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Android Evolution using Sweat Equity Education
Narrow AI refers to specific robots for accomplishing tasks such as vacuuming your floor or solving a
Rubik's cube. Each robot is designed for only one particular application. A more general design would
be a PC, which is more flexible and and can perform any application which can be accomplished using a
mouse, keyboard, display and CPU-motherboard. Although PCs are popular and very useful, they don't
typically have any manipulation skills.
The next stage in the development of Artificial Intelligence must move toward more general applications.
To accomplish this, we often think of androids, which are robots which look and act more like humans.
Since a human can move in an environment built for humans containing such obstacles as doors and
stairs, we are sure that android robots can ambulate in these human environments as well.
Recent trends in technology include the movement toward 'open software' and simulation on a PC.
Willow Garage is an entity in California which is combining open software, simulation and a common
android platform to attemtp to make significant progress in creating a general purpose android robot.
View the following film to see what they are going to try to accomplish over the next two years:
Summary:
Willow Garage will offer 11 research teams free use of its PR2 robots for two years. The robots, built with
an open-source software platform, can be programmed to do many tasks.
For years, one of the dreams of robot enthusiasts and researchers has been a single robot capable of
performing a wide variety of tasks. But while single-purpose robots are everywhere, the general-purpose
vision has remained pretty much a fantasy.
Groups of roboticists at 11 institutions around the world will get a chance to take part in a beta project
that could change that dynamic forever. Willow Garage, a Menlo Park, Calif., robotics firm, said that in
June 2010 it will offer each of the 11 teams a two-year loan of a Personal Robot 2 (PR2), a sophisticated
machine that is fully programmable and that has two arms, a "rich sensor suite," a mobile base, and 16
CPU cores. Also included is the free, open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) framework that
controls the PR2 and that comes with software libraries for perception, navigation, and manipulation.
And for the first time, these researchers will have a chance not only to program a general-purpose robot
but also to contribute the work they've done on Willow Garage's open-source robotics platform to a wide
community of researchers, a forward leap that could allow others to quickly advance the state of the art.
One of the teams that was selected to receive a free loan of a PR2 was the UC Berkeley team. A grad
student there had previously programmed a PR2 to fold towels. Now the team there wants to teach its
robot to do all the tasks involved in doing a load of laundry.
Potentially another team could teach the robot to make beds and another to do simple cooking chores
including loading the dishwasher with soap and dishes and turning it on. Unloading the dishwasher and
placing dishes in the cabinets without breaking anything will be quite an accomplishment.
Each function which a team adds to its robot may be shared by the other robots. Unlike humans, how to
programs can be transferred from one robot to another identical robot. Educating robots becomes much
simpler than educating humans.
More at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20004050-52.html
Please note that Willow Garage is using two of the New Intel® Xeon® Processors which were announced
on March 30, 2010.
Intel's Fastest Enterprise and High-Performance Computing Chip Provides Average of Three Times
Increase in Processing Speed, More than 20 New Reliability Features
Largest performance leap in Intel® Xeon® processor history, with an average improvement of 3x across a
range of benchmarks. Data centers can replace 20 single core servers with a single new Intel Xeon 7500
processor series-based system
.
More than 20 new reliability features and eight-core, 16-threaded Intel® Xeon® Processor 7500 series
performance further accelerate mission-critical adoption on Intel server systems.
Unprecedented advances in scalability allow new designs to range from two-socket platforms up to 256
chips per system.
New servers to feature 4x increase in memory capacity (up to 1 Terabyte in 4-processor configurations);
8x increase in memory bandwidth.
By using these relatively expensive processors, Willow Garage is permitting developers to use a
computer system that would have been labeled a "Supercomputer" only a few years ago.
Next
Narrow AI refers to specific robots for accomplishing tasks such as vacuuming your floor or solving a
Rubik's cube. Each robot is designed for only one particular application. A more general design would
be a PC, which is more flexible and and can perform any application which can be accomplished using a
mouse, keyboard, display and CPU-motherboard. Although PCs are popular and very useful, they don't
typically have any manipulation skills.
The next stage in the development of Artificial Intelligence must move toward more general applications.
To accomplish this, we often think of androids, which are robots which look and act more like humans.
Since a human can move in an environment built for humans containing such obstacles as doors and
stairs, we are sure that android robots can ambulate in these human environments as well.
Recent trends in technology include the movement toward 'open software' and simulation on a PC.
Willow Garage is an entity in California which is combining open software, simulation and a common
android platform to attemtp to make significant progress in creating a general purpose android robot.
View the following film to see what they are going to try to accomplish over the next two years:
Summary:
Willow Garage will offer 11 research teams free use of its PR2 robots for two years. The robots, built with
an open-source software platform, can be programmed to do many tasks.
For years, one of the dreams of robot enthusiasts and researchers has been a single robot capable of
performing a wide variety of tasks. But while single-purpose robots are everywhere, the general-purpose
vision has remained pretty much a fantasy.
Groups of roboticists at 11 institutions around the world will get a chance to take part in a beta project
that could change that dynamic forever. Willow Garage, a Menlo Park, Calif., robotics firm, said that in
June 2010 it will offer each of the 11 teams a two-year loan of a Personal Robot 2 (PR2), a sophisticated
machine that is fully programmable and that has two arms, a "rich sensor suite," a mobile base, and 16
CPU cores. Also included is the free, open-source Robot Operating System (ROS) framework that
controls the PR2 and that comes with software libraries for perception, navigation, and manipulation.
And for the first time, these researchers will have a chance not only to program a general-purpose robot
but also to contribute the work they've done on Willow Garage's open-source robotics platform to a wide
community of researchers, a forward leap that could allow others to quickly advance the state of the art.
One of the teams that was selected to receive a free loan of a PR2 was the UC Berkeley team. A grad
student there had previously programmed a PR2 to fold towels. Now the team there wants to teach its
robot to do all the tasks involved in doing a load of laundry.
Potentially another team could teach the robot to make beds and another to do simple cooking chores
including loading the dishwasher with soap and dishes and turning it on. Unloading the dishwasher and
placing dishes in the cabinets without breaking anything will be quite an accomplishment.
Each function which a team adds to its robot may be shared by the other robots. Unlike humans, how to
programs can be transferred from one robot to another identical robot. Educating robots becomes much
simpler than educating humans.
More at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20004050-52.html
Please note that Willow Garage is using two of the New Intel® Xeon® Processors which were announced
on March 30, 2010.
Intel's Fastest Enterprise and High-Performance Computing Chip Provides Average of Three Times
Increase in Processing Speed, More than 20 New Reliability Features
Largest performance leap in Intel® Xeon® processor history, with an average improvement of 3x across a
range of benchmarks. Data centers can replace 20 single core servers with a single new Intel Xeon 7500
processor series-based system
.
More than 20 new reliability features and eight-core, 16-threaded Intel® Xeon® Processor 7500 series
performance further accelerate mission-critical adoption on Intel server systems.
Unprecedented advances in scalability allow new designs to range from two-socket platforms up to 256
chips per system.
New servers to feature 4x increase in memory capacity (up to 1 Terabyte in 4-processor configurations);
8x increase in memory bandwidth.
By using these relatively expensive processors, Willow Garage is permitting developers to use a
computer system that would have been labeled a "Supercomputer" only a few years ago.
Next
Teachbot Teaches Humans