You probably know the Sphero robot. It is a small robot with the shape of a ball. In case that you have one, you must know that it is possible to control it using ROS, by installing in your computer the Sphero ROS packages developed by Melonee Wise and connecting to the robot using the bluetooth of the computer.

Now, you can use the ROS Development Studio to create ROS control programs for that robot, testing as you go by using the integrated simulation.

The ROS Development Studio (RDS) provides off-the-shelf a simulation of Sphero with a maze environment. The simulation provides the same interface as the ROS module created by Melonee, so you can test your develop and test the programs on the environment, and once working properly, transfer it to the real robot.

We created the simulation to teach ROS to the students of the Robot Ignite Academy. They have to learn ROS enough to make the Sphero get out of the maze by using odometry and IMU.

Using the simulation

To use the Sphero simulation on RDS go to rds.theconstructsim.com and sign in. If you select the Public simulations, you will quickly identify the Sphero simulation.

Press the red Play button. A new screen will appear giving you details about the simulation and asking you which launch file you want to launch. The main.launch selected by default is the correct one, so just press Run.

After a few seconds the simulation will appear together with the development environment for creating the programs for Sphero and testing them.

On the left hand side you have a notebook containing information about the robot and how to program it with ROS. This notebook contains just some examples, but it can be completed and/or modified at your will. As you can see it is an iPython notebook and follows its standard. So it is up to you to modify it, add new information or else. Remember that any change you do to the notebook will be saved in a simulation in your private area of RDS, so you can come back later and launch it with your modifications.

You must know that the code included in the notebook is directly executable by selecting the cell of the code (do a single click on it) and pressing the small play button at the top of the notebook. This means that, once you press that button, the code will be executed and start controlling the Sphero simulated robot for a few time-steps (remember to have the simulation activated (Play button of the simulation activated) to see the robot move).

On the center area, you can see the IDE. It is the development environment for developing the code. You can browse there all the packages related to the simulation or any other packages that you may create.

On the right hand side, you can see the simulation and beneath it, the shell. The simulation shows the Sphero robot as well as the environment of the maze. On the shell, you can issue commands in the computer that contains the simulation of the robot. For instance, you can use the shell to launch the keyboard controller and move the Sphero around. Try typing the following:

• $ roslaunch sphero_gazebo keyboard_teleop.launch

Now you must be able to move the robot around the maze by pressing some keys of the keyboard (instructions provided on the screen).

You can also launch there Rviz, and then watch the robot, the frames and any other additional information you may want of the robot. Type the following:

• $ rosrun rviz rviz

Then press the Screen red icon located at the bottom-left of the screen (named the graphical tools). A new tab should appear, showing how the Rviz is loading. After a while, you can configure the Rviz to show the information you desire.

There are many ways you can configure the screen to provide more focus to what interests you the most.

To end this post, I would like to indicate that you can download the simulation to your computer at any time, by doing right-click on the directories and selecting Download. You can also clone the The Construct simulations repository to download it (among other simulations available).

If you liked this tutorial, you may also enjoy these:

• UgCS photogrammetry technique for UAV land surveying missions
• Programming for robotics: Introduction to ROS
• Python programming your NAO robot
• Robotics, maths, python: A fledgling computer scientist’s guide to inverse kinematics
• 3-D printing hydraulically-powered robots, no assembly required

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

Romo App-Controlled Pet for iOS Devices

Romo by Romotive, includes face detection, telepresence/remote control and training, at Brookstone, $149.99

WowWee RoboMe Robot Kit for iPhone

RoboMe by WowWee has face detection, voice recognition and speech synthesis,  at Amazon, $129.99

Sphero App-controlled Wireless Robotic Ball

Sphero by Orbotix, a robotic ball you control from a smartphone or tablet, at Brookstone, $129.99.

iRobot Roomba 880, Vacuum Cleaning Robot

Roomba 880 by iRobot, new cleaning system and sensors for improved cleaning, at iRobot, $699.99.

Modular Robotics’ Cubelets Kit

Cubelets by Modular Robotics, a different cube for different sensors and functions, at Amazon, $159.95.

Leap Motion Gesture Motion Controller for PC or MAC

Leap Motion Gesture Controller by Leap Motion, enables one to interact with your computer with your hands and fingers, at Leap Motion, $79.99.

LEGO Minstorms EV3 Robot Construction System

Mindstorms EV3 by LEGO, processor, instructions, sensors, servo motors and ports to build different robots, at Amazon, $349.95.

Hexbug Spider by Innovation First Labs

Innovation First Labs’ Hexbug Spider, a controllable creature with a remote controller which can control 2 Spiders, at Amazon, $23.61.

And 2 that won’t be available until early next year: Play-i and ATOMagic

ATOMagic Set by myATOMS and Play-i’s Bo and Yana won’t be ready in time for the holidays. Check their websites for details of what’s to come.

 

 

Some start-ups have proven concepts, achieved adequate funding and have begun to provide unique solutions to long-term problems needing robotic assistance, e.g.:

• In healthcare, Ekso Bionics (a spin-off from UC Berkeley and 6-year old Berkeley Bionics) and their exoskeleton are beginning to penetrate rehabilitation therapy centers while a 2008 start-up, Xenex Healthcare Services’ room disinfection robot is helping to disinfect ICU’s and hospital surgeries everywhere.
• In remote-presence healthcare, 6-year old VGo Communications and their VGo mobile robots have begun to focus on outpatient and remote-presence communications especially for pediatric care, while 2009 American transplant to Sweden Giraff Technologies is shipping their mobile robots as nursing home assistants.

• In underwater exploration, Liquid Robotics, a 2005 start-up focused on recording whale songs has transitioned into their very popular and successful multi-purpose wave gliders used in oil platform monitoring, for naval security, and tracking hazardous materials, while CMU 2012 spin-off Platypus LLC autonomous airboats are being evaluated by public and private agencies for river and reservoir water analysis.
• In materials handling, as companies begin again to invest in upgrading their material handling hardware and systems after the economic crisis, Aethon (a 2005 VC funded project) and their hospital tugs, 2010-Swedish start-up RobCab AB and their multi-purpose tugs, and 2003-founded Seegrid and their warehouse trucks and tugs are all benefiting.

