The economics of volume production now make it possible to develop wholly new, low-cost, highly functional robotic products, robotically enhance existing product lines and automate complex tasks formally handled by humans.  As a result, a rapidly increasing number of new robotic applications are being developed to meet critical needs in many areas such as medical care, the environment and defense.  For business managers, advanced robotics functionality offers another avenue to driving down costs and increasing productivity.  Additional areas where emerging robotics technologies can be applied to reduce costs, optimize performance and generate revenue are limited only by the imagination.  As such, the upside potential for robotics manufacturers, OEMs, resellers and others involved in the personal, service and mobile robotics value chain is nearly boundless. 

The RoboNexus Emerging Robotics Technologies and Applications Conference is designed for executive and management level attendees who want to learn how mobile robotics and emerging robotics technology can be employed to develop entirely new markets and product categories, open additional lines of business, enhance existing product lines and increase business productivity.

KEYNOTES:

Intelligent Robotic Systems in the Lab and in the Marketplace
Dr. Rodney Brooks, Director, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, Co-Founder/CTO, iRobot

In this provocative and compelling keynote address, Rodney Brooks, Director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, and CTO and Co-Founder of iRobot, will describe a variety of robotics technologies currently under development and the cultural and commercial roles they will play in the home, the workplace and in public places. He will also provide insights into the means by which humans and intelligent robots can interact together, and how the differences and similarities between human and machine systems will impact the commercial application of robotics.

Dr. Rodney A. Brooks is Director, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, and is the Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science. He is also Chairman and Chief Technical Officer of iRobot Corp. His research is concerned with both the engineering of intelligent robots to operate in unstructured environments, and with understanding human intelligence through building humanoid robots.

Welcome to the Era of Mass Market Robotics
Helen Greiner, Co-founder and Chairman, iRobot

Robots and robotic technologies are no longer limited to low volume, high-cost solutions designed for niche markets. Inexpensive robotics technology, coupled with low cost, high volume manufacturing techniques, has led to the emergence and explosive growth of the personal, service and mobile robotics mass-market markets, including a robotic appliances market. This is a worldwide phenomenon that offers worldwide product (and revenue) opportunities in the consumer, commercial, civil and military markets. In this insightful keynote, Helen Greinier, Chairman of iRobot, the makers of the Roomba robotic vacuum, will provide valuable insight into this new market, including technical and commercial trends driving the robotic appliances mass-market, and how to take advantage of the opportunity that this totally new consumer market offers.

Under Ms. Greiner's leadership, iRobot Corporation is delivering robots into the industrial, consumer, academic, and military markets. Recently, she was named the Ernst and Young New England Entrepreneurs of the Year for 2003 (with iRobot co-founder Colin Angle). She has also been honored as a Technology Review Magazine "Innovator for the Next Century," invited to the World Economic Forums as a Global Leader of Tomorrow, and has been awarded the prestigious DEMO God Award at the DEMO Conference. Her 15 years of experience in robotic technology includes work at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Robotics: When?
Alec Hudnut, President, Evolution Robotics

The robotics industry has always been "just around the corner". Is now the time it will actually take off? In this session, Alec Hudnut, President of Evolution Robotics, will describe how human evolution, as well as the evolution of several other industries, can provide clues as to the development of the non-industrial robotics market. In his keynote, Alec will examine the key building blocks that must be in place for new industries to take off, as well as the importance of luck and chance. He will also describe the key inflection points in the robotics industry growth curve, and the implication of such for the growth of the robotics market.

As President, Alec Hudnut is leading Evolution Robotics' efforts to become the key supplier of software and components to the robotics and intelligent devices industries. Prior to running Evolution Robotics, Alec built Quisic, a distance learning company, from the proverbial 'two guys in a garage' to an enterprise that educated over 1 million people. Alec has also served as a consultant for McKinsey & Co and an investment banker at Goldman, Sachs. Alec holds and MBA from Harvard University.

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SPEAKERS

Humanoid Robotics: The Kawada Industries Experience
Tadahiro Kawada, Managing Director, Kawada Industries, Inc.

In this informative session, attendees will be give a first hand account of Kawada Industries initiatives into developing commercially viable humanoid robots, including an overview of the Human Robotics Projects (HRP), a Japanese government sponsored R & D program aimed to develop and study application of humanoid robots. A history of the design and development of Kawada's HRP-2 will be presented, along with reviews of the robot's features and scenarios where humanoid robots such as HRP-2 can be used in the workplace and at home.

Tadahiro Kawada is Managing Director at Kawada Industries, a Japan based steel fabricator and construction firm, as well as President of General Robotix, a developer and distributor of the Humanoid Robot Software Platform, OpenHRP, the software for the Humanoid robot HRP-2 made by Kawada Industries.

Mobile Robots: Entering the Commercial Marketplace
Neena Buck, Vice President of Emerging Frontiers, Strategy Analytics

The arrival of consumer-based robotic applications in the marketplace signals the dawn of an era that will provide a host of new opportunities for manufacturers to develop many navigation-based mobile robot applications. In the longer term, applications for larger-scale enterprises, requiring manipulation and a-priori recognition capabilities - in addition to navigation - will appear. Some of these will be tele-operated, and, over time, will become more and more autonomous. Eventually, we will see the emergence of multi-robot systems acting in concert to solve specific problems and to meet multiple goals.

This session provides an analyst’s perspective on the emerging market opportunities for mobile robots. We will provide an overview of the various categories of mobile robots coming out of research labs, examine the embryonic state of the market today and identify some of major barriers that must be overcome in order for achieve mass- commercialization.

Neena Buck is Vice President of the Emerging Frontiers practice at Strategy Analytics, an industry analysis and market research firm. Emerging Frontiers examines the confluence of future-generation intelligent computing and communications systems with the needs of leading-edge businesses and consumers. Through scenario-building, continuous contact with academic and research labs and periodic focus groups with early adopter consumers, Ms. Buck assists strategic thinkers in visualizing technologies that could help transform future products, services and business models.

Cutting Edge Laser Measurement Technology for Service Robots
Jeff Wuendry, Product Marketing Manager, SICK

Current developments in laser measurement technology will improve the functionality and effectiveness of tomorrow's innovative service robots. This presentation will briefly review laser sensing and measurement technology, illustrate why laser technology is the best measurement solution for navigation and anti-collision applications for robotics manufacturers, and show laser measurement application examples in exploration, agricultural, and food processing. Attendees will also learn how robotics manufacturers are driving laser measurement development plans and trends.

As Product Marketing Manager, Jeff Wuendry is brings over 10 years industrial process measurement experience to SICK, one of the world's leading manufacturers of sensors, safety systems and automatic identification products for industrial applications.

To See the World
Hans Moravec
Principal Research Scientist, Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University

In the 1970s, computer vision was a fantasy, with million dollar research computers often failing at trivial tasks. Throughout the 1980s, very specialized industrial vision applications for fixed locations running on minicomputers began to appear, while during 1990s these applications, now running on microcomputers, became more robust, less expensive and commonplace. But only since the advent of the 21st century has reliable vision applications, now incorporated into mobile robots, become possible. To describe the wildly varying scenery of unstructured environments, these robots employ computers a thousandfold more powerful (and cheaper) than the mainframes of the 1970s. Attendees at this enlightening session will hear how computer vision fantasies are becoming realities, and soon industries.

Hans Moravec a Principal Research Scientist in the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. Since 1980 he has been director of the Carnegie Mellon University Mobile Robot Laboratory, birthplace of mobile robots deriving 3D spatial awareness from cameras, sonar, and other sensors. He is the author of Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence and Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. He is also the author of many papers in robotics, computer graphics, multiprocessors, space travel and other speculative areas.

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