Taiwan University Students Build Tour-Guide Robot

BobB-nw writes "A group of engineering students and their professor at National Taiwan University have built a robot that can map out the area it's operating in and offer guided tours. The robot, named 'Hsiao Mei,' uses laser mapping and GPS technology to navigate on its own, including around corners and obstacles such as tables and chairs. In the first public demonstration on Thursday, an engineering student with a wireless remote control first took the robot through the floor of a small museum on the university's campus so it could create a map for itself. After the initial run-through, the robot was able to make an unaided journey around the floor."

GPS?

[noname444]

I've worked on a similar project, but we avoided GPS, since it doesn't work very well indoors.
What I want to know is if TFA is wrong, or if they're really using GPS. If it works fairly well, that would have made our lives a lot easier during my project.

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

There's a different between: "where the sun doesn't shine" and "where the satellite doesn't shine"

Re:GPS?

[MichaelSmith]

I've worked on a similar project, but we avoided GPS, since it doesn't work very well indoors.
What I want to know is if TFA is wrong, or if they're really using GPS. If it works fairly well, that would have made our lives a lot easier during my project.

Synthetic indoor GPS is commonly used for robotics.

Re:

[pengipengi]

Is it GPS then?

GPS is Global Positioning System. Even though the room is big, it's not global.

I think a better acronym would be LPS, Local Positioning System. But I've never heard that acronym before, and urban dictionary translates it to something else :P

Re:

[Hurricane78]

Could you explain this, or provide some links? The only search result I get, is this very post:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Synthetic+indoor+GPS%22&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.gentoo:en-US:official&filter=0 [google.com]

Re:

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah looks like its not as widespread as I thought it was, to say the least.

That's pretty cool. Roomba could use it!

[BadAnalogyGuy]

One of the problems I have with the Roomba is how it only operates in a pattern and uses sensors to adjust its path. However, if it were able to map the floor, it could more efficiently cover the entire area without having to retread its steps all the time. Naturally, it would need to test the boundaries every once in a while to see if the boundaries are still valid, but that wouldn't have to be done every single time it swept back and forth.

I wonder if such mapping technology could be used to automatically

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

You want an Electrolux Trilobite [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[ArsenneLupin]

Is higher than the Roomba, and thus doesn't go under beds. And costs more moolah.

Re:

[Hal_Porter]

I wonder what the name means in Chinese.

Hsiao Mei (Wade Giles a deprecated but still common Romanization method in Taiwan) = Xiao3 Mei4 in Hanyu Pinyin = little sister.

http://www.mandarintools.com/cgi-bin/charlook.pl?searchmode=standard&printtype=utf8&chartype=all&ordering=frequency&display=char&display=radstroke&display=strokes&display=pinyin&display=english&display=variants&display=unicode&english=&pinyin=&cantonese=&enctype=utf8&whatchar=%E5%B0%8F%E5%A6%B9&searchchar=Search+by+Cha [mandarintools.com]

Re:

[PPH]

I'd be happy with AI sufficient to make it chase the cat.

But... can it defend itself?

[Lead Butthead]

Does it contain self defense mechanism against theft and dismemberment? Will it use deadly force to assure its own continued existence? Oh wait...

Robot guide

[Thanshin]

"On your left, you may observe a thirteenth century representa... GZHRRRZT... ANNIHILATE HUMANS! ANNIHILATE HUMANS!"

I love this

[krou]

Combine this with the evil and deceptive AI being worked on, and we can have a real laugh watching these robots direct museum visitors into open elevator shafts, or into puddles of water on marble floors. "Beep, you're on Candid Camera" will be all the rage amongst our new robotic overlords (which I, of course, welcome).

Re:

[BSAtHome]

Hello, I am your robotic overlord and tour guide for the day. Please keep your hands off and eyes on the exhibits. My camera system sees all and sensor array hears all. Please also note that I am equipped with multiple dead-man switches, for your convenience, and may explode at any time.

Thats 10 year old news

[bickerdyke]

http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news12995 [idw-online.de]

Thats the google query where you can find more articles about the project: http://www.google.com/search?q=roboter+baumarkt+ilmenau [google.com]

Sorry but obviosly that project was mainly covered in the german press.

English Homepage: http://www.tu-ilmenau.de/fakia/Projects.2202.0.html?&L=1 [tu-ilmenau.de]

What is this? News for robots!

[Nursie]

Or is it just robot season? We've had throwable robots, fleash-eating robots, evil robots, deceptive robots...

Don't get me wrong, I love robots, it's just I've never seen so much robot related news in a week before.

Bite my shiny metal ass.

Re:

[Thanshin]

Or is it just robot season? We've had throwable robots, fleash-eating robots, evil robots, deceptive robots...

And the joke grows ever bigger.

The janitor pops out of his bunker just for a second to throw what seems to be a malformed metal egg with deep red stains over its dark shiny skin. The egg bounces a couple times on the granite museum floor before coming to a stop in front of the tourists.
A gust of green vapours escape the egg as it slowly deploys legs, arms and an open mouth with teeth that seem to have been recently sharpened down to points.

"Good morning. I'll be your robotic guide" says the egg robot with a

Re:

[spacefiddle]

Robot season!
Droid season!
Robot season!
Droid season!

Re:

[metaforest]

Wobot Season!
Duck Season!
Wobot Season!
Duck Season!
WOBOT SEASON!
DUCK SEASON!

Shoot him now!
Oh be quiet he doesn't have to shoot you now!

Oh, er sorry...

I'm actually quite surprised at this

[AdmiralXyz]

I had sort of assumed that all university tour guides were robots. They sure seemed that way to me.

Not of much use ...

[PPH]

... as a tour guide unless it can dodge traffic crossing an Italian traffic circle.

SLAM

[Beezlebub33]

The problem with this sort of article is that it doesn't say how the thing actually works. They are trying to solve the 'SLAM' or Simultaneous Localization and Mapping [wikipedia.org] problem. The best approaches have recently been particle filter based. See the work by Sebastian Thrun at Stanford or Montemerlo's dissertation [cmu.edu] at CMU. I would have to guess that they are using a similar approach.
But of course this has been done before. The discussed project looks very similar to Minerva [cmu.edu].

Huh... doesn't Hsiao Mei sound like

[Anonymous Coward]

..."show me"? If so, great name!

bah

[spacefiddle]

NO TOURBOTS [wikipedia.org].

We're walking, we're walking...

[SEWilco]

"On your right is a chair. On the left is the roommate, he's always passed out on the floor. Here is where I ..fall..down..the..stairs. Tour continues when someone picks me up."

I think I've seen this

[ehaggis]

It's called "Johnny Cab".