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages. The circuits created with modular specifications are reusable, well tested, task specific, and supported by maker communities such as Arduino and Sparkfun. However, modules are also larger in volume and weight compared with dedicated boards, as they must accommodate large numbers of connectors, many of which go unused. Modules also have an increased cost over the raw parts. On the other hand, embedded PCBs can be optimized so that the overall size and weight of the final board is reduced, which are the critical factors when building small print-and-fold robots. Considering these factors, we introduced the EMLab environment for the rapid codesign of the embedded PCBs. The tool uses a similar drag-and-drop graphical interface, like in ROSLab, in which the electromechanical components are represented as blocks connected together on a workspace to describe a PCB design.

Figure 3: (a) A “Seg” robot PCB designed within the EMLab codesign environment and (b) the final mini “Seg” robot created with EMLab. Source: Nicola Bezzo

Discussion

The fabrication techniques and software tools reviewed above allow for the rapid prototyping of robotic systems; however, a significant challenge remains ensuring that the final product conforms to the design specifications, is feasible, and is capable of performing the desired tasks. Thus, it is necessary to consider the verification and validation to ensure that the developed design satisfies the designer requirements.

The proliferation of inexpensive prototyping systems greatly reduces the need for the validation of the structural designs. Without the high startup investments of traditional manufacturing technologies, it becomes possible and sometimes even economical to adopt a trial-and-error approach to manufacturing and printing many iterations of a design until the correct output is attained.

So what is the role of robotic design-on-demand? The robotics community is usually divided in opinion when it comes to the value of designing custom robots. Some advocate creating design systems to enable users to develop their own robots. On the other hand, others feel that it is unnecessary, instead recommending focusing on expanding the capabilities of robot manufacturing processes to allowing for more general purpose robots. There is a general agreement that there will be a broad range of tasks that a robot might be called upon to perform. These new fabrication and software technologies described above will enable both the customized and general purpose mass-produced of robotic systems. Choosing one or the other category will depend on the specific type of research and applications. Either way, an enormous advantage of rapid prototyping is that it can considerably lower manufacturing costs.

Finally, with the applications of robotics research occasionally veering off into unforeseen directions (such as artistic endeavors), a question that comes to mind is how robots can positively impact humanity. We identify agriculture and field robotics, as well as custom orthotics and robotic healthcare, as some of the promising fields where robotic development has the potential to greatly improve human lives. Last but not least, the type of rapid prototyping and programming techniques discussed here will have an enormous impact in education and cheap, accessible, and easy-to-develop robotics will propagate to all levels of education, encouraging the next generation of roboticists and engineers.

Reference: 

First printed: “Robot Makers: The Future of Digital Rapid Design and Fabrication of Robots,” Nicola Bezzo, Ankur Mehta, Cagdas D. Onal and Michael T. Tolley. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, vol. 22, no. 4, December 2015, pp. 27-36.

Image citations:

Fig.1(a)
Mehta, A., Bezzo, N., Gebhard, P., An, B., Kumar, V., Lee, I., & Rus, D., A design environment for the rapid specification and fabrication of printable robots. In Experimental Robotics, Springer International Publishing, pp. 435-449, (2016).

Fig. 1(b)
Kalat, S. T., Faal, S. G., Celik, U., & Onal, C. D., TriBot: A minimally-actuated accessible holonomic hexapedal locomotion platform. In 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), pp. 6292-6297, (2015).

Fig. 1(c)

• Agheli, M., Faal, S. G., Chen, F., Gong, H., & Onal, C. D., Design and fabrication of a foldable hexapod robot towards experimental swarm applications. In 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 2971-2976, (2014).
• Faal, S. G., Chen, F., Tao, W., Agheli, M., Tasdighikalat, S., & Onal, C. D., Hierarchical Kinematic Design of Foldable Hexapedal Locomotion Platforms. Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics, 8(1), 011005, (2016).

Fig. 2
Tolley, M.T., Shepherd, R.F., Mosadegh, B., Galloway, K.C., Wehner, M., Karpelson, M., Wood, R.J. & Whitesides, G.M., A resilient, untethered soft robot. Soft Robotics, 1(3), pp.213-223, (2014).

Fig. 3
Bezzo, N., Piccoli, M., Gebhard, P., Kumar, V., Yim, M. & Lee, I., Rapid co-design of electro-mechanical specifications for robotic systems. In ASME 2015 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (pp. V009T07A009). American Society of Mechanical Engineers. doi:10.1115/DETC2015-47472 (2015).

Hear about the current state of the driverless vehicle industry from experts including IEEE Member Jeffrey Miller, IEEE Fellow Wei-Bin Zhang, Bernard Soriano, and Bryant Walker Smith. In addition to present-day commentary, the panelists explored the future of the industry as it relates to technology, policy and ethics. The roundtable discussion, which was broadcast live on August 28, was moderated by Justin Pritchard of the Associated Press.

Complementing Robohub is new app “IEEE Spectrum ROBOTS,” which provides some news but has an extensive detailed section for current-day robots of all types: from exoskeletons to remote presence; from military transport to Google self-driving car; from Keepon and Paro to Asimo. For each there are specs, factoids, builder name and cost and interesting graphics and videos. There is also a substantial LEARN section with videos and text by notable and inspirational roboticists.

The news section is analogous to the NY Times: thorough and in-depth reporting on a wide range of topics—in this case the multiple sciences of robotics—by technical authorities in the field or on the IEEE Spectrum staff. The news section joins many other magazine tablet-style news apps such as ScoopIt, Zite and Trapit and news portal sites such as Robohub and The Robot Report.

All in all – and particularly for the non-news sections – the new app it is a worthy addition to the field of robotics.

An even newer site of interest is “Robot Radar” – which provides critical analysis on robotics technology articles published and distributed by the popular press.

Robot Radar‘s list of contributors is a who’s who of robotics in the US and UK and includes Alan Winfield, UWE, Henrik Christensen, GA Tech, Kerstin Dautenhahn, U of Hertfordshire, Benjamin Kuipers, U of MI, Illah Nourbakhsh, CMU, Maja Mataric, USC, Matt Mason, CMU, and Noel Sharkey, U of Sheffield.