• In consumer products, toys and gadgets, 4moms (an 8-year old start-up) and their line of baby devices is a huge success story, particularly their robotic baby rocker named Mamaroo, while Sphero, the robot ball, by 2011 Canadian start-up Que Innovations, is just beginning, and 2009 start-up Romotive‘s $149 Romo is selling thousands of their cute little iPhone-carrying devices.
• In artificial intelligence, 2010 start-up Universal Robotics and their Neocortex spatial vision software are now selling sensor-based machine learning devices for automated pick and place, high-end 3D inspection and de-palleting operations while 2012 Willow Garage spin-off Industrial Perception‘s similar 3D vision-guided technology is in trials for truck loading and unloading applications. Both have made serious AI inroads into random 3D spatial loading and unloading methodology.
• In agriculture, 2012 Stanford VC start-up Blue River Technologies and their lettuce thinning system, 2009 Spanish start-up Agrobot and their strawberry picking robot, 2012 start-up Autonomous Tractor and their cab-less farm tractor, and 2009 French start-up Wall-Ye and their vineyard robot are all VC funded, in testing mode and look quite promising while 2009 start-up Harvest Automation recently finished their beta testing and have begun to sell their speedy little plant-moving robots.
• In unmanned aerial systems, to mention just a few of the many start-ups, CyPhy Works and their unique tethered infrastructure inspection UAS, Canadian Precision Hawk (previously Winehawk Labs) and their survey UAVs and Swiss SenseFly (recently acquired by Parrot) and theirs surveying and 3D mapping are all showing future apps likely to penetrate the commercial marketplace for UAS.
• For small niche robotic markets, CandyCam and their event camera systems, and QBotix and their solar panel positioning robots are both doing well.
• Stealth companies like Redwood Robotics may be building a competing product to Rethink Robotics’ Baxter robot. TerrAvion may be working on an aerial system for agriculture and Vishwa Robotics is working on a wide range of classified projects.

• And in the way-out-there category, Momentum Machines and their hamburger maker, Foldimate and their laundry folding system, Zen Robotics and their trash sorting system, Puzzlebox Productions‘ mind-controlled quadcopter, TechJect‘s miniature flapping Dragonfly UAS and Anki, the new Apple app/toy combo.

Robotic projects often get funded for strange reasons. Many are at the whim (in scientific circles they call it “inspiration”) of researchers attempting to conquer an interesting scientific challenge.  This often translates into commercial projects just to get the funding to continue to do research. Many crowd-funded projects fit into this latter category. Others are funded to solve specific as-yet-undiscovered methods of doing something that needs to be done. The space and defense programs (NASA and DARPA) are perfect examples of the latter and are referred to as “strategic funding” and there’s a whole industry of technology transfer to make their inventions into commercial ventures.

In the last few years, the influence of crowd-funding is shaking things up and can be seen in some of the start-ups cited above. Kickstarter, Indiegogo and Angel List have all had their robotic hits – some even raising millions. TechJect‘s Dragonfly is an example. The spin-off from GA Tech raised over $1 million on Indiegogo! 3D printer start-ups also did quite well and FormLabs‘ Kickstarter campaign was a record-breaking $2,945,000 from 2,068 backers (FormLabs was only seeking $100,000)!

Crowd funding may be a passing fad, but for the last couple of years these types of sites have provided start-ups with a quick sense of whether their idea will sell to the public or not — and they don’t require giving away equity. Crowd funded projects also pop up on the radar of venture capitalists searching for interesting new ventures. There is no doubt that slick marketing and performance videos do well in that environment. Also, equity crowd funding is coming; the Securities and Exchange Commission is working on the rules.

Crowd funding supporters believe the process helps entrepreneurs become profitable while rewarding investors; others are concerned about online fraud and bad investments stimulated by lively videos focused toward inexperienced investors.

Nevertheless, crowd funding is here to stay and will soon include equity as a perk of investing. Further, it is spreading globally. Although robot start-ups and other long-lead projects don’t get as much attention as some of the other projects, the number of robotics-related crowd funded projects is up and the sophistication of the presentations is also up – both a boon to getting the attention of serious equity investors (VC’s and hedge funds).

Finally, a review of the makeup and geography of 235 start-up companies can be seen in the chart below. Robotic start-up companies are privately held robotic companies established to develop a concept or product or robotic-related service for sale but don’t yet have it all together. From the chart below one can see that few are attempting to become industrial robotic manufacturers; instead, most are offering service robotic solutions for industry, home use, health care and academia.

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

• New ETF (NASDAQ:ROBO) focuses on robotics industry
• Robo-Stox: A dream come true
• Are investments in robotics capital intensive?
• Forget the octocopter, let’s talk about Kiva

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

There’s not much more about Sphero 2.0 on the Orbotix website other than this two-minute video, but Evan Ackerman of Automaton has a little more information. The following is from his article:

Today, Orbotix is introducing the Sphero 2.0, packed with new hardware that makes it faster, smarter, faster, brighter, and faster than ever. And did we mention it’s faster? Because it’s definitely faster.

Takara Tomy is introducing AutoMee, a $20 smartphone and tablet-cleaning robot, to the Japanese market in March. AutoMee doesn’t show up on Takara Tomy‘s English website but is prominently featured on the main (Japanese) site. Recognizing edges, AutoMee just keeps spinning and rotating around the surface and has a lens-cleaning paper on it’s underside to enable cleaning.

WowWee demonstrated it’s newest robot RoboMe at the 2013 Toy Fair in anticipation of 2013 holiday sales. RoboMe can work in two modes: you can remove the faceplate and replace it with your iPhone or iPod Touch, download, install and initiate an app, and, using graphics, voice and vision, remotely control their RoboMe. It can also operate with a remote control device and the faceplate but without the Siri-like personality.

