Although ball balancing robots are not new (from a controls perspective, it is a great example of the classic inverted pendulum problem), there are several noteworthy features about this robot. First, the robot is omnidirectional and can rotate around its vertical axis (zero turning radius). Second, it has a passive control mode so you can push it around without exerting much force – the video shows some good examples of this. These two wrinkles considerably increase the versatility of the robot.

The other thing that is cool about this project is the accessibility of the hardware. It uses a 16-bit MCU with a few sets of accelerometers and gyros, all of which are readily available for on the order of a few dollars, even at prototype volumes. And, since the project was publicized in 2010, companies like Invensense, ST, and Kionix have released integrated 6-axis chips (a 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyro on the same die with integrated signal processing) and announced the imminent release of 9-axis chips (add a 3-axis magnetometer for orientation using the earth’s magnetic field). Advances like these are just more evidence of how feasible it is becoming to implement remarkably cool functionality into consumer products. Personally, I can’t watch the video without imagining this robot as a mobile drink tray – hopefully something like it will be bringing me a beer before I know it.

The moral of the story, other than the fact that moths have a very healthy libido, is that it may be possible to harness features of nature that cannot yet easily be replicated artificially. For instance, tracking environmental spills to their source is one potential immediate application in the tracking realm, and the concept can easily be stretched to any number of other fields. Godzilla would be wise to beware – perhaps next time Mothra will bring some new toys to the fight.

After finding this video, I came across an even more awesomely useless machine made by a German hobbyist named Andreas Fiessler. He adapted a broken printer for his machine, which is about the best use I can think of for a broken printer. The video is pretty amusing:

Just in case that video inspires you to make your own, Andreas offers a great description of how he made it happen on his website.

Well, this is it – the day that you’ve no doubt been waiting breathlessly for since July, when the gorgeous half-faces of Nic Cage and John Travolta confusingly headlined a mechatronics blog post. We are (finally) concluding our Interface/Off series examining the state and future of smart product interface technology.

How Did We Get Here?
As a very brief refresher, we’ve structured our look so far in roughly increasing order of sophistication. We started with touch-based interface technology such as physical buttons, touch sensing, and touch screens – these systems are simple and well-understood (by both designers and users) but are hobbled by physical limitations such as proximity requirements and dimensionality (it’s hard to make a 3-D touch-based interface). Touch-free systems, such as gestural interfaces and voice control, eliminate some of these limitations and broaden the designer’s palette, enabling more intuitive user behavior. However, they have their own disadvantages, including “translation” issues (both gestures and spoken language) and scaling issues when multiple potential users are present. Finally, brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) have the potential to maximize the communication bandwidth between the user and the smart product but require the solution of thorny issues in fields as diverse as medicine, engineering, and ethics.

Judge’s Decision
So, what is the interface of the future? A realistic answer is inevitably something of a cop-out; I expect to see all of these interface types in applications that they are particularly well suited for throughout the foreseeable future. For instance, there will always be contexts in which the low price, simplicity and reliability of a physical button will make it the preferred solution.

Furthermore, as these technologies mature, I think we will see more blended systems. Let’s not forget – even touch screens have only become ubiquitous with the rise of smart phones over the past 5 years; nearly all of the technologies we’ve looked at have a tremendous amount of room left to grow and evolve. For example, imagine a product that offers the ability to communicate with it via voice commands and/or gestures (actually, this is strikingly similar to face-to-face human conversation, where a mix of verbal and body language is typically used).

However, it would be too anticlimactic to leave you with such a non-answer after all these months. So, if I have to choose one technology to rule them all, there’s no way I can choose anything other than direct brain-computer links.

Think of it this way: the whole history of communication is an effort, with increasing success, to convey thoughts and ideas with more precision and accuracy, in as close to real time as possible. Languages create more and more new words; technology has let us communicate from a distance, then actually talk to each other, then even see each other live (so to speak), all so we can communicate the most accurate possible representation of what we think and feel at a given time. However, even when talking with each other face to face, there is a middleman. Language (both spoken and body) is a double-edged sword, allowing us to better understand ourselves and our feelings by giving us a framework with which to think but also requiring that we translate thoughts and feelings into that framework, sometimes inelegantly or inaccurately. Have you ever struggled to find the word to express something or felt like your words can’t keep up with your thoughts? Imagine cutting out that middleman and communicating what you are thinking with no mouth-enforced bandwidth limitations or language-driven description restrictions. The possibilities in both depth of communication and also efficiency and even privacy are staggering.

The above vision is ambitious, and we may even find that parts of it are physically or physiologically impossible (e.g. directly conveying a feeling from one person to another). And, unlike a lot of mechatronic technology we write about on this blog, it is not around the corner. However, despite those and a whole host of other issues currently associated with the technology, the potential is too great for humankind not to keep reaching for that future.

The video gets into some inflatable robotics work that they are doing, with some really interesting potential applications around human-safe robots and medical robotics. However, what I found most interesting were some thoughts from Otherlab co-founder Saul Griffith on the impact that engineers can and do have on the world around them. The topic of how and how meaningfully we as engineers can affect the world really resonates with me and I am happy to see it get discussed in a larger forum. I couldn’t agree more with Saul’s challenge to all of today’s (and tomorrow’s) engineers: keep dreaming and stretching your notions of what is possible. The world is a canvas with infinite possibility for improvement and beauty.

