iRobots May Inspire Other Robot Manufacturers

One of the cornerstones of the modern technological development and overall progress is robotic industry. There are many creative minds and enthusiasts in this field, not only amateurs but professionals as well. One of them is the famous iRobot company that already made many cool robots like iRobot Warrior or iRobot Roomba. So IEEE made a video tour into their headquarters and found out a lot of different interesting things about the technology and development of iRobot’s robots.

Robots control

Those robots can be either autonomous or remotely controlled. They have a lot of different skills and features as well. For example, many robots were created with the inspiration from nature. They have a crab-like shape and can move on different terrain, adapting to the surface. Or there is a worm-like iRobot that can work inside the working oil rig, move inside narrow places and get to the spots no human can get to.

There are iRobots which can take and move things around in harsh conditions like nuclear plants after the accidents or other environment that is extremely dangerous to any human being. There are also few types of iRobots which can emulate human emotions or even facial expressions (just remember the Japanese androids).

The next type of iRobots is the exploring type. For example, there are robots which can climb any kind of walls or other vertical surfaces: glass, wet surface, slippery surface or any other surface as well. They use suction cups and pull and push air through them to do their job. Moreover, they can carry nice weight with them, like 6 pack of soda, while the size of the robot itself is quite small. Imagine how many equipment can be carried with it!

Different sensors

There are iRobots which have many different sensors on them. They can be aware of someone or something is touching them or hitting them and make a difference between those two things. According to what their sensors are saying, robots will react in response. Robots can also react to the sound and differentiate one from another depending on their loudness. And there are also iRobot Roomba that can figure out where are the obstacles it needs to avoid like walls or staircases.

iRobot also made a small robot that looks and acts like Recon Scout XT from ReconRobotics. Soldier can carry it in a pocket, thrown it into the building and use to perform remote surveillance. Or there is a robot that can lengthen its “neck” with camera at the top at 8 feet to snoop above the high walls and fences. Or there is another peeping robot that is small enough to move under the door like a worm with the tiny camera on it.

Despite iRobot has a fully autonomous self-driving vehicle (pre-Google cars), most surveillance robots are still controlled by humans via remote control because technology of complete robot automation is a military-grade and really expensive one. Moreover, there are iRobots called Swarm (do not mix-up with flying SWARM I wrote about earlier) which can communicate with each other, assign a swarm leader and do the task teamwise. If the leader is shut down or destroyed, they choose a new one from remaining robots in the swarm.

Jammers for robots

As long as modern robots can do a lot of stuff like jumping, flying, maintaining their balance, etc. they can be used by almost anyone to conduct hidden surveillance day and night on the unsuspecting people. And one of them might be you. So to secure your life from this progressing threat you can use jammer for robots that can be tuned to block all frequencies they use (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, standard remote controls, GPS, GSM, etc.).

What do you think about the development of modern robotic industry and iRobot company in particular? Please share your comments with me.