Ken Goldberg in the NYT's "What Comes After the Roomba?"
In The New York Times "What Comes After The Roomba?", an article on the vacuum cleaner robot created by iRobot 16 years ago, they talked to roboticist Ken Goldberg about the future of a robot that could tidy up the entire house.
“Picking things off the floor is with in reach if we can get the price of the arm down,” said Ken Goldberg, a roboticist at Berkeley. His favorite for a new market might be what he calls a “decluttering robot,” which would wander the house picking up after its occupants.
“Doing anything time critical is difficult,” he acknowledged. “ But if you are willing to leave the house and come back six hours later — the house is clean.”
At UC Berkeley, Goldberg's team is currently doing research and testing navigations and tasks with robots.