la cybernétique

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RWI Magellan Pro (2000) by Real World Interface (RWI) / iRobot Corp. The sturdy little Magellan has two-wheel differential drive, with 2 lead-acid batteries providing for 12 hours run-time. It has a ring of 16 sensor modules, each with sonar, infra-red proximity, and tactile "bump" sensors. And of course, it has the obligatory big red "EMERGENCY STOP" button, essential for all AI.

"Only 11 inches tall, the Magellan Pro™ is the first truly portable, high-performance robot. Extraordinarily dense sensor coverage offers a superior 360-degree view of its environment. The 16 tactile sensors are located around the robot's lower edge -- right where you need them. Such closely spaced sensors provide a much higher level of sensory integration than much more complex and expensive platforms. With its unmatched combination of dense sensor coverage, rugged construction, powerful onboard computing capacity, advanced MOBILITY™ robot software architecture plus a wide range of available customizations and optional accessories, the Magellan Pro™ is destined to be a top choice among robotics researchers and developers." – Real World Interface, Magellan Pro™ Mobile Robot.

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Kludge and Hack (1996) were two Real-World Interface B14 robots used on the "Behavior-Based Robotics" course created by the Autonomous Mobile Robot Group, Northwestern University.

"The first four years of the course were taught with two Real-World Interface B14 systems, which we had shortened to increase mechanical stability at high speeds. The robots were controlled by a custom DSP/framegrabber combination (the DIdeas Cheap Vision Machine), for which we wrote a boot ROM with a variety of active vision subroutines and a simple LISP interpreter for scripting and debugging. LCD displays were mounted on top of the robots to display debugging information. These systems were probably the easiest of all our robots to program. You turned one on, pushed reset, and it was booted and ready to go within 500ms. If your program crashed, you dropped into a debugger. If the actual hardware crashed, there was a freespace follower in ROM that you could use to herd it back to home base. An important feature of this system was that the Lisp interpreter had a number of hard-coded safeguards to prevent students from damaging the robot. It implemented acceleration and velocity caps that could not be overridden. It also had low-voltage and over-current interrupts that would kill the students' programs if they tried to abuse the batteries. However, a serious disadvantage of the machine was that you could only conveniently program with the on-board Lisp interpreter. Writing new vision operators required off-board compilation and linking of C code, which was then burned into a ROM and tested. This is not for the faint of heart." – A Laboratory Course in Behavior-Based Robotics.

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Urbano tour guide robot (2008) by Diego Rodriguez-Losada et al, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Spain. Urbano robot is a B21r platform from iRobot, equipped with a four wheeled synchro-drive locomotion system, a SICK LMS200 laser scanner, a mechatronic face, and a robotic arm used for gestural communication.

"In an initial version we developed a face with 5 degrees of freedom, 2 to control the mouth, one for each eyebrow and another one for closing both eyes. … we have recently developed a new one with increased interaction capabilities [lower images] . We have incremented the count of servos up to eleven, including four of them to control the mouth that can be opened and closed, simulating speech in a much more realistic way. Four servos are used to move both eyes left and right independently (cross-eyed possible) and independent eyelid closing for winking. Another servo moves both eyes together up and down. The eyebrows are controlled by two more servos. … Since the beginning of Urbano development the need of a gestural interaction system between human and robot was considered. While showing the programmed tour, without gestural communication, the attention is easily missed due to the hieratic interaction between the robot and the visitors. With the inclusion of a robotic arm in the system, a more direct interaction with the environment is achieved. Moreover, it increases the ability to attract attention and helps to give emphasis and to include emotional aspects to the speech. Clearly, the use of sign language makes the interaction more natural, friendly and attractive. All this implies that the robotic arm must have a set of specific qualities and characteristics. Because it must reflect the common gestures in a speech, the structure, proportion and the dimensions of the robotic arm should be similar to the human arm. The arm movements should have similar dynamics, which requires that the movements should be stiff - less, quick and as natural as possible. As a consequence, the absolute accuracy and repeatability are not significant within a range, since the relative motions are more important in order to gesticulate than the absolute positions." – Diego Rodriguez-Losada et al, Urbano, an Interactive Mobile Tour-Guide Robot.

