Disappointing State of Robotics

The Korean government is desperately searching for a new moneymaker. They call it a Growth Engine, but the idea is basically that they want to repeat their phenomenal economic growth of the past 50 years, which they accomplished using electronics, shipbuilding and semiconductor exports. While the government has not yet identified which cash cow is truly full of cash, they are entertaining many possibilities. One of these possibilities is robotics, and therefore one can see a big push for robotics technology development on the peninsula. However, the state of robotics here is no different from the rest of the world, really, and that means it is disappointing.

The robotics industry has it rough. Other industries regularly push or exceed the envelope of expectation and fantasy. But robotics has trouble replicating the stories found in 3,000-year-old mythology. Greek folk tales included iron men created by the gods, who were strong, fast, tough, and followed orders perfectly. The current state of robotics, however, finds difficulty in reading five-letter words and walking in a straight line. This state of robotics has been brought, blinking and confused, to the forefront of scrutiny by the Korean government lately, but the details do not reveal an economic miracle by any means.

For Instance, the 2009 IT Expo Busan

Driving this point home was the opening ceremony of the 2009 IT Expo Busan, held at the BEXCO convention center from Aug. 2-5, which was combined with RoboWorld Busan 2009 for maximum technological coverage. The opening ceremony was a sign of what was to come later on in the expo, because it was very robot-centric. At first, approximately 20 robotic dogs, called Genibo, performed an intricate dance in which they stood on two legs, put their paws in the air, and shook them like they just didn't care. A B-boy group soon joined them, doing robot-style dances. After that was finished, small robotic servants holding the trappings of a ribbon-cutting ceremony escorted the requisite beautiful women in passing out scissors and gloves to the conglomeration of scissor-wielding dignitaries. A silvery, humanoid-looking robot also stood on the sidelines during the ceremony, and moved its arms around a bit.

The event started almost an hour and a half late because of technical problems with the robotic dogs, the robotic servants and the silvery humanoid-style robot from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). The robotic dogs were supposed to sit still and wait for the wireless signal to start their choreographed dance routine, but they wouldn't turn on correctly. The robotic dogs are plastic, and only have a few behaviors that they run through, such as walking a few feet and wagging their rubber tails. But the fact that they are already out of control and do not perfectly follow the commands of their masters is quite disturbing. Or perhaps the robotic dog masters were not communicating well enough with the dogs to get them to do what they want, which is a slightly less but still disturbing theory. Even when the ceremony finally began, three dogs did not join in with the dancing, but sat there inert.

The rolling trashcan-looking robots had one simple task - to roll along a straight line to a point, make a 180 degree turn, and roll back along the same line, stopping frequently to allow their attractive female escorts to take gloves and scissors from their robotic holding trays and give them to dignitaries involved in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. This proved to be too difficult for one of the two robots. It did not turn fully 180 degrees during practice sessions, frequently turning 175 or 160 degrees, putting it at risk of running into a dignitary during the opening ceremony. Also, the rolling tin cans were not programmed to stop for a long enough period of time, uncaringly hurrying their exasperated escorts in their scissor-dispensing efforts.

Finally, the humanoid and silvery Mahru III robot, which showed up strapped by its shoulders to a kind of rolling support structure, looked like it was set to participate in the event somehow. But, when its handlers released it from hanging by its shoulders, it simply collapsed into a silvery pile on the floor. Something was evidently wrong with its legs. After a flurry of handlers fiddled with it, the robot was able to stand on its own two feet. It mimicked the motions of one of the handlers' arm-waving perfectly after that, but from the sidelines and at an almost invisible angle. It looked like it was supposed to show some motion-capture mimicking technology, but that idea also - pardon the pun - fell flat.

The most entertaining and least error-prone aspect of the opening ceremony was the B-boy group, which danced in the style of a robot for several numbers, trying to keep something going during the hour and a half delay. One must admit that they did an excellent robot impression, dancing better than the robotic dogs. But when humans can do it better than robots, there is still a lot of work left to go on the robots.

Once the 2009 IT Expo Busan opened, there were many more robots to be seen. In fact, there was an addition to the lineup of events - the International Robot Contest 2009. In this contest, hand-assembled robots competed in a variety of skill tests. The most exciting of these was the robotic gladiator's ring, in which foot-tall champions did their best to knock each other over while staying upright.

There were a variety of standard robotic applications, the most interesting of which was the Nuvo. This line of robotic appliances came in the shape of a stylized robot standing about a foot and a half tall. Their primary purposes, however, would be familiar to anyone. They are toys, and can be controlled with a remote control, voice recognition, a mobile phone, or even the user's PC. They can play music, walk around independently and dance.

There were also quite a lot of fire and rescue robots. The firefighting robots were designed to go to unapproachable burning sites where human firefighters could not go. They were entirely built around their own water cannon, giving a variety of different types of water sprays. They were designed to climb stairs and look around with heat-resistant cameras, and they looked like miniature tanks on treads.

Robotic mules were also displayed this year, and they were quite interesting. Designed to walk upright and carry large loads over dangerous terrain, these autonomous robots are the cutting edge of robotic adaptations to need. This dangerous-looking, camouflaged model was specifically designed to go out with the military, and even though the technology is not yet ready for the field, the possibilities are almost endless.

