Alex, role and affiliation unknown, presents the Darwin Drives project with King at an ICRA 2012 challenge; they show a humanoid robot operating an iRobot Create and discuss possible uses for humanoid-driven vehicles.
Alex and King propose having a humanoid operate a vehicle so it can use tools designed for human environments. They argue that autonomous vehicles can travel farther and faster, handle rough terrain, carry more equipment, and support coordinated driving and personal deliveries.
They say a humanoid could adapt across vehicles and environments, while a vehicle built for one setting may be less versatile. They also see the setup as modular and as a way for the humanoid to learn driving tasks.
The team first tested the idea with a miniature Darwin humanoid and an iRobot Create, using a mechanical interface. The Create handled its own control while Darwin processed vision; the demo included line following and blob tracking.
For the finalist system, Darwin stayed unmodified and used its built-in camera to steer the differential-drive Create and press a simple go-or-stop pedal. The team laser-cut the interface, used inverse kinematics and filtered PD arm control for steering, and applied HSV segmentation with image cleanup and ground projection for vision.
Alex points to the DARPA Grand Challenge, driver assistance, and future robot chauffeurs as possible directions. The demo first tests red-blob tracking, then moves to road following.
Briefs summarise talks and interviews; timestamps open the video at that moment. Claims in a talk are the speaker's own.
Michael Chang, a PhD researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, presents his work at the GRASP Lab Spring 2023 SFI on neural abstractions for modeling and controlling systems, and discusses future human-computer interfaces at DeepMind.
Karen Liu, an associate professor of computer science at Stanford University, discusses physics-based human motion simulation and its use in robotics at an MIT Robotics talk.
Dennis Hong, robotics professor and founding director at Virginia Tech, explains why humanoid robots suit human environments and how his lab developed soccer-playing robots and firefighting prototypes.
A ROBOTIS presenter discusses a Darwin humanoid robot that plays Dance Dance Revolution and the vision-processing and motion constraints behind the demonstration.
Students from Purdue University describe their team’s Darwin-OP robotics project at an ICRA 2012 challenge, explaining its sensor-based reactions and demonstrating them.
Dr. Saltz, a digital media and theater educator, and Mike, a programmer, present ROBOTIS’s Darwin animation tools at the ICRA 2012 challenge, including a planned commedia dell’arte performance with robot character Zebzob.
