hello thank you for having me it’s great
to be among this this awesome group who
study things across the globe and across
the the galaxy and I’m just a guy who
goofs off with robots um I wish I wish I
had that kind of impact
but that said I’m amped to be here to
tell you about about robots and and in
particular my claim is is that that the
impact of robotics over the next 40
years is going to look a lot like the
impact of computing and network
technology over the past 40 years if you
think about the personal computing
revolution the internet superhighway and
how that’s changed our relationship with
information how it’s made us more
productive and be able to do more things
with information and connect with each
other and essentially reach out and
touch someone in ways that we never
thought possible
our job as roboticists is to take this
out of the lab take it beyond the
digital world and essentially have us be
able to reach out and change the world
this is an extension of all these things
to the physical world and so just give
an example this is me so a little bit
about my background as loader my parents
back in the 70s and back then you had to
use long distant telephone to stay in
touch with people across the nation or
across the world I don’t think they
could have imagined that I’d be speaking
to their grandkids over a transatlantic
line having a video conversation we
didn’t imagine those things to be
possible 40 years ago and that just
gives you a sense of where products is
going to go in the next 40 years and to
get a quick glimpse at this I just want
to show the suitable technologies being
remote presence device that’s Tom in my
lab and while I’m on sabbatical in in
California I’m able to stay connected
I’m able to move around the hallways
it’s sort of like Skype on wheels
although they don’t want me to tell you
that but I can have those hallway
conversations
and on the off day where it’s where it’s
nice and Providence and not nice in
Menlo Park California I can go around
and enjoy those days and and look at
them so basically this how the interface
works you know I can see out they you
know people and the device can see me
and so I can access this this system
from anywhere around the world this
morning I was like all right I just want
to go check in in the lab so I beamed
into this system and essentially drove
her on my lab and so I don’t even like
Skype a house if somebody has to be
there I can just do this myself in
addition to not being reliant upon
somebody to just be there to take the
call
I can also affect physical change in the
world literally change the world
Tom Tom was complaining that I that I’m
constantly moving chairs around in the
lab so so there we go
and so the beam is just one example of
robots of just emerging swell of robots
that are gonna that are they’re gonna
come in into your life and she helped
change the world this is the NASA
Robonaut 2 that’s currently on the
International Space Station to help take
advantage of their limited time and
space the next one is the parrot
ar.drone $300 you can buy one of these
robots and we just hooked it up to a
Nintendo Wiimote and started flying
around it’s great
there’s the iRobot PackBot that we’ve
done some work with it does field
robotics so this system was actually
sent out when there was the Fukushima
disaster to help do reconnaissance and
surveys of ayres it might be
contaminated just on a random way up to
San Francisco for a meeting I just
happen to catch a glimpse of the Google
self-driving car I just think that’s
awesome that’s that’s really cool and
then we also have cute little humanoid
robots that that essentially entertained
visitors to my lab and these systems are
great but right now what we face is that
is that in order for you to have to
interface with this technology there’s a
barrier so to get it to the devices and
the operating systems that you want to
that you want to have this technology is
still sort of far away it’s still
there’s still a lot of software and
technical overhead also it there’s
limited access for people that might be
disabled or access across the
socio-economic spectrum and so the way
that we want to get past this barrier is
by creating essentially
the world wide web of robots so use web
technologies that make all these things
that are going on great work in in
companies and labs across the world
accessible to everybody well the reason
we want to do this is because is because
we would like to have robot we know that
robots are going to have an impact on
society and it’s not just gonna be
Skynet and Terminator that’s what people
usually say these are not coming
actually we are gonna be the ones that
decide how robots are going to be
behaved in society and there’s lots of
questions that have to be answered
outside of our robots going to take over
the world and so these are just these
are just a few like I just sort of
randomly said what are we talking about
in robot in robotics and so these come
up this is just a small sampling right
and so there are really two questions
that you have to ask yourself when it
comes to robots in society
productivity how can we do more and
quality of life how can this technology
essentially improve everybody’s life
across the world and across across the
