This armless automaton will begin a test run in Schiphol Amsterdam Airport at the end of the month, greeting and guiding harried travellers through the transport hub’s famously confusing terminal system. Navigating it is so challenging, in fact, that KLM airlines donated a large part of the project’s funding because so many of its customers were getting lost and missing flights. To ensure that doesn’t happen anymore, Spencer is equipped with laser range-finding eyes and detailed maps of the airport’s interior.
在荷兰阿姆斯特丹斯希波尔机场，一款名叫斯宾塞（Spencer）的导航机器人将要正式上岗。他每天的工作就是欢迎熙来攘往的全球旅客，并在这个让人晕头转向的航站楼给旅客提供问路服务。对于这个没有手臂的机器人来说，回答各种问路，确实是比较有挑战性的工作。但由于很多旅客经常会在航站楼迷路，而导致登机延误，所以呢，就有了这么一台配备激光测距双眼和机场详细地图的机器人。
“Navigating an airport is challenging, there is a lot of glass and a constantly changing environment in terms of temporary obstructions, such as parked luggage trolleys and people everywhere,” Achim Lilienthal, project leader at Örebro University which contributed to the research, said in a statement. “Objects that are temporarily permanent so to speak, are the most difficult to work around. We do not know, for instance, how long that luggage trolley will be parked in a particular spot, which makes it harder for the robot to determine its own location. We are working on a general map representation that includes and allows the robot to handle temporarily permanent objects.”
利勒布鲁大学的研究项目负责人Achim Lilienthal在一份声明中表示：“机场导航是具有挑战性的,有很多的玻璃环境啊以及不断变化临时障碍物啊,比如停行李手推车和来自世界各地的旅客”。“而且机器人不知道这些临时的障碍物会存在多久,比如行李手推车会在某个位置放多久,这就使得机器人很难确定自己的位置。所以我们正在研发怎么让机器人能处理不断变化的环境和不停变动的障碍物。”
The team has also trained Spencer to understand human behaviors and, to some degree, social mores. For example, the robot will not simply barrel through a crowd of people, but rather sidestep the group. It’s also cognizant enough to occasionally check on the group it’s leading to ensure that nobody’s been left behind. “This technology can be used in all robots intended to interact with humans. Autonomous trucks for example, would be more widely accepted if they functioned better in their interaction with humans,” said Lilienthal.
研发团队还训练机器人能在某种程度上理解人的行为和社会习俗。例如,机器人不会选择穿越人群,而是选择回避。Lilienthal表示，任何需要与人互动的机器人都需要这项技术。
The first trial run begins November 30th and will last just one week. The research team will then leverage the data they collected from the trial to further improve Spencer’s performance before its official debut next March.
机器人上岗试运行将从11月30日开始,试运行一个星期。研究小组将赶在明年3月正式上市前，用收集到的试运行数据来进一步提升Spencer的表现。
robot.tv