The most novel type of robot was the robotic fish, a fully-functional swimming, plastic life imitator. It was displayed in a full fish tank, and lazily meandered around in the water just as real fish do. Its see-through plastic exterior shows just how much electronics are required to perfectly imitate something as simple as a fish, and is a good reminder of how much the state of the art has to go in order to create convincing robotic animals, much less robotic humanoids.

Second Opinion

A highly-technical second example is the FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009, which took place in Incheon, Korea on Aug. 16. The event was full of interesting presentations on a variety of robotics-related topics, from terrain mapping to emotion, behavior, and interaction. One of the more interesting sessions was called "Biped/Humanoid Robotics." It specifically dealt with developing the robots that are mostly found in science fiction - the ones that look like us. There were three presentations in this session. One was about a robot that can read words, a second was about a robot that can dance, and the third was about a robot that has almost all the degrees of movement that a person has.

Yu-Te Su, a student from the National Cheng Kung University of Taiwan, made his presentation first. His robot, the aiRobot-2, was learning how to look at words printed in black on a white background and stuck on the wall. The robot can read the word and repeat it back. The way it does this is by extensive filtering of the image that it receives from the sensor in its head. First it discards all the parts of the image that are not a word. Then it divides the word area into letter areas, and then divides each letter area into a 5x5 grid. Using mathematics it compares the light and dark grid squares to known letters, and then chooses the closest match. After doing all this computation it pronounces the word with its on-board speaker. The whole process takes about a minute.

The second presentation was by David Grunberg, a student from Drexel University in the United States. His presentation was about developing a robot that can listen to a song, get the beat, and start dancing to it. Robots have been doing dances to music already, but they only follow a pre-arranged set of moves and pay no attention to the music. Syncing the robots up with the music is the problem of the handlers.

Grunberg's team's project was to get robots to actually pay attention to the music. He used a RoboNova model robot to develop this ability. They developed a way to identify the probable beat and do moves based on the beat, but there was some processing lag so the robot was unable to identify the beat and move in time to it at the same time. They ended up hooking the robot up to a faster processor, which was able to get the robot to move in time with the beat.

The third presentation was by Dr. Jacky Baltes, a professor of computer science at the University of Manitoba. Originally from Germany, Baltes has done work both in New Zealand and Canada. He gave a presentation on the new robot his department received from Peter Kopacek, a retired professor of the Vienna Technical University. Baltes inherited the robot and one Ph.D. student, Ahmad Byagowi. His goal is to make the robot dance.

This particular robot, named ARCHIE, was built with the explicit goal of mimicking human interaction as much as possible. It was built with all the degrees of movement that a person's body has, and with custom-built joints that are unique in the robotics world. It does not use servomotors like most robots do, and therefore does not suffer from a servomotor breaking once a month as most other robots do. Another advantage that it has over other robots is that it has an articulated foot. The front of each foot can bend up and down, allowing the foot to bow into a shape that they anticipate will be good for running. However, the robot is still working on the basics right now. The robot is about the size of a child, three feet tall or so. It has extremely long arms and legs attached to a tiny frame, which makes it look a little disconcerting. Not helping is the mannequin's head that is attached to the top with a puppet's mouth, which is a placeholder for a more functional head.

Now, Just Toys

There were also a few exhibits from robotics companies set up in the lobby of the event to show what robotics was doing in the small, consumer entertainment field. From toys to serious soccer robots, the selection was interesting to say the least.

First was Ollo, a cross between Legos and robots. The Ollo robots are targeted at younger children, in order to get them interested in science and technology at a young age. The plastic pieces come with motors, CPUs, sensors, remote controllers, software and even books to learn about how all the robots work. One can build planes, trains, windmills, helicopters, a variety of dinosaurs, and even a dog. They move and walk and do a variety of fun interactions. Their customizable frame means that children can mix and match pieces to make their own monstrosities with which they will undoubtedly attack their other toys. It sounds like tons of fun all around.

In a similar vein, there were the Bioloids. They seemed to be a line of robots more sturdy and flexible than the Ollo, and also more expensive. They included humanoid robots standing on their own two feet, and spider-like robots. They also had wheeled models. The robots altogether looked like they could be used for professional robotics competitions.

More impressive was the $1200 walking, running, dancing, and soccer ball-kicking Robotis model. The robot was easily able to balance on its feet in order to kick out with the other foot. It was able to do this without falling over or hesitating. Using a simple directional controller, one is able to have the robot step to the side, turn, move forward, move backwards, and everything that a person can do. The robot is about one foot high.

Altogether, the presentation and the exhibits were somewhat disappointing. The robots had difficulty in doing the smallest calculations and performing the most mundane movements. If this level of technical competency in robotics research is going to translate into an economy-driving miracle industry, it's going to have to take long strides to reach further than the novelty toy appeal it has right now.

So after all of this, one feels compelled to say that its not all bad, as there is some progress. Something encouraging to help the little robot guys along. Because, while they look like they are trying so hard, they are just not getting there yet. And if they ever do get there, it will be many years from now.

Perhaps it may be best if Korea looked elsewhere for its economy-buffing engine of phenomenal progress.