socio-economic spectrum and so in doing
this what we’re trying to do is build
the world wide web of robots they put
into your hands the ability to use this
technology think about the things that
we’re not thinking about that mechanical
engineers the computer scientists the
electrical engineers are not thinking
about right now
such that we can essentially build a
robot App Store that’s actually going to
have a real impact that’s going to
address the needs and so in order to do
this what we’re going to do is we’re
going to we’re gonna make robots more
personal one experience that I’ve had
that I just thought was one of the most
awesome projects that I’ve worked on in
my entire career is working with Henry
Evans Henry suffered a stroke about ten
years ago and was now quadriplegic and
unable to speak and relies on assistants
to do the basic things in his daily life
he has control of his of his head so he
can do gaze control and so he can use
things like a letter board in order to
communicate and have conversations such
as right here he could also use gaze
control to essentially use a computer so
he uses gaze control to direct the
location of a cursor on a screen he has
limited ability to to use his thumb so
he uses his thumb as a to press a button
to do mouse clicks
so when Henry saw that we actually have
this AR Drone technology he could fly
drones around through a web interface he
said we got to try it and I said I want
you to try it and and that’s what we did
so we created a web interface that he
could use so that’s the AR Drone
it has a frontward facing camera the
video feed from this camera we put into
their web interface so he gets a live
video feed and we also made nice big
buttons that he could use for
controlling the system and and so here’s
our first flight that drone is actually
gonna move really fast so so you got to
pay attention but here goes
so I don’t know how to top this I don’t
know how to beat a mute quadriplegic
being able to fly around his house and
be able to do things like check out his
garden and exploit him and look at his
solar panels maybe even someday you know
chase his dog around I don’t know what
could top that you know what I don’t
know what could top that that’s uh
that’s just amazing and so uh so so
Henry was actually is actually pretty
better than than me or anybody else
being able to fly this this turn around
he is so much more aggressive in terms
of checking out his garden doing all
sorts of stuff it was amazing and so
right after this after he checked out
his garden he went to he went to go do
it
he went to land a solar panel to check
out of solar panels he had a nice
landing there and then and then and then
this happened
and so uh so you know so after that
Henry basically said that he needs to
practice but he also said that we need a
better we need a better interface and so
we did a we did a little bit more flying
after that it was able to check out a
ravine I was able to explore his front
guard but there are people that are
actually working on making better
interfaces that Henry can use so this is
a video from the robots for Humanity
project where were they’re using the
same web technology that we’ve developed
at Brown in order to let Henry do basic
things that he’d like to do like be able
to to scratch an itch when he gets one
to be able to consume a meal on his own
to be able to to shave and so you’ll
you’ll see just right after this the
first time that that Henry was able to
shave himself in ten years and we’ll get
to that a little bit ahead of myself I’m
amped so that’s that’s that’s amazing
stuff and we’d like to and by giving
this technology to people such as
Charlie you see Charlie right there that
was that look that he has is the same
look I had on my face when I saw this
video
Charlie’s not gonna forgive me for that
one and so and so the the robot that he
was using is the is the Willow Garage
pr2 so you see it it’s a safe platform
it’s a spring driven system so it’s safe
that’s Wesley my son he’s able to use
the system it’s powered on it also can
do more autonomous things so we have a
laser range sensor which sense of depth
so near far wherever you are it will be
able to sense it will be able to send
step and so we can use these to
essentially build build Maps so this is
us driving we have a web interface for
us to do what’s called simultaneous
localization and mapping that is the
robot can see open space in front of it
and as it moves around it stitches that
space together in order to create a
floor plan estimate the the floor plan
of a building or any sort of physical
space if you drive this robot around
long enough around Willow Garage you’ll
get a map that looks something like this
which is a very good resemblance to the
actual architectural floor plan but if
you look at that map it doesn’t look
very inviting it’s like what is all this
stuff it doesn’t make any sense and so
we’re working on tools to essentially
annotate these systems to mark up the
system the same way that that the web
allows us to mark up documents and share
them we are marking up the physical
world so we can share access and once we
do that we have a common representation
with the robot to then send it to have
it do autonomous things like if we
annotate the location of the bike rack
