Butler Robot Can Fetch Drinks, Snacks

Meet HERB, a robot from Intel’s research labs that can fetch drinks, get a pack of chips and sort dishes. HERB or the Home Exploring Robotic Butler is a project from Intel’s personal robotics group.

The robot sits on a tricked-out Segway base and has arms that are driven by cables to allow it to be extremely dexterous. A spinning laser on the top of the robot help generates 3-D data so robot can identify objects. There’s also a camera to help it “see.”

“It (the robot) looks big but it will fit through most doorways,” says Siddhartha Srinivasa, an Intel researcher who is working on the project. “It’s about a foot longer than the human wingspan.”

Users can tell HERB what they need using an iPhone interface that the team built. There’s also a voice recognition program in the works so you can just tell the robot loud what you want it to do.

The HERB project has been in the works for nearly four years. Intel showed the robot’s latest features at its annual research day fest on Wednesday.

HERB is just one of the many robotics project that is trying to teach machines how to do everyday tasks.� Willow Garage, a Palo Alto, California based startup has a robot called PR2 that is being trained to sort laundry and fold towels.

The idea is to teach robots to go beyond carefully structured and repetitive tasks so they can move beyond factories.

Check out the video of HERB at work. HERB doesn’t move fast but if you could just sit on the couch and have it bring a bottle of beer every time, a few seconds delay shouldn’t bother you that much.

See Also: