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I've worked in robotics for over 10 years, at state of the art labs and high quality startups. There are really only two hard problems in robotics: Perception

I've worked in robotics for over 10 years, at state of the art labs and high quality startups. There are really only two hard problems in robotics: Perception and Funding. Perception, especially around a bunch of people, with depth, mapping, understanding traffic and gestures, all in real time etc etc will be a huge problem for these machines for a while. Funding though? I doubt that's an issue right now.

sterlind 2y ago
That surprises me. I thought motion planning and motor control would be harder - old memories of Asimo falling helplessly trying to climb stairs, the clunkiness of a robot aligning itself perfectly with a drawer before executing a scripted-looking action to pull the handle, the obvious recorded sequence Atlas uses to get up from a fall. I know Boston Dynamics does impressive acrobatics, but it's all legs and no arms. Are kinematics and planning solved now? I want to move into the field so I'm trying to learn.
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  > Asimo falling helplessly trying to climb stairs IIRC, that wasn't a control problem but a mechanical failure of a gearmotor shaft.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Here's some closed-course manipulation with arms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuG-qNgLHws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuG-qNgLHws There are others. Controls is hard! You need investment and to solve difficult engineering problems. But we have a pretty good idea that those things are solveable and can demonstrate success b/c they are engineering challenges, not things we fundamentally don't have an approach for yet.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  How much of that is actually perception though? "Where can I put my feet safely?" "What is the orientation and 6 higher order velocities of my body?" etc. I've been told that a perfectly observable / estimable system is trivially controllable. It's one of the reasons I believe perception is upstream of everything - interaction dynamics alone are nearly impossible to just wave away with models. I don't even work in perception. But I know that everything is fine until you try to go online with perception in the loop. Then you are behind the perception team's debugging nearly all the time.
robotresearcher 2y ago
I'm also a roboticist. Perception and funding are hard. But don't forget battery energy density, and the power-to-weight ratio and energy efficiency of actuators. Also very very hard, and Moore's law helps not at all. Autonomous cars are in a nice niche since they store vast energy for actuation anyway, it's OK to be heavy, and the controls are relatively simple. They are limited by perception and decision making. Humanoids are way more limited by energy storage and actuation. Animals are absurdly efficient.
- foobarian 2y ago
  Tangential question: are there any actuators out there that mimic the animal muscle tissue, i.e. swelling laterally in order to shorten a tendon and pull a joint? This seems like a very elegant method compared to servos with all sorts of slack and rigid positioning. I'm not a roboticist so I'm not familiar with state of the art in actuators.
  - whatshisface 2y ago
    They exist, but they're inefficient compared to ordinary motors.
- jjk166 2y ago
  Battery density is only an issue if these things are spending most of their time moving long distances. If you are targeting a drop in replacement for a human worker who is spending most of their time at a workstation, it can be plugged in while working. Even in a scenario where the robot can not be connected to power while working, that's easily solved with redundancy - get two robots, one works while the other charges. Obviously better battery life is a nice to have, but it's not an impediment to large scale adoption the way other big robotics problems are.
  - robotresearcher 2y ago
    > easily solved with redundancy - get two robots. Yay, twice as expensive. And power tethers on robots suck so hard. Try it sometime, you’ll hate it.

sterlind 2y ago

That surprises me. I thought motion planning and motor control would be harder - old memories of Asimo falling helplessly trying to climb stairs, the clunkiness of a robot aligning itself perfectly with a drawer before executing a scripted-looking action to pull the handle, the obvious recorded sequence Atlas uses to get up from a fall. I know Boston Dynamics does impressive acrobatics, but it's all legs and no arms. Are kinematics and planning solved now? I want to move into the field so I'm trying to learn.

mitthrowaway2 2y ago
> Asimo falling helplessly trying to climb stairs IIRC, that wasn't a control problem but a mechanical failure of a gearmotor shaft.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Here's some closed-course manipulation with arms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuG-qNgLHws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuG-qNgLHws There are others. Controls is hard! You need investment and to solve difficult engineering problems. But we have a pretty good idea that those things are solveable and can demonstrate success b/c they are engineering challenges, not things we fundamentally don't have an approach for yet.
jvanderbot 2y ago
How much of that is actually perception though? "Where can I put my feet safely?" "What is the orientation and 6 higher order velocities of my body?" etc. I've been told that a perfectly observable / estimable system is trivially controllable. It's one of the reasons I believe perception is upstream of everything - interaction dynamics alone are nearly impossible to just wave away with models. I don't even work in perception. But I know that everything is fine until you try to go online with perception in the loop. Then you are behind the perception team's debugging nearly all the time.

robotresearcher 2y ago

I'm also a roboticist. Perception and funding are hard. But don't forget battery energy density, and the power-to-weight ratio and energy efficiency of actuators. Also very very hard, and Moore's law helps not at all. Autonomous cars are in a nice niche since they store vast energy for actuation anyway, it's OK to be heavy, and the controls are relatively simple. They are limited by perception and decision making. Humanoids are way more limited by energy storage and actuation. Animals are absurdly efficient.

foobarian 2y ago
Tangential question: are there any actuators out there that mimic the animal muscle tissue, i.e. swelling laterally in order to shorten a tendon and pull a joint? This seems like a very elegant method compared to servos with all sorts of slack and rigid positioning. I'm not a roboticist so I'm not familiar with state of the art in actuators.
- whatshisface 2y ago
  They exist, but they're inefficient compared to ordinary motors.
jjk166 2y ago
Battery density is only an issue if these things are spending most of their time moving long distances. If you are targeting a drop in replacement for a human worker who is spending most of their time at a workstation, it can be plugged in while working. Even in a scenario where the robot can not be connected to power while working, that's easily solved with redundancy - get two robots, one works while the other charges. Obviously better battery life is a nice to have, but it's not an impediment to large scale adoption the way other big robotics problems are.
- robotresearcher 2y ago
  > easily solved with redundancy - get two robots. Yay, twice as expensive. And power tethers on robots suck so hard. Try it sometime, you’ll hate it.