5 ms·

15x speedup. What is the bottleneck that it's taking > 15x longer for it to do this task than a human?

by jonah 16y ago

electromagnetic 16y ago
#1 I would say it's hand placement is significantly slowing it down. It's putting its hands up when it's not in use, which means excessive hand movements between usage (not only time inefficient but also a significant waste of electricity and a burden on its mechanical parts). Aside from that, it's simply processing speed and motor control. Processing power would speed up detection, which would allow it to act faster. Similarly better motor controls would help, especially built in resistance detection so it can tell how much force it's applying. Also it's doing it completely wrong. A human at worst flips the sock over one of their hands, and at best does a sort of tuck & roll on their thumbs and stretches. It seems kind of asinine that researches are trying to replicate human tasks without replicating human dexterity to achieve it with reasonable speed.
houseabsolute 16y ago
Probably mostly that motors which are - small, - accurate, - fast, and - cheap do not exist.
- savrajsingh 16y ago
  RC servos meet all of those requirements, wouldn't you agree?
  - houseabsolute 16y ago
    Probably except accurate, although I should probably add the criterion "torqueful" since that robot looks heavy.
  - beambot 16y ago
    No, I would not. RC servos cannot follow specifically-defined trajectories, otherwise known as splines (ie. be at encoder position X at time Y), as RC servos rely on very basic (analog) position feedback. Some of the lowest-level PR2 controllers require the specification of splines to achieve accurate motion.
  - jff 16y ago
    Servos are pretty much terrible for anything except maybe driving the wheels on a very small robot, provided that robot is also equipped with encoders on the wheels. Basically you're just applying power to the motor for some time and hoping it turns the right amount; unlike say a stepper motor, you have no built-in guarantee of how far it'll turn. You can make up for that with the encoders, but the other big problem with servos is that they're not very strong... all the ones I've ever used have plastic gears inside which love to strip.
zeteo 16y ago
Some people in my lab worked on laundry manipulation, and it's surprisingly hard. My personal guess is that it's the lack of touch sensors. You can fold socks with your eyes closed pretty quickly, but if you had to do it with visual clues alone (e.g. by using a pair of those Gopher tools http://www.amazon.com/Seen-Gopher-Pick-Retrieving-Tool/dp/B000UVOT7O http://www.amazon.com/Seen-Gopher-Pick-Retrieving-Tool/dp/B0... ) it would take you significantly longer.

15x speedup. What is the bottleneck that it's taking > 15x longer for it to do this task than a human?

by jonah 16y ago

15x speedup. What is the bottleneck that it's taking > 15x longer for it to do this task than a human?

#1 I would say it's hand placement is significantly slowing it down. It's putting its hands up when it's not in use, which means excessive hand movements between usage (not only time inefficient but also a significant waste of electricity and a burden on its mechanical parts). Aside from that, it's simply processing speed and motor control. Processing power would speed up detection, which would allow it to act faster. Similarly better motor controls would help, especially built in resistance detection so it can tell how much force it's applying. Also it's doing it completely wrong. A human at worst flips the sock over one of their hands, and at best does a sort of tuck & roll on their thumbs and stretches. It seems kind of asinine that researches are trying to replicate human tasks without replicating human dexterity to achieve it with reasonable speed.

houseabsolute 16y ago

Probably mostly that motors which are - small, - accurate, - fast, and - cheap do not exist.

savrajsingh 16y ago
RC servos meet all of those requirements, wouldn't you agree?
- houseabsolute 16y ago
  Probably except accurate, although I should probably add the criterion "torqueful" since that robot looks heavy.
- beambot 16y ago
  No, I would not. RC servos cannot follow specifically-defined trajectories, otherwise known as splines (ie. be at encoder position X at time Y), as RC servos rely on very basic (analog) position feedback. Some of the lowest-level PR2 controllers require the specification of splines to achieve accurate motion.
- jff 16y ago
  Servos are pretty much terrible for anything except maybe driving the wheels on a very small robot, provided that robot is also equipped with encoders on the wheels. Basically you're just applying power to the motor for some time and hoping it turns the right amount; unlike say a stepper motor, you have no built-in guarantee of how far it'll turn. You can make up for that with the encoders, but the other big problem with servos is that they're not very strong... all the ones I've ever used have plastic gears inside which love to strip.

zeteo 16y ago

Some people in my lab worked on laundry manipulation, and it's surprisingly hard. My personal guess is that it's the lack of touch sensors. You can fold socks with your eyes closed pretty quickly, but if you had to do it with visual clues alone (e.g. by using a pair of those Gopher tools http://www.amazon.com/Seen-Gopher-Pick-Retrieving-Tool/dp/B000UVOT7O http://www.amazon.com/Seen-Gopher-Pick-Retrieving-Tool/dp/B0... ) it would take you significantly longer.