There are any number of robotics development platforms out there, and weāve written about most of themĀ TurtleBots,Ā iRobot Creates, and more recently robots likeĀ Misty. Generally, these platforms are intended to be used for experimenting with sensors and software, or for more socially-oriented applications that donāt involve much in the way of lifting or moving stuff.
A Silicon Valley startup calledĀ Ubiquity RoboticsĀ believes that thereās an opportunity here, and theyāre crowdfunding a robot called Magni thatās specifically designed to handle large payloads for long durations. It comes with sensing and computing out of the box, and Ubiquity hopes itāll enable hobbyists to create a new generation of practical robotic solutions.In addition, Ubiquity is offering Loki, a small and more or less affordable learning platform that you can use to develop applications for Magni.
Itās important to note that MagniĀ are not for novice programmers, and theyāre probably not for people who are interested in learning about robotics andĀ ROS. There are tutorials for Magni, but they assume that you have a working knowledge of ROS already.
This strikes us as an optimistic vision for a robotic development platform. Not that thereās anything wrong with optimism, but as we mentioned above, people have been making development platforms for years, and theyāve remained a niche product, mostly used by researchers or hobbyists.
Ubiquity believes that thereās a market out there of people who want to do practical things with robots, but who are restricted more by platform availability than anything else. Itās certainly true that most mobile bases that can handle large payloads tend to be on the expensive side, but it remains to be seen whether thereās enough demand out there to sustain even relatively low volume production of a robot like Magni.
Ubiquity is crowdfunding the version of Magni that most people probably want for US $1,000, not including a 3D vision system, meaning that theyāll probably need to sell between one and two hundred Magnis (of varying specs) to reach their fixed goal of $200k.
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https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/diy/ubiquity-robotics-launches-beefy-ros-development-platform