and we can tell the robot to go there
and it can autonomously navigate what
using this map and so this is just some
of the things that we believe are going
to make the world the world wide web of
robots more personal so you can use them
robots that sit in our in our labs or
not not good enough and so we need these
systems to actually go go global to be
accessible worldwide and impact of this
became apparent to me around the birth
of my third child I was holding my
daughter Violet but while I’m doing that
I can never put work down so I so I’m
looking at a video feed from Palo Alto
California and I’m essentially looking
at my postdocs Trevor Sarah and this can
of shaving cream
we have video and browsers all the time
but what I’m going to do is pick that
that shaving cream up with a robot I’m
gonna use that webpage to drive a robot
to pick up that can of shaving cream so
here’s our here’s our first run at that
so this is this is really good um thank
you sorry about that thank you
and so and so basically we’re able to to
pick up this can of shaving cream I was
able to do it 3,000 miles away no
problem
we caught source robots 276 people
across the world we’re able to drive a
little vacuum cleaner robot on our maze
in Providence just being on four online
for five days the last thing I will say
is that we want our world wide of robots
to be open it can’t be proprietary it
can’t be locked up in one single
application it has to be open it has
it’s more about community than just
software or systems and so to do this
we’ve we’ve created the robot web tools
working group we have all of our
software online open source and place
things like github github is social
coding it’s great we also have a growing
community of people across the globe so
so the OTL maker blog has a number of
great homebrew robots effective
technologies uses our work – – to
essentially help deliver medicines and
hospitals autonomously with these
systems eugen robotics is using our
systems – are using our systems – to
essentially have robots in it delivers
sandwiches and cafes our clubbers at
Willow Garage Bosch contributions from
ETH in Zurich these are all great things
but what I want to leave you with is
that these robots have as I tell my kids
often there are going to be a part of
our lives
right this technology is coming it’s
powerful but it’s not the technology
it’s not the computer scientists or the
electrical engineers or the mechanical
engineers that are going to find it it’s
you who are who are creating the
applications who are we are providing
the technology so that you can help us
reach out and change the world thank you
you
to be among this this awesome group who
study things across the globe and across
the the galaxy and I’m just a guy who
goofs off with robots um I wish I wish I
had that kind of impact
but that said I’m amped to be here to
tell you about about robots and and in
particular my claim is is that that the
impact of robotics over the next 40
years is going to look a lot like the
impact of computing and network
technology over the past 40 years if you
think about the personal computing
revolution the internet superhighway and
how that’s changed our relationship with
information how it’s made us more
productive and be able to do more things
with information and connect with each
other and essentially reach out and
touch someone in ways that we never
thought possible
our job as roboticists is to take this
out of the lab take it beyond the
digital world and essentially have us be
able to reach out and change the world
this is an extension of all these things
to the physical world and so just give
an example this is me so a little bit
about my background as loader my parents
back in the 70s and back then you had to
use long distant telephone to stay in
touch with people across the nation or
across the world I don’t think they
could have imagined that I’d be speaking
to their grandkids over a transatlantic
line having a video conversation we
didn’t imagine those things to be
possible 40 years ago and that just
gives you a sense of where products is
going to go in the next 40 years and to
get a quick glimpse at this I just want
to show the suitable technologies being
remote presence device that’s Tom in my
lab and while I’m on sabbatical in in
California I’m able to stay connected
I’m able to move around the hallways
it’s sort of like Skype on wheels
although they don’t want me to tell you
that but I can have those hallway
conversations
and on the off day where it’s where it’s
nice and Providence and not nice in
Menlo Park California I can go around
and enjoy those days and and look at
them so basically this how the interface
works you know I can see out they you
know people and the device can see me
and so I can access this this system
from anywhere around the world this
morning I was like all right I just want
to go check in in the lab so I beamed
into this system and essentially drove
her on my lab and so I don’t even like
Skype a house if somebody has to be
there I can just do this myself in
addition to not being reliant upon
somebody to just be there to take the
call
I can also affect physical change in the
world literally change the world
Tom Tom was complaining that I that I’m
