A spherical roving robot designed to detect and report intruders has been developed by a Swedish start-up company.
The design was first developed with planetary exploration in mind, at the Ångström Space Technology Center, part of Uppsala University, Sweden. But Rotundus, formed in December 2004 plan to market the ball-shaped bot as an automated security guard.
"We knew it would have applications on Earth," says company CEO Nils Hulth. "It is very robust when compared to robots that use wheels or tracks and can travel through mud or even snow."
A short video on the company's website demonstrates the robot's ability to navigate through snow.
It is propelled by a pendulum suspended from an axis inside the casing, controlled by a motor. Moving the pendulum forwards causes the robot roll along, but the pendulum can also swing from side to side, giving the robot the ability to steer left and right. An animation also available on the Rotundus website illustrates the locomotion mechanism in action.
Patrol route
The finished version of the robot will follow a patrol route using an internal GPS sensor, Hulth says. Wide angle cameras fitted to the sides of the robot should allow it to record and transmit video footage back to a controller. And the next version will also have enough power to propel itself up slopes, he says.
Ultimately, the company hopes to make the robot virtually autonomous. It is currently developing a radar sensor to allow it to navigate around obstacles and motion-sensing software to automatically detect an intruder. "It will sound the alarm, allowing a remote controller to take over and get even better pictures," Hulth says.
Tony Hirst, a roboticist with the Open University in Milton Keynes, UK, told New Scientist the robot's spherical design could make it more nimble than other robots in certain situations. It would be less prone to getting stuck in corner, for example. Hirst also notes that some US companies already offer indoor security robots that can autonomously patrol a factory floor.
Hulth concedes that the robot is not well suited to navigating inside a building, where it would face steps, stairs and other obstacles.
Scrambling legs
Other robots being developed could be much better suited to indoor tasks, however. For example, researchers at Case Western University in Cleveland, US, are working on insect-inspired bots that can overcome irregular surfaces and steps.
These robots use a combination of wheels and legs to scramble over terrain and are therefore dubbed "whegs". A video of various whegs in action reveals a form of locomotion akin to that of a large insect.
"Three spoked appendages, called wheel-legs, combine the speed and simplicity of wheels with the high mobility of legs," the researchers write on the project's website. "The robot can surmount obstacles significantly greater than the radius of the wheel-legs - a difficult feat for wheeled vehicles."
The latest Mini Whegs have also been given a mechanism that allows them to leap up a small step, as another video made by the team shows.
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