Graduate Robot Attending ConferencE
GRACE is a 2-metre tall 135-kilogram drum-shaped robot with a digitally animated face displayed by a monitor on top of it, created by five academic, governmental, and industrial research groups led by Reid Simmons of Carnegie Mellon University that is competing in the Robot Challenge at the American Association of Artificial Intelligence's annual meeting for 2002 in Edmonton, Alberta. The challenge is that it must attempt a sign-in at the registration desk, find a conference room, give a speech, and answer questions. No entry has been able to complete the challenge in years past. GRACE is one of only two entries into the challenge this year (2002), and the only autonomous one. GRACE is equipped with laser and sonar systems to gauge distances and steer around obstacles, "biclops" cameras that watch hand gestures, microphones that use speech recognition software to listen to words spoken to it, and artificial intelligence to tell it how to react to its input. The robots laser systems could become a problem when it attempts to navigate the Shaw Conference Center, where the event is being held, because the glass walled elevators do not reflect the laser.
GRACE completed the mission in 55 minutes, although it had some difficulty minding its manners when interacting with humans, provoking several arguements with its guide.
info from http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/cybernews/story/0,1870,134249-1027893540,00.html and http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20020725gracesciencep1.asp and http://www.canada.com/edmonton/edmontonjournal/story.asp?id={A5E572C8-6688-4CC9-A021-72D52C1CC50F}