Disclosed is a method of controlling a robot, the method including receiving user input of a request for fitting service, moving the robot to a position at which a distance from the user satisfies a predetermined reference distance or more, and a predetermined range or more of the body of the user is scannable, scanning the predetermined range or more of the body of the user through the camera at the moved position, and providing the fitting service by creating a virtual avatar character of the user based on a result of scanning.

Implementations are described herein are directed to reconciling disparate orientations of multiple vision sensors deployed on a mobile robot (or other mobile vehicle) by altering orientations of the vision sensors or digital images they generate. In various implementations, this reconciliation may be performed with little or no ground truth knowledge of movement of the robot. Techniques described herein also avoid the use of visual indicia of known dimensions and/or other conventional tools for determining vision sensor orientations. Instead, techniques described herein allow vision sensor orientations to be determined and/or reconciled using less resources, and are more scalable than conventional techniques.

A bake-steering apparatus for controlling autonomous navigation of an electric scooter includes at least one electric motor coupled to at least one wheel of the scooter to provide driving power to enable forward momentum of the scooter, at least a pair of brake pads on the scooter such that each brake pad is adapted to make mechanical braking contact with respective ones of the wheels to provide navigational steering of the scooter, and a computational module on the scooter and electrically connected to each brake pad. The computational module is adapted to receive electrical signals and compute them into corresponding braking commands so as to determine the mechanical braking contact to generate corresponding slowing and turning of the forward momentum of the scooter so as to provide navigational steering of the scooter.

An autonomous electronic bicycle comprises a frame, a wheel that can be powered by a first electronic motor, and a pedal assembly connected to a pedal motor. The pedal assembly is not mechanically connected to the wheel, but the autonomous electronic bicycle simulates a mechanical connection by powering the rear wheel proportional to the user's pedaling force. The autonomous electronic bicycle uses a virtual gear ratio based on the cadence of the rider, the current incline of the bicycle, and the current speed of the bicycle. The virtual gear ratio can be a ratio between a torque of the set of pedals and a torque of the wheel.

A system having a networking device, a plurality of processing devices, and one or more unmanned devices, wherein each unmanned device couples to a corresponding one of the processing devices, wherein each unmanned device comprises one or more operational components. The system having a controller device configured to control at least one of the one or more unmanned devices via the networking device and the corresponding one of the processing devices, the controller device comprising one of the processing devices, wherein the controlled at least one unmanned device is configurable via the corresponding processing device in a control operating mode or in a robot operating mode, the control operating mode enabling the associated unmanned device to perform commands received from the controller device via the corresponding processing device, and the robot operating mode enabling the unmanned device to receive programmable instructions from the controller device via the corresponding processing device.

A method of operating a robot includes providing position information about a destination; receiving a request for an escort service to the destination in response to the position information; determining whether the escort service is available based on information related to the destination, the information related to the destination including at least one of state information of the destination or time information related to the destination; causing the robot to move and provide guiding to the destination in response to the request when the escort service is available; and notifying that the escort service is not available when the escort service is not available.

A time of flight (ToF) system comprises three photoemitters, a photosensor, and a controller. The first photoemitter transmits light onto objects at first height, the second photoemitter onto objects at second, lower height, and the third photoemitter onto objects at third, lowest height. The controller causes one of the photoemitters to transmit modulated light and the photosensor to receive reflections from the scene. The controller determines a depth map for the corresponding height based on phase differences between the transmitted and reflected light. In some examples, the ToF system is included in an autonomous robot's navigation system. The navigation system identifies overhanging objects at the robot's top from the depth map at the first height, obstacles in the navigation route from the depth map at the second height, and cliffs and drop-offs in the ground surface in front of the robot from the depth map at the third height.

Provided are an information processing device and a mobile robot capable of ensuring the accuracy of estimation of a self-position even with an environmental change and maintaining the consistency of the self-position on a map. The information processing device of the mobile robot includes a control section and a detection section configured to detect a distance to a peripheral object and the direction thereof as detection information. The control section includes a storage, a map producer configured to produce a peripheral map, an existing map self-position estimator configured to estimate a current self-position based on an existing map, a current map self-position estimator configured to estimate the current self-position based on a current map, a reliability evaluator configured to evaluate the reliability of each of the estimated self-positions, and a self-position updater configured to update either one of the self-positions based on the reliability.

Set forth is a motorized computing device that selectively navigates to a user according content of a spoken utterance directed at the motorized computing device. The motorized computing device can modify operations of one or more motors of the motorized computing device according to whether the user provided a spoken utterance while the one or more motors are operating. The motorized computing device can render content according to interactions between the user and an automated assistant. For instance, when automated assistant is requested to provide graphical content for the user, the motorized computing device can navigate to the user in order to present the content the user. However, in some implementations, when the user requests audio content, the motorized computing device can bypass navigating to the user when the motorized computing device is within a distance from the user for audibly rendering the audio content.

The field of the invention relates to robot motion and a global path plan for a robot. Global paths are planned using piecewise Sigmoid curves by determining an initial valid path for guiding a robot from a starting position to an ending position, dividing the initial valid path into a plurality of individual segments of the initial valid path, and fitting a separate Sigmoid curve respectively to each of the plurality of individual segments of the initial valid path based on parameters of at least one of smoothness and security to produce a piecewise Sigmoid curve path.