Front and rear of the E-One (via EOS)
The application of robots is only limited by imagination. Incorporating them into our daily lives is an ever increasing process. E-One is a robot designed by EOS Innovation, is good example of how a robots could be designed to be part of our home lives. E-One is developed for the purpose of monitoring our surroundings and alerting us if anything is out of the ordinary.
EOS Founder David Lemaitre gave his thoughts on a robotic future; "In my opinion, we’re heading towards specialized robots that can communicate with one another to make things easier. Whether it’s a robot vacuum cleaner, lawnmower, or butler, they’ll be able to take orders and divide up the work. But a machine that can replace a person, that’s not for right now. I think we should make simple robots that are optimized for specific tasks.”
Resembling R2D2 from Star Wars, E-One comes in at around 22 lbs, two feet tall, with wheels for mobility. It gets around using eight ultrasonic sensors and four infrared sensors. Two omni-directional microphones and two speakers allow it to interact with its surroundings using sounds. Two high-resolution cameras, that include a fish-eye lens, along with a mobile (pico) projector, allow it to detect light as well as display visual signals necessary to communicate messages. Since one of the key functions of the robot is to communicate, it is connected through Wi-Fi and has an optional USB port.
The battery pack can last for around 4 to 5 hours. Lemaitre made sure to say that EOS is focused on battery issues and said, " Right now the biggest weakness in robotics is battery life. The batteries have to last for several hours, so our robots must use energy efficiently."
Eventually, EOS Innovations hopes to adapt the robot to give elderly and disabled company and assistance. Its projector screen displays video in the face area, which could make the robot useful as a telepresence platform. A mobile video phones soon to follow?
E-One is still in its experimental phase, but EOS hopes to have it on the market within the next year.
For more on the latest in robotics, see the Robotics group.
Eavesdropper
