A kaliforniai Willow Garage a világ robotikai kutatásainak egyik fellegvára, fejlesztéseik betekintést engednek a szakterület jövőjébe.
Touted as the first graduation party of its kind, Willow Garage in Menlo Park gave a big sendoff to 11 robots worth more than $4 million. With the song "Mr. Roboto" blaring in the background, the PR2s (Personal Robot 2) shook their bots in front of hundreds of attendees, who later got to touch -- and, in some instances, dance -- with the robots, which have a mobile base and arms that can react to being pushed or pulled. The PR2s will be shipped off to mostly academic institutions around the world, including the University of Tokyo and the University of Freiburg in Germany. Locally, Stanford University and UC Berkeley are recipients of the robots. The program is part of Willow Garage's effort to "get robots out of factories and into the real world," said Steve Cousins, president and CEO of Willow Garage. By "real world," Cousins means homes or other environments where personal robotics can assist in everyday life, such as folding laundry or helping seniors lift heavy objects. Each PR2 comes pre-installed with Willow Garage's free and open-source software platform, ROS. By providing the PR2s to these institutions for free for two years, Willow Garage hopes to accelerate robotics research and development. As a condition of the program, participants will share their research so the robotics community may build on it. Cousins said the startup may sell some robots later this year (Willow Garage also has the Texai telepresence robot), but generating revenues isn't the immediate focus. Rather, the emphasis is on seeding the robotics industry now with the hope of "catching some of the long-term exponential growth," Cousins said. As for when we might see any explosive growth in this industry, Eric Berger, co-director of the personal robotics program, said it's often been said that it's 10 years off. He said he's sticking with that.
IT3 komment: A robotok a gyári alkalmazások mellett a hétköznapok egyre több területén jelennek meg a következő tíz évben. A „személyi robot” kifejezés nem véletlenül rímel a „személyi számítógép”-re… Ezt a jövőképet igyekszik valóra váltani a Willow Garage, amely érdekes együttműködési modellben gondolkodik: nyílt forráskódú fejlesztőplatformjukon több felsőoktatási intézmény besegít, miközben az intézmények két évre ingyen megkapják a robotokat.
Forrás: www.sfgate.com