Grillbot is exhibiting at recent housewares, BBQ and foodservice trade shows with their new grill cleaning Grillbots. Using three powerful servos driving three replaceable bristle brushes, the Grillbot can navigate all over the grill scrubbing as it goes and regulating it’s speed and direction. Grillbots will be available early summer for $70. An upgraded model will retail for $100.

Desk Pets has added Tankbots to their line of inexpensive robotic-like toys. The $30 Tankbot can navigate mazes, avoid obstacles and be remotely controlled with a smartphone or tablet.

Romotive, the Las Vegas start-up that did so well with their Romo robot, has updated Romo to be far more stylish and faster than the previous model. The new Romo will sell for $149 and start shipping in June.

SmartLab Toys has release ReCon 6, a programmable rover selling for $70. It can be programmed to fetch items and speak recorded messages. It’s intended to be an instructional device for kids to learn programming.

The ultimate learning device, of course, is the Lego Mindstorms EV3 (Evolution 3) which will be released this summer for $434. Kids can build, program and test their programmable robots using motors, sensors, gears, wheels and axles.

Finally, Sphero is releasing an augmented reality application to enhance the experience of making the Sphero ball move from place to place. Instead of the ball being a ball, it comes to life as a beaver named Sharky with virtual toys and other innovations. The ball costs $130 and the app is free.

Note: This is not a complete list of the toys and gadgets that will hit the market this year, but it is a selection that came across my desk and which shows the breath of that which will soon be available for purchase. If you know of other robotic toys and gadgets, please send them my way. Thanks.

Link to audio file (25:10)

In today’s episode, Per Sjoborg speaks with Ian Bernstein about the hugely successful Sphero robot and the company he co-founded, Orbotix.

Ian Bernstein
Ian Bernstein is cofounder of Orbotix which produces Sphero, a small ball-like robot which can be controlled from your smartphone. Launched one year ago, the robot has been hugely successful and is now available in the Apple store, Brookstone and Target to only cite a few. Key to their success has been a growing community of users writings apps for and making videos of their robots. Demonstrations include swarm control using the kinect or swimming Spheros augmented with “fish tails”.

Bernstein has been a hardware tinkerer and robot enthusiasts since age 12 when he attended the International BEAM Robotics Games (see Mark Tilden ROBOTS interviews from 2008 and 2012). He then studied at New Mexico Tech and Colorado State University, all while working at Road Narrows Robotics and running his own web-development company.

In 2010, Bernstein and Adam Wilson (also co-founder) joined a 3-month program at a startup accelerator called Techstars that led to their new company. Bernstein tells us about finding funding for hardware companies, setting up a production line and certifications needed to launch a product.

Links:

• Download mp3 (15.6MB)
• Subscribe to Robots using iTunes
• Subscribe to Robots using RSS
• Sphero website

Source: Travis Deyle, Hizook.com

This chart may not reflect all of the equity investment activity in the robotics market but it is a far cry from the $6.9 billion that went into 997 venture funded deals in web and Internet startup companies over the course of 2011. This chart also doesn’t mention the many acquisitions, strategic partnerships and mergers that occurred. The most recent is the acquisition of French Cybernetix by Technip, an oil resources and ROV service provider to the industry.

Deyle describes why he thinks VC funding for robotics is a tough nut to crack:

Robotics companies have large capital requirements for robot hardware, few potential acquirers, and almost no “Google-scale” breakout success stories (i.e., IPOs). One of the best known robotics companies, iRobot, has a market cap of just $700 million. This makes robotics a difficult sell to your typical VC firm.

Although these 14 companies represent just a sliver of the 100+ robotic startups that are getting funded in one way or another, they do offer insight into those that are of interest to the venture capital community. Of the companies listed in the chart, it is interesting to note that two are foreign and the biggest investment is for a robotic hair implant device for balding men.

VGo telepresence robot, Harvest Automation’s nursery robot, Liquid Robotics’ wave glider.

1. Restoration Robotics and their new ARTAS System provide image-guided technology for hair follicle harvesting. It’s a massive market, hence the large investment. They received US FDA clearance mid-2011 and treated their first patient in August, 2011.
2. Redzone Robotics was featured by Pres. Obama last year and, in addition to the 2011 funding, received an additional $8.5 million just a few days ago. Their wastewater systems – pipe inspection and cleaning robots – provide critical environmental assistance to municipalities, contractors and engineering firms. Again, a big investment for a big marketplace.
3. Liquid Robotics and their wave gliders have been much in the news. They presently have four wave gliders traveling different paths across the Pacific and making their data available to scientists and lay people worldwide. Their gliders are valuable additions to the arsenals of scientific and environmental agencies, fisheries, aquaculture, pollution detection and resource discovery companies as well as defense/security and law enforcement agencies. Hence the large investment.
4. Aldebaran Robotics, a French company, makes the Nao and newer Romeo robots which they sell to schools and for robotic soccer and other competitions to promote STEM education, a limited but growing marketplace, hence the midrange venture investment.
5. Medrobotics is a Carnegie Mellon spin-off focused on surgical applications using flexible snake-like robotic devices for minimally-invasive procedures. Like other medical start-ups, there is a long lead time for product refinement and FDA clearances. Medrobotics has received funding in almost every year since it’s inception in 2005.
6. Tibion Corporation, is a Sunnyvale, CA start-up, providing bionic legs for stroke rehabilitation. This form of robotic-assisted rehab therapy, therapy with the use of an exoskeleton, is a big step forward from the $300,000+ fixed-position machines previously used.
7. MakerBot Industries, the 3-D printer maker for the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) crowd, and featured at Maker Faires held all over the country to mammoth and enthusiastic crowds, services the DIY, prototyping, small run, and hobby communities while more expensive 3-D printers support the additive manufacturing sector. The Maker Faire Bay Area DIY innovation festival will be held in May in San Mateo, CA.
8. Harvest Automation has a lot of good things going for it: (1) many of it’s investors are the very same ag businesses that will be buyers of the robots, (2) although focused on nursery automation to begin their business, they are poised to broaden their scope into many other facets of the ag industry, and (3) the key players are experienced in the business of robotics.
9. Orbotix is the developer of the sphero smartphone-controlled robotic ball. The ball has no buttons, no battery box, no socket or cord for a charger (although it does have a cup-like charging dock). Shake it and it glows; put it on the floor and direct it anywhere with your iPhone. It’s a Bluetooth-based, wirelessly-charged device first shown at the 2011 CES in Las Vegas.
10. ThinkLabs is an Indian education company focused on science and technology. It uses simple robots, sensor enhanced devices, and robot competitions to provide hands-on inspiration for students taking their courses.
11. Precise Path Robotics began as an entity to participate in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and has migrated it’s navigation system into robotic lawn mowing and other robotic devices to provide maintenance and conditioning robots for the golf course market.
12. VGo Communications has thus far produced 2,000 telepresence robots and plans to lower the cost to near $2,000 in their next production run. You may have seen the ABC News stories about the high school student who couldn’t leave home but nevertheless, through the use of the VGo, attended the local high school, piloting his VGo from class to class and up and down the school elevator.
13. Aethon is a Pittsburgh, PA based mobile robot company that makes robotic carts and tugs for the hospital industry… tugs to pickup and deliver food, medicine, waste materials and general supplies. The company began in 2001 and has had many rounds of financing. This round of $1.74 million was less than the $2.5 million targeted.

