Gulf Times – Qatar’s top-selling English daily newspaper

As you cruise along in a hi-tech cab driven by another robot, which launches into a commentary pointing out various landmarks, you come across more robots.

A couple of Segway RMP (robotic mobility platform) engage in small talk as they criss-cross paths while running courier errands.

No sooner than you begin to wonder where have all the humans gone, you suddenly realise some are catching up with the cab in their Segway HT (Human Transporter).

This is not imagination that would remain as fiction. All this and much more could become a reality in the not-too-distant future.

Especially when robotics research, that has begun to sprout at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMUQ), starts yielding results for the world to see.

“We are trying to make robots that do smart things,” David L Duke and Justin Carlson, teaching assistants at CMUQ, told Gulf Times in an interview.

The duo, research students from CMU’s Robotics Institute in Pittsburgh, US, are advised by CMUQ dean Dr Charles E Thorpe, a globally acclaimed robotics expert.

Dr Thorpe, Duke and Carlson are members of the CMU Navlab group that builds computer-controlled vehicles for automated and assisted driving.

The research students, who teach a robotics class to CMUQ’s computer science students, are also helping to get robotics research started in Qatar since their arrival in August last year.

“We are starting a kind of a seed programme, to have more people come in and do interesting things” they said.

Two more researchers, including one who works with multiple robot collaboration, are coming this fall.

Duke and Carlson have set up a temporary robotics lab and are currently experimenting with two heavily modified Segway RMP, which are described as Robotic Segways.

They are adapted from Segway HT, the world’s first two-wheeled, self-balancing, electric transportation device, created by American inventor and entrepreneur Dean Kamen.

Equipped with computers, laser scanners and GPS and powered by lead acid batteries these robotic vehicles could very well be the early versions of a type of advanced robots that may roam Education City in future.

“One of the many goals in robotics down the line is to have robots that really operate efficiently and autonomously among humans,” explained Carlson.

There are kind of two approaches to this concept. “On the one hand you can make a robot really smart, by putting cameras on it and have it figure out where people are and react to the situation,” he said.

The other option is to build a lot of knowledge into the robot, for instance, by creating a very good map of the building or place where it is intended to operate.

“My area of research is down that end and I am trying to build these maps which have to be extremely accurate to let the robot navigate,” observed Carlson.

The duo would be driving the Robotic Segways, presently manoeuvred with video game control pads, around the campus in an attempt to learn maps.

In an analogue for cities, they are to be taken next to the Qatar Academy where cars come in the morning to drop off students.

Asked about the vision for the vehicles, Carlson said he would like to see in six months the Robotic Segways wandering on their own through the campus and learning maps.

One of the things Duke is interested in is being able to build a robot that can understand its environment and react accordingly.

So, while Carlson is focused on generating high resolution maps of Education City to enable Robotic Segways navigate independently in future, Duke’s efforts would be to make them ‘smart’ enough and behave properly.

There are some challenges that face the young researchers and their robotic vehicles in their technological pursuit.

Given the fact that the heavy Robotic Segways are self-balancing and need to keep moving slightly to stay upright it has to be ensured that they do not hit people and cause any harm.

“These are little bit trickier to work with as they are unlike other robots, which operate among humans, by sitting on a base,” the duo pointed out.

The fundamental role in robotics is not to hurt anyone. The ground-to-ceiling glass partitions of the temporary robotics lab has been protected at ground level with a barrier in order to prevent the vehicles accidentally crashing out.

Observing that there are some precedents in the US for having robots that operate among humans, Duke referred to the examples of Minerva and GRACE robots.

Minerva, an autonomous robot that moves daily through crowds at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, is equipped with cameras, laser range finders and ultrasonic sensors and actively approaches people, offers tours and then leads them from exhibit to exhibit.

GRACE (Graduate Robot Attending a ConferencE), known as the social robot, has an expressive face on a panning platform as well as a large array of sensors.

GRACE can speak using a high-quality speech synthesiser and understand responses using a microphone and speech recognition software.

Yet another challenge facing the researchers is the need to update maps as and when changes occur in the area of the robots operation.

The Robotic Segways can do very little now, as Duke and Carlson readily admits. The hardware build ended some weeks ago.

“We are still working on the very basic software that we need, like driving it around by hand, looking up at the data we get out of the laser scanners and trying to make things work together,” they said.

The researchers estimate they may need a month more to integrate the various aspects of Robotic Segways and progress further. CMUQ has also brought in some Segway HTs, which Duke and Carlson ride around the campus.

Even as the duo rack their brains, CMUQ and Qatar are making a gradual and steady progress in robotics, one of the fields that could prove to be the country’s strengths for the future.

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