|
|
|
Easy-to-build, flexible, modular box design.Inexpensive no-encoder omni-direction mobile base and navigation.Low-cost arms and grippers.Easy to modify tooling, accessory carts, and other peripherals.Robot control via single external slide in laptop computer.Integral video connection to supervisor for instructions and feedback.Collaborative cloud control paradigm.
Hardware:
Core Design
Readybot is based on an easy-to-build, flexible, modular box design with arms on corners and sideslip mobile base. This gives a great range of motion and practical, immediate applications in small business and consumer applications with a simple set of components. This design can be modified by anyone with average machining and electrical skills, and we hope, will be easy to clone so it can spread rapidly to provide the greatest positive impact for society.
Navigation
Using inexpensive and robust motors, industrial omni-wheels, and a mass-produced infrared room localization system, Readybot's wheeled base can move to any X, Y location in a room without using wheel encoders and complex dead reckoning programming. This inexpensive design is sufficient for many common work environments and if desired, can be upgraded to more complex self-navigating bases that are commercially available. |
|
|
Arms
Using simple cylindrical-format arms, Readybot can lift and carry 2.5 kg (can be upgraded to 5 kg with minor modifications), carry boxes, and perform combined 2-hand operations, with arms that are much less expensive and much easier to build compared to traditional articulated arms. Integration with a mobile omni base provides a “virtual shoulder joint” that resolves many of the historic limitations of the cylindrical format. This design is sufficient for most common work environments where work is being conducted on flat tabletop, floor, or shelf space, and if desired can be upgraded to more complex dexterous humanoid arms that are commercially available.
Peripherals
It’s not enough just to have a robot; to use it in practical applications, one must provide a whole set of tools for the robot “work cell” (either consumer or commercial applications) that enable this robot to perform valuable work. Readybot has been designed around inexpensive, commonly available commercial wheeled racks, tools, paint sprayers, refridgerators, etc. In this way, a potential user can not only have an inexpensive robot, but all the parts that go with it.
|
|
|
Remote Operation
Readybot electronics are based on a commercially available motion control and data capture cards in the arms and body, connected via RS-485 network to the USB port of a single low-powered laptop computer which resides in an outer pocket. This computer is linked via broadband access to a “cloud” of servers and remote collaborators, which provides the additional computing power, data and motion template libraries, and human supervision that the robot needs in day-to-day work.
Video
One of the keys to practical use of robots is the ability to tell the robot what to do, especially in a small business environment where robots are likely to be used for a dozen different different applications each day. We use the external labtop and commonly available videoconferencing systems such as Skype to permit the client to communicate with the remote robot supervisors or cloud collaborators, to set direction and request specific tasks.
|
|
|
Software:
Collaborative Cloud Although we enjoy building hardware platforms (to help catalyze the growth of the market), Readybot is primarily focused on the development of robotic control and application software. Much of the robotics field is focused on the development of autonomous algorithms and independent, self-contained robots…an extremely challenging goal. Readybot been developing an alternate paradigm, based on work by NASA, CMU, and other top labs, which we hope will allow robots to be deployed earlier in real-world environments, yet still accomdate the addition of new autonomous algorithms in the future. Collaborative Cloud Control consists of three essential ingredients: the servers, the software, and human supervisors. Each robot is connected constantly via broadband to the cloud, and if disconnected will stop movement immediately. The cloud-located servers provide a library of movement templates, processing support, and data. The software provides the scripting language, queuing, scheduling, and communications “glue” that stitches the entire process together. The human supervisors (generally video gamers, who have excellent multi-tasking skills) provide the intelligence, goal-setting, and on-the-spot programming that makes the system feasible.
Since human supervisors are a necessary component of daily operation, Readybot robots may actually be better classified as “remote bionic hands” or “remote operated workers”; highly efficient extensions of the human operator. Current results predict that each human supervisor will be able to support many simultaneous robots, depending on the complexity of the domain and the addition of more autonomous algorithms. The Collaborative Cloud technique is a variety of Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) combined with Crowdsourcing and Fuzzy Learning. The larger the number of robots connected the cloud, and the longer that those robots are under continuous control, the progressively easier it becomes to program the next robot for the next task. |
|
|
|
