REEM-B, New Humanoid Robot Announced

Davide writes "There is a quite an interesting human size robot that comes from UAE, REEM-A. It has some interesting skills as dynamic walking (of course), object recognition, voice recognition, self localization and mapping, long battery life and face recognition. Recently, the development team announced that the second prototype, REEM-B, will be presented in February 2008. The second prototype has many improvements: a fingered hand with 12 motors, the ability to go up and down stairs, additional force sensors on the arms, ultrasonic range finders to avoid obstacles and a completely new look." Or, if you prefer something a bit cheaper, you could go with the $30 DIY Android.

Comments

"Skills"

[Goaway]

Funny how the word changes from "features" to "skills" when the machine becomes humanoid.

Re:"Skills"

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how the word changes from "features" to "skills" when the machine becomes humanoid. Just like how the word changes from "bugs" to "features" when the machine is powered by Microsoft!

Re:"Skills"

[CheeseburgerBrown]

Similarly, bugs become "personal challenges" and murderous malfunctions become "quirks."

ED 209: "You have four seconds to comply."

Re:"Skills"

[cayenne8]

"ED 209: "You have four seconds to comply."

Hmm...I'm thinking if this is from the UAE...then it might not give you that much warning. A robotic 'suicide bomber'....the perfect tool for jihad, eh?

Re:"Skills"

[Bearpaw]

A robotic 'suicide bomber'....the perfect tool for jihad, eh?

Nope. Suicidal followers are much cheaper.

Re:"Skills"

[foobsr]

Funny how the word changes from "features" to "skills" when the machine becomes humanoid.

This might change back again here once 'gender' applies to robots.

CC.

Re:"Skills"

[timeOday]

Funny how the word changes from "features" to "skills" when the machine becomes humanoid.

I'd say blurring those distinctions is the whole appeal of humanoid robots. Maybe there was never a fundamental distinction in the first place.

Re:"Skills"

[totally bogus dude]

But if you put Sony batteries in your suicide robot, you get twice the explosive damage*!

* when compared to leading brands of conventional suicidal followers.

Re:"Skills"

[Goaway]

Man, am I ever regretting posting this. Just look at the kind of utter idiocy this post spawned.

Are you protected?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you gone down the stairs?

Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[CrazyJim1]

This is an aptly named tag. One thing that I think free roaming robots will do initially will be to operate in a controlled environment like a warehouse. Instead of just making a robot to do everything from go to the grocery store to fetching you a beer, robots need to start more specialized. You don't just design the robot, you design the environment that it will be operating in.

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[Anonymous Coward]

it's actually an inside joke

pak chooie unf

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing that I think free roaming robots will do initially will be to operate in a controlled environment like a warehouse. Instead of just making a robot to do everything from go to the grocery store to fetching you a beer, robots need to start more specialized. We're already past that point. Robots for specialized tasks and environments are now commonplace. Assembly lines robots are used frequently, and modern warehouses (or mail sorting systems, etc.) do indeed use robots for many applications. Industrial labs (e.g. pharmaceuticals, biomedical) also use robots to automate solution preparation, synthesis, etc.

In industry, robots operating in designed environments are already the norm. I wouldn't say that robotic operating in controlled environments is "fully solved" but it is mature enough that we can start thinking about branching into the next logical phase: robots that operate in human environments.

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[Zironic]

Extremely specialized robots already exist. Meet the Assembly robot http://www.robots.com/applications.php?app=robotic+assembly

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[antifoidulus]

to fetching you a beer

Which is where they went wrong with the name. If they would have had just one more "E" in the name, it could have been an anagram for "beer me" which is pretty much the ultimate use for a robot!

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[vertinox]

You don't just design the robot, you design the environment that it will be operating in.

Huh? I thought that was the point of humanoid robotics.

Sure, you can build a warehouse design for wheeled robots, but when you need to send in a 5 million dollar kill bot to flush out insurgents, you don't want that machine to look at the stairs and throw its mechanical arms into the air saying "No got legs!" and then call in an airstrike to level the house.

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't have stairs.

More people live in apartments -- high-rise, low-rise, and sections of houses -- than live in houses with stairs.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Sg_woodlands_a7_01.jpg

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[Anonymous Coward]

But, are they here to protect us from the terrible secret of space?

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[Anonymous Coward]

Sheesh, after three years of development, you'd think this thing would be able to fetch you a beer and a cheap floozy.