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Blacky tour guide robot (2001) by Fernando Matia, Diego Rodriguez-Losada, Ramon Galan, Agustin Jimenez, Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (UPM), Department of Automatic Control, Electronic Engineering and Industrial Computing (DISAM), Madrid, Spain. Wearing its distinctive pirate's hat, Blacky is based on a Denning Branch MRV4 with 3 wheel synchro-drive. The robot is 70cm in diameter and 140cm tall, with a ring of 24 sonars. Arrrr.

"Exhibition-like sites are appropriated places to test robot navigation algorithms. Autonomy is demonstrated by reaching the desired target, localizing itself in a complex low-structured indoor environment where objects are moved continuously, while avoiding dynamic obstacles. Experiments demonstrated that the low level controller ability of avoiding collisions was extremely useful for crowded environments. Simple reactive behaviors with voice synthesis assistance was a good solution for traveling along corridors. Humans' reaction to robots requirements [that came] for free were clearing of the way, getting bored after robot AI based reasoning system [took] some time. Adults reacted leaving space for the robot while children intentionally blocked its path or sat on the floor in front of it." – Experiments at Trade Fairs with Blacky the Robot.

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AMADEUS (1997) by Paolo Fiorini, Khaled Ali, Homayoun Seraji, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (CA) and Real World Interface. AMADEUS is an RWI B21 mobile robot equipped with a colour camera mounted on a pan-tilt head, and an array of ultrasound, infrared and contact sensors for autonomous navigation. It is powered by four lead-acid batteries providing 6 hours of continuous operation. Its most notable feature is a 1m long, 6 degrees-of-freedom robotic arm.

"The length of the arm and its mounting position on the mobile base enable the manipulator to sweep the floor in its elbow-down configuration, and reach a typical counter-top level with its elbow-up configuration. An object positioned in a volume of approximately 30cm x 50cm x 120cm located at a distance 30cm from the mobile base can be reached by the arm with sufficient dexterity to permit delicate and precise actions. The gripper actuator is located next to the actuator of the wrist pitch, so that the fingers can grasp an object with their internal surfaces as well as with their external surfaces. This feature allows the use of different finger profiles, suited for holding objects of different shapes and dimensions. The key element of the manipulator is the gear motor assembly powering each joint. This assembly is a modular configuration that can be scaled according to the design needs. The original design was developed for the Rocky 7 Mars Rover." – Paolo Fiorini et al, Health Care Robotics A Progress Report.

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ELEKTRO (1999) by Douglas Blank, Jared Hudson, Brian Mashburn, and Eric Roberts, University of Arkansas. Elektro is a Real World Interface B21 robot with sonar, laser, infrared, and tactile sensors, as well as a high-performance stereo vision system. It is programmed in a Domain Specific Language called the eXtensible Robot Control Language (XRCL). In the photo above, ELEKTRO is shown without its candy dispenser, which sits directly behind the cameras.

"We decided to test XRCL by having it compete in two of the AAAI 1999 Mobile Robot Competition tasks: the hors d’oeuvres and the scavenger hunt competitions. The hors d’oeuvres competition was designed to allow real people (AI researchers and their families) to interact with state-of-the-practice robotic waiters in the wild. … In devising a plan for serving hors d’oeuvres, we decided to focus on the interaction between human and robot. Given the open nature of the competition, this gave a us a huge niche to explore. To exploit fully all modes of interaction between humans and Elektro, we decided on a plan to dispense M&M candies based on a proposed neural network-based voice recognition system. After some initial discussion, we switched from M&M’s to Reese’s Pieces as the latter come in only three colors." – The XRCL Project: The University of Arkansas' Entry into the AAAI 1999 Mobile Robot Competition

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CARL (2003) by Frank Dylla and Gerhard Lakemeyer, Aachen University of Technology, Germany. CARL is an RWI Model B21 robot equipped with synchro-drive, a 180° laser-scanner, 24 sonar sensors, 54 infrared and 24 tactile sensors, and a stereoscopic camera mounted on a pan-tilt unit. Compute is provided by two Pentium PC’s.

"The goal of this project is to offer a robust and easily expandable speech interface for GOLOG, implemented on a mobile robot. Using a headset, a user can instruct the robot to perform tasks from pre-specified domains. Limited forms of interaction are also supported. Among other things, the robot is able to deal with tasks like serving coffee, delivering letters, or guiding people through a museum like his older brother RHINO." – A Speech Interface for a Mobile Robot controlled by GOLOG.

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George "GraduatE RObot attendinG conferencE" (2003) by Reid Simmons et al from CMU, in collaboration with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Northwestern University, Metrica Inc., and Swarthmore College. George is based on the iRobot/RWI B21R and was entered into the 2003 AAAI Robot Challenge. The video showcases George playing (Hi-Vis) "Hide & Seek."

Similar to Grace, "George is an RWI B21r, also with a mast for its LCD panel "face", used during our second and third AAAI entries. George is based at NRL." – Brennan Sellner: Robots.

"In an attempt to solve as much of the AAAI Robot Challenge as possible, five research institutions representing academia, industry and government, integrated their research on a pair of robots named GRACE and GEORGE. … GRACE (Graduate Robot Attending ConferencE) is built on top of an iRobot B21 mobile robot, while GEORGE (GraduatE RObot attendinG conferencE) is built on iRobot’s B21R. Both robots have an expressive computer-animated face displayed on a flat-panel LCD screen, as well as a large array of sensors. The sensors that come standard with the B21 and B21R include touch, infrared, and sonar sensors. Near the base is a SICK scanning laser range finder that provides a 180-degree field of view." – Reid Simmons et al, GRACE and GEORGE: Autonomous Robots for the AAAI Robot Challenge.

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Grace "Graduate Robot Attending ConferencE" (2002) by Reid Simmons, Dani Goldberg, Adam Goode, Michael Montemerlo, Nicholas Roy, Brennan Sellner, Chris Urmson, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), Pittsburgh, PA.

"Grace is an RWI B21a with a mast holding an LCD panel and a wireless access point. Grace has been many things, but my involvement was during our entries in the AAAI Grand Challenge. Grace is the possessor of the infamous Stupid Switch and Silly Plug. Robotic Debugging Axiom 42b (the Grace Axiom): If it doesn't work, wiggle the silly plug or flip the stupid switch." – Brennan Sellner: Robots.

"The Challenge task is for a robot to attend the AAAI National Conference on Artificial Intelligence as a participant – the robot must find the registration booth and register, interacting with people as needed, then with a map in hand, find its way to a location in time to give a technical talk on itself." – GRACE: An Autonomous Robot for the AAAI Robot Challenge.

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Minerva (1998) by Sebastian Thrun at CMU, and Bonn University. Minerva is a tour-guide robot based on the RWI B21 mobile robot platform, developed by Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with the University of Bonn. The video above shows Minerva in 1998, working as an interactive museum tour guide at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

Minerva is "a mobile robot designed to educate and entertain people in public places. The robot’s purpose is to guide people through a museum, explaining what they see along the way. The robot was recently installed successfully in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, in an exhibition hosted by its Lemelson Center for Invention and Innovation. During a two-week installation period in the summer of 1998, the robot successfully educated (and entertained) many thousand visitors. …

Minerva’s interactive routines attempted to realize a “believable social agent”, by explicitly utilizing modes of interaction commonly used when people interact with each other. When giving tours, Minerva used its face, head direction, and voice to interact with people. A stochastic finite state automaton (with 4 states) was employed to model simple “emotional states” (moods), allowing the robot to communicate its intent to visitors in a social context with which they were already familiar. Moods ranged from happy to angry, depending on the persistence of the people who blocked the robot’s path. When happy, Minerva smiled and politely asked for people to step out of the way; when angry, its face frowned and her voice sounded angry. Most museum visitors had no difficulty understanding the robot’s intention and “emotional state.” " – Sebastian Thrun et al, MINERVA: A Second-Generation Museum Tour-Guide Robot.

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RHINO (1994) University of Bonn, Germany. RHINO was the University of Bonn's entry in the 1994 AAAI Robot Competition and Exhibition. It is a B21 mobile robot platform manufactured by Real-World Interface (RWI), designed for indoor navigation and manipulation tasks. It's equipped with 24 sonar proximity sensors, a dual-colour camera system mounted on a pan-tilt unit, and 2 on-board i486 computers.

RHINO's "primary task is to give interactive tours through an exhibition, providing multi-modal explanations to the various exhibits along the way (verbal, graphical, sound). In May 1997, RHINO was deployed in the “Deutsches Museum Bonn”. During a six-day installation period the robot gave tours to more than 2,000 visitors. Through an interactive Web-Interface, people from all over the world could watch the robot’s operation and even control its operation—and more than 2,000 did." – Experiences with an interactive museum tour-guide robot.

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LEFKOS AKA "Tourbot" (2001) Computational Vision and Robotics Laboratory (CVRL), Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), Crete, Greece. LEFKOS is an RWI B21r robotic platform equipped with a SICK PLS laser scanner, sonar, infrared and bumper sensors. According to Greek mythology, Lefkos was the son of Talos.

"A very important demonstration for Greek informatics took place at the exhibition center of the Hellenic World Foundation, "Hellenic World", from May 28 to June 2 [2001]. Specifically, an innovative robot-tour guide named Tourbot was presented, in the development of which institutions of our country have had a significant participation. This robot has cameras and touch sensors, as well as the ability to navigate autonomously, while at the same time it can be controlled via the Internet. The Greek Tourbot, which was demonstrated at the IME, was named 'Lefkos' " – Tourbot: Greek robot tour guide (2001).

"Lefkos is a 4-wheel synchro-drive robotic platform (iRobot B21r) equipped with a large variety of sensors such as sonars, IR proximity sensors, bumpers, cameras and a laser range finder. Lefkos also carries two full-sized Pentium-based personal computers that supply enough computing power to perform autonomously a large variety of navigation tasks. Depending on the application, Lefkos' vision system may consist of a stereovision pan-tilt head with two digital CCD cameras and/or a panoramic camera or, alternatively, a mechanical head capable of expressing emotions. As a tour-guide robot, Lefkos utilizes a hybrid, discrete-continuous probabilistic navigation system developed within our lab. In this case, the most important sensor of Lefkos is its laser range finder which is capable of scanning 180 degrees of the environment, with an angle resolution of two measurements per degree and a range measuring accuracy of 5cm. Lefkos mechanical head allows interaction with people and expression of emotions. Lefkos head is also equipped with two CCD cameras, comprising this way a stereo vision head with pan capabilities." – CVRL Robots.

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TALOS (1995) by Real World Interface (RWI), Dublin, NH. TALOS is an RWI B21 robotic platform equipped with sonar, infrared and bumper sensors as well as a stereoscopic vision system. TALOS roams the halls of the Computational Vision and Robotics Laboratory (CVRL), at the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH), in Crete, Greece.

In Greek mythology, Talos was a giant automaton forged by Hephaestus (or Daedalus) to protect Europa and the island of Crete. Talos is described as a man of bronze carrying copper plates inscribed with the laws of Crete. Talos patrolled the Cretan coastline three times a day, hurling boulders at marauding ships. Myth has it that Talos would enter a fire until his metal body was red-hot, then grab any intruders who managed to land and incinerate them in a burning embrace. The myth represents Minoan mastery of copper and metallurgy. In the classic 1963 film, "Jason and the Argonauts," Talos appears as a colossal, 70-meter-tall living bronze statue, brought to life by Ray Harryhausen.

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RWI B21 (1994) by Real World Interface (RWI) / iRobot. The RWI B21 has synchronous mode drive motion with three drive motors steered by a single orientation motor.

"This is a three hundred pound robot, about 56 inches [high] as configured, four-wheel drive synchronous mode. Yes, and the wheels turn the upper base; upper enclosure. It has four 12 volt 33 amp/hour batteries about 25 pounds apiece, 100 pounds in batteries, 300 pounds total. Two main sections, the upper enclosure and the lower base. It has aluminum panels, aluminum Construction, and ... this is a 1997 model. It has no USB, no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no INS, no GPS, no display. It does have a magnetic flux Compass engine and speaker but this robot developed many of today's robotics algorithms, concepts and designs. RWI became iRobot which now is Amazon." – Cycogs Robotics, RWI B21 Robot Introduction (2022).

RWI B21 Robot. Photos by CYCOGS® LLC. www.CYCOGS.com © 2026

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RWI B14 "Spot" (1996) by Glenn Wasson, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. Spot is a Real World Interface (RWI) B14 robot with three cameras mounted on a pan/tilt mount. The two outer cameras are for greyscale stereoscopic vision, while the central camera adds colour. The B14 is nonholonomic in that it can move forward and backward immediately, but it cannot move sideways without first turning.

"We have integrated a proximity space vision system with the skill layer of the 3T architecture and embodied it in a robot agent. The agent is an RWI B14 with three cameras (two gray scale and one central color camera) mounted on a pan/tilt platform. The two outer cameras produce the stereo images used by the proximity space system, while the central camera provides input to a color vision system. These cameras (and the agent’s shaft encoders) are the only sensors used by the agent. The agent’s task is to monitor the location of multiple (2) humans in its environment and attend to them. The robot could be bringing tools or supplies to workers on a factory floor or serving guests in a restaurant." – Glenn Wasson et al, Integrating active perception with an autonomous robot architecture.

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RWI B12 (1983) by Grinnell More, Real World Interface (RWI), Dublin, NH. The B12 is a 3-wheel synchronous drive mobile robot base. One motor drives the wheels while a second motor steers the wheels. This allows the robot to turn without rotating the main chassis.

"Real World Interface, a maker of mobile robotic systems for research since 1983, announces the B12 mobile robot base. This product is suitable for research and development in: mobile robotics, artificial intelligence, sensor and camera platforms, and tele-operated systems.

Physical:

12 inches diameter, 6.75 inches high to top plate.

Can carry loads up to 20 kilograms.

Performance:

Translation top speed up to 2 meters/second.

Translation acceleration to 4 meters/second*second.

Rotation top speed up to 140 degrees/second.

Rotation acceleration up to 180 degrees/second*second.

Mechanical:

Tough anodized aluminum frame.

Three wheeled synchronous drive system.

Independent translation and rotate motor.

Rotate in place capability.

Omnidirectional capability.

Polyurethane wheel treads for unsurpassed traction.

Power:

On board lead-acid battery stores 144 watt-hours.

On board battery charger.

Power and control provided to top surface.

Control:

High speed microcontroller performs closed-loop control.

Serial port communications.

Sophisticated asynchronous command language.

Settable accelerations and top speeds.

Trapezoidal velocity profiles adjustable in mid execution.

Optical motor feedback (better than 0.1mm and 0.003 degrees resolution).

User readable currents and voltages.

Sophisticated overload algorithm protects motors.

Kill switch provided.

Options:

Manual joystick with kill switch.

Radio controlled joystick with kill switch and acceleration control.

Your choice of colors: clear, black, blue, green, amber, and red.

Optional silver-zinc battery can store 432 watt-hours.

The B12 mobile robot base was developed at the request of the MIT Mobile Robotics Group." – RWI: B12 Mobile Robot Base

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IMMEDIATE "Integrated System for Mobility and Manipulation of Disabled Persons" (1996) by Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy. The IMMEDIATE robot is a tracked wheelchair equipped with a manipulator arm able to pick up out-of-reach objects.

"The ARTS Lab of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna is involved in a project, named SPRINT-IMMEDIATE, specifically focused on the development of a wheelchair incorporating a robot arm and a number of input/output devices. The overall aim of the SPRINT/IMMEDIATE (Integrated System for Mobility and Manipulation of Disabled Persons) project is to integrate and test, at different rehabilitation centers in European member states, five pilot systems based on the integration of different electrical wheelchairs equipped with the same manipulator: the MANUS." – Paolo Dario et al, Robot assistants: Applications and evolution.