Robots will be everywhere. Here’s how to build your own!
Over the last two decades robots have made their way from factory floors of the car industry and science fiction stories into the real world: Waymo’s fully autonomous taxis that are now operational in Phoenix, Arizona are essentially highly sophisticated mobile robots. URBAN-X startup Climate Robotics plans to make fleets of agricultural robots to combat climate change. Aaron Edsinger, Google’s former Director of Robotics, started hello robot, a mission-driven company to make household robots accessible to people who need extra help at home. Countless companies experiment with robots that automate everyday tasks from food delivery to brewing coffee.
In all of these instances, we have to consider how robots interact with people, an aspect that was less important when robots operated in isolation along a manufacturing line. We also have to start thinking about the societal impacts of robotic automation. Are we automating tasks just because we can or because it creates real value and improved quality of life? Are we taking away people’s jobs without creating new ones that are worthwhile and fulfilling? With these questions in mind, I believe it is time for designers to get involved in shaping robotic solutions.
An industrial designer by training, I have built technology products for over 10 years but knew almost nothing about robotics until about a year ago. Then suddenly more and more of our startups at URBAN-X began working on robotic solutions and because I have an unrelenting curiosity for figuring out how things work, I started a deep dive into robotics. I’ve learned a lot and would like to share my insights and resources with you — to hopefully get you excited about robotics, too and make your journey to building your own robots a little easier.
To make things more interesting, I paired all of my learning with building an actual mobile robot, called Cerus (pictured above). This series is structured in three chapters that cover all the aspects I had to figure out to get Cerus to work:
- Designing a Mobile Robot
- Mobile Robot Electronics and Arduino Programming
- Mobile Robot Teleoperation and Autonomy with Python
- Mobile Robot Teleoperation with the Jetson Nano and ROS
Setting out on this journey, my end goal for this series was to achieve two things:
- Teleoperation of Cerus using an Xbox controller
- Getting Cerus to autonomously drive to a pre-defined goal location
Granted, many existing robots out there achieve these things (NVIDIA’s Jetbot is a perfect example) and it would be easy enough to buy a robot that can accomplish these tasks and move on. But I found that starting from first principles these tasks pose formidable design challenges and ended up teaching me a lot of valuable lessons about the design of mobile robots.
Let’s get into it , the first article is here — I hope you’re as excited as I am!
