The Robot Report
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Hello Robot’s Stretch earned a $2.5 million grant to expand the robot’s capabilities. | Source: Hello Robot
The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institute of Health (NIH), awarded Hello Robot with a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant worth approximately $2.5 million. Hello Robot creates assistive mobile manipulator robots that aim to help aging adults with cognitive and physical impairments. With the grant, the company hopes to further develop its Stretch Cognitive and Physical Assistant. Stretch is a slender and versatile mobile manipulator that can operate autonomously. Stretch 2 , the latest version of the robot, has a 109 cm vertical range of motion, and a telescoping arm that can extend 52 cm beyond its base. The robot’s wrist extends this reach so that the robot can reach the back of a countertop. Hello Robot hopes that Stretch can be a friendly, affordable and capable helper for older adults struggling with a range of physical and cognitive impairments. “Caregiving is in crisis,” Hello Robot CEO Dr. Aaron Edsinger said in a release. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to arrange care for older family members living at home. Robots such as Stretch hold incredible promise to augment the caregiving workforce, allowing loved ones to age-in-place at home for longer.”
The grant builds on a Phase I NIH award. With the previous grant, Hello Robot worked with a research team at the University of Illinois, led by Dr. Wendy Rogers. The team showed that Stretch was able to provide meaningful assistance to an individual with quadriplegia. The new grant aims to expand on this previous work and test Stretch’s capabilities in helping people with mild cognitive impairment with both physical and cognitive tasks. “This award brings together an incredible team  – working together towards a shared vision where robots like Stretch can enhance life for everyone, including children, older adults, and people with disabilities,” Edsinger said in a release. Hello Robot also plans to make changes to its remote control interface so that it can be used by caregivers. The grant will also help the company develop more autonomous activities for Stretch and explore Stetch’s utility in a variety of home and assisted living environments. About The Author
Brianna Wessling
Brianna Wessling is an Associate Editor, Robotics, WTWH Media. She joined WTWH Media in November 2021, and is a recent graduate from the University of Kansas. She can be reached at [email protected]

Hello Robot earns $2.5M grant from National Institute of Health

Robot Enthusiast
Hello Robot’s Stretch earned a $2.5 million grant to expand the robot’s capabilities. | Source: Hello Robot
The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institute of Health (NIH), awarded Hello Robot with a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant worth approximately $2.5 million. Hello Robot creates assistive mobile manipulator robots that aim to help aging adults with cognitive and physical impairments. With the grant, the company hopes to further develop its Stretch Cognitive and Physical Assistant. Stretch is a slender and versatile mobile manipulator that can operate autonomously. Stretch 2 , the latest version of the robot, has a 109 cm vertical range of motion, and a telescoping arm that can extend 52 cm beyond its base. The robot’s wrist extends this reach so that the robot can reach the back of a countertop. Hello Robot hopes that Stretch can be a friendly, affordable and capable helper for older adults struggling with a range of physical and cognitive impairments. “Caregiving is in crisis,” Hello Robot CEO Dr. Aaron Edsinger said in a release. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to arrange care for older family members living at home. Robots such as Stretch hold incredible promise to augment the caregiving workforce, allowing loved ones to age-in-place at home for longer.”
The grant builds on a Phase I NIH award. With the previous grant, Hello Robot worked with a research team at the University of Illinois, led by Dr. Wendy Rogers. The team showed that Stretch was able to provide meaningful assistance to an individual with quadriplegia. The new grant aims to expand on this previous work and test Stretch’s capabilities in helping people with mild cognitive impairment with both physical and cognitive tasks. “This award brings together an incredible team  – working together towards a shared vision where robots like Stretch can enhance life for everyone, including children, older adults, and people with disabilities,” Edsinger said in a release. Hello Robot also plans to make changes to its remote control interface so that it can be used by caregivers. The grant will also help the company develop more autonomous activities for Stretch and explore Stetch’s utility in a variety of home and assisted living environments.