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[LeafOnTheWind]

In Soviet Russa, robot design you!
*runs*

Re:Doyouhavestairsinyourhouse

[Trent Hawkins]

going to a grocery store or fetching beer? What a misuse of advanced robotics.
Now strap a Minigun on this sucker and send him to Iraq!

Do not trust the parent poster

[Anonymous Coward]

He is malfunctioning.

huh

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering what my ex wife was up to these days

REEM-A promotional image

[Tibor the Hun]

Best image ever:

Cylon Mark I Voice
Khaaaaan!!!!!
/Cylon Mark I Voice

Re:REEM-A promotional image

[s4ltyd0g]

Man with a name like that, I was afraid yours was a link to that goatse.cx guy...
Isn't it spelled ream though?

Re:REEM-A promotional image

[tosh1979]

Reminds me more of a White Bender... dont take that out of context :)

Re:REEM-A promotional image

[callmetheraven]

With a name like REEM-A it sounds like it was made by Philip K Dick himself.

No access

[rockabilly]

Slashdotted already?

They didn't mention:

[Anonymous Coward]

The second prototype has many improvements: a fingered hand with 12 motors, the ability to go up and down stairs, additional force sensors on the arms, ultrasonic range finders to avoid obstacles and a completely new look. The third prototype has even further advantages with the power to enslave the human race...

and I for one welcome our stair-climbing humanoid overlords!

In Other News...

[sexconker]

Scientists announced today that REBA is in fact an alien.
Dr. Jason Bandis referred to the discovery as an "important step" in the search for intelligent alien species, though other members of the scientific community, including University of Michigan's Professor Jonathan Kemp, are not as enthusiastic: "What we're seeing here is a first-of-its-kind discovery, yes. But we need to stay focused on the task at hand. If REBA is representative of what's out there, we might as well stop looking."

NY Times - Alien Life-Form REBA

Obligatory...

[davidsyes]

Doo-moo Areem-gatou Mis-ter Reem-battou...

Nineteen more versions. . .

[FireNWater]

And it will be designated the "REAM-U". . . . (not that there is anything wrong with that)

That's an abbreviated name.

[dreemernj]

The robot's full name is REEM-A-HUMAN.

Hi I'm Troy McClure

[gijoel]

You may remember me from such shows, Easy way to dating for nerds and other losers, and Build your own Fem-bot and save!

That robot looks like bender

[LiquidCoooled]

My missus said she thought it reminded her of something, but think of it saying "bite my shiney metal ass" and you will see it.

Pick-up decoy?

[UbuntuDupe]

Sounds like if they make the android female and pretty enough, they could seat "her" on a bench in a mall and see how long it takes for a guy to start hitting on her, and then how long until he realizes she's a robot.

Re:Pick-up decoy?

[myrdos2]

If the guy is from slashdot, I'd estimate he'd figure it out after about three years of marriage.

Re:Pick-up decoy?

[caitsith01]

I love you, BILLY EVERYTEEN

Re:Pick-up decoy?

[tehcyder]

If the guy was from slashdot he'd never hit on her in the first place.

Re:Pick-up decoy?

[Eddy_D]

Reading this gave me a flash of remembrance...

Wile E Coyote trying to seduce Bug's female coyote robot decoy while it's buzzing away and smoking (from all the lit fuses)...

Good times...

One might think an important 'skill'

[Burz]

...for an UAE robot would be taking the place of slave labor.

Re:One might think an important 'skill'

[Anonymous Coward]

UAE robot would be taking the place of slave labor.

Slaves are cheaper.

Paging an Advertising Firm....

[Jtheletter]

They tried to make the little embedded video link to the REEM-B site exciting and give "glimpses" of the new robot but it was a big yawn mostly. Maybe they could hire a real advertising firm to do it right and show more of their product and less of everyone else's?

I saw absolutely nothing new or exciting in that video, in fact all of the development shots at the end make it look *less* maneuverable than an Asimo. One version of the Asimo, btw, is capable of actual running, wherein both feet are momentarily off the ground, rather impressive. From the limited preview this looks like just another minor incremental advance in the current generation of bipedal bots.

And are we supposed to be impressed by 3 years of research? Three years is NOTHING in robotics development. Try perfecting a single motor controller or algorithm for three years. Doing a whole biped (from scratch?) in 3 years tells me that while they are very dedicated people, some corners were likely cut.

I'll be impressed when they actually show us something.

Re:Paging an Advertising Firm....

[Taffete]

Hi,

I agree with you that the video should be done by a real advertising firm.
About the 3 years of development, it is right, that is avery short time to design something as complex as a humanoid robot with so many features (other robots can JUST walk). Have you seen the videos of REEM-A? The first prototype was built in 1 YEAR !!!!
Still, it can walk, talk, recognize people, accept voice commands... and play chess :)

In the meantime on Boing Boing...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.quantummechanix.com/HowToSpotaCylon.html

REEM-B = Voynix from Illium/Olympos

[proton decay]

The first thing that came to mind when I saw a picture of REEM-B were the Voynix from the (excellent) sci-fi novels Illium and Olympos by Dan Simmons. MINOR SPOILER: In the books, the Voynix are robotic servitors whose origins are unknown to the remnants of the human race who have become illiterate and essentially like the Eloi of the Time Machine (for reasons too lengthy to discuss here). In Olympos, it is revealed that the Voynix were originally created by a ruling Caliphate to exterminate the world of jews. I'm sure the people at PAL Robotics wouldn't be too pleased with the comparison, but it's the first thing that comes to mind at the sight of a somewhat sinister looking robot from the mideast.

Just wondering

[Anonymous Coward]

The second prototype has many improvements: ... additional force sensors

So, does he scream when you hit him with a baseball bat?

Name tag

[gardyloo]

"Hello! My name is:
        REEM-D"

The noisy killer

[Manos_Of_Fate]

So how much longer until the terms "robosexual" and "electro-gonorrhea" become commonplace?

Wow.

[rantingkitten]

A couple of suggestions for Pal Robotics here. If your goal is to make a friendly human-companion robot, don't name it REEM. Don't make it look like it's about to go on a cybernetic rampage, and don't give it steel claws for hands.

Re:Wow.

[pragma_x]

Don't forget: For the love of bob, don't make it resemble any well-known fictional race of homicidal machines:

http://www.lifeformz.com/weblog/uploaded_images/cylon-797954.jpg

(Checked out the station in your sig. My EBM station playlist is getting stale, and you came along just in time - thanks!)

!Dynamic walking

[coldfarnorth]

I'm a bastard for nit-picking, but that doesn't look like dynamic walking.

To be precise, a robot walks dynamically if its center of gravity extends beyond the boundaries of its support polygon while walking. Take a look at the robot I work on to see dynamic walking. The difference lies in what happens if all the joints suddenly locked up completely while walking. A robot that actually walks dynamically would almost certainly fall over. Asimo and this robot would not. This appears to be the static or quasi-static situation described in the second link.

Re:!Dynamic walking

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit! I don't think I have ever seen a robot that moves in such a life-like manner! Its arms don't seem to move at all and the speech engine seems to not produce any sound, but other than that, a very well done Asian robot!

Re:!Dynamic walking

[Taffete]

Hi, I am the person that wrote the software for the DYNAMIC walking of the robot REEM. I think it is very COOL that you can calculate the second derivative of the Center of Mass motion just watching a video in low resolution. The algorithm used on REEM-A is dynamic, since it uses accelerations to keep the equilibrium during the walking gait. It is not so easy to notice just because the step length is quite short. As you wisely said, if the robot is stopped suddenly, it would fall. Regards

Re:!Dynamic walking

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I can see how a two legged robot, while being supported by a thick stick, a string and two human hands, staggering along at a blazing .45 m/s is vastly superior to the REEM-B.

This Dynamic Walking thing is with certainty a useful concept, and will probably form the foundations of the next Microsoft operating system.

Michael

Re:!Dynamic walking

[coldfarnorth]

My apoligies. I wish I could lay claim to being able to make such a calculation from the YouTube video, but I had drawn my conclusion (perhaps hastily) from a few other things:

• Short step length (as you mentioned)
• Large flat feet (large support polygon)
• Knees that are bent substantially for the entire stride (indicates a high powered, low compliance joint)
• Relatively small vertical motion of the torso
• Marked gait similarities when compared to Asimo (Place foot 1, move COM over it, move foot 2. The result is that the robot never looks like it is off balance)

It may be that we are using different definitions for the term "Dynamic walking." I use it to mean that the robot takes advantage of the natural dynamics of the system, that is, the gaits are designed to use some of the unactuated "swing" that humans use to walk. I refer to Tad McGeer's work on passive dynamics, and the slew of dynamic walkers that he has inspired (Delft, Cornell, MIT, and others). I do not doubt that you keep careful tabs on the acceleration and velocity of the torso COM, it would be hard to walk otherwise. That simply wasn't part of my definition.

