Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!sgiblab!swrinde!pipex!uknet!festival!ainews!ruby!simonpe
From: simonpe@ruby.ed.ac.uk (Simon Perkins)
Subject: QUESTION: REAL applications for mobile robots?
Message-ID: <CtG5Ao.IxF@aisb.ed.ac.uk>
Sender: news@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Network News Administrator)
Reply-To: simonpe@ruby.ed.ac.uk (Simon Perkins)
Organization: Dept of AI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 1994 13:25:36 GMT
Lines: 50

Hello All,

This post is an attempt to start a discussion on likely near-future
USEFUL applications of mobile robots in the real world. In particular
I'm thinking of robots which can move but which have very limited
manipulation abilities. i.e. they don't have a robot arm as such,
although they might have a very simple or special purpose tool
attached, typically something with only one degree of freedom such as
a fork-lift. 

Such robots are in fairly wide use in research laboratories around the
world. Typically people look at such things as obstacle avoidance,
navigation and map-building, and there are some quite impressive
results from this, particularly in semi-structured environments. So
what real world applications can/will these mobile robots be used for?
I am trying to keep an eye on commercial practicality as well, and
since robots cost quite a lot of money, any viable application is
going to have to be of real benefit to a large number of people in
order to be worth it.

A few possibilities that I have seen discussed in recent years:


  Mail delivery within buildings (although I've yet to see a robot
				  that can open doors...)
  Warehouse management
  Lawnmowing
  Brush cutting in forests
  Planetary exploration     (OK commercial viability isn't everything!)
  Underwater exploration/inspection
  Litter collection/cleaning
  Security surveillance
  ...

What others can you think of? Some of the above are fairly general, so
any more specific suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

My motivation for asking this is that I am just beginning a PhD that
involves working with mobile robots and I would very much like to have
a real ultimate application in mind in order to focus the research and
tie it into real world problems.

-- 
Simon Perkins simonpe@aisb.ed.ac.uk

Dept. of AI,
Edinburgh University.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
