 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Ithaca, N.Y. (UPI) Sep 23, 2010 Robots capable of helping people with everyday tasks could be available and affordable within 10 years, a U.S. researcher predicts. Ashutosh Saxena, Cornell University assistant professor of computer science, is working to bring robots into homes and offices that can clean up a messy room, assemble a flat-pack bookcase or unload a dishwasher, all without human intervention, a university release said Thursday. "Just like people buy a car, I envision that in five to 10 years, people will buy an assistive robot that will be cheaper or about the same cost as a car," Saxena said. A technical challenge is giving robots the ability to learn in uncertain environments. It's one thing to make a robot do simple tasks like "pick up this pen, move to the right, turn 360 degrees." It's quite another to enable a robot to understand how to pick up an object it's never come across before or navigate a room it's never been in. Saxena has focused on how to make robots gather information in cluttered and unknown environments. Using a camera, one of his robots can evaluate an object -- say a cup or plate - and figure out how best to grab it. This kind of technology will eventually become the basic capability of a full-fledged dishwasher-unloading robot, he says.
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links All about the robots on Earth and beyond!
Emotional Robot PetsTaipei, Taiwan (SPX) Sep 21, 2010 Designers of robot pets are fighting a never-ending battle with consumers to provide entertaining and realistic gadgets that respond to human interaction in ever more nuanced ways, mimicking the behavior of real pet animals or even people. Researchers in Taiwan are now looking at a new design paradigm that could see the development of a robot vision module that might one-day recognize huma ... read more |
|
|
| The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |
del.icio.us
Digg
Reddit
YahooMyWeb
Google
Facebook
