Perceiving Robotic Industrial Arm Inches Toward Autonomy 22
kkleiner writes "Willow Garage spinoff IPI has developed a visual system for its line of robotic arms that enable the machines to perceive a specific object in the midst of random ones. On-site videos show the 'sensing' robots analyzing stacks of random boxes, selecting certain ones, and tossing them to a human handler. The software is also used in an automated box unloader that requires no human supervision."
"Perceiving Robotic Industrial Arm" (Score:2)
Luxo Jr. (Score:3)
That second video is just great. The robot really looks like it's an animal trying to figure out how to get at the box.
It makes me wonder if we can get some Pixar animators to work on these robots when it comes to human interaction. I'd love to see a robot arm look all dejected when it can't figure out the problem, and then sheepishly ask its meatbag handler for help.
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I kept waiting for the human catching the boxes to explode. Maybe someone could whip up a quick and dirty edit.
Seems little different than 1990s tech ... (Score:2)
Finding parts at any orientation amongst noise, parts that may be partially obscured. That was also on the factory floors in the 90s.
Stacking and unstacking boxes/items to get to a desired box/item, again, 90s. Tossing the box to a person, perhaps that is new.
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True enough in the lab. This is industrial robotics, where reliability is key.
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True enough in the lab. This is industrial robotics, where reliability is key.
Finding and picking parts among noise and clutter, parts at any orientation, parts that may be partially obscured by other parts laying on top of them. That was on factory floors in the 1990s.
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yeah, but could the robot find it and pick it up?
Yes. For example in one application they were picking parts for assembly. Changing the orientation of the parts as necessary and placing it into a jig.
Take note ups, fed-ex, usps workers. (Score:2)
This will soon eliminate your jobs.
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Relevant Textbook (Score:2)
Moving boxes is okay, I guess (Score:2)
I would prefer something more useful [wordpress.com]
wonder if this can be used for sorting recycling (Score:2)
One of the problems with "single-stream" waste management, which otherwise has a number of advantages, is the difficulty of automatically sorting out the recyclables from what results. Metals are relatively easy to pick out, using either magnetism (for ferrous metals) or induced magnetism via eddy currents (mainly for aluminum), but a good deal of sorting still has to be done in a somewhat manual fashion, which is difficult for humans to do, partly because there might be dangerous stuff amidst the waste str
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There is work being done by a bunch of people in the EU, mainly due to the great legislation regarding waste reduction. There's a great little book I picked up a bit ago outlining some of the processes in automated waste recovery [slashdot.org] (Comprehensive Information Chain for Automated Disassembly of Obsolete Technical Appliances ) .
Is there an autodidact in the house? (Score:1)
Perceiving is easy... (Score:3)
Integrating what is perceived is the HARD PROBLEM.
Sorry -- presently watching, in order, the MIT150 'Brains,
Minds and Intelligence' video-series.
(I can really recommend the series -- at least it taught
me how still, a.d. 2013, much of AI is still a lot of PR).
Enjoy!
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I think you mean 'robot flings kitten'.