PETERBOROUGH, N.H. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Hollywood sci-fi androids have led people to believe that the state of mobile robotics is well beyond what is actually the case. ActivMedia's PeopleBot breaks the price barrier restraining human-interaction robotics development. Because of PeopleBot, engineers and programmers will now be able to transform expectations created by science fiction into actual… technological fact.

Other tall robots cost five times as much and even at those prices, few have as many capabilities as the PeopleBot out of the box. In addition, some tall robots run only under Linux, rather than the more popular WIN98 operating system. For these reasons, their use has been restricted to a handful of PhD roboticists.

ActivMedia Robotics, LLC announced this week their first run of PeopleBot platforms for customers in Germany, Japan, UK and the US. ActivMedia Robotics also manufactures the popular Pioneer robots, winners of the World RoboCup Soccer Championship and many American Association for Artificial Intelligence contests. Pioneers have also appeared on Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda.

Programmable by any talented C/C++ programmer, under Linux or WIN98, the PeopleBot has the abilities to:

• SPEAK when and what its told to, in a variety of languages
  
• LISTEN for phrases or sounds it recognizes
  
• RESPOND to requests or conditions it senses
  
• NAVIGATE without running over toes, furniture or toddlers
  
• FIND objects it recognizes
  
• GO to a point-n-click location on its map
  
• FOLLOW colors
  
• TRANSMIT video images to surveillance monitors
  
• COMMUNICATE with other robots or computers
  
• RUN AUTONOMOUSLY, stopping only for recharging or
  
• RUN LARC (Limited-Authority Remote Control), remotely controlled unless the robot senses an obstacle, in which case it will override the controller

PeopleBot senses its environment through sonar, motor encoders, bump sensors, vision, sound and/or laser range-finder. Its Saphira Robotic Development Environment, created by SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center, provides basic navigation software. Speech integration, color-tracking and other plug-ins are available. All PeopleBot software is transparent to C/C++. Vertical-market specialists and other value-added resellers are expected to use PeopleBot as a base for applications for target markets such as business promotions, monitoring and entertainment.

ActivMedia PeopleBots start at $6,000 and top at $35,000 while other companies' tall robots start at $42,000 and frequently cost $150,000 or more.

* Read related LinuxDevices.com article *

 
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