AIBO in the dog house

Citation

(2006), "AIBO in the dog house", Industrial Robot, Vol. 33 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ir.2006.04933daa.001

AIBO in the dog house

AIBO in the dog house

The theme for this issue is “Mobile robots” and with this in mind I was particularly disappointed to learn that Sony, who manufacture the AIBO and ORIO “toy” robots had decided to get out of the robotics business.

I expect that the decision was more based on high level corporate strategy than on the commercial merits of these robots. AIBO, Sony’s robot dog, has certainly been a technical success story. Although rather expensive compared with its biological counterparts they have shown themselves to be useful and challenging platforms for the development of mobile intelligence and cooperative behaviours.

Whilst attending the CURAC Medical Robotics Conference in Berlin last year I was delighted to see that an AIBO football match was scheduled for the social calendar. Approaching this as I was with a high level of scepticism I was very impressed by what I saw. Teams of five robots on each side worked autonomously and cooperatively to score goals. The action was fast and furious and fun. In round two the Blue team were controlled by teleoperation under the command of conference delegates and it was interesting that the combined IQ of the human team was beaten comprehensively by the autonomous AIBOs. Inexperience and a few glasses of beer undoubtedly tipped the balance in favour of the automata – but it was still rather impressive.

Try the same trick with bunch of Cairn terriers and you would be lucky if they did not eat the ball.

In a debate that I chaired a few years ago we had six international experts on the podium and I poised the question “wheels or legs – which is best?” Rather disappointingly, considering that it was a debate, all six experts came down in favour of wheels. I do not agree with this view, although I can see that wheels offer technical simplicity and that in some circumstances (quite a lot actually), wheels are adequate for the task. Indeed if I was tasked with making a mobile robot today I would probably go for wheels as well. However, if I was tasked with making a mobile robot for tomorrow – I would go for legs.

Why? – A wheeled robot would not make it past my entrance hall.

NASA’s Robonaut was built to human dimensions specifically because it had to work in environments designed for humans. And you do not need to go into outer space for this rule to apply. Our whole environment is geared towards people moving around on legs and if you do not believe me you should try asking someone who uses a wheelchair. Of course the rights of handicapped people are now being recognised, but it has not been without a struggle.

If we have made life so hard for our fellow humans are we really going to be that much better at making it easy for wheeled robots?

Clive Loughlin