What do you get when you cross a hoverboard with a robot? Well, you basically get an AI butler and chauffeur all wrapped up in one. This is exactly the kind of mesh up Segway introduced Tuesday night at its CES 2016 keynote. Teaming up with engineers from Ninebot, Segway developed a new robotics platform that will be open to developers to build upon. The platform was demoed via Segway’s latest innovation, the Segway Robot.
The new Segway Robot hoverboard, which the company informally refers to as a “personal transporter,” was featured on stage in two different modes – riding mode and robot mode.
In riding mode, the user can cruise around like they would on a regular Segway – minus the traditional handlebar, which is really just a psychological crutch.
Hop off the Segway, tap a button and the personal transporter transforms into a small robotic butler on wheels, capable of doing “pretty much anything you program it to do,” the Segway team explained during the keynote.
The Segway’s robot hoverboard features Intel’s RealSense camera technology, which combines three different cameras -- a 1080p HD camera, an infrared camera, and an infrared laser projector – that act together as one depth-perceiving camera. This allows it to act and see things a lot like the human eye does. For the Segway Robot this feature is useful as the RealSense technology keeps the robotic butler from ramming into furniture or other obstructions that may come its way. It can also be used to help recognize familiar people and act accordingly. For example, in the presentation, Segway featured their robot with a smart home connection. When someone entered the door, the RealSense camera on the robotic butler could identify the individual as a friend or stranger. If the individual was a friend, the robot might escort him or her to your location. The robot’s video feed also goes directly to your smartphone where you receive a notification so you can see exactly who’s coming.
Besides recognizing people, it can also follow a person or do some simple fetching for you with the attachable robotic arms. The sky really seems to be the limit on the Segway personal transporter robot and it will be exciting to see what developers will dream up for the device.
Segway is reportedly planning to make the Segway Robot commercially available in the nearish future, with a full developer kit to release later this year.
