Tour: Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute
Researchers in Pitt’s Center for Energy are answering the call for more reliable, efficient and environmentally friendly energy solutions.
Duration: 1 hour
Overview
Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute is a leader in autonomous mobile robots, computer vision, human-robot interaction, locomotion and real-world applications of robotic technology in mining, agriculture and manufacturing. One of the largest robotics education and research organizations in the world, the institute has an annual research budget of more than $55 million and more than 300 of its faculty, staff and students are working on more than 100 projects.
For this tour, the Robotics Institute has assembled many of its most notable robots and technologies within a large, two-story highbay workspace.
What You’ll See:
- Boss, the SUV that can drive unassisted over city streets. The autonomous vehicle won the $2 million Urban Challenge robot race in 2007 and now supports the university’s research on collision-avoidance systems and self-driving cars.
- Red Rover, a prototype of a four-wheeled lunar rover that will visit the historic site of the Apollo 11 moon landing and broadcast high-definition video back to Earth. Leaders of the Tranquility Trek mission seek to win the $20 million Google Lunar X Prize.
- Cave Crawler, a vehicle designed for mapping and search-and-rescue missions in underground mines.
- Scarab, a prototype lunar prospector built for NASA. Scarab tests technologies that will be used to search for water and other resources on the moon that could support lunar exploration.
- Snake-like robots that can climb inside pipes, around poles and through cracks to perform search-and-rescue missions. The same technology is being used to design surgical tools to aid in minimally invasive procedures.
- Snackbot, a semi-humanoid mobile robot that will deliver snacks to campus workers as researchers try to discover how humans and robots can best interact.
- Ballbot, the first robot that moves by balancing atop a sphere the size of a bowling ball. Dynamically stable robots such as Ballbot may be particularly suited for working in offices or homes.
