Intelligent Sensor Technologies 2010 to 2020: Impact and Implications for the Development Community

Track: Enabling Technology

Over the next decade, intelligent sensor technologies will perform increasingly important tasks in our vehicles, homes, workplaces, neighborhoods and even our bodies. Ubiquitous sentinels of behavior, sensors will dramatically reduce inefficiencies in the ways we work and live. However their emergence will also raise challenging questions of privacy, security and liability. In this session, Jonas Lamis, Executive Director, SciVestor Corporation, will present a cross-industry analysis of emerging sensor platforms and the implications on the development community. Key sensing concepts and companies will be examined and how applications that integrate sensors will enable our society. This session will also address the adoption challenges that these technologies will face as the public and political process becomes attuned to their emergence.

iC Hexapod has a head with a CCD camera that sends streaming video to an off-board computer that applies facial recognition algorithms to identify the faces of his onlookers using OpenCV, an Open Source computer vision library. The disembodied computer then sends head movement commands back to iC Hexapod. The result is an emotion evoking robot with smooth and lifelike movement that brings smiles to some kids and adults while creeping out others.

To close the deal, iC Hexapod occasionally takes photos of the people he meets and posts them onto his own blog.

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Check out a video of iC Hexapod at Monster Mash:

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Jonas Lamis contributes to Robot Central, focusing on the business aspects of the robot economy. He also authors the weblog Singularity University and is an advisor to the Singularity Institute on Artificial Intelligence. Mr. Lamis is also the editor of Architecture and Governance Magazine, and writes and speaks frequently on enterprise software technologies.

Patron : “Hey barbeep- another double of Wild Turkey here..”

Moe-bot : “Drink order accepted, execution time- 1.943 ms. So bud-dy, why the excessive liver poisoning tonight? Human female trouble?”

Patron : “Oh yesh, she said she hates me. They all hate me. Why does everyone hate me, Moe-bot?”

Moe-bot : “Well, Bob, all empirical evidence indicates you are 98.3% loser. And 1.7% fecal matter.”

Maybe our mechanical poison pushers should just stick to yelling “NORM!” in a creepy Stephen Hawking voice instead..

Sources:

• RobotExoctica

Rovio leverages Evolution Robotics’ NorthStar 2.0 system which is a clever navigational system based on following a light pattern projected on the ceiling–hence the North Star metaphor. With such a system, the robot can play back recorded routes very accurately.

Robot Central covered other telepresence robots as they try to move into the consumer mainstream.

Rovio will be generally available sometime in the summer and will sell for about $300. This will probably coincide with the release of iRobot’s ConnectR robot which is still in its pilot phase.

Sources:

• GizMag
• Robot Central
• Evolution Robotics

Like the fictional Iron Man suit, HAL (Hybrid Assisted Limb) gets its inputs by sensing neural transmissions to muscles and automatically activates a supplemental actuator to assist in the movement.

Its batteries run for a little over two and a half hours and in some optimal-use circumstances the batteries have been shown to run for up to five hours.

The company expects markets in rehabilitation, heavy manual labor, rescue, and of course, entertainment. The suit is currently only available in Japan and in some parts of Europe. It is leased to its customers for about $1000 per month.

The UC Berkley Human Engineering Laboratory has been working on a similar technology. That project is being sponsored at least in part by DARPA.

Sources:

• Cyberdine
• Exoskeletons
• Iron Man suit image from http://www.lomag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ironman.jpg