EU funds robot project for cities

Story link: EU funds robot project for cities by Jan Harris

The EU is funding a project at the Technical University of Catalonia which aims to use robots within urban settings, in order to eventually promote traffic-free streets in European cities.

The three-year project, called Ubiquitous Robots in Urban Settings (Urus), will design and develop plans for a city which accommodates wirelessly networked robots that can autonomously perform tasks, including surveillance activities.

A networked robot will be able navigate a city and detect abnormal situations by comparing the scene with pre-programmed data of an area. It will be able to identify areas that have been vandalised, litter or suspicious activity.

If it detects suspicious activity a robot will be able to exchange information with other networked robots and give its location and send an alarm. Criminal actions will be videoed, detected and reported on the spot.

The project aims to create 10 unique robots capable of different tasks based on individual motion capabilities and types of sensors on board.

The University of Catalonia is not involved in the design of the robots, but will contribute its expertise in computer vision, gesture recognition and the use of vision for human-robot interaction.

The robots will include visual sensors, on-board GPS systems and programmed 3D image analysis algorithms, allowing them to determine their location, move around and interpret and react to moving objects such as pedestrians or vehicles.

People will be able to communicate with the robots either by speaking to them or calling them on a mobile phone. The robot will respond by voice, an interactive robot screen or mobile phone.

The robots will be tested in two experiments in Barcelona and the project is due to end in 2009.