Robot Enthusiast
Charlie Kemp, the co-founder and CTO of Hello Robot, will be giving a keynote presentation at the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum . The event, designed to support those delivering the next generation of healthcare robotics solutions, will take place on May 10-11 in Boston at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Kemp’s keynote, titled “Mobile Manipulation for Healthcare”, will describe the research and development process that resulted in Hello Robot’s Stretch RE1, a compact and lightweight mobile manipulator that achieves a new level of affordability. For people with disabilities, mobile manipulators like Stretch can provide many meaningful benefits. Healthcare-related work by the growing community of researchers and developers using the Stretch system will also be highlighted. Besides being the co-founder and CTO of Hello Robot, Kemp is an associate professor at Georgia Tech in the Department of Biomedical Engineering with adjunct appointments in the School of Interactive Computing and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He founded the Healthcare Robotics lab at Georgia Tech, which focuses on enabling robots to provide intelligent physical assistance in the context of healthcare, in 2007. He earned a BS, an MEng, and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the areas of computer science and electrical engineering. The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will feature dozens of  exhibitors  and  speakers , as well as networking receptions. The event is designed to support those delivering the next generation of healthcare robotics solutions. Full conference passes are $795, while expo-only passes are just $100. Academic discounts are available and academic full conference rates are $295. Register today . The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will be co-located with the Robotics Summit & Expo, an international event focused on the technical issues involved with the design, development, manufacture and delivery of commercial robots. The events will feature  100-plus exhibitors , 70-plus speakers, the  MassRobotics Engineering Career Fair , a  Design for Additive Manufacturing Workshop , and networking receptions. Full conference passes are $795, while expo-only passes are just $100. Academic discounts are available and academic full conference rates are $295. Register today
Also co-located with the Healthcare Robotics Robotics Engineering Forum event is  DeviceTalks Boston , the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its ninth year. The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will be co-located with the Robotics Summit & Expo, an international event focused on the technical issues involved with the design, development, manufacture and delivery of commercial robots. The events will feature  100-plus exhibitors , 70-plus speakers, the  MassRobotics Engineering Career Fair , a  Design for Additive Manufacturing Workshop , and networking receptions. Full conference passes are $795, while expo-only passes are just $100. Academic discounts are available and academic full conference rates are $295. Register today . Also co-located with the Healthcare Robotics Robotics Engineering Forum event is  DeviceTalks Boston , the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its ninth year. Sponsorship Opportunities
For information about sponsorship and exhibition opportunities,  download the prospectus . Question regarding sponsorship opportunities should be directed to Courtney Nagle at cnagle[AT]wtwhmedia.com. About WTWH Media
WTWH Media is an integrated media company serving engineering, business and investment professionals through 50+ websites, print publications, along with many other technical and business events. WTWH’s Robotics Group produces  The Robot Report,   Robotics Business Review,   Collaborative Robotics Trends  and  Mobile Robot Guide , online technical, business and investment news and information portals focused on robotics and intelligent systems. WTWH Media also produces leading in-person robotics conferences including the Robotics Summit & Expo, the  RoboBusiness Conference & Exposition  and the  Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum . See  www.wtwhmedia.com  for more information.

