Η A he said today that the Everyday Robots Project, a team of experimental X labs dedicated to creation "learning general-purpose robot”, she moved some of her prototype machines out of the lab to Google's Bay Area campus and assigned them some light janitorial-cleaning duties.
The Verge reports:
"We now manage a fleet of more than 100 prototype robots that run a series of useful tasks around our offices," Hans Peter Brondmo, head of the Everyday Robots Project, said in a blog post.
"The same robot that sorts garbage can now be equipped with various cleaners to sweep tables, grab cups and open doors."
These robots are essentially wheeled arms, with a reusable arm at the end of a flexible arm attached to a center tower.
There is a "head" at the top of the tower with cameras and sensors for mechanical vision and something resembling a rotating LED unit on the side, possibly for navigation.
According to Brondmo, these robots were first used to classify recycling when Alphabet made its Everyday Robot debut in 2019.
The promise the company makes (as well as from many other start-ups and competitors) is that machine learning will finally allow robots to operate in "unstructured" environments such as homes and offices.
