Page 164 - Modern Robotics Building Versatile Macines

144 Modern Robotics

The basic idea for the SEEGRID Corporation’s first product
was a delivery cart that the user “trained” by bringing it to
required locations while it recorded three-dimensional images
and calculated safe routes from one location to the next. The
robot could then travel automatically between the locations and
await loading or unloading by humans. Its sophisticated three-
dimensional stereo-vision mapping system automatically updated
its internal maps and calculated new routes or detours if neces-
sary. In the Scientific American article, Moravec said that he
sees other applications for such robots, including housecleaning.
SEEGRID and E-P Equipment Inc. announced the first imple-
mentation of this system in a warehouse delivery vehicle called
“Smarttruck” in January 2005.
Such vehicles have a large potential market. Currently, workers
must laboriously use dollies or forklifts to move materials into or
out of warehouses. Some existing automated systems (such as that
used by the giant bookstore Amazon) use fixed conveyer belts or
guideways. Such systems are prone to blockage from unexpected
movements of materials, and they are not easy to reconfigure as the
flow of work changes. Moravec’s robotic stevedores can find their
way around most obstacles. If the layout of the warehouse or factory
changes, the robots are simply “walked” along the new path and
told about the new designated delivery points.

Looking Forward

Today Moravec continues as director of the Mobile Robot
Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University and directs innovative
projects in robotic vision and other applications. He has also con-
sulted for a number of leading computer and robotics companies
and the Office of Naval Research and lectured widely at universi-
ties and conferences.
When Chip Walter of Scientific American asked Moravec what
he thought would happen when robots became more intelligent than
people, he observed that “something like 99 percent of all species
go extinct.” Would this be the fate of humanity as well? Maybe, but
Moravec suggested a different possibility. Calling future robots our