- Title: SLOVENIA: Pioneering skiing robot tests limits of science
- Date: 27th January 2010
- Summary: LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA (JANUARY 20) (REUTERS-ACCESS ALL) (SOUNDBITE) (English) BORIS NEMEC, PROJECT SUPERVISOR SAYING: "It is programmed to do like this, but the problem is when we lose the control of the robot, when the computer broke down, reset, and in such a case the computer goes stiff, and when the robot is stiff, it can hurt itself, so it already happened that the ro
- Embargoed: 11th February 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Slovenia
- Country: Slovenia
- Topics: Science / Technology
- Reuters ID: LVAAB4U5RIUW0DT0SLF97SBMM1T6
- Story Text: The Winter Olympics are only a few weeks away and ski enthusiasts can already catch a glimpse of the latest technological innovation on the slopes of Slovenia, where a child-sized robot is making history and helping scientists simulate movement in virtual reality applications.
The skiing robot is a pioneer, one of many cutting-edge projects at Ljubljana's Robotics Laboratory, a part of the Jozef Stefan science institute.
Scientists at the lab are painstakingly teaching their creations the actions and reactions they need to be able to perform certain tasks.
After many hours of learning, the robot can analyse certain actions and begin to understand cause and effect, and be able to make its own decisions within a restricted framework of options.
The robot skier's complex sensory control system is roughly divided between the head and the legs, along similar lines to a human. The upper level processes navigation and vision and the lower level deals with stability.
"The robot has some sensors, and using these sensors, can communicate with the environment, so the main sensors is a vision sensor, we have a USB camera, which sends visual information to the robot, and then we have force sensors, under each ski there is mounted (located) force sensors which let the robot feel the forces, ground direction forces," said robotics scientist Boris Nemec.
Its complex sensory system ensures the skiing robot can remain stable on even an unknown ski slope and it can also avoid a series of obstacles, like race gates on a slalom course.
"Most of all we have electronic gyroscope device, which acts like the internal ear of the humans, that lets the robot stabilize itself on the ski slope" Nemec said.
"So we have to know that stabilization on the ski slope is one of the main issues of the robot, because not only are there a lot of unexpected external forces which can be treated as disturbances on the ski slope, we have quite large of centrifugal forces and forces that arise from movement of the robot itself that will help to stabilize or destabilize the robot," he said.
The robot in question, a world first of this size, is designed to be able to ski using the carving technique, a style of skiing featuring shorter skis and a more natural turning technique.
Unlike previous attempts at developing a robotic skier, where scientists used a humanoid robot to imitate specific motion, this robot focuses on maintaining stability and navigation on an unknown slope that might hide pitfalls that would fell even experienced human skiers.
"It is programmed to do like this, but the problem is when we lose the control of the robot, when the computer broke down, reset, and in such a case the computer goes stiff, and when the robot is stiff, it can hurt itself, so it already happened that the robot broke a robot, broke a gear, broke a ski," he said.
The robot could be used to test ski equipment but it is yet to receive any offers and scientists say it will be some time before gleaming metal show-offs are racing down the pistes of the world's ski resorts.
"Robots, humanoid robots, are much too delicate to use for skiing on a ski slope, because the forces as I said previously are quite, quite big and most probably they will destroy any commercially available robot. So in the near future we don't see this option unless we make the robot more capable"
In the meantime, its performance will help scientists understand human motion and develop algorithms that could lead to great advances in the autonomous motion of robots in unstructured or unknown environments. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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