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Qbo, the open-source robot, interacts with people, makes adorable mistakes (video)
A while back we got a detailed look at the innards of Qbo, TheCorpora's open-source robot. But we haven't gotten to see the little guy in action -- until now. His handlers recently let him loose to run autonomously, guided by a pair of webcam eyes and voice recognition courtesy of Willow Garage's ROS software. The team soon noticed some unexpected behavior, though. Despite being programmed to follow humans at a specific distance, Qbo trailed uncomfortably near with taller people -- probably the first example of a robotic "close walker." Poring over the log files revealed why: proximity was calculated based on faces. The faces of taller people were farther away from the ground-hugging robot, which adjusted accordingly. Roll your way down the page to see more of our cute mechanized friend, and over to the source link for more musings on programming him.
Qbo, the open source robot, gets detailed, looks cute
It's the future and we're still waiting for our personal jetpacks, but it looks like robot helpers in every home are closer than ever, with thecorpra's Qbo getting us ever closer. Okay, so without arms he's unlikely to be much of a help around the house, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't make a useful addition to your abode. He's peppered with sensors of various types, has stereo high-def webcam eyes, microphone ears, and even an LED mouth. Inside his belly rests a Mini-ITX motherboard festooned with WiFi, Bluetooth, an Intel Atom processor and NVIDIA Ion graphics, all running some flavor of Linux. Yes, that means he could stream YouTube videos in HD... if only he had the appropriate outputs. There's no mention of price or availability at this point but something tells us he won't be free as in beer. Full picture with specs after the break.
