[Dprglist] beam robotics: telepresence and autonomy

[Murray Altheim]

On 22/03/21 4:25 am, David via DPRGlist wrote:
> [...]  I read a few years ago an interview with the CEO of the Willow
> Garage people who implied that they also eventually gave up on 
> autonomous robots (it's too hard!) and had pivoted to telepresence. >
> http://www.willowgarage.com/
Hi David,

I wasn't familiar with the WillowGarage robots so I looked them up.
Looks like the business existed from 2006 until 2014, when they were
purchased by ClearPath.

Ignoring the big expensive PR2 humanoid, WillowGarage sold a Burger
at $495 and the Waffle TurtleBot3 at $1399, the former a Raspberry Pi-
based stack, the latter an Intel Joule-based robot with a LiDAR, an
Intel RealSense camera, and two servos as drive motors and a ball
caster. No other sensors at all.

The Intel Joule is now discontinued, as I couldn't find any for sale
except in India, but was a 4-core 1.4GHz SBC with what looks like
the power of a Raspberry Pi 3 B+.

The TurtleBot 2 sold for $1900 and had either an Orbbec Astra or a
(refurbished!) Microsoft Kinect camera, and two microphones. It used
either a Lenovo 11e or a Lenovo x260 laptop as its computer, both
small-screen student-grade laptops.

So none of these robots out of the box came with any bumpers, infrared,
no encoders on the wheels (though perhaps one can get odometric info
from the servos themselves).

So I'm struck first by the cost. Adding up the pieces none of them were
particularly competitive with other hobbyist offerings. They're all
ROS-based and their sensors are entirely vision and microphones, so they
were entirely limited in capability by their sensors to being
telepresence robots. Out of the box, anyway.

What I got from this is that there's interest and a market for ROS-based
telepresence robots (for attending meetings remotely during a pandemic)
but apparently not so much for autonomous robots with even a minimal set
of sensors (like a bumper). And that for a complete package you'd need to
spend a lot more than what you'd pay for a similar-powered DIY or kit.
The current TurtleBot from ClearPath is pretty much the same, now
powered by an inexpensive Intel i3 laptop and an updated camera, but
still no other sensors, still all about LiDAR and vision.

Their outdoor robots look pretty cool and very expensive, e.g., the
Warthog can carry 272kg (600lbs) at 18km/hr. It's also totally amphibious
(4km/hr in water) and is apparently, like a lot of robots, accompanied
by loud rock music. They don't publish prices (you have to contact them
for a quote) but out of the box they run ROS and have no sensors, i.e.,
they're platforms. And while there's claims to the possibilities of
autonomous operation, all of the videos show human operators with onboard
cameras and laptops controlling them, i.e., the autonomy is left entirely
to the user.

I like the idea that we'd send someone all the way to Mars so they could
then remotely control the robot:

   https://clearpathrobotics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/clearpath_1.jpg

So if we remain in the realm of the non-industrial, non-military, non-
rock music robots, they still sell expensive hobbyist/educational robots,
what I'd think are pretty overpriced for what you get. To be fair, most
kits from anywhere generally still require that you add your own bumpers
and infrared, motor encoders and the like, but the hobby base price starts
around $150-250 rather than well over $1000. It seems with these TurtleBots
the focus is telepresence, what with the LiDAR and 3D cameras. Or maybe
they're just expected to live in lab environments where there are no dangers
such as rocking chairs or cats.

Maybe it is just too hard!

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim <murray18 at altheim dot com>                       = =  ===
http://www.altheim.com/murray/                                     ===  ===
                                                                    = =  ===
     In the evening
     The rice leaves in the garden
     Rustle in the autumn wind
     That blows through my reed hut.
            -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu