Our intreped reporter Steve Sutherland made it to iREX organized by JARA, and saw a lot of cool robots going on there.  With a theme of “Challenge for the Next”. 

iREX is billed as the largest robotic exhibition in the world and has been running every 2^nd year since 1973!   Personal service robots shared the limelight this year with a new generation of adaptive industrial robotic systems.

One of the most intriguing “robots” on exhibit at iREX was an integrated towel folding system.  Employing two robotic arms assisted with controlled jets of compressed air, towels arriving on a conveyor in piles were separated and then drawn along a plane to expose at least one corner.  Various gyrations, air bursts, and sculpted grippers eventually correctly positioned the towels into a conventional laundry folding machine which then piled the towels neatly.  It was roughly 70% effective, with the remaining 30% of towels falling beneath the system (presumably, in production, such towels would then be moved back into the stream).

Another interesting feature of the show, a series of toy robots competed for the best dancing abilities.  Although not the winner, one talented robotic dancer was the size of a young teenage girl, complete with schoolgirl dress, which swung fairly naturally with the motion and music.

Elsewhere on the show floor, the Fraunhofer research organisation’s Care-O-bot v3 served bottles of juice from it’s built-in tray which also serves as a handy order tablet.  Care-O-bot has one large arm, rear mounted, which was consistently able to pick up bottles and place them on its tray.  After delivery, customers then simply take the bottle from the tray… no need to risk the robotic arm hitting or otherwise interfering with the customer.  Care-O-bot looks like a production-ready system. 

Other highlights include:

•     Met a cool inventor who can send very high data rates using light… useful for the robotic displays – and possibly the head tracker in cases where it is not easy to run a line from the camera to the display.
•       Saw Willow Garage’s new data log display tool… looks like a video timeline, but shows all data logged… joint position, video, amperage, etc.  They say it only took them a few weeks to develop, but that it is one of the best things about ROS.
•      Willow Garage confirmed that they are carefully monitoring motor current… I suspected that this was how they were closing grippers, etc., but now it’s confirmed.  They do plan to add pressure-sensors, etc., but for now, it’s current.  Their new PR2 has 2, yes 2 independent Xeon 8 core processor systems – weighs over 400lbs.
•      Discovered that Harmonic drives are now being produced (with original components) from a large variety of manufacturers.
•     I’ve been at some great sessions – am amazed at how much Japan and Germany (the gov’ts) are spending on robotics!  I saw one of their lightweight arms which at 15kg, will lift 8kg!