Investors: Press Release
GeckoSystems Releases "Mobile Robots in Motion" Conference Videos
CONYERS, GA, Nov. 12, 2009 -- GeckoSystems Intl. Corp. (PINKSHEETS: GCKO) announced today that they have recently added over twenty videos to their website that were taped during their recent "Mobile Robots in Motion" conference. GeckoSystems is a dynamic leader in the emerging Mobile Service Robot industry revolutionizing their development and usage with "Mobile Robot Solutions for Safety, Security, and Service™."
"From our humble beginnings on a kitchen table and a two car garage over ten years ago, we have demonstrated publicly for companies such as Omron, Sparton Medical, JC Penney, Honeywell, Dell, Ketchum-Crescent, Ember Industries, Future Electronics, Chubb Insurance, Alexian Brothers, Stryker Corp., Allied Plastics, Samsung, Mitsubishi, Hewlett-Packard; and to groups of children in schools and elderly in their homes and nursing homes. CareBot prototypes have been publicly demonstrated at the Robotics Institute of America and RoboBusiness trade shows and numerous local computer shows, too.
"We are very pleased to now have these recent videos to add to our existing video chronology of our many years of research and development. We really are preparing to start in home eldercare robot evaluation trials. We are working very hard to raise the funding to enable these personal companion robot trials. Our first product, the CareBot™, is manufacturable in high volumes by reputable, first tier contract manufacturers. This is why we have put up so many videos here from our recent 'Mobile Robots in Motion' conference," observed Martin Spencer, President/CEO, GeckoSystems.
Careful observation of these new and legacy videos chronologically will enable some insights as to why GeckoSystems is a world leader in mobile robot solutions and preparing for near term in home evaluation trials. The early CareBot prototypes were slower and frequently pivoted in order to avoid a static or dynamic obstacle. Later prototypes will be witnessed performing "avoids" without pivoting at all. The current quality of a CareBot's avoidance behaviors is "bicycle smooth" since they are everywhere continuous and smooth like one gracefully going around obstacles while riding a bicycle. The latest videos also depict the CareBot's ability to automatically go faster or slower depending on the amount of clutter (number of obstacles) within its field of view.
The most popular legacy video of this series on YouTube is the room to room automatic self navigation in which the CareBot, which is approximately twenty inches in diameter, traverses three twenty-four inch wide doorways and a narrow hallway in an old 1954 home. This completely "hands off" mobile robot navigation uses GeckoNav™ to move from the living room through one hallway door and then through another doorway into and across the kitchen and then through a third doorway into the dining room. Three very narrow doorways are navigated slowly due to their tightness. All of the foregoing is done without any predefined, detailed map. As the CareBot ambulates across the kitchen, you will see it speed up in the open area and then slow down to go out of the kitchen into the front dining room. "Many believe that a person with a joystick-controlled platform would not navigate as smoothly," recalled Spencer.
Like an automobile, mobile robots are made from steel, aluminum, plastic, and electronics, but with ten to twenty times the amount of software running. The CareBot has an aluminum frame, plastic shroud, two independently driven wheels, multiple sensor systems, microprocessors and several onboard computers connected in a local area network (LAN). The microprocessors directly interact with the sensor systems and transmit data to the onboard computers. The onboard computers each run independent, highly specialized cooperative/subsumptive artificial intelligence (AI) software programs, GeckoSavants™, which interact to complete tasks in a timely, intelligent and common sense manner. GeckoNav™, GeckoChat™ and GeckoTrak™ are primary GeckoSavants. GeckoNav is responsible for maneuvering, avoiding dynamic and/or static obstacles, seeking waypoints and patrolling. GeckoChat is responsible for interaction with the care-receiver such as answering questions, assisting with daily routines and reminders, and responding to other verbal commands. GeckoTrak, which is mostly transparent to the user, enables the CareBot to maintain proximity to the care-receiver using sensor fusion. The CareBot is an internet appliance that is accessible for remote video/audio monitoring and telepresence.