Teresa Escrig

Teresa was invited to speak at TEDx in Tacoma, Washington in May.  Her topic – “Is There a Service Robot in Your Future?”

What if ‘service robots’ which after all are designed to “serve us”, really did, and the mundane repetitive chores that consume so much of our daily lives were turned over to autonomous helpers?  Why?  The answer is easy, hopeful and altruistic.  In the course of our young lives, we naturally discover passion and talent, areas that interest, engage and fascinate us.  Unfortunately for many of us those early dreams recede into distant memory, as we all too soon seek to make our way in the world.  We have obligations and families.  Long forgotten dreams turn into regret.  We find ourselves saying, “I just want some time for myself.”

Now imagine that you had a “service robot” to help you do your daily chores.

What would you love to do?  Take a class, paint, travel, learn a musical instrument, write, create, build….?

Cognitive Robots’ first product was the incorporation of our Cognitive Brain for Service Robotics (R) into commercial scrubber machines. This allows any existing commercial scrubber machine to be easily transformed into an autonomous and intelligent robot, that cleans floors, without the need of a human operator.

Did you know that, the operator of a scrubber machine has to follow the same path/pattern every single time they clean an area? It’s true, because otherwise people would be able to perceive the lines of movement of the scrubber on the floors, which are not considered aesthetically pleasing. The main corridors of an airport or a supermarket need to be cleaned longitudinally.

This job is so boring that industrial scrubber machines are increasingly being destroyed by the operators earlier and earlier. Therefore, scrubber manufacturers have changed their machines to be cheaper and with less electronics, resulting in lower life expectancy for their product.  The downside of this, is that in the long-term, due to replacement costs, end-user’s will spend more money to service their clients.

We are now in the midst of a global debate that is exploring the question, “Are robots taking jobs away or providing jobs for people?”  In the current economic climate, we need to decide if we want to maintain the status quo to protect low-profile jobs; or embrace advances that allow us to become more competitive and effective in our jobs, promote learning new skills, and provide jobs where human creativity and intelligence are necessary.

What do we want?

Here it is the specification sheet of the autonomous scrubber machine that Cognitive Robots can provide: specification sheet scrubber machines

Is this product good enough to solve the problem of automatic cleaning?

Is the market ready for this?  What do you think?

International Women’s Day.

I received my PhD in Artificial Intelligence, in particular on cognitive models to simulate the way people think about space and time, to effectively move daily around their environment, without the use of any measurement tools. I applied those theoretical models to the movement of simulated robots through the streets of my hometown, Castellon, Spain. It was quite a theoretical thesis, and I really enjoyed working on it.

After I finished my PhD thesis, I went to a IJCAI (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence) conference in Japan to present my research. The Robocup competition was going on at the same venue as the conference. For the first time, Sony was there presenting their cat and dog robot pets in a fiberglass showcase. The movements of those little robots were so well done, that I stood there looking at them in amazement for a very long time. I thought, “I want to be working with these robots”, “I want to include the technology that I just developed for my thesis to these robots”, “the best way for the robots to move through their environment is by using cognitive models, and I am going to make this happen”! Read the rest of this entry »

A new android infant has been born thanks to the University of California San Diego’s Machine Perception Lab. The lab received funding from the National Science Foundation to contract Kokoro Co. Ltd. and Hanson Robotics, two companies that specialize in building lifelike animatronics and androids, to build a replicant based on a one year old baby. The resulting robot, which has been a couple of years in development, has finally been completed – and you can watch it smile and make cute faces.

With high definition cameras in the eyes, Diego San sees people, gestures, expressions, and uses AI modeled on human babies, to learn from people, the way that a baby hypothetically would. The facial expressions are important to establish a relationship, and communicate intuitively to people. As much a work of art as technology and science, this represents a step forward in the development of emotionally relevant robotics, building on previous work of David Hanson with the Machine Perception Lab such as the emotionally responsive Einstein shown at TED in 2009 (here another video).

Read more >

In 1970, the robotics professor Masahiro Mori coined the term uncanny valley, a hypothesis in the field of robotics and 3D computer animation, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The “valley” refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as a function of a robot‘s human likeness. The hypothesis has been linked to Ernst Jentsch‘s concept of “the uncanny” identified in a 1906 essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” Jentsch’s conception was elaborated by Sigmund Freud in a 1919 essay entitled “The Uncanny” (“Das Unheimliche“).

Read more >

What I would say is that basic research is done to be used in a myriad of ways, so that can serve humans best.

And certainly this very advanced research in robotic expressions can help us to be closer to something as cute as Gumdrop, the 27-year old Bulgarian robot-actress.

I really enjoyed  the following video from iRobot that shows their museum of all of the robotic prototypes and applications they’ve been working on over the years.

It’s amazing stuff, and very important to realize the amount of work that needs to be done to prove a concept. Even when proven, the robot may not meet some of the needs of the user, and not a best seller anyway.

Next time you buy a sophisticated toy or a small (not so intelligent) vacuum cleaner, remember all of the time, money, research and work behind it!

Thank you iRobot for showing us this treasure!

Happy New Year to all!  It’s been a while since my last post. Too busy. Now, I’m back.

————————————————————————————-

Robotics is not only a research field within artificial intelligence, but a field of application, one where all areas of artificial intelligence can be tested and integrated into a final result.

Amazing humanoid robots exhibit elegant and smooth motion capable of walking, running, and going up and down stairs.  They use their hands to protect themselves when falling, and to get up afterward.  They’re an example of the tremendous financial and human capital that is being devoted to research and development in the field of electronics, control and the design of robots.

Very often, the behavior of these robots contains a fixed number of pre-programmed instructions that are repeated regardless of  any changes in the environment. These robots have no autonomy, nor adaptation, to the changing environment, and therefore do not show intelligent behavior. We are amazed by the technology they provide, which is fantastic! But we can not infer that, because the robots are physically so realistic and the movements so precise and gentle, that they are able to do what we (people) do. Read the rest of this entry »

Gumdrop is a 27-year old Bulgarian robot-actress who has appeared in films with Fred Astaire and Charlie Chaplin, and now she’s auditioning for a new film with someone called TikTok.

Gumdrop is one of the most cute and endearing robots that have been creating in film. This is a short film from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow director Kerry Conran is totally worthy of a feature length version, diving into the life of Grumdrop.

What are the features of this bot-actress that does not exist in our current robots yet?

• Gumdrop is flexible in her body and mouth movements
• Gumdrop has an intelligent communication
• Gumdrop has a history as an individual robot (“when I was a litte robot”, she recalls)

Find the full article about the movie here.

The current robot that reminds me to Gumdrop is Tico, from Adele Robotics. Look at the following video:

Do you find more differences?

By Ann R. Thryft 11/12/2012

Service robots often mean robots that assist the elderly, or help with the rehabilitation of medical patients. But the range of services that robots can perform is extremely broad.

From a robotic fish that uses artificial intelligence to detect and identify pollution in seawater created by SHOAL,

To a telepresence PatrolBot which will let disabled police officers and military veterans serve as distance patrol officers, filling a gap in both the lack of patrol staff, and the lack of available jobs for disabled vets and officers, developed by Florida International University. Read the rest of this entry »

Our brain is the starting point of our creation.

Do in life whatever you are passionate to do!