New Robot Pets
New Robot Pets
Dateline: 05/30/00
Almost one year ago, Sony introduced Aibo, a new kind of four-legged autonomous robot designed to coexist with humans. This "pet of the future" has emotions, instincts, and the ability to learn and mature. My initial comment was that it could be the leader of next big wave of "cyber-pets", following the worldwide success of Tamagotchi. Aibo was originally available online from Sony for around $2500. Surprisingly enough - considering that kind of a price tag and having no idea how big the market is - this robotic dog sold out in Japan only 20 minutes after going on sale for the first time. Subsequently, Sony had three very successful sales periods, while the prices for the robot on the online auction sites like eBay and Yahoo! Auctions continued to grow. It was the clear signal to other producers, and right now several Aibo type canine robots are about to be released.
The first answer comes from Hong Kong's Silverlit Toys Company. Their $150 robot dog, i-Cybie, was designed to follows the success of similar robot pets. Although you may consider it as a trimmed-down version of Aibo, it does have several features that Aibo is lacking. It recognizes speech and its name and it includes an infrared controller. However, it doesn't have an equivalent for Aibo's memory stick that stores behavior data, so it can't go through several developmental stages and learn your commands and even your tendencies. In my opinion this is one of the most impressive features of Sony's pet, as a full range of emergent behaviors has been reported over the past 12 months. For example, I heard of Aibos that can find the charger by themselves when the power is low. Other specimens appear to be capable of recognizing their owners and reacting to spoken commands. Neither of these behaviors are hard-wired or pre-programmed: Aibo simply (OK, the previous word is an understatement) connect input patterns with desired actions if properly trained. So, while i-Cybie can interact with people using body expressions and has basic learning capabilities, Aibo stays the most capable robot pet commercially available today. However, i-Cybie has 16 motors and can perform 12 different movements, so it is quite capable for its price. The plans for the next generation of i-Cybies sound even more exciting, as Silverlit's engineers are waiting for feedback from customers who have bought the first version. I will keep an eye on all updates and try to test it as it bacomes available.
Going even further and breaking another price barrier, Tiger Electronics/Sega Toys are launching a robot dog named "Poo-Chi" that sells for $28. Poo-Chi expresses his emotions through his eyes, flapping ears and wagging tail. Its visor show different shapes to indicate the dog's "mood". It features three basic sensors and can communicate with other similar robots that are close-by. However, it is best suited for younger children, and can't be really compared to "real" robots like Aibo or i-Cybie. Same stands for Mega-Byte The Hound Droid, an interactive IR remote control robotic pet with a full range of motion including forward, backward, left, right and spin motion.
I know that plenty of robotics enthusiasts are eager to hack Aibo and similar sophisticated robots, learning tricks and techniques that can be used in their own designs. Reality proved this to be a difficult task, although some valuable information can be found at AiboSite and other sites from the Aibo Web Ring. Every commercial robot uses proprietary electronics and rudimentary operating systems (like Sony's Aperios real-time OS), so there is a little space for hobbyists here. On a side note, I wonder what is happening with highly acclaimed Open-R architecture for home robots that was introduced along with the Aibo's birth. It promised endless possibilities for robot builders, like modifying robot's body by exchanging hardware modules - substituting a wheel for the back legs, for example. Modules would support "hot swap" exchange, communicating with the CPU through the 12-MHz, 12-megabit-per-second Open-R bus, and configuring optimum settings based on the parameters stored in the module. Stay tuned for more news on this or similar framework: home robot industry really need some sort of standard. On a software side, kudos to Probotics team and their premier personal robot, Cye, for relasing the source code for the GUI, Iconic programming language, and Robot communication protocol code under the GPL. Another great "soft" resource is The Rossum Project, an attempt to create a Web resource providing open-source robotics software.
All in all, there are already more than 10,000 households in the Japan, United States and Europe with the new canine wonder from Sony. Currently, they are not selling Aibo (the last sales period ended in February), but i-Cybie and similar entertainment robots will make simple robotics and Artificial Intelligence more affordable for the mases.