The LS3 is essentially a pack mule for the future: it is meant to carry supplies for US soldiers and Marines in the field to both reduce their physical burden and also free up cognitive bandwidth for more important tasks. As such, it is designed to carry up to 400 pounds, walk 20 miles and operate for 24 hours without human intervention (other than voice commands to follow / stop / etc.).

From a mechatronics perspective, there are a number of interesting design challenges that an application like this poses. First of all, the dynamics and controls for a quadruped robot are considerably more complex than those for a wheeled or tracked equivalent. However, quadrupeds (or bipeds like humans, for that matter) can handle much rougher terrain than wheeled or tracked robots and this expanded mobility drastically increases their value. Ultimately the hope is that pack systems like the LS3 will be able to follow the soldier anywhere they are capable of going.

The second significant engineering obstacle centers around the the sensing and control systems required to follow the soldier and choose the best path given the upcoming terrain at any given time. There are considerable hardware, software and algorithmic issues that have to be addressed to arrive at a prototype robot like one in the video. There are also some interesting overlaps with the technology used for self-driving cars or any other mobile autonomous system.

Based on the examples that have been publicized over the past few years by Boston Dynamics and other groups pursing similar research and development, I have been deeply impressed by the pace of development of these types of systems. At this rate, even mountaineering porters might be feeling a little nervous about their job security soon…

This week’s no doubt eagerly awaited installment of our series on smart product interfaces looks at some even more novel technology. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are direct communication pathways between a human brain and an external device (i.e. without using things like hands or voices to intermediate). Various types of sensor networks are used to directly measure brain activity, which is then converted to something recognizable to external systems.

The Technology
Without getting too deep into the nitty gritty of the technology, it’s worth a brief look at some of the common approaches used in these systems. Both invasive (implanted into the body) and non-invasive systems exist, with unsurprising trade-offs: invasive systems increase medical risks and non-invasive systems often yield poor signal resolution because the skull dampens signals. For both practical and psychological reasons, commercially plausible systems outside special circumstances are almost certain to be non-invasive for the foreseeable future .

On the sensing side of the system, electroencephalography (EEG) is the most common technique and typically involves an array of electrodes mounted to the scalp that measure voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within neurons. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has also been used effectively, where brain activity is scanned by detecting changes in blood flow associated with different brain activity. However, fMRI has vastly increased hardware requirements regarding size, cost and complexity and thus early commercial systems have typically utilized an EEG headset (such as the systems we looked at a few years ago).

On the processing side, I am confident that progress over the next few years will be rapid, partly because the current state of the art is so crude (relatively). Historically, BCIs have had the most success translating physical commands (“Clench left fist”), but newer research has made strides in extracting more specific data (such as addresses or ATM numbers). However, one of the most interesting parts of BCIs is that processing can be addressed from both sides of the problem. The traditional engineering approach would be to work on developing and refining algorithms that can understand what the subject intends; to correlate certain brain activity measurements to physical commands or ultimately language. However, because of the remarkable neuroplasticity of the human brain, it is also possible to work in reverse and train the brain to think in certain ways that are more easily measured and understood by existing systems. It will be fascinating to watch the interplay between these two approaches as the technology matures.

The Why
Given the technical hurdles currently associated with BCIs, some people question whether they are worth the development headaches. Perhaps the most powerful potential application is for disability treatment – there is an already impressive body of research exploring the use of BCIs to control prosthetics and even, for instance, to restore non-congenital blindness. The ability to give a person back the use of a body part is a profoundly valuable result and should justify development of these systems all by itself.

However, there are other applications with larger potential markets that are also pushing both research and commercialization. Two of the major drivers are laziness and bandwidth. Laziness seems like a pretty minor incentive but the galvanizing force of annoyance should not be underestimated. History is littered with product improvements that did nothing more than save users a few seconds but came to dominate the market anyway (does anyone under 30 even know what a rotary phone is anymore?).

The bandwidth issue is more powerful. In previous posts, I’ve described the progression of interface technology in terms of increasing technical sophistication but another way to look at it is as a journey of increasing information transmission capacity. Buttons or even keyboards can convey only a single bit of information with each press. Touch screens improve on this but are inherently 2D. Gestural interfaces or voice command systems enable communication that is richer yet but the ultimate in bandwidth will occur when we can cut out the middleman (e.g. hands or mouth) altogether. Despite the sci-fi and touchy-feely connotations of a “mind-meld” (sarcasm intended), that concept embodies the pinnacle of possibility for human communication bandwidth and arguably also richness of communication, depending on how philosophical we want to get.

Such potential value does not come without potential costs, however. The idea of letting a person or system look directly into one’s thoughts will be considered creepy by many and there are significant technical obstacles between today’s state of the art and the kind of interface I posit above; it is even possible that the architecture of our brain does not lend itself to outputting the full information content of all our thoughts. Also and most importantly, we might have to wear dorky-looking helmets or headsets.

All in all, I expect brain-computer interfaces to become increasingly common in the world around us over the next few decades. In my next post, I will wrap up the series and summarize my best guess for where smart product interfaces are going – what would a competition be without a winner?