Hello Robot to keynote Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum

The Robot Report
Listen to this article
Charlie Kemp, the co-founder and CTO of Hello Robot, will be giving a keynote presentation at the Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum . The event, designed to support those delivering the next generation of healthcare robotics solutions, will take place on May 10-11 in Boston at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. Kemp’s keynote, titled “Mobile Manipulation for Healthcare”, will describe the research and development process that resulted in Hello Robot’s Stretch RE1, a compact and lightweight mobile manipulator that achieves a new level of affordability. For people with disabilities, mobile manipulators like Stretch can provide many meaningful benefits. Healthcare-related work by the growing community of researchers and developers using the Stretch system will also be highlighted. Besides being the co-founder and CTO of Hello Robot, Kemp is an associate professor at Georgia Tech in the Department of Biomedical Engineering with adjunct appointments in the School of Interactive Computing and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He founded the Healthcare Robotics lab at Georgia Tech, which focuses on enabling robots to provide intelligent physical assistance in the context of healthcare, in 2007. He earned a BS, an MEng, and a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the areas of computer science and electrical engineering. The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will feature dozens of  exhibitors  and  speakers , as well as networking receptions. The event is designed to support those delivering the next generation of healthcare robotics solutions. Full conference passes are $795, while expo-only passes are just $100. Academic discounts are available and academic full conference rates are $295. Register today . The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will be co-located with the Robotics Summit & Expo, an international event focused on the technical issues involved with the design, development, manufacture and delivery of commercial robots. The events will feature  100-plus exhibitors , 70-plus speakers, the  MassRobotics Engineering Career Fair , a  Design for Additive Manufacturing Workshop , and networking receptions. Full conference passes are $795, while expo-only passes are just $100. Academic discounts are available and academic full conference rates are $295. Register today
Also co-located with the Healthcare Robotics Robotics Engineering Forum event is  DeviceTalks Boston , the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its ninth year. The Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum will be co-located with the Robotics Summit & Expo, an international event focused on the technical issues involved with the design, development, manufacture and delivery of commercial robots. The events will feature  100-plus exhibitors , 70-plus speakers, the  MassRobotics Engineering Career Fair , a  Design for Additive Manufacturing Workshop , and networking receptions. Full conference passes are $795, while expo-only passes are just $100. Academic discounts are available and academic full conference rates are $295. Register today . Also co-located with the Healthcare Robotics Robotics Engineering Forum event is  DeviceTalks Boston , the premier industry event for medical technology professionals, currently in its ninth year. Sponsorship Opportunities
For information about sponsorship and exhibition opportunities,  download the prospectus . Question regarding sponsorship opportunities should be directed to Courtney Nagle at cnagle[AT]wtwhmedia.com. About WTWH Media
WTWH Media is an integrated media company serving engineering, business and investment professionals through 50+ websites, print publications, along with many other technical and business events. WTWH’s Robotics Group produces  The Robot Report,   Robotics Business Review,   Collaborative Robotics Trends  and  Mobile Robot Guide , online technical, business and investment news and information portals focused on robotics and intelligent systems. WTWH Media also produces leading in-person robotics conferences including the Robotics Summit & Expo, the  RoboBusiness Conference & Exposition  and the  Healthcare Robotics Engineering Forum . See  www.wtwhmedia.com  for more information. About The Author
Brianna Wessling
Brianna Wessling is an Associate Editor, Robotics, WTWH Media. She joined WTWH Media in November 2021, and is a recent graduate from the University of Kansas. She can be reached at [email protected]

Heriot-Watt University
Am I talking to a software robot or a human? It’s a question that many of us will have posed at some point when we are online interacting with a web interface chatbot with its chirpy ‘Hi! Can I help?’ message flags and discussion box. Some of us deliberately try and second guess these bots in order to be able to work out whether we are talking to a machine or a person. We do this because we somehow hope that this knowledge will enable us to assess more accurately how much help we are likely to get - and so, perhaps, get an idea of how much effort we should put into explaining our customer issues or requests. Turing & overly-realistic AI
Right now, it is not necessarily that difficult to know if you are speaking to an Artificial Intelligence (AI) engine. The Turing test was of course established to rate the point at which people can't tell the difference between a human and a machine. The AI software robot ‘bots’ that have passed the Turing test so far have been given quirky personality traits to mask the challenges that even the best AI engines have when dealing with human conversational challenges. So are these quirky human-like overly-realistic AI bots a good thing or a bad thing? Amanda Curry , PhD student at the National Robotarium at the UK’s Heriot-Watt University (now a post doctoral researcher based in Italy), explains that some AIs are now set up with personality traits and these try to build a relationship with the user. Curry advises that this can lead to privacy issues when humans willingly give more information than intended as they are unaware what a company might do with that information. “This has inherent risks when people have systems in their home interacting with the wider family, including children. When people are more relaxed, they tend to reveal more personal information which can be a risk associated with what we have categorized as an 'overly realistic AI' - because the interaction and language used is more natural and flowing,” said Curry. MORE FOR YOU
AI bots need gender-neutrality
The average user would be forgiven for thinking that AI bots are mostly built around the principles of gender-neutrality, but in fact many are created with an almost receptionist/secretary-like female persona. Whether a user’s unconscious bias also comes into play here is open to debate, but the National Robotarium team led by Professor Verena-Rieser confirm that some AI engines have been subject to abