Hello Everyone,
We are currently planning an undergraduate seminar and project on machine learning and robotics, and the main question for us is which robot(s) we should buy for this purpose.
One of the plans is to work with legged robots, and therefore the idea of purchasing a Sony Aibo came up. Since we do not have any experience with this robot I would be very thankful for your comments on the Aibo in general and especially on the following questions.
- Is the Aibo suitable for real robotics and machine learning research, or is it more a toy? (yes I am asking for your personal opinion!)
- I know that some groups are working with the Aibo for research, but I am not sure where the real experts are located, and what kind of research they are doing on the Aibo.
- In the specifications of Sony they say that the operating system takes care of posture control. Doesn't that limit the kind of movements that you can do with this robot? And how much of the resources does this posture control take away?
- Do you have experiences with the quality of the sensors and cameras?
- Is the Aibo robust enough to use it for an undergraduate seminar, or is it likely to be damaged soon?
- What are the alternatives if we want to use legged robots? Parallax offers the Toddler and HexCrawler, are those the only ready-to-buy legged robots? Can you build legged Lego Mindstorms? And what is your opinion on these alternatives?
- And finally, since the Aibo is quite expensive, we can probably only buy one or two of them. But I have the impression that nowadays robotics research is more focused on teams of robots. So, in my personal opinion it would make more sense to buy a larger number of cheaper robots like Mindstorms, Khepera, .... even if they have wheels instead of legs.Would you agree to that?
Thanks for all of your comments!
Michael