The Ubiquitous Smartphone Gets a New Job > ENGINEERING.com

The Ubiquitous Smartphone Will get a New Job
Raji Sahota posted on October 27, 2020 |

Researchers leverage smartphone tech to advance robotics.

(Picture courtesy of OpenBot)

One main hurdle to the development of robotics is the good value related to the event and manufacturing of those superior machines. Whereas essentially the most cutting-edge robots can value tens of 1000’s of {dollars}, their a lot cheaper counterparts lack spectacular bodily talents, sensor capabilities, and computational energy. This stark trade-off may change into a factor of the previous as a result of a standard merchandise many individuals carry of their pockets. An estimated 3.5 billion folks globally personal a smartphone, with about 96 % of People utilizing the tech units. Two researchers at Intel’s Clever Methods Laboratory, Matthias Muller and Vladlen Koltun, are profiting from this banal pattern by means of their OpenBot mission.

“We’re impressed partly by tasks akin to GoogleCardboard: by plugging commonplace smartphones into low cost bodily enclosures, these designs enabled thousands and thousands of individuals to expertise digital actuality for the primary time,” wrote Muller and Koltun of their white paper on OpenBot. “Can smartphones play the same function in robotics?” they requested.

The aim of OpenBot is to beat two key challenges to advancing robotic know-how: accessibility and scalability. The crux of the mission is to morph atypical Android smartphones into robots by way of an open-source platform as a method to democratize robotics for academic and analysis functions.

OpenBot relies on the fusion of a fundamental robotic physique that prices $50 and a smartphone. The physique is constructed from a 3D-printed body with further fundamental parts assembled by hand utilizing easy instruments. A software program stack hosts a smartphone that’s mounted on the highest of the machine’s physique, permitting the its capabilities to change into a part of the robotic for navigation, sensing and computation. That is advantageous as a result of smartphones are frequently advancing with ever extra highly effective processors, sensors and a number of communication interfaces. Many comprise HD cameras, highly effective CPUs, GPUs, IMUs, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G, 4G, and 5G modems. Some even have AI chips accessing neural networks.

A video depicts an OpenBot in motion. First, it’s proven successfully following behind an individual strolling by means of a neighborhood with winding streets and obstacles akin to parked automobiles. The robotic is supplied with an SSD object detector with a MobileNet spine, and the demonstration exhibits a robust efficiency without having to make the most of the most recent in smartphone know-how. Subsequent, the video offers footage of the bot correctly navigating an workplace setting and executing a driving efficiency whereas utilizing an order of magnitude fewer parameters in comparison with different navigation techniques. Moreover, the robotic was in a position to generalize the flexibility it had gained when utilizing an preliminary smartphone to subsequent telephones. It was additionally in a position to generalize its potential to keep away from novel obstacles and novel routes, each static and dynamic.

“Smartphones level to many prospects for robotics that we have now not but exploited,” acknowledged Muller and Koltun. “For instance, smartphones additionally present a microphone, speaker, and display screen, which aren’t generally discovered on current navigation robots. These could allow analysis and purposes on the confluence of human-robot interplay and pure language processing. We additionally anticipate the fundamental concepts offered on this work to increase to different types of robotic embodiment, akin to manipulators, aerial automobiles, and watercraft.”

OpenBot shouldn’t be the primary try to mix smartphones with robotics. Nevertheless, Muller and Koltun declare {that a} comparable one, the Wheelphone, has solely one- and four-star Github repositories with no present contributions. Additionally they mentioned that the Wheelphone robotic has fewer motors than OpenBot and has fewer capabilities, regardless of being costlier.