100! That is the number of Naos delivered to date. We are very proud of the work that has been accomplished: mass production of the Naos for the 2008 RoboCup which started in March, has now been completed. The excitement of the last two months has now given way to impatience at the prospect of seeing the Nao footballers clash in China.
Thank you for your continued support, enjoy reading!
Bruno Maisonnier, founder of Aldebaran Robotics
The entire Aldebaran team celebrated the 100th robot with champagne! The assembly team has worked hard to complete the orders in record time: the last 58 robots were assembled in 3 weeks, weekends included. The box containing this rather special Nao was signed by the whole team under the flashes.
Assembly team : a shock troop!
On the technical part, we have plenty of good news!
For those of you who were waiting for this for a long time, we can proudly announce today that the inertial sensor functions. Nao has gained the sense of balance and can stay standing up on an inclined actively tilting platform. And the good news continues! Nao can easily get up by himself! Lying flat on his stomach, he push first with his arms to get up and then pull his legs forward.
Our teams of engineers are developing programs that are going to play a consequential role in the development of the robot. Darwin theory is central to the new module of Naoqi: the genetic algorithm. In order to optimize the movements, many generations of Nao developed whit the aid of simulators are actually being tested for their manner of walking. Analyzed and graded by the simulator, the parameters of the best walks are recombined to obtain an even better performing stride. This module could be applied to optimize other types of behaviors.
Furthermore, we are now able to fuse different sensors. The data collected by microphones and a camera are fused to provide better information that enables Nao localize a speaker. It is an important step to help the robot find, for example, the source of a voice to detect the face associated to it. Soon, other sensors will be merged together and to supply more information about the environment surrounding Nao.
The 2008 RoboCup has taken place from 14 to 20 July at Suzhou, where we monitored closely Nao’s first steps in the limelight.
The event programme included workshops led by our engineers, a demonstration booth where visitors could program Nao thanks to Choregraphe our programming interface, and a maintenance zone in case of unfortunate breakage.
Nao had pride of place at the opening ceremony and had perform a very Sinologue choreographic routine. We will share this moment with you on video when we return from China.
We have been working for many months now on developing Choregraphe, the programming software specially dedicated to Nao.
Supplied to RoboCupers for the time being, special care has been paid to its interface to make it easy and intuitive to use. Here is a screenshot that gives you an idea of the interface and the tools it features to date.
All users, whether professional (laboratories or RoboCupers) or amateur, will be able to learn the software easily in the near future. Chorégraphe runs under Windows, Linux and Mac OS.
For the lucky ones who were there, we were at the Aibo meeting on 29 June in Clamart.
We presented the Choregraphe software to aficionados of Aibo there. Recreational and easy to use, Chorégraphe seems to have won them over, thanks to the many possibilities it opens up in the programming of Nao. We naturally gave a demonstration of Nao and everyone left with a photo of themselves next to it.
We would particularly like to thank everyone there for giving us such an enthusiastic welcome!
Thank you to Eric78, a forum member, for his contribution to the Newsletter with this nice photo.
Thank you for reading us. The next newsletter will include:
A complete summary of the trip to China for the RoboCup
Photos and information on forthcoming events …
See you soon.
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