1. CyPhy Works, a maker of small unmanned flying robots used to inspect bridges and other public infrastructure, has also received federal grants and research awards to develop its technology for both commercial, governmental and defense clients.

Travis Deyle, is a postdoc researcher at Duke and a recent PhD from GA Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering where he was a member of the Healthcare Robotics Lab and a frequent blogger at Hizook.com. Fortunate for us, he kept a file of 2011 venture funded robotic projects and turned it into an interesting chart:

Source: Travis Deyle, Hizook.com

This chart may not reflect all of the equity investment activity in the robotics market but it is a far cry from the $6.9 billion that went into 997 venture funded deals in web and Internet startup companies over the course of 2011. This chart also doesn’t mention the many acquisitions, strategic partnerships and mergers that occurred. The most recent is the acquisition of French Cybernetix by Technip, an oil resources and ROV service provider to the industry.

Deyle describes why he thinks VC funding for robotics is a tough nut to crack:

Robotics companies have large capital requirements for robot hardware, few potential acquirers, and almost no “Google-scale” breakout success stories (i.e., IPOs). One of the best known robotics companies, iRobot, has a market cap of just $700 million. This makes robotics a difficult sell to your typical VC firm.

Although these 14 companies represent just a sliver of the 100+ robotic startups that are getting funded in one way or another, they do offer insight into those that are of interest to the venture capital community. Of the companies listed in the chart, it is interesting to note that two are foreign and the biggest investment is for a robotic hair implant device for balding men.

VGo telepresence robot, Harvest Automation’s nursery robot, Liquid Robotics’ wave glider.

1. Restoration Robotics and their new ARTAS System provide image-guided technology for hair follicle harvesting. It’s a massive market, hence the large investment. They received US FDA clearance mid-2011 and treated their first patient in August, 2011.
2. Redzone Robotics was featured by Pres. Obama last year and, in addition to the 2011 funding, received an additional $8.5 million just a few days ago. Their wastewater systems – pipe inspection and cleaning robots – provide critical environmental assistance to municipalities, contractors and engineering firms. Again, a big investment for a big marketplace.
3. Liquid Robotics and their wave gliders have been much in the news. They presently have four wave gliders traveling different paths across the Pacific and making their data available to scientists and lay people worldwide. Their gliders are valuable additions to the arsenals of scientific and environmental agencies, fisheries, aquaculture, pollution detection and resource discovery companies as well as defense/security and law enforcement agencies. Hence the large investment.
4. Aldebaran Robotics, a French company, makes the Nao and newer Romeo robots which they sell to schools and for robotic soccer and other competitions to promote STEM education, a limited but growing marketplace, hence the midrange venture investment.
5. Medrobotics is a Carnegie Mellon spin-off focused on surgical applications using flexible snake-like robotic devices for minimally-invasive procedures. Like other medical start-ups, there is a long lead time for product refinement and FDA clearances. Medrobotics has received funding in almost every year since it’s inception in 2005.
6. Tibion Corporation, is a Sunnyvale, CA start-up, providing bionic legs for stroke rehabilitation. This form of robotic-assisted rehab therapy, therapy with the use of an exoskeleton, is a big step forward from the $300,000+ fixed-position machines previously used.
7. MakerBot Industries, the 3-D printer maker for the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) crowd, and featured at Maker Faires held all over the country to mammoth and enthusiastic crowds, services the DIY, prototyping, small run, and hobby communities while more expensive 3-D printers support the additive manufacturing sector. The Maker Faire Bay Area DIY innovation festival will be held in May in San Mateo, CA.
8. Harvest Automation has a lot of good things going for it: (1) many of it’s investors are the very same ag businesses that will be buyers of the robots, (2) although focused on nursery automation to begin their business, they are poised to broaden their scope into many other facets of the ag industry, and (3) the key players are experienced in the business of robotics.
9. Orbotix is the developer of the sphero smartphone-controlled robotic ball. The ball has no buttons, no battery box, no socket or cord for a charger (although it does have a cup-like charging dock). Shake it and it glows; put it on the floor and direct it anywhere with your iPhone. It’s a Bluetooth-based, wirelessly-charged device first shown at the 2011 CES in Las Vegas. 
10. ThinkLabs is an Indian education company focused on science and technology. It uses simple robots, sensor enhanced devices, and robot competitions to provide hands-on inspiration for students taking their courses.
11. Precise Path Robotics began as an entity to participate in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge and has migrated it’s navigation system into robotic lawn mowing and other robotic devices to provide maintenance and conditioning robots for the golf course market.
12. VGo Communications has thus far produced 2,000 telepresence robots and plans to lower the cost to near $2,000 in their next production run. You may have seen the ABC News stories about the high school student who couldn’t leave home but nevertheless, through the use of the VGo, attended the local high school, piloting his VGo from class to class and up and down the school elevator.
13. Aethon is a Pittsburgh, PA based mobile robot company that makes robotic carts and tugs for the hospital industry… tugs to pickup and deliver food, medicine, waste materials and general supplies. The company began in 2001 and has had many rounds of financing. This round of $1.74 million was less than the $2.5 million targeted.
14. CyPhy Works, a maker of small unmanned flying robots used to inspect bridges and other public infrastructure, has also received federal grants and research awards to develop its technology for both commercial, governmental and defense clients.

