Open Robotics Debuts at Penguicon 3.0

thgreatoz writes "While attending Penguicon 3.0 in Novi, MI, I came across an interesting project. Matt Switlik of Swittech aims to do for robotics what the GPL did for Open Source Software - a completely open robotics platform. Dubbed the Open Robotics Peripheral Platform, or O.R.P.P, Switlik and his partner Jason Hunt have taken a completely modular approach to robotics, with the goal of making robot development as easy as homegrowing a PC. Will we see fleets of ORPP robots plowing our streets and mowing our lawns in the future?"

Comments

3 Laws

[Stibidor]

Someone please make sure they read Asimov first!!

More needed

[MHobbit]

That sounds good; however, if there's going to be an open robotics platform, does that apply to the actual software powering them? They don't necessarily have to have the exact same software in O.R.P.P. compliant robots, but just the same "kernel", so that extra code could just be modular: added in when needed.

Why such sarcasm?

[Sawopox]

I noticed the first few posts were full of sarcasm at this topic. I would think something like this, that could bring cheap, efficient robotics to the massess would be lauded more on Slashdot.

That aside, I think this is something that has much promise. I am a beginning science teacher, and projects like this can be just the thing for young minds (even in old bodies.)

Jobs, jobs and jobs

[John Seminal]

Will we see fleets of ORPP robots plowing our streets and mowing our lawns in the future?

Will the USA become a place where the only jobs needed will be thought based. No more jobs where a person is needed to do a repetitious task over and over? Will the next outsorcing be not out of the USA, but from human labour to robots?

I see so many problems here. What will people do for a living??

I don't want this to sound like trolling, but it will. There are enough people out there who are not made for work which requires too much thought. Not everyone can pass Chemistry 101. Some people require the factory jobs to make enough money to buy a house, and live a life. If we start lowering the value of those jobs, we will be shoving a whole class of people into poverty.

I also can't help but think of the horror of the next war we face. No more "human life lost", instead we'll send drone airplanes and robots to do the fighting. Mr and Mrs Redstate will no longer have to reconsider if a war is just when their child is killed ("Was it worth it?"). I wonder if we would have burned all of Vietnam down if we did not have to send any Americans, if we only had to send robots. We could declare the area too unsafe and keep the reporters out.

Re:Jobs, jobs and jobs

[kebes]

I've heard this "but what will stupid people do when robots take away all the simple jobs?" complaint against automation from many people, and I just don't buy it.

Despite considerable automation in industry, we still need droves of people to maintain these robots, to work desk jobs, to answer phones, to make decisions, etc. For instance, the current unemployment rate has very little to do with robots stealing jobs.

Perhaps I'm more optimistic about the average human IQ, but I honestly believe that the average person will rise to the challenge of a more complicated job if their old job is replaced with a robot. I'm not saying the everyone can become an electrical engineer overnight, but in many cases people can handle (and even enjoy) a more interesting and technical job. Moreover, most of the jobs that robots take over are boring, annoying, or downright dangerous. No one wants to be doing those jobs. No one finds those jobs fullfilling and wonderful. So I see no reason why my fellow man should have to endure that crappy job if a machine can do it instead. Automation will push for a society where a greater % of the population is educated, and hence work in less boring jobs. This is a good thing, imho.

No...

[feelyoda]

"Will we see fleets of ORPP robots plowing our streets and mowing our lawns in the future?"

No, you won't.

Unless you manage to provide the $5K+ (each) sensors needed to detect all exceptional cases, you have any breakthroughs.

Detecting a pedestrian in the street with 99.999% reliability needed is HARD. Not mowing over a golf club in you back yard is HARD. Not falling over or running into things is HARD.

As soon as people realize that autonomous hardware needs to react in real time to a dynamic, complex real world, the efforts to compare PCs to robots will stop.

Think about it this way: humans use sensors that are hundreds of times higher resolution, and processors that are thousands of times faster. What makes you think you can do it on the cheap?. And don't start talking about ants or bees! WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SAW ANYTHING BUT A HUMAN DRIVE A CAR IN ALL CONDITIONS?

Open standards are fine, but don't believe the exponential growth potential for anything but software.

There are others

[Wayne Gramlich]

Here's one:

http://oap.sourceforge.net/

Here's another (warning only 128 kbps uplink):

http://gramlich.net/projects/robobricks/index.html

It sure would be nice if people who start these projects would shoot a message off to the comp.robotics.misc news group to try and minimize overlap. The current state of affairs is that there are plenty of projects and very little of the hardware from the projects is interoperable.

-Wayne

Disclaimer: The last URL is mine and I started it back in 1998.

Other tools

[pooya]

Hmm, That is not the first one, there are lots of other tools around, the most famous one Player/Stage has a well developed architecture and many universities, companies and people around the world are using that.