constantly moving chairs around in the
lab so so there we go
and so the beam is just one example of
robots of just emerging swell of robots
that are gonna that are they’re gonna
come in into your life and she helped
change the world this is the NASA
Robonaut 2 that’s currently on the
International Space Station to help take
advantage of their limited time and
space the next one is the parrot
ar.drone $300 you can buy one of these
robots and we just hooked it up to a
Nintendo Wiimote and started flying
around it’s great
there’s the iRobot PackBot that we’ve
done some work with it does field
robotics so this system was actually
sent out when there was the Fukushima
disaster to help do reconnaissance and
surveys of ayres it might be
contaminated just on a random way up to
San Francisco for a meeting I just
happen to catch a glimpse of the Google
self-driving car I just think that’s
awesome that’s that’s really cool and
then we also have cute little humanoid
robots that that essentially entertained
visitors to my lab and these systems are
great but right now what we face is that
is that in order for you to have to
interface with this technology there’s a
barrier so to get it to the devices and
the operating systems that you want to
that you want to have this technology is
still sort of far away it’s still
there’s still a lot of software and
technical overhead also it there’s
limited access for people that might be
disabled or access across the
socio-economic spectrum and so the way
that we want to get past this barrier is
by creating essentially
the world wide web of robots so use web
technologies that make all these things
that are going on great work in in
companies and labs across the world
accessible to everybody well the reason
we want to do this is because is because
we would like to have robot we know that
robots are going to have an impact on
society and it’s not just gonna be
Skynet and Terminator that’s what people
usually say these are not coming
actually we are gonna be the ones that
decide how robots are going to be
behaved in society and there’s lots of
questions that have to be answered
outside of our robots going to take over
the world and so these are just these
are just a few like I just sort of
randomly said what are we talking about
in robot in robotics and so these come
up this is just a small sampling right
and so there are really two questions
that you have to ask yourself when it
comes to robots in society
productivity how can we do more and
quality of life how can this technology
essentially improve everybody’s life
across the world and across across the
socio-economic spectrum and so in doing
this what we’re trying to do is build
the world wide web of robots they put
into your hands the ability to use this
technology think about the things that
we’re not thinking about that mechanical
engineers the computer scientists the
electrical engineers are not thinking
about right now
such that we can essentially build a
robot App Store that’s actually going to
have a real impact that’s going to
address the needs and so in order to do
this what we’re going to do is we’re
going to we’re gonna make robots more
personal one experience that I’ve had
that I just thought was one of the most
awesome projects that I’ve worked on in
my entire career is working with Henry
Evans Henry suffered a stroke about ten
years ago and was now quadriplegic and
unable to speak and relies on assistants
to do the basic things in his daily life
he has control of his of his head so he
can do gaze control and so he can use
things like a letter board in order to
communicate and have conversations such
as right here he could also use gaze
control to essentially use a computer so
he uses gaze control to direct the
location of a cursor on a screen he has
limited ability to to use his thumb so
he uses his thumb as a to press a button
to do mouse clicks
so when Henry saw that we actually have
this AR Drone technology he could fly
drones around through a web interface he
said we got to try it and I said I want
you to try it and and that’s what we did
so we created a web interface that he
could use so that’s the AR Drone
it has a frontward facing camera the
video feed from this camera we put into
their web interface so he gets a live
video feed and we also made nice big
buttons that he could use for
controlling the system and and so here’s
our first flight that drone is actually
gonna move really fast so so you got to
pay attention but here goes
so I don’t know how to top this I don’t
know how to beat a mute quadriplegic
being able to fly around his house and
be able to do things like check out his
garden and exploit him and look at his
solar panels maybe even someday you know
chase his dog around I don’t know what
could top that you know what I don’t
know what could top that that’s uh
that’s just amazing and so uh so so
Henry was actually is actually pretty
better than than me or anybody else
being able to fly this this turn around
he is so much more aggressive in terms
of checking out his garden doing all
sorts of stuff it was amazing and so
right after this after he checked out
his garden he went to he went to go do
it
he went to land a solar panel to check
out of solar panels he had a nice
landing there and then and then and then
