UBC’s Collaborative Advanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems Laboratory (CARIS), led by Prof. Elizabeth Croft in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, has acquired a new human-friendly robot.
Dubbed Charlie by the CARIS team, the advanced robot research system navigates indoors at walking speed, handles customary workplace and home obstacles, lifts a 10 kilogram load in each hand, and reaches from the floor to a two-metre high shelf.
Charlie also has a “soft touch,” ideal for Croft’s research on robot assistant behaviours for manufacturing assembly and home healthcare assistance.
UBC is the first Canadian university to work with the PR2 model from Willow Garage, a U.S.-based developer of personal robot open source software and hardware.
For more, visit: http://caris-ubc.blogspot.com/2011/08/pr2-arrives-at-caris-and-lcicrl-labs-in.html