“Smart” (robotic-like) products profess to add value, assure safety, and provide convenience through connectivity… claims that in many cases are true, particularly with in-car infotainment systems.

3,100 exhibitors, 1.86 million sq ft of exhibition space, 153,000 attendees of which 34,000 were international and only one good food stand (Nathan’s hot dogs – you can’t ruin a Nathan’s hot dog). Massive crowding, slow moving, loud, extravagant and wonderful. Thin TVs – so thin they looked like they couldn’t stand up by themselves without bending – 3D with and without glasses, projectors, smart appliances, and apps for everything from TVs to refrigerators to scales.

Consumer robotics represented a very small part of CES but had the same combination of glitz, glamour, marvelous stuff, misrepresentation, uninspiring products and hidden gems, just like the rest of CES. Robotics Trends hosted a Robotics Tech Zone but the action was well beyond their purview because many of the companies wanted to emphasize their consumer orientation instead of highlighting the robotic.

Romibo

One of the most interesting areas was focused on Digital Health – where one could easily see benefits from sensors and smart apps providing data for the cloud to process and selectively inform doctors or users of the results, and progress over time. The highlight of the area was Life Technologies $150,000 Ion Proton Genetic Sequencer, which, by the end of the year, will be able to sequence an entire human genome for about $1,000 in a few hours. Digital Health was also the only area where research was shown and where the NSF/Carnegie Mellon University Quality of Life Technology booth was located, an area packed with healthcare inventions and eager young inventors. Few fell under the robotics umbrella (most were digital apps and devices) except these three:

1. Romibo, a do-it-yourself robot for therapy, education and play.
2. PerMMA, a personal mobility and manipulation appliance for power wheelchair users.
3. Myomo, rehabilitation robotics and interactive gaming systems for stroke victim rehab.

Certainly the most publicity went to Tosy Robotics, a Vietnamese manufacturer of robotic and high-tech toys, for the launch of  their new mRobo, a transformer-type boom-box entertainment robot with a two-hour meet-and-greet by teen heartthrob Justin Bieber.

Tosy also showed their other robotic toys: DiscoRobo, a dance to the beat with lights toy, and Sket-Robo, a robot that draws.

Cubelets, $160, by Modular Robotics, had a small booth and a big hit for their educational robot construction kit. These magnetic blocks can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires. Since each cube has unique functions, you can build robots that drive around on a tabletop and respond to light, sound and temperature.

Parrot, a French manufacturer of hands-free wireless devices for cars and phones, was the hit of CES 2010 with their AR.Drone, a quadcopter with two cameras that is driven from an iPhone or iTouch. This year they upgraded the camera to enable hi-def video, improved their software for still and video capture, and added a range of games and customization accessories… all shown at a huge outdoor booth at CES.

iRobot launched their Roomba, Scooba, Verro and Looj vacuums, floor washers, pool cleaners and gutter cleaning robots at previous CES’s, but at this CES they only had office visits for demos and marketing where they were also showing off their AVA concept robot and promoting their partnership with InTouch Health, a provider of telepresence collaboration for doctors, nurses, paramedics and patients and a place where iRobot’s lower cost AVA robots could be armed with InTouch Health’s hospital experiences and enable the resulting systems to be available to a larger audience.

More than 7 million robot vacuum cleaners have been sold thus far with real competition for iRobot showing up recently with a flurry of similar cleaners – all displayed at CES:

Look-alikes: (from left to right): Techko Maid, Agait, Ecovacs, xRobot, iclebo and Ottoro

iRobot Roomba, LG RoboKing, Samsung Tango The big news is that both Samsung and Ecovacs (above) offer a self-emptying dustbin option.

But LG and Samsung entered the arena, and, with their large consumer client base, vast manufacturing and marketing resources, and an array of add-on features, has been selling their vacuums in Asia and Europe; not yet in the US. iRobot should feel their presence very soon.

Another consumer products manufacturer (of home theater systems), South Korean Moneual, also sells a robot vacuum and a more interesting $1,000 home mobile air filter / security device. The mobile air filter is also designed as a safety system for the elderly, it connects with a wrist band that can detect a fall and can call for help if one occurs.

A skinless Pleo showing it’s complex innards

Pleo, the baby robotic dinosaur, was represented by both the seller (Innvo Labs) and the manufacturer (Jetta Co. Ltd.) that reincarnated the old bankrupt company, and was showing the new Pleo rb (reborn), with accessories and software enhancements.

Amongst the pseudo robotic products were three which act as a pedestal for the camera and video functions of iPhones and swivel or have wheels or tracks to move as wirelessly directed:

1. Xybotyx, a Colorado start-up, is launching a $111 wheeled platform and app for your iPhone that lets you drive your phone wirelessly.
2. Swivl by Satarii, is a $159 stationary platform for your iPhone camera or video. It swivels to follow you or can be remote controlled.
3. Romo by Romotive, is a $99 tracter-like iPhone holder which can stream video to your PC and also dance to music on your iPhone.

Karotz, by Violet (a subsidiary of Aldebaran, the builder of the Nao robot), announced the launch of their Karotz “intelligent internet companion” into the U.S. market with a $99 special price for the rabbit and 30% off all accessories. Ideal for learning how to develop apps with voice recognition and Internet connectivity, and now with Aldebaran stewardship, this interesting little device may hold a key to the future of human-robot communication.

Other vendors under the robotic umbrella included:

(from left to right): Windoro, Sphero, Ladybug, Mantarobot, Paro, Crawler

• Windoro, from Ilshim Global, a window washing device.
• Sphero, by Orbotix, a robotic ball controlled from your phone.
• Ladybug, by JS-Robotics, a bug-like mobile device with collision avoidance sensors.
• Mantaro telepresence robot, a mobile Skype platform using your own iPhone or iPad.
• Paro, the therapeutic furry seal-like bot for hospitals and eldercare.
• Crawler, by Topy Industries, an experimental tractor-like base for search and rescue.

Not exactly robotic, but for prototyping and DIY’ers, there were three 3D printers of note: Makerbot announced their new $1,750 two-color 3D printer, Essential Dynamics showed their $3,000 Imagine Printer that prints with a whole host of materials, including food, chocolates, silicone, cheese, epoxy, organics, etc., and the Cube from Cubify which offers both a $1,300 3D printer and also a service for those that just want to send their designs in and get back the finished product.

So there you have it — 25+ robot vendors focused on consumer products — less than 1% of CES — and perhaps only one or two to rave about. Maybe next year….

“Smart” (robotic-like) products profess to add value, assure safety, and provide convenience through connectivity — claims that in many cases are true, particularly with in-car infotainment systems.

3,100 exhibitors, 1.86 million sq ft of exhibition space, 153,000 attendees of which 34,000 were international and only one good food stand (Nathan’s hot dogs – you can’t ruin a Nathan’s hot dog). Massive crowding, slow moving, loud, extravagant and wonderful. Thin TVs – so thin they looked like they couldn’t stand up by themselves without bending – 3D with and without glasses, projectors, smart appliances, and apps for everything from TVs to refrigerators to scales.

Consumer robotics represented a very small part of CES but had the same combination of glitz, glamour, marvelous stuff, misrepresentation, uninspiring products and hidden gems, just like the rest of CES. Robotics Trends hosted a Robotics Tech Zone but the action was well beyond their purview because many of the companies wanted to emphasize their consumer orientation instead of highlighting the robotic.

Romibo

One of the most interesting areas was focused on Digital Health – where one could easily see benefits from sensors and smart apps providing data for the cloud to process and selectively inform doctors or users of the results, and progress over time. The highlight of the area was Life Technologies $150,000 Ion Proton Genetic Sequencer, which, by the end of the year, will be able to sequence an entire human genome for about $1,000 in a few hours. Digital Health was also the only area where research was shown and where the NSF/Carnegie Mellon University Quality of Life Technology booth was located, an area packed with healthcare inventions and eager young inventors. Few fell under the robotics umbrella (most were digital apps and devices) except these three:

1. Romibo, a do-it-yourself robot for therapy, education and play.
2. PerMMA, a personal mobility and manipulation appliance for power wheelchair users.
3. Myomo, rehabilitation robotics and interactive gaming systems for stroke victim rehab.

Certainly the most publicity went to Tosy Robotics, a Vietnamese manufacturer of robotic and high-tech toys, for the launch of  their new mRobo, a transformer-type boom-box entertainment robot with a two-hour meet-and-greet by teen heartthrob Justin Bieber.

Tosy also showed their other robotic toys: DiscoRobo, a dance to the beat with lights toy, and Sket-Robo, a robot that draws.

Cubelets, $160, by Modular Robotics, had a small booth and a big hit for their educational robot construction kit. These magnetic blocks can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires. Since each cube has unique functions, you can build robots that drive around on a tabletop and respond to light, sound and temperature.

Parrot, a French manufacturer of hands-free wireless devices for cars and phones, was the hit of CES 2010 with their AR.Drone, a quadcopter with two cameras that is driven from an iPhone or iTouch. This year they upgraded the camera to enable hi-def video, improved their software for still and video capture, and added a range of games and customization accessories… all shown at a huge outdoor booth at CES.

iRobot launched their Roomba, Scooba, Verro and Looj vacuums, floor washers, pool cleaners and gutter cleaning robots at previous CES’s, but at this CES they only had office visits for demos and marketing where they were also showing off their AVA concept robot and promoting their partnership with InTouch Health, a provider of telepresence collaboration for doctors, nurses, paramedics and patients and a place where iRobot’s lower cost AVA robots could be armed with InTouch Health’s hospital experiences and enable the resulting systems to be available to a larger audience.

More than 7 million robot vacuum cleaners have been sold thus far with real competition for iRobot showing up recently with a flurry of similar cleaners – all displayed at CES:

Look-alikes: (from left to right): Techko Maid, Agait, Ecovacs, xRobot, iclebo and Ottoro

iRobot Roomba, LG RoboKing, Samsung Tango The big news is that both Samsung and Ecovacs (above) offer a self-emptying dustbin option.

But LG and Samsung entered the arena, and, with their large consumer client base, vast manufacturing and marketing resources, and an array of add-on features, has been selling their vacuums in Asia and Europe; not yet in the US. iRobot should feel their presence very soon.

Another consumer products manufacturer (of home theater systems), South Korean Moneual, also sells a robot vacuum and a more interesting $1,000 home mobile air filter / security device. The mobile air filter is also designed as a safety system for the elderly, it connects with a wrist band that can detect a fall and can call for help if one occurs.

A skinless Pleo showing it’s complex innards

Pleo, the baby robotic dinosaur, was represented by both the seller (Innvo Labs) and the manufacturer (Jetta Co. Ltd.) that reincarnated the old bankrupt company, and was showing the new Pleo rb (reborn), with accessories and software enhancements.

Amongst the pseudo robotic products were three which act as a pedestal for the camera and video functions of iPhones and swivel or have wheels or tracks to move as wirelessly directed:

1. Xybotyx, a Colorado start-up, is launching a $111 wheeled platform and app for your iPhone that lets you drive your phone wirelessly.
2. Swivl by Satarii, is a $159 stationary platform for your iPhone camera or video. It swivels to follow you or can be remote controlled.
3. Romo by Romotive, is a $99 tracter-like iPhone holder which can stream video to your PC and also dance to music on your iPhone.

Karotz, by Violet (a subsidiary of Aldebaran, the builder of the Nao robot), announced the launch of their Karotz “intelligent internet companion” into the U.S. market with a $99 special price for the rabbit and 30% off all accessories. Ideal for learning how to develop apps with voice recognition and Internet connectivity, and now with Aldebaran stewardship, this interesting little device may hold a key to the future of human-robot communication.

Other vendors under the robotic umbrella included:

(from left to right): Windoro, Sphero, Ladybug, Mantarobot, Paro, Crawler

• Windoro, from Ilshim Global, a window washing device.
• Sphero, by Orbotix, a robotic ball controlled from your phone.
• Ladybug, by JS-Robotics, a bug-like mobile device with collision avoidance sensors.
• Mantaro telepresence robot, a mobile Skype platform using your own iPhone or iPad.
• Paro, the therapeutic furry seal-like bot for hospitals and eldercare.
• Crawler, by Topy Industries, an experimental tractor-like base for search and rescue.

Not exactly robotic, but for prototyping and DIY’ers, there were three 3D printers of note: Makerbot announced their new $1,750 two-color 3D printer, Essential Dynamics showed their $3,000 Imagine Printer that prints with a whole host of materials, including food, chocolates, silicone, cheese, epoxy, organics, etc., and the Cube from Cubify which offers both a $1,300 3D printer and also a service for those that just want to send their designs in and get back the finished product.

So there you have it — 25+ robot vendors focused on consumer products — less than 1% of CES — and perhaps only one or two to rave about. Maybe next year….

In July of 2008, the app store concept was launched by Apple and it has dramatically changed the mobile industry. Over 1.2 billion apps were downloaded between Christmas and New Year according to Flurry Analytics. That’s about 60 percent higher than every week of December before Christmas, and marks the largest number of apps ever downloaded in a single week.

Robot app stores are now beginning to happen as well and visions of apps for tele-robotic safety and surveillance pop into mind, or light domestic duties, or…? My imagination runs wild at the thought and I imagine these new apps being easy to use, having multiple functions and a low cost.

But that is then and now is now. At present there are three significantly different approaches to an app store for robots (although additional “stores” are in the planning stage and many existing stores are making arrangements to expand beyond their own boundaries (like iRobot’s online store and Willow Garage’s application chooser)):

1. MyRobots, by Canadian RobotShop, has opened a combination app store and online environment to permit robotics products to be monitored and updated seamlessly as well as providing a Cloud repository for applications that run from the Cloud instead of the robot itself. MyRobots’ slogan is “Connect your robots; reap the benefits.” The online monitoring aspect of MyRobots is similar to the MyMotoman Remote Monitoring Service initiated my Yaskawa Motoman America in August.
2. Robots App Store, by San Francisco serial entrepreneur Elad Inbar, is developing their store to be an online marketplace for selling apps and also providing developers their own sales portal. Robots App Store, in addition to attempting to trademark the hyphenated words “Robot-app”, has a wonderfully informative info-graphic explaining the need and market for robot apps. What it doesn’t explain is how the process will be different than what most of us have come to expect when buying apps from Apple’s App Store. It involves tinkering with development tools and operating system platforms – a turnoff for all but the most avid hobbyist.
3. RoboEarth, an EU public-private consortium, is using the Internet to create a giant open source network and database repository that can be accessed and updated by robots around the world. Focused more on academia and industrial applications, RoboEarth speeds up robot learning and adaption in complex tasks and can execute tasks that were not explicitly planned for when the robot was designed.

Service robotics – as differentiated from industrial or defense/security/space robotics – needs to provide inexpensive and efficient assistance to humans to be profitable in the consumer marketplace and emerge as a serious industry. We already have vacuum robots and adaptive cruise control bots, but there are thousands of other possible applications. Entertainment, embedded systems, eldercare and home assistance are certain to be amongst the first groups to benefit as the service robotics industry materializes.

There are two different approaches to providing those services:

C3P0 The Ultimate Humanoid Robot

1. A universal robotic tool that will be able to perform all the tasks we ask it to do, including social communication – a robot like C3P0. This is the goal of humanoid robots. At this time, humanoid robots are costly, difficult to control, slow and intrusive. Although human-robot communication is part of the lure, and there is much progress in that area, we are at least five years away from devices that not only speak but understand. IBM’s Watson and Apple’s Siri are proving that it can be done but their software isn’t yet available to front-end robotic applications and there is, at present, little comparable in the robotics world (although the recent ABC Nightline interview of Hanson Robotics’ Philip Dick robot shows there is serious ongoing development). Even when the two-way communication aspect is further developed and made available to roboticists, it will be many more years until the goal of a C3P0-like sophisticated humanoid robot will be ready.

• A more near-term and progressive solution is to forego universality and design specific devices that provide limited, task-specific means to communicate and complete specific tasks… think Roomba.

Certainly #2 has more near-term promise and is where most of the market is focused for the rest of this decade. As service robots begin to meet the four core criteria of low cost, low intrusiveness, safety and modularity – which is happening almost daily with technology changes – an incredible number of opportunities for service robot apps can be foreseen. The key will be to make them practical, affordable and acceptable by humans as part of their day-to-day life.