this happened
and so uh so you know so after that
Henry basically said that he needs to
practice but he also said that we need a
better we need a better interface and so
we did a we did a little bit more flying
after that it was able to check out a
ravine I was able to explore his front
guard but there are people that are
actually working on making better
interfaces that Henry can use so this is
a video from the robots for Humanity
project where were they’re using the
same web technology that we’ve developed
at Brown in order to let Henry do basic
things that he’d like to do like be able
to to scratch an itch when he gets one
to be able to consume a meal on his own
to be able to to shave and so you’ll
you’ll see just right after this the
first time that that Henry was able to
shave himself in ten years and we’ll get
to that a little bit ahead of myself I’m
amped so that’s that’s that’s amazing
stuff and we’d like to and by giving
this technology to people such as
Charlie you see Charlie right there that
was that look that he has is the same
look I had on my face when I saw this
video
Charlie’s not gonna forgive me for that
one and so and so the the robot that he
was using is the is the Willow Garage
pr2 so you see it it’s a safe platform
it’s a spring driven system so it’s safe
that’s Wesley my son he’s able to use
the system it’s powered on it also can
do more autonomous things so we have a
laser range sensor which sense of depth
so near far wherever you are it will be
able to sense it will be able to send
step and so we can use these to
essentially build build Maps so this is
us driving we have a web interface for
us to do what’s called simultaneous
localization and mapping that is the
robot can see open space in front of it
and as it moves around it stitches that
space together in order to create a
floor plan estimate the the floor plan
of a building or any sort of physical
space if you drive this robot around
long enough around Willow Garage you’ll
get a map that looks something like this
which is a very good resemblance to the
actual architectural floor plan but if
you look at that map it doesn’t look
very inviting it’s like what is all this
stuff it doesn’t make any sense and so
we’re working on tools to essentially
annotate these systems to mark up the
system the same way that that the web
allows us to mark up documents and share
them we are marking up the physical
world so we can share access and once we
do that we have a common representation
with the robot to then send it to have
it do autonomous things like if we
annotate the location of the bike rack
and we can tell the robot to go there
and it can autonomously navigate what
using this map and so this is just some
of the things that we believe are going
to make the world the world wide web of
robots more personal so you can use them
robots that sit in our in our labs or
not not good enough and so we need these
systems to actually go go global to be
accessible worldwide and impact of this
became apparent to me around the birth
of my third child I was holding my
daughter Violet but while I’m doing that
I can never put work down so I so I’m
looking at a video feed from Palo Alto
California and I’m essentially looking
at my postdocs Trevor Sarah and this can
of shaving cream
we have video and browsers all the time
but what I’m going to do is pick that
that shaving cream up with a robot I’m
gonna use that webpage to drive a robot
to pick up that can of shaving cream so
here’s our here’s our first run at that
so this is this is really good um thank
you sorry about that thank you
and so and so basically we’re able to to
pick up this can of shaving cream I was
able to do it 3,000 miles away no
problem
we caught source robots 276 people
across the world we’re able to drive a
little vacuum cleaner robot on our maze
in Providence just being on four online
for five days the last thing I will say
is that we want our world wide of robots
to be open it can’t be proprietary it
can’t be locked up in one single
application it has to be open it has
it’s more about community than just
software or systems and so to do this
we’ve we’ve created the robot web tools
working group we have all of our
software online open source and place
things like github github is social
coding it’s great we also have a growing
community of people across the globe so
so the OTL maker blog has a number of
great homebrew robots effective
technologies uses our work – – to
essentially help deliver medicines and
hospitals autonomously with these
systems eugen robotics is using our
systems – are using our systems – to
essentially have robots in it delivers
sandwiches and cafes our clubbers at
Willow Garage Bosch contributions from
ETH in Zurich these are all great things
but what I want to leave you with is
that these robots have as I tell my kids
often there are going to be a part of
our lives
right this technology is coming it’s
powerful but it’s not the technology
it’s not the computer scientists or the
electrical engineers or the mechanical
engineers that are going to find it it’s
you who are who are creating the
applications who are we are providing
the technology so that you can help us
reach out and change the world thank you
you
Please follow and like us: