Philipp Robbel, a student at MIT’s Personal Robotics Group, has fused a Kinect 3D sensor to an IRobot Create kit to make a robot that can see and track you as well as respond to your gestures. Kinectbot, as he calls it, uses SLAM code from OpenSLAM.org, visualization packets from Mobile Robot Programming Toolkit, and finally some of his own home-made code to help Kinectbot with interaction, detection and gestures. Robbel’s code may be available soon to other hackers out there who want to try doing things with Kinect as MIT does not deem it proprietary. The Kinectbot is sort of a proof of concept hack, but future iterations of this design could be used to help in disaster relief efforts to help find people in need of help. However Robbel has some concerns over how a distressed person’s gestures should be obeyed. Yeah it’s probably not a good idea to give it the finger at that point. To see more information about Robbel’s Kinectbot visit:
Eavesdropper