Recent advances in robotics - Folding towels!

 

Although fascinating to watch, it's hard not to feel overwhelmed. Folding? Towels? Origami human expert can a snake in 1000 scales folded from a single sheet of paper to do! You can bend 3-D mosaics that MC Escher would fishy!

 

But it had to do for the time PR2 Abbeel towels and his team face a major challenge in robotics: robots opportunity to empty. His clothes have family here and there - scattered, chaotic mixing wet cotton Robotiker is a nighmare.

 

I was skeptical, so I called a scientist who has devoted much of his career wrinkles - physicist and origami master Robert J. Lang. Bay Area Residents of the United Lang, Origami and mathematics has more than 500 origami models schematized, including some of the most complex structures ever created and Abbeel robot.

 

It comes down to how hard it is to manipulate what is called Abbeel not rigid objects, it is. "Or in a long-term use" disordered structures. "Towels should be treated Batteries difficult for robots, because there are no two alike.

 

Origami, either a crane or a single long folding edge creations, such as rattlesnakes, Opus 55, and his incredible sense of tessellation molecular basis of this document is uniform. But not in the world of laundry and towels, pants and blankets out there in random order, stinking pile. I asked if Abbeel aesthetics professor, if he had created on PR2-folding napkins into consideration. Surprisingly, there is a kind of delicate beauty to see the clumsy robot research network Shake, soft, clean cloth for each battery.

 

"What I noticed is that when people see the robot Fold the towel, the robot is perceived as truly cares about the towel," said Abbeel.

 

What Abbeel see for yourself? The robot does not care courses. It is the only way to do that is programmed to do. But Abbeel is something most of us do not take into account: the student's personality, which have contributed to, or some code.