I think a better format would be one that rides on tracks along the ceiling. A simple arm that can extend down from the tracks and reach every corner of the house. Of course, each room would need multiple tracks, spaced perhaps four feet apart. The drive train would ride above the track in the ceiling. There could be more than one, so if a task needed more hands, two could cooperate to, for instance, move furniture, or corral a cat, or lift a human.
This would keep the robots out of the living space, free to whoosh about overhead, allow them to be much stronger, eliminate the need for batteries, and make them simpler, since they wouldn’t need to walk and balance.
The downside is houses would need to be designed to accommodate them. So, there’d still be a need for another solution, for houses that couldn’t be somehow retrofitted.
This could be done at room scale, rather than needing it for the whole house. The kitchen example from Toyota is where I would see the most direct benefit.
In terms of household chores, If I could automate cooking and cleaning in the kitchen it would free up probably 10-15 hours a week for my family. The rest of the chores we do combined probably don’t even make up that much time.
The downside is houses would need to be designed to accommodate them. So, there’d still be a need for another solution, for houses that couldn’t be somehow retrofitted.
And I think, this is the majority of houses, depending on how big of a footprint that system will be. Humanoid robots are built to be able to interact with legacy infrastructure, everything is tailored to humans.
I think a better format would be one that rides on tracks along the ceiling. A simple arm that can extend down from the tracks and reach every corner of the house. Of course, each room would need multiple tracks, spaced perhaps four feet apart. The drive train would ride above the track in the ceiling. There could be more than one, so if a task needed more hands, two could cooperate to, for instance, move furniture, or corral a cat, or lift a human.
This would keep the robots out of the living space, free to whoosh about overhead, allow them to be much stronger, eliminate the need for batteries, and make them simpler, since they wouldn’t need to walk and balance.
The downside is houses would need to be designed to accommodate them. So, there’d still be a need for another solution, for houses that couldn’t be somehow retrofitted.
Toyota developed one similar to this, but instead of tracks it used a gantry system, which would be difficult to build into a house.
This could be done at room scale, rather than needing it for the whole house. The kitchen example from Toyota is where I would see the most direct benefit.
In terms of household chores, If I could automate cooking and cleaning in the kitchen it would free up probably 10-15 hours a week for my family. The rest of the chores we do combined probably don’t even make up that much time.
And I think, this is the majority of houses, depending on how big of a footprint that system will be. Humanoid robots are built to be able to interact with legacy infrastructure, everything is tailored to humans.