Talking Robots - The Podcast on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

In this interview we talk to Roland Siegwart who is Full Professor at the Autonomous Systems Lab at the ETH Zurich. Based on his experience with the 18 robots he's created, he shares his know-how on autonomous robotics and the research which is being done on robot navigation/localization and mapping.

In this interview we talk to Gianmarco Veruggio who founded the association Scuola di Robotica in Genova (Italy) to study the complex relationship between Robotics and Society. This led him to coin the term and propose the concept of Roboethics, or the field of Ethics applied to robotics. He discusses topics such as the use of robots in our everyday environments, the lethality and benefits of medical robots or military robots, augmented humans and robots as human-like artifacts. Should we start thinking like Asimov, deriving laws and limits to apply for the peaceful cohabitation of humans and robots?

In this episode we talk to José Halloy who is researcher at the Unit of Social Ecology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He presents the work done in the scope of the LEURRE project on the self-organization of hybrid groups of animals and artificial artifacts. Recently presented in one of the most renowned journals "Science", Halloy describes how insect-like robots can influence a group of cockroaches into collectively selecting a light shelter instead of the dark one they usually crave. A splash of perfume and a good behavioral model is what it takes to interact with what Maeterlinck called the "mind of the hive" or in this case, the collective intelligence of the cockroach society.

In today's episode we talk to Tandy Trower, a 26-year Microsoft veteran who is now the General Manager of the Microsoft Robotics Group. In this year's January edition of Scientific American, Bill Gates predicted a "Robot in Every Home" after having told Tandy Trower "to go on an extended fact-finding mission and to speak with people across the robotics community". As a result, Microsoft launched their "Robotics Studio" in 2006 without losing a split second. Tandy Trower tells what it's all about, why Microsoft is interested in robotics, if we'll ever see anything close to open source and if we are we really going towards a robot in every home.

In this interview we talk to Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman who is director of The Neurosciences Institute in California and professor at The Scripps Research Institute. He presents his theory of Neural Darwinism and the brain-based devices that are working away to prove its consistency through demonstrations of learning and episodic memory. What’s the next big step? The implementation of conscious artifacts, thanks to the study of the underlying biological process.

In this episode we talk to Henrik Lund who is the director of the AdapTronics Group at the Maersk Mc-Kinney Moller Institute at the University of Southern Denmark. He just recently launched the Center for Playware in the same institute which has recently received wide media attention (Wired, NewScientistTech, CNN) for motivating kids and adults to play on his interactive playgrounds and therapy tiles. Henrik also explains how he is inspiring Tanzanian children to become inventors and engineers with the AfroBot project.

In this episode we talk to Ron Fearing who is the director of the Biomimetic Millisystem Laboratory at UC Berkeley in California. He presents the state of the art in aerial insect-size flapping robots with the Micromechanical Flying Insect (MFI) project and the challenges in designing millisystems, from autonomy and control in turbulent environments to hardware. Thanks to his know-how with the “tiny” he's also been designing tools and kits for the rapid-prototyping of miniature robots of all types which might one-day be used in high-school science classes, or is it art?

In this episode we talk to Michael Arbib who is the Fletcher Jones professor of computer science, as well as a professor of biological sciences, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, neuroscience and psychology at the University of Southern California where he is also the director of the USC Brain Project. He's been inspiring roboticists around the world with his research in neuroscience especially on mirror systems. He gives us insight as to why we cry at the movies and how imitation and language acquisition might have came about in humans or monkeys. From the neurons to the machines and from "faked" emotions to real ones, he gives us his view on robots today and tomorrow.

In this episode we interview Rudolf Bannasch from the Technical University in Berlin, Germany. Thanks to his background in biology, his many trips to the poles and his know-how in engineering, he's been able to pinpoint the principles found in nature which can provide the basis for novel solutions to everyday technical problems. With his bio-inspiration as a drive, he's creating new products through his startup Evologics and encouraging bionic design through European networks.

In this episode we interview Sebastian Thrun who is the director of the Stanford AI Lab (SAIL) in California. He tells us how he won the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge along with the Stanford Racing Team and Stanley the robot car using his secret ingredient, probabilistic robotics. He prepares us for a future where autonomous cars zigzag through traffic, bringing children, the elderly and workers to their destination in a safe and efficient manner.