Robots App Store:

At discussions with Elad Inbar, CEO of Robots App Store, I asked about the size of the marketplace and was surprised to find that there are 14 million service robots out there now, and it’s estimatited that by the end of 2014 there will be 24 million. If only 15% of them were able to buy two apps at an average price of $9.99, that’s $72 million in revenue. If they each bought five apps instead of two, the figure would be $180 million. If 20% purchased five apps it would be a $¼ billion business. How real and applicable those figures are depends on many complex variables: willingness of the buyer to tinker, quality of the apps, flexibility of the robots, price, disposable income, etc. In fact, apps for robots with an Apple or Android front end will not be available in the Robots App Store but will onlybe available through the Apple (or Android) App Store – which limits the market metrics… an example of this Apple exclusivity is the hundreds of thousands of Parrot’s AR.Drone quadcopters.

Regardless of the metrics, the process of developing and sharing apps can provide a giant leap toward rejuvenating the robots we have and teaching the audience (the buyers) that they can get what they want from their robot(s). Thus the buyer becomes more educated and demanding and the producers less capricious — and more profitable.

From an infographic by Robots App Store showing possible app prices for various robots

Inbar’s Robots App Store is “focused solely on the personal and service robots marketplace because “industrial robots are very limited in their functionality… not to mention that they are oriented to quickly repeat the same tasks 24/7 unlike personal and service robots that can be extended to virtually everything! I believe in the consumers market – as they will grow like a hockey-stick!”

When I asked what kind of apps we will see once the store opens, Elad said, “We have more than 100 approved robotic developers working on apps for Romba, Pleo, AIBO, NAO, DARwin and others arranged in categories like Entertainment (dances, etc.), Story Telling (for kids), Utilities (like home search engines), Tools (like face recognition and such) and many others.”

Finally, I asked about the mechanics of porting an app or game from one robot to another. “ROS by Willow Garage, Gostai, URBI and others are trying to build a standard open platform OS that will run across all robots. We, as a marketplace, don’t take sides in this battle. We are serving every robot, ever developer, and every OS. But surely we’ll have to take sides one day when the critical mass will decide which is the widely spread and used OS…. Personally I believe that ROS is in the best position to become the de-facto standard and I personally love to work with their code. It is easy, simple and their libraries can be ported quickly between different robots – a huge advantage for every robot apps developer.”

MyRobots:

The goal for MyRobots is to get all robotic platforms to collaborate and operate together (regardless of their operating system) via the use of Cloud robotics. Although like other stores MyRobots will sell downloadable apps too, their main interest is to develop applications that will run on the Cloud thereby freeing computation time and resources on the robot and will make a single app compatible with many different robotic platforms.

Says MyRobot’s Mario Tremblay:

Cloud Robotics is the application of the cloud computing concept to robots. This means using the Internet to augment the robots capabilities by off-loading computation and providing services on demand. Being connected to the cloud also helps robots to collaborate with other machines, smart objects and humans. Through this collaboration, robots transcend their physical limitations and become more useful and capable since they can delegate parts of their tasks to more suitable parties. By combining increased communication capabilities to the ability and flexibility of running and storing part of their intelligence (i.e. software, behaviors and apps) on the MyRobots infrastructure, smart objects and robots become augmented and constitute a new and revolutionary concept for the future of robotic intelligence: Cloud Robotics.

RoboEarth:

RoboEarth is an EU-funded consortium of educators, research facilities and corporations working together to provide a world-wide-web for robot applications. RoboEarth, in development for the last two years, can be seen as a giant network and database repository where robots share information and learn from each other about their behavior and environment thereby showing a better way of robot collaboration and information sharing. RoboEarth’s premise is to out-source application development by tapping creativity and experience from wherever they can. Further, they believe (as do I) that more apps sold equates to more robots sold. Quoting Markus Waibel:

The central beauty of the App Store idea is that it enables a feedback cycle: The more devices (phones/robots) you sell, the more lucrative the app store becomes for 3rd party developers to program new apps. And the more new apps, the more devices you sell. In my opinion, robotics does not yet have critical mass to jump start this at the present time.

RoboEarth is fast becoming a large shared repository for maps, object models, task descriptions, robot models, semantic relations, probabilistic relations and “action recipes” (apps) within the global academic community. It remains to be seen whether the big robot manufacturers will embrace the technology for their products.

One unintended consequence of RoboEarth’s efforts may be within the used robots marketplace. Imagine the financial gain if an older, unused robot is rejiggered to have new equipment as well as easy to train software to put the robot back to work on new projects. Another possible beneficiary is the end user who will be less likely to retain an intergrator/consulting service if the robot can handle ongoing changes on its own.

The ultimate goal of RoboEarth is to enable robots to share and store what they discover about the world on their own Internet.

As a personal aside, I live in a rural area outside of a medium-sized city. 4G LTE is planned for 2012-2013 for the city but not my area and I have to pay for a very unreliable T1 line to my office. It’s hard to imagine having a service robot doing its thing in my world while relying on the Cloud (as represented by my T1). Maybe the concept will grow on me with time but right now I’m wary and a bit afraid of the consequences.

What do you want from a robot app store? Let’s compile a long list of “wants” and send them off to these app stores and see whether they can get them for us. Why should we wait to see if our app magically appears in their store? Let’s ask for what we want. Send them to me and I’ll combine them all and send them off to the stores.

Here’s what I would like:

• For my old Pleo, anything that makes it do things it doesn’t already do.
• For my AR.Drone, a programmable camera shoot over a grid that I draw onscreen from a starting point where I place the drone.
• For my little iSobot, a complicated routine of fetch, grab and return.
• And for my new Swivl, something sexy where it follows my girlfriend around the room and refocuses as the distance changes.

But I also want to buy a used two-armed Yaskawa Motoman and put it to work in my workshop doing ad hoc tasks. I’d love to be able to add a hardware component add-on (or two), be able to use ROS or some simulation software to test my apps, buy some additional apps that do the kind of tasks I need to do in the shop, and have all that work seamlessly and without line-for-line coding, excessive cost or too much fiddling.

What do you want? Send them to me and I’ll combine them all and send them off to the stores.