iRobot Co-Founder Urges Roboticists to Focus on Practicality and Costs, Not Gimmicks

In a recent op-ed piece for New Scientist, Helen Greiner urges roboticists to not to create gimmicky devices, but to focus on core values of practicality and cost.  The co-founder of iRobot, and present CEO of robotics start-up CyPhy Works, finds engineering "cool" robots does little to advance the field. If robotics is to succeed like computing, what matters is making practical robots that do jobs well and affordably - factors that tend to get lost as people fascinate over the latest autonomous party props.

Roboticists who don't focus on practicality, ruggedness and cost are kidding themselves. Simply put, people don't want outlandish machines in their homes. Before iRobot introduced the Roomba vacuuming robot in 2002, focus groups imagined it would look like the Terminator pushing a vacuum cleaner - and told us they would not accept such machines in their homes. But when we showed them that Roomba was small, light and friendly, they loved it.

Greiner is anti-humanoid robotics for the present, urging further development in purpose-built, rugged robotics. She cites iRobot's successful deployment of military robots such as PackBot into Afghanistan as practical and effective present-day robotics.  She also finds support for her argument in that the Japanese are questioning the nation's research focus on singing, running and dancing humanoid robots when so little of their advanced robotoics technology was able to help in the Fukishima nuclear disaster.

This is to be welcomed because at this point, attempting to duplicate human intelligence or the human form robotically is a wrong-headed approach. We already have about 7 billion humans on the planet and we are really good at what we do. To sell humanoid robots they would have to be better than people - and that is just not realistic yet.

Software standardisation, around the Robot Operating System and Linux are also applauded by Greiner as they will help developers focus on the practical. "This is a tremendous move because engineers, particularly in research universities, won't have to start coding from the ground up to build their own robots. Instead, their challenge will be to build software packages small enough to run on affordable processors, and robots that avoid the common embarrassment of being wimpy and underpowered with limited usage time."

By focusing on bringing robots to market, Greiner hopes innovators will be able to put the industry firmly on the commercially viable, world-changing track it deserves.