For developers interested in lower-level control of Cozmo, the SDK provides direct access to low-level controls such as driving the robots treads, moving the head and lift, displaying bitmaps on his screen, reading accelerometer and gyroscope data, processing images from his camera, and communicating with the power cubes (lights, accelerometer, tap detection).
Anki To Release Game-changing Cozmo SDK
Contributed by | Anki
What is Cozmo?
Cozmo is a little robot with a big personality and he interacts and plays games with you, he gets to know you over time.
What is the goal of the company?
Robotics and artificial intelligence was once confined to science labs and multi-million dollar projects for defense and space. Anki is on a mission to take that technology out of research labs and into people’s living rooms.
What are some of the main technical features that Cozmo incorporates?
- The Cozmo SDK provides access to complicated functionality with very little code.
- Computer Vision, Path Planning, Manipulation, Animation, Face Recognition
What sensors are aboard the robot?
For developers interested in lower-level control of Cozmo, the SDK provides direct access to low-level controls such as driving the robot’s treads, moving the head and lift, displaying bitmaps on his screen, reading accelerometer and gyroscope data, processing images from his camera, and communicating with the power cubes (lights, accelerometer, tap detection). The camera is Cozmo’s most important sensor, providing a constant stream of camera images to the robot which are then analyzed.
This includes detecting, tracking, and recognizing faces, as well as estimating a head’s position and orientation in 3D. It also contains functions for recognizing Cozmo’s cubes via their markers and estimating their position and orientation in 3D space. Many other functions such as general marker detection, motion detection, cat and dog detection and tracking will be available soon after launch.
What are some of the functions that Cozmo is able to perform?
Cozmo is born to play. He is charming, a bit mischievous, and unpredictable. He recognizes and remembers you. He interacts with you, plays games, and gets to know you over time.
Cozmo’s heart and soul rests within his emotion engine, which evolves as you develop a bond. He’s brought to life with complex facial expressions, a host of emotions, and his own voice and language. His dynamic soundtrack matches his mood and corresponds with the games and activities, elevating playtime to a uniquely cinematic experience.
Cozmo is constantly scanning his environment and recognizes people while reacting to emotions. His eyes light up when he sees a familiar face. If you haven’t played with him in a while, he’ll nudge you to play one of a handful of games. If you beat him, he might sulk.
Cozmo uses the cubes (not just as game elements) but also as landmarks to help him know where he is in the world. Every cube Cozmo sees gets added to the map as a landmark that can be used to figure out where he is. Combining the map with encoders and an IMU for measuring distance drive and orientation allows Cozmo to keep track of things happening around him and remember where they are even if he currently can’t see them.
You are releasing a Software Development Kit with Cozmo in October. How is this SDK important for the robotics industry as a whole?
Cozmo works at all levels and gives people unprecedented access to robotics. For example, developers will be able to utilize our path planning and facial recognition, ultimately allowing developers from any background to build on the foundation we’ve laid out.
What do you hope people do with it?
We hope that people will utilize the SDK in a number of ways, including creating new games for Cozmo, multi-robot coordination, human-robot coordination, and even in using this in programming camps to teach basics of programming and robots. Additionally, we aim to get to a point where the SDK will allow people to create new functionality within the app.
Who do you hope use the SDK?
(S)tudents, (D)evelopers, (K)ids: From school kids, to hackers, to PhD students, the SDK works at all levels and gives people unprecedented access to robotics.
How can readers find our more or order a Cozmo?
You can pre-order Cozmo from Anki.com. He ships in October in the U.S., just in time for the holiday season and will be available for $179.99. (For a short time, the price is reduced to $159.99)
You can also pre-order Cozmo on Amazon here: https://smile.amazon.com/Anki-
The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of RoboticsTomorrow
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