Seegrid shows off autonomous Industrial Mobile Robot system

It looks like relative upstart Seegrid is doing its part to help robots snag a few more jobs normally reserved from us humans, with it now showing off its autonomous Industrial Mobile Robot system (or IMR), which promises to let self-navigating material handling vehicles work in environments that were previously not economically or technically feasible for them to serve. At the heart of the system is a beefed up "tugger" ordinarily used for pushing shopping carts around, which has been outfitted with four pairs of cheap CMOS cameras that are connected via plain old USB to the computer under the hood. That allows the bot to look around and build a 3D map of just about any area, which it can then follow to a tee over and over again. Head on past the break to check it out in action.

[Via Engineering TV]

[Samboini @ Jun 4th 2008 5:44PM]

Reminds me of Johnny-5, before he went mental.

[retro77 @ Jun 4th 2008 5:48PM]

Great...now they can rebuild after they totally wipe us off the face of the earth....

[patsy @ Jun 4th 2008 5:50PM]

> When you switch it to Auto, that's when Seagrid takes over.

Mark those words...

[kjb434 @ Jun 4th 2008 6:01PM]

Autonomous robots to move warehouse inventory around has been going on for years. While this is using a camera typed system, others use a magnets embedded in the floor

[Onetruebill @ Jun 4th 2008 7:25PM]

This will not affect jobs in the US...
all of those jobs got sent oversees in the late 90's

WAIT!!!

They have just invented a robotic chinese kid...

[Onetruebill @ Jun 4th 2008 7:25PM]

OK, OK, OK...

overseas...

[andreykireev @ Jun 4th 2008 8:02PM]

Good job!! Imagine possibilities of this technology... electrical shuttles running 24 hrs without drivers, delivery robots .. I am liking the informational age! Making robot isn't difficult engineering task, programming it - is!

[Andy @ Jun 4th 2008 10:26PM]

Reminds me of those robots they have in hospitals. They go from room to room delivering pills, charts, files... They are really cool, they talk to you to warn you they are coming, take the elevator by themselves, and can recognize proximity to hospital staff vs. pedestrians.

When i worked there for a bit I learned how they work. They have a GPS sensor along with cameras, and they use the wireless network to call the elevator, and help with their location. They even know to avoid heavy traffic areas by analyzing hospital cameras and traffic/time schedules. Its pretty cool.

[dannythepetrock @ Jun 5th 2008 12:50AM]

they took our jerrrrbs!

[Jon @ Jun 5th 2008 1:09AM]

WALL-E looks like he gained some weight...

[dantaylor08 @ Jun 5th 2008 4:00PM]

I, for one, welcome our autonomous Industrial Mobile Robot system overlords.