Universal Robotics

Universal Robotics, Inc.

File:UR Corporate Logo.png
Industry	Automation Software
Founded	2001 Commenced Operations 2008
Headquarters	Nashville, Tennessee
Key people	David Peters, CEO Richard Alan Peters II, CTO
Products	Neocortex
Website	http://www.universalrobotics.com

Universal Robotics, Inc, is a software engineering company that develops, manufactures, and supports an operating system for machine intelligence. Headquartered at Smith Springs in Nashville, Tennessee, Universal Robotics was co-founded by professor Dr. Alan Peters, of the Center for Intelligent Systems in the School of Engineering at Vanderbilt University and his brothers David Peters, a businessman, and Jonathan Peters, an IT consultant. The company was incorporated as a holding company on August 29, 2001. In June 2007 a securities offering commenced to raise early stage financing with the round successfully closing in March 2008.

File:Robonaut Black and White.jpg

NASA Robonaut

Product

The Company’s signature software product is designed to automate intelligence and is called Neocortex after the cerebral cortex in mammal brains. The technology is based on the pattern of learning in nature which is common to all creatures. It mimics the capability to apply understanding from physical experience. Neocortex differs from Artificial Intelligence (AI) in that the machine develops its own understanding from sensing and acting in the physical world, rather than being programmed. It will serve as the intelligence for different types of machines including industrial robots, forklifts, and mining equipment. Selling is planned to begin in 2009 to the materials handling industry where Neocortex will palletize and de-palletize mix sized boxes using industrial robots. The company developed tagline for marketing is Software with an IQ. The invention is patent protected and was developed at Vanderbilt University and NASA, where it has been the “brain” of their humanoid robot for four years.

Efforts to apply Machine intelligence to industry, have met with only limited success. The problem stemmed from the belief that if enough facts where loaded into a sophisticated data base, a machine would become intelligent (i.e. the Artificial Intelligence approach). Since this approach was not working, a number of roboticists in academia came to believe that a machine could exhibit intelligent behavior only through physically manipulating the world and, through its own sensors, learn the immediate effects of its actions. Intelligence would emerge as the machine developed skills through its interactions with people and the world.

File:UR Lab SDA10.jpg

Motoman SDA10 at Smith Springs Lab, 2008.

Neocortex does not rely on classical artificial intelligence (AI), and though it organizes sensory-motor data in vector space, it is not simply an artificial neural network. It is modeled after hypotheses on the acquisition of natural intelligence by animals, integrating concepts from a number of disciplines concerned with behavior, biology, and engineering.

Operations

Universal is a hybrid of functional and product organizational structures. There six task areas: 1) strategic planning, 2) sales and service of customers, 3) engineering and programming, 4) quality control, 5) research and development, and 6) security. Layers of management are reduced and the interconnectedness of individual tasks is paramount.

External links

• Richard Alan Peters II Vanderbilt Faculty Page
• Universal Robotics Official Web Site
• NASA Robonaut Home Page

Pfeifer, Rolf, et al. Understanding Intelligence. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1999

Kawamura, Kazuhiko; et al. (2004). "A parallel distributed cognitive control system for a humanoid robot". International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. 1 (1): 65–93. CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link)

Ambrose, Rob; et al. (July 2000). "Robonaut: NASA's space humanoid". :IEEE Intelligent Systems. 15 (4): 57–63. CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link)

Davidson, Keay (2001-06-20). "Why 'AI' won't come true any time soon". San Francisco Chronicle. 

Brooks, Rodney (1990). "Elephants Don't Play Chess". Robotics and Autonomous Systems. 6: 3–15. doi:10.1016/S0921-8890(05)80025-9. 

Kawamura, Kazuhiko; et al. (2000). "ISAC: Foundations in human-humanoid interaction". IEEE Intelligent Systems. 15 (4): 38–45. CS1 maint: Explicit use of et al. (link)