SimplySim: A very impressive 3D simulation environment

I was recently told about SimplySim a new French startup that specializes in creating realistic 3D simulations. The small company was established a year ago with the hope of offering the best simulation software and related services to the robotics community.

SimplySim simulations are not only visually pleasing but also physically correct. The software integrates nicely with the Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio providing complete and detailed 3D environments and sensor models such as the sonar one recently released. In fact, any 3D environment created using one of the many tools included in Simply Suite can be exported and used in a robotics simulation within MRDS. The SimplySim team has recently released an MRDS simulator for the Lego NXT Mindstorms which is free to download from the SimplySim website.

The simulated robot is composed of a differential drive, an ultrasonic sensor, a light intensity sensor and a bumper. You can also control the claws. It moves in a fully physical environment with several objects.

The team is also working closely with Microsoft to support the Imagine Cup event and more specifically the Mars Challenge competition. This challenge requires students to develop software that would guide a NASA rover to explore near a crater on the surface of Mars performing science experiments classifying different rock types while looking for evidence for the existence of water on the Red planet.

It is difficult to appreciate how good the 3D simulations are from a textual description thus I present below a video showing off some of the main features of the product including the above mentioned NXT simulator package.

Pleo goes the way of the dodo bird

I was finally proven wrong in my criticism of the robot dinosaur toy Pleo and its maker Ugobe. It turns out that Ugobe indeed built an exact replica of a dinosaur, a real life form; so exact in fact, that Pleo went extinct just like the real dinosaurs. In retrospect, Pleo's demise can be attributed to a number of reasons that I will summarize shortly. In the meantime, just in case that you haven't heard it yet, Ugobe filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy a few days ago. The company had to let go all of its employees (unfortunately) and is currently in the process of liquidating its assets.

I said since the introduction of Pleo in 2006 that the product was over hyped. It definitely created a niche following among some early technology adopters but it never hit the big time even though it was making huge headlines in all major (and not) publications and TV shows. It didn't take long, however, before people started to complain that their robots weren't capable of doing more than walk around slowly and make random sounds; needless to say, the learning that a Pleo was supposed to be capable of over time did not live up to expectation. Even so, Ugobe was successful in selling about 100,000 of these toys that originally retailed for $350. Recently Amazon reduced Pleo's price to $250 but it was too little too late fro the ambitious robotic toy.

To a large degree, Ugobe fell victim to the recent economic downturn that has hurt many businesses. Their offering was too expensive for a toy in an economic climate that will be remembered for huge job losses and a shut credit market. Failing to improve their original offering of 2006 didn't help Ugobe either. There were rumors of a newer, better version of Pleo that never materialized or maybe it never did because bankruptcy hit too soon. The personality upgrades made available via the official website also fell short of expectations.

The company says that they tried to sell or merge with a bigger company in an effort to continue their work on Pleo but it just was not meant to be. Ugobe's IP which includes a number of patents is expected to fetch a decent amount of money when put on sale.

In general, the consumer robotics market is currently under a lot of stress because of the ongoing debt and credit crisis. The truth is that there exist no robots in the market that perform a useful task at a price that would justify a money strapped consumer to purchase it. I would not be surprised if sales of other toy and consumer robots such as those manufactured by WowWee and iRobot have also gone down in volume in the last few months and probably remain lower than usual for the rest of the year. Of course, both WowWee and iRobot are large enough companies to survive the current economic conditions but a small company such as Ugobe had little hope of doing the same.

I just hope that the Ugobe employees who find themselves unemployed in such difficult times are able to find new work quickly.

Tweenbots: Human-dependent robots navigating a big city

Tweenbots are cute little robots with few skills of their own other than being able to slowly move forward. At 10 inches high, tweenbots have a hard time navigating even the smallest of obstacles needing lots of help from humans passing by.

The tiny robots are the creation of Kacie Kinzer, an arts student interested in studying something I don't understand, "...finding ways to provided more textured and meaningful experiences through technology--particularly in relation to the transmission of narrative." Regardless, this Tisch School of the Arts student created the tweenbots which are capable of navigating long distances in urban settings relying heavily on the kindness of strangers to point them in the right direction.

If you thought that the robots would never reach their destination, think again. With the help of other pedestrians, tweenbots have successfully navigated considerable distances such as crossing the Washington Square Park in 42 minutes.

The video below shows the tweenbots in action crossing the park. Go little guy, go!

Humanoid robots to explore the Moon

Japan announced the other day that they are creating a roadmap for sending humanoid robots to the Moon a a first step towards human-robot space exploration. The current roadmap as announced by Japan's Strategic Headquarters for Space Development includes sending the first humanoids to explore the Earth's natural satellite by 2020. This is only 11 years from now which makes Japan's project a very bold one. Humanoid robots can hardly navigate man-made environments with lots of structure on Earth, it is hard to believe that in the next decade robotics technology will advance so far that such robot astronauts will be possible.

I am not saying that bipedal robots will never be constructed and possibly become a major component of space missions. What I am saying is that I don't think this is going to happen by 2020. NASA has had a space robotics program for ever and the most advanced and reliable robots that they have been able to send to other planets, namely Mars, have all been wheeled rovers.

The next generation planetary explorers that NASA is preparing are also of the same kind albeit much larger and more mobile than the current and past generations. The ATHLETE rover for example is under heavy development as a future platform for exploring the Lunar surface and it's design makes much more sense than a bipedal machine. Also, don't forget about Google's Lunar X Prize which is an effort to encourage private industry to construct and send a small exploration rover to the Moon as cheaply and as quickly as possible.

At the end of the day, a rover has higher mobility, can carry a larger payload (instruments, batteries, solar panels) and can reliably navigate terrain of all kinds. To expect a bipedal robot to have such capabilities in a decade requires much ambition and lots of engineering breakthroughs.

I have a feeling that Japan is aiming for publicity more than practicality in space robotics. They have now scrapped plans for their manned space program and they have yet to start the construction of their Lunar lander. They believe it will take another 2 years before they figure out all the details regarding the announced robotics mission to the Moon. Maybe they are trying to get the media to talk about their robotics project and ignore that at the same time they announced plans for the construction and deployment of military satellites. Finally, Japan is also planning to create robotics technologies to help cleanup some of the debris floating in orbit around the Earth. This space garbage poses a huge hazard to satellites, the International Space Station, and any other man-made object that is sent into space.