That said, I am very impressed in the work you all have done. I actually have a few questions that I was wondering if you could answer:
What is the cost of transport? How long can you run it on a charge? How compliant are your joints? How autonomous is it? Have you got any papers out on it that I could look up?

Thanks for your reply, and again, nice work!

Re:!Dynamic walking

[Taffete]

I will be happy to answer your questions: 1) the batteries last about 1 hour and 30 minutes walking continuously. 2) the joints are not compliant, from a mechanical point of view, but we do some "damping" of the foot-ground by software using the six-axis force sensors on the feet. 3) the robot is autonomous, in the sense that it can localize itself,create a path between current location and destination and detect obstacles. Still, we have a lot of work to do (i.e., we can't walk as Asimo does... so far!!!). We will publish videos of REEM-B in February and, hopefully, you will notice a more human-like walking.

Doom UAC robots

[Anonymous Coward]

The Union Aerospace Corporation is the largest corporate entity in existence. Originally focused on weapons and defense contracts, new ventures have expanded into biological research, space exploration, and other scientific endeavors. With unlimited funds and the ability to engage in research outside of moral and legal obligations, the UAC controls the most advanced technology ever conceived. The UAC contains many bases strewn about the surface of Mars.

obligatory.....transformers quote

[holywarrior21c]

immediately i thought "wow that must be very advanced...a japanese robot or something" so sorry just my nergasmic 2cents

Mod Thread Up.

[pragma_x]

Thank you all (parent and siblings):

- BSG Cylon Reference (does it come in chrome?)
- Futurama's Bender Reference
- Obligatory "REEM-A" Anal sex joke

I came in here for all of the above, but I didn't expect them all in one thread.

But WHY?

[DynaSoar]

Does an airplane fly like a bird?
Does a submarine swim like a fish?
The human form has many characteristics that are less than optimal, especially for particular tasks.
Building something to mimic something else is to build in shortcomings, as well as make the design and implementation harder than it needs to be.

In "The Making of 2001" (IIRC), Arthur Clarke discussed the optimal design for a living thing, with the consideration that aliens would optimize themselves through genetic (or equivalent) engineering. The result was conical, mobile and facile in any direction, sensory organs up top and all the way around, and several other considerations. An optimal general design is just that, living or not, and this would serve as a far bettrer design for a robot. Of course robots with specific purposes should be built for that.

Re:But WHY?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want my sexbot to look like No. 5 from Short Circuit.

Re:But WHY?

[MuLaNLaNg]

The best reason for building a machine with humanoid characteristics is that it can use already existing technology that is made for human beings. Generally, almost everything people come in contact with was made to fit together in some way with the human body. You can save a lot of time and money by making a robot that is "backward compatible".

Re:But WHY?

[TomorrowPlusX]

Clarke apparently described a Dalek. Well, minus the plungers.

Re:But WHY?

[DynaSoar]

> The best reason for building a machine with humanoid characteristics is that it can use
> already existing technology that is made for human beings. Generally, almost everything
> people come in contact with was made to fit together in some way with the human body.
> You can save a lot of time and money by making a robot that is "backward compatible".

In the short run, yes. In the long run, it'd be cheaper to design and build things that can handle human environments (stairs and keyboards are two quick examples) but also be capable of working in other environments as well. Otherwise you end up building specialized machines for each environment. Some will require that, but many can be handled by a general purpose machine.

Re:But WHY?

[ivan256]

I have this argument with a co-worker all the time.

What good is the ideal solution with an optimal design and the lowest long-term cost if you never have the luxury of achieving that because you disapprove of (and thus never implement) practical intermediate steps?

Of course, the answer invariably is something along the lines of "If we make those compromises now, we'll never go back and fix them later". So the question becomes "Would you rather fail entirely at the optimal solution, or be stuck forever with the compromise?"

Bender, is that you?

[Matt Perry]

Maybe it's just me, but it looks like REEM-A is giving me the finger.

Re:Bender, is that you?

[Mingco]

Yes, he's giving you the finger and saying, "Sit and spin, Huuu---maahhn!"

Next generation

[fractalVisionz]

I can't wait for the next generation... REEM-R.

Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> The second prototype has many improvements: a fingered hand with 12 motors

Giggity!

REEM-B?

[geekoid]

What ever you do, don't offer to pick it's keys off the ground.