[Dprglist] beam robotics: telepresence and autonomy

Mon Mar 22 03:37:50 PST 2021

Hi Murray,

Willow Garage was formed out of the Standford robotics laboratory 
group.  Willow Garage's main claim to fame was the robot software 
platform, ROS, which they developed and made available as Open Source.

The main platform they developed was an industrial robot, the PR1.  It 
was also intended to be a sort of industry standard, like ROS itself, 
and was quickly followed by the PR2.  This was the platform that would 
revolutionize robot deployment, making any warehouse, for example, a 
robotic warehouse.  They had funding and support from folks like 
Google.  And lots of cool demos.

And that is the platform that the CEO was referring to in the interview 
I mentioned.  He observed that seemingly simple things, like having the 
PR2 drive up to a table, recognize an object on the table, and pick it 
up, were surprisingly difficult to do. Enough so that they eventually 
gave up and switched their paradigm to tele-presence robots.  That was 
hopefully a market more ripe for their company's profit margins.  Then 
they eventually gave up completely and closed in 2014, leaving behind 
ROS as their chief contribution.  For better or for worse.

At least that's how I remember it...

cheers!

dpa

On 3/21/21 2:27 PM, Murray Altheim via DPRGlist wrote:
>
> 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
>
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