Security Robot SeQ-1

From Taiwan's Central News Agency, cna.com.tw.
Hopefully we will see some pictures soon.

Quote:
Taipei, April 11 (CNA) Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has developed a new security robot, called "SeQ-1," in collaboration with the Shin Kong Security Co., an ITRI spokesman said Wednesday.

The SeQ-1 robot will soon join the national security system, the spokesman said, adding that the name "SeQ-1" refers to the robot's "security" role as well as its "Q&A" function and cute appearance.

According to the spokesman, the SeQ-1 robot has a futuristic external form, an agile head which can turn easily, and large LED eyes that turn on automatically in the dark.

ITRI integrated an "environment security system" into SeQ-1's robot platform system which enables the robot to have immediate interaction with security monitoring systems and marks a big difference between the SeQ-1 and foreign security robots, the spokesman said.

NEW SECURITY ROBOT 'SEQ-1' DEVELOPED BY ITRI AND SHIN KONG SECURITY

Taiwan Selects Standard Robot Software

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, ITRI, has annonced that they have chosen Evolution Robotics Sofware Platform,ESRP, for a standard software kit for robot development in Taiwan.

The software development kit will be offered by ITRI to help standardize robot development in Taiwan and help them to get ahead of rapid developments coming from other countries. They expect the market for robots to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars within ten years and they want to make sure that Taiwan stays up with the trend.

"We believe this coordinated approach using our SDK and the ERSP architecture will lead to much more rapid innovation of new technologies, faster time to market for new products, and overall, a stronger competitive position for Taiwan in robotics," said Mr. Chan An Pao of ITRI.

Evolution Robotics is a California based company that provides OEM support for robot software development. In the past they have announced close partnerships with other high profile robot projects. The new home telepresence robot from Bandai, NetTansor, uses Evolution's software.
Evolution has also announced partnerships with robot toymaker WowWee and Korea's URC developer Yujin Robotics. They have also announced that they will be working with Sharper Image on a new vacuum robot.


ERSP provides the basic functioning software for robots as well as the ability to integrate decisionmaking, navigation, vision and custom behaviors.

I can't help but notice that this is not Microsoft Robotics Studio. It appears that there would be no need for the MS Robotics Studio with this software. ERSP runs with MS windows and Visual Studio .NET or Linux.
Evolution, so far, has chosen a very different plan for marketing their software. While MS gives theirs away free for now, ESRP starts in the US $7500 range for educational-use-only kit.

If I had as much money as Microsoft I might consider investing in or owning a company like Evolution Robotics.


Evolution Robotics

Robot Servant Understands Hand Signals

An experimental home robot developed at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU)in Taiwan called 'NCTU Vision One' can identify people and interpret hand gestures.

The robot is a product of the Computer Vision Research Center at the university.
It is designed to recognize a particular person and follow them around in case they need help. After training it can understand hand gestures as commands for pre-programmed tasks such as "get my medicine" or 'I've fallen and I can't get up."

It can also recognize facial expressions to help understand the gesticulations or to evaluate the person's health.

The robot can also take on duty as a guard. It can recognize the difference between a friend or foe. If an unauthorized person is spotted the robot follows at a safe distance and notifies a human.


NCTU DEVELOPS NEW HOUSEHOLD ROBOTS

Taiwan Predicts Robot Industry Growth

Taiwan's Industrial Development Bureau (IDB), part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, predicts huge growth in their robot industry.
The bureau said that while Japan and South Korea are focusing research on "housekeeping robots", Taiwan would concentrate on "security robots". Security robots will be used for "household surveillance, intruder alarms and emergency notification."

They expect that by 2016, robot manufacturing could create 22,000 more jobs and make up 1.35 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP).
The output of the business would be NT$250 billion with exports of NT$175 billion. (US $7.6 bill and exports of US $5.3 billion)

They expect that by 2020 worlwide production of robots will be at least US $1.4 trillion and will exceed automotive manufacturing.

China Post - Taiwan Business,World Business,台灣財經

Taiwan wants to arm tactical UAV

Taiwan’s Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology (CSIST) has unveiled a new tactical unmanned air vehicle and hopes to develop a strike version of the system for the nation’s military.

The Taiwanese army and navy have already test flown the tactical UAV design and CSIST says it is talking with private manufacturing companies in Taiwan to produce the system.

However, the army is believed to have shown little interest in domestic UAVs and is more interested in importing more capable systems. But sources say the US government is unlikely to approve the sale of any of its armed UAVs to Taipei and add that European manufacturers are not interested in Taiwanese sales because of the anticipated opening of the mainland Chinese market.


Taiwan wants to arm tactical UAV