UB’s new robot dog can sit, roll over and help students explore the future

Those who have never seen the dog-inspired four-legged robot tend to gasp and say “Oh my God” or “What the…”

Those who have usually approach with a smile and pull out their phones to take pictures. If invited to touch the bright yellow headless quadruped, people often pet it like a real dog.

Yubie, whose brand name is Spot the Agile Mobile Robot, was recently acquired by UB’s Jacobs School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as a research platform to explore new frontiers in robotics, computing, artificial intelligence and other high-tech fields.

But it is also an educational tool whose presence on campus can serve to excite, inspire or simply familiarize students with the robotic assistants of the future.

“Part of Yubie’s focus is not just research, but also education and how we think and react to robots,” said Karthik Dantu, associate professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. from the UB. “I’ve been doing robotics for 20 years, and when I first saw it, I had the same reaction as most students: Wow, that’s cool.”

“Every time we walk around campus, the amount of excitement it generates towards robotics far exceeds anything I can do by showing slides or pictures,” Dantu added. “We would like to channel that into really getting everyone excited about AI, robotics and other upcoming technologies. How can we motivate them to want to learn and become the next generation of people who will build these technologies? »

Part of that mission is to teach that robots are great tools for good, despite the obvious potential to use them for harm. Spot’s predecessor, Big Dog, was developed in 2005 by Boston Dynamics for military use as a “pack mule” to haul heavy loads for troops in the field. Although not intended as a weapon, the 240-pound black workhorse looks like something Darth Vader would have as a pet.

In 2016, Boston Dynamics introduced the smallest yellow 70-pound school bus model dubbed Spot as an agile robot that can navigate terrain other robots can’t and inspect places where it might be dangerous to children. humans to enter. Its commercial price is around $100,000 and it can be equipped with computers to expand its range of capabilities.

Dantu said one of his students is studying how the robot dog can be used to inspect infrastructure, like offshore oil rigs, which are usually remote and have devastating consequences for humans and wildlife if something goes wrong.

“Their standards may say you have to inspect a rig every 90 days, but if you have a robot, there’s no reason you can’t inspect daily,” Dantu said. “You want to be able to spot a crack or a leak right away, so the first thing we can do is work on perception, giving the robot the ability to detect and identify a problem.”

Robot dogs could also be used to detect “hot spots” in a disaster area to help humans avoid them, and to enter buildings damaged by earthquakes or hurricanes to aid in search and rescue operations. rescue and minimize risk to human responders.

While research institutions like UB aim to design useful applications for these promising devices, the potential for their weaponization has sparked controversy over their use. An episode of the dystopian horror series “Black Mirror” about a pack of armed robotic guard dogs chasing and killing humans didn’t help.

This month, Boston Dynamics and several other robotics companies pledged never to weaponize their robots and urged customers who buy them to do the same. However, when UB posted a recent video showcasing “Spot” on Instagram, some commenters were a little freaked out.

“THIS IS TOO BLACK A MIRROR,” one wrote. “Oh man this is so spooky,” wrote another. Other comments included “Inconvenient”, “Can’t we”, and “No”.

But when Dantu and master’s student Yashom Dighe walk the dog around campus, it elicits more astonishment than alarm. UB’s online nomination vote garnered 140 suggestions and six of the most UB-oriented were chosen as finalists. “Yubie” won, and the robot will soon wear UB blue and its new name to spread more goodwill on campus, Dantu said.

On a recent walk, Yubie showed how her five cameras can detect walls, furniture, and people a few inches away and maneuver around them, climb stairs, and even navigate rough, grassy terrain that would make tripping other robots. Dighe can also perform a Yubie gesture with a dog-shaped head twist – impressive as it has no head – as well as lying down, bowing forward in a downward dog pose and even turn around to “rub your belly” or change your battery.

Wherever he went, students noticed him.

“What is that?” exclaimed a student.

“That’s cool,” said another. A large group of high school students touring UB North Campus stopped to take a video. When asked “Cool or scary?” they all said, “Cool!”

Paige Holt, a sophomore at UB, said the robot “frightened my life the first time I saw it” coming towards her. “Now I think it’s funny that everyone thinks of him as a real dog, when he’s more like a drone,” she said.

Sophomore Jhon Ramirez, an electrical engineering student, said he found Yubie “completely fascinating”. Sophomore occupational therapy student Rebecca Keller called Yubie “cute.”

Dighe asked her what she would like to see Yubie do. “Jump!” she says.

“He’s not trained to do that yet,” Dighe admitted.

Dave Doermann, director of UB’s Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Data Science, called Yubie “a magnet that brings people together.” It makes people realize that we’re doing really cool things and teaches them that there’s a lot of good things that can be done with these technologies.

It also opens conversations that allow researchers to reassure frightened skeptics that robotics and AI are far from being able to produce autonomous robots that take over the world in dystopian movies.

“These devices have narrow intelligence, so we can only design them to do specific things,” Doermann said. “A Roomba can vacuum your house, but it can’t bring you a beer. And that’s what people have to trust.

Eventually, robots that serve as guide dogs, surveyors and personal assistants will be as routine as keeping a smartphone in your pocket, Dantu said. As for assigning them anthropomorphic characteristics, that’s a function of human design, not of the device itself, he said.

“Yubie doesn’t know it’s supposed to be a dog or roll over,” Dantu said. “Yet it evokes those emotions in people.”

While Yubie’s robotic appearance and insect-like gait may keep people from getting attached, that may not be the case with some new “humanoid” robots that will soon appear on campus. .

Dantu’s department just welcomed Nao, a 2-foot-tall human-inspired robot made by SoftBank that will be part of a pilot project to remind nursing home patients to take their medications or call doctors. members of their family.

Nao arrived on Monday, and by Wednesday Sougato Bagchi, a robotics master’s student, had already scheduled him to dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”