Лекция научного сотрудника университета Карнеги-Меллон Мела Зигеля на конференции Skolkovo Robotics

1. Will Power and Energy Issues
Put the Brakes on the
Engine of Robotics Growth?
Mel Siegel
Carnegie Mellon University
School of Computer Science
The Robotics Institute
Sensing, Sensors, & Control Lab Director
MS in Robotics Technology Program Director
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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2. historically: sensors & human interfaces
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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3. recently: energy & power issues ...
liquid fuel
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
batteries
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4. The Energizer (batteries) Bunny
“He just keeps going!”

5. The Energizer (batteries) Bunny
“He just keeps going?”
But in truth the
Bunny's original
animatronics
engineer (Grant
Imahara) reports
that it actually
ran less than 10
minutes ...

6. batteries vs. ice cream
ASIMO runs for about 30 minutes on a
7.7 kg battery mass (out of 52 kg total mass),
so requires ~400 kg/day of fully-charged
batteries

an excellent 7.7 kg battery might store ~4 Mj

so Asimo's power demand is ~2 kW

compare with human power demand ~0.1 kW

would be provided by ~400 g/day of ice cream

~400 gm/day for human | ~400 kg/day for robot
so it is no surpriseenergy issues in robotics
BigDog runs on liquid fuel!
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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7. what to measure / what to calculate
scaling rules for geometrically similar vehicles:






vehicle's characteristic linear dimension = h
then on-board energy storage capacity ~h^3
baseline power requirement = P
running time (T) on stored energy ~h3/P
range (R) on stored energy ~h3v/P (v = speed)
if P is mostly frictional loss to air or water then
P ~h2v, so T ~h/v, so R~h
–
which is why we use a few big boats/airplanes
vs. many small ones to travel long distances
(and similarly for any baseline power model)
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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8. partial conclusion - energy storage


batteries are terrible compared to liquid fuels
this problem is not unique to robotics:
– cell phones, electric cars, etc, are all battery-limited

potential ultimate solutions:
– renewable electrodes?
– fuel cells?
– solutions that avoid storage:
• wireless transmission (while in motion)?
• foraging for energy (in the environment)?


we're not green, but this isn't yet a barrier
robotics can “ride the wave” of progress driven
by transportation & communication demands
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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9. also: energy from transient power sources
sun
n
clou
d
y?
nel
olar pa
s
ENGINEERING
INTELLIGENCE
y?
SCIENCE

10. what is the problem?

some system ... mobile robot? bus? boat? ...
−
−

some requirements are discretionary ...
−
−


collects solar energy for immediate tasks
and stores solar energy for future tasks
do them now or do them later
use an optimal mix of incoming & stored energy
the optimal strategy now depends on the energy
you predict you will collect later !
predictions can be based on a mixture of locally
collected data and downloaded weather data
“solar” and “weather” are convenient concrete
examples, but same thinking applies globally
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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11. what are the questions?




given weather forecasts today, can we predict
the energy we will be able to gather tomorrow?
given our own local measurements of
insolation, other weather variables, sky
temperature, etc, can we predict the energy we
will be able to gather tomorrow?
what is the optimal approach to fusion of these
multiple data sources?
plus some secondary technology issues, e.g.,
tracking the maximum power point of sources
(like solar cells) with “interesting” V-I properties
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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12. partial conclusion - transient power


it is mostly an information technology domain!
hardware is generally well-developed
−

software to coordinate hardware components isn't
this is not a threat for robotics
−
−
it is rather an opportunity for us to spin-off the
IT, AI, and communication technology advances in
our smaller robotics context into the larger contexts
of transient power availability and consequent
energy storage requirements
even on regional, national, and international scales
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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13. overall conclusion ...
Will Power and Energy Issues Put the Brakes on the
Engine of Robotics Growth?
at first it seems like yes:
– we talk about “bio-inspired” robots, but our energy
storage media are far inferior to life forms'
• the fix seems to be to gather energy locally
• but management of transient sources may be
harder than path planning, etc, in robotics

nevertheless, taking a closer look:
– energy storage is a crucial issue in fields much
larger than robotics, so we can ride their wave
– transient power management is similar to
optimization problems in robotics, so we can
spin-off our progress into broader contexts

20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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14. overall conclusion ...
Will Power and Energy Issues Put the Brakes on the
Engine of Robotics Growth?
at first it seems like yes:
– we talk about “bio-inspired” robots, but our energy
storage media are far inferior to life forms'
• the fix seems to be to gather energy locally
• but management of transient sources may be
harder than path planning, etc, in robotics

nevertheless, taking a closer look:
– energy storage is a crucial issue in fields much
larger than robotics, so we can ride their wave
– transient power management is similar to
optimization problems in robotics, so we can
spin-off our progress into broader contexts

20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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15. Another Topic - Briefly!
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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16. companies recently bought by Google
(Wikipedia says “more than one/week since 2010”!)
DeepMind
Nest
Boston Dynamics
Bot & Dolly
Holumni
Meka Robots
Redwood Robotics
Industrial Perception
Schaft
Flutter
Makani Power
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
AI
home automation
walking robots
robot cameras
robot wheels
people-oriented robots
robot arms
computer vision
humanoid robots
gesture recognition
airborne wind turbines
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17. Albert Efimov asked this question:
How will Google's purchase of ~10 robot/robotics
companies affect the rates & directions of research,
development, & adoption of robots/robotic systems?
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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18. Albert Efimov asked this question:
How will Google's purchase of ~10 robot/robotics
companies affect the rates & directions of research,
development, & adoption of robots/robotic systems?
Mel Siegel gave this answer:
The lion's share of robotics funding -- government
and industry -- chases requirements articulated by
the military sector; Google's fusion of many unique
areas of expertise -- until now held by many small
players -- and the funding that will now allow them to
pursue their own dreams -- will trigger a huge
explosion of products that will live or die according
to their fitness to survive in the popular -- not just the
military -- market.
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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19. Is this a topic for future panel discussion?
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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20. 20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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21. Will Power and Energy Issues
Put the Brakes on the
Engine of Robotics Growth?
Будут ли проблема
с питанием и энергией
затормаживать темни
роста роботтехники?
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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22. Будут ли проблема
с питанием и энергией
затормаживать темни
роста роботтехники?
Will there be a problem with the
power and energy inhibit growth
robottehniki dark?
20140301 <mws@cmu.edu>
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