Microsoft has a small, but growing, business unit dedicated to robotics. Continuing the recent business trend of anticipating the needs of baby boomers, one of the product lines being incubated in the robotics department is an assistive technology called the uBot. The uBot is meant to navigate a home, enabling people with limited mobility to maintain an independent homelife, longer. While it is currently being thought of as an aide for the elderly, clearly it will have further general use amongst any segment of the population suffering from mobility challenges.
The uBot-5 is a two-wheeled, dynamically stable robot with two arms and a rotating trunk.Click to view larger image. Designed to move easily through a human home environment and could someday be used for elder care. Patrick Deegan and Bryan J. Thibodeau, graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, used Microsoft’s Robotics Studio software to develop uBot-5. Using the attached display screen, someone could see what the robot sees, someday enabling a doctor or relative to check in on a senior citizen who is living with the aid robot. The uBot-5 can pick itself up off the floor, maintain its balance as it moves its two arms and learn from its experiences.
