Robots - The Podcast for News and Views on Robotics

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Christina Brester, from the Siberian State Aerospace University, about her research on a method to identify emotional state from speech. This method performs speech analysis with a self-adaptive, multi-objective, genetic algorithm for feature selection and uses a neural network to classify those features. In this interview, we’ll discuss exactly what that means, as well as the implications and future of this research.

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Kurosh Madani from the University of Paris-EST Créteil (UPEC) about neural networks. The talk begins with an overview of neural networks before discussing their possible applications.

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Christoph Stiller from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Stiller speaks about the sensors required for various level of autonomous driving, as well as the ethics of autonomous cars, and his experience in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge.

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Professor Riccardo Cassinis from the University of Brescia in Italy about using robotics in education. Cassinis speaks about having children, from primary school through university, access and control robots remotely to learn subjects such as programming, geography, and foreign languages.

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Hunter Lloyd, who is a Professor of Robotics at Montana State University and a comedian. Hunter performs a comedy act for all ages with partner Looney, a NAO Humanoid Robot from Aldebaran Robotics. Lloyd discusses making people laugh with his robot partner, why he does it, and how what he’s learned as a comedian relates to robotics.

Transcript below In today’s podcast, Ron Vanderkley speaks with Will Jackson from Engineered Arts Limited about his team’s work making robot actors.

NEW: Transcript below. In this episode, Ron Vanderkley speaks with Mythbusters‘ Grant Imahara, and Richard McKenna from The Creature Technology Company about robotics in the film, television and theatre industries.

NEW: Full transcript below. In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks with Edwin Olson, an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, about the University’s 32-acre testing environment for autonomous cars and the future of driverless vehicles.

Full transcript below. In this episode, Sabine Hauert speaks with Travis Deyle, about his IROS-nominated work on RFID tags, his blog Hizook, and the career path that brought him from academia, to founding his own start-up, and finally working for Google[x].

In this episode, Ron Vanderkley speaks with Professor Geoffrey Spink from Wollogong University about his team’s work on artificial muscles.

Earlier this year, the Robots Podcast team came across a story about two 17 year old twin sisters who started their own robotics outreach group. The story about the Tipperman sisters got us curious. What kind of robotics outreach activities are out there to inspire children? Do any of these activities make a difference in getting more girls interested in robotics?

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Peter Corke from Queensland University of Technology, about computer vision - the subject of his plenary talk at IROS 2014 (link to slides below). He begins with a brief history of biological vision before discussing some early and more modern implementations of computer vision. Corke also talks about resources for those interested in learning computer vision, including his book, Robotic Vision & Control, and a massively open online course (MOOC) that he plans to release in 2015. 

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Edgars Rozentals, the CEO and Founder of Helico Aerospace Industries. They talk about Helico’s upcoming product ‘AirDog’, which is an autonomous quadrocopter designed to record video for action sports.

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews John Romanishin from MIT, about his modular robotics project ‘M-Blocks’. M-Blocks are small cubes (5 cm on a side) that have no external actuators, yet they manage to move and even jump.

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews Max Rheiner from Zurich University of the Arts (ZHDK) about his  project Birdly. Birdly explores the experience of a bird in flight with several methods. Unlike a common flight simulator, the user embodies a bird, the Red Kite. To evoke this embodiment, Birdly mainly relies on the sensory-motor coupling. The participant can control the simulator with their hands and arms, which directly correlates to the wings and the primary feathers of the bird. Those inputs are reflected in the flight model of the bird and displayed physically by the simulator through nick, roll and heave movements.

In this episode, Audrow Nash interviews James Conrad, professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, about the history of the autonomous walking robot, Stiquito.

In this episode, Audrow Nash speaks to Russ Angold, co-founder and CTO of Ekso Bionics, about the wearable bionic suit, Ekso. This suit enables individuals with any amount of lower extremity weakness to stand up and walk over ground with a natural, full weight bearing, reciprocal gait. Walking is achieved by the user’s weight shifts to activate sensors in the device which initiate steps. Battery-powered motors drive the legs, replacing deficient neuromuscular function.

In this episode, we speak with Kyle Vogt, the CEO of Cruise. His company recently joined the “driverless revolution” with their release of RP-1. This system is a highway autopilot that can be installed in your existing car. It controls your steering, throttle, and braking, making sure your car remains safely in its lane and a safe distance from the car in front of you.

In this episode Ron Vanderkley speaks to Prof. Karol Miller, Director of the Intelligent Systems for Medicine Lab at the University of Western Australia, about medical robotics and how doctors and patients perceive its role and use. Central to his work are mathematical models of soft tissue (brain, liver, etc.) that can be used for robot-assisted surgery by providing fast and accurate feedback.

Human-robot interaction is a fascinating field of research in robotics. It also happens to be the field that is closely related to many of the ethical concerns raised with regards to interactive robots. Should human-robot interaction (HRI) practitioners keep in mind things such as human dignity, psychological harm, and privacy? What about how robot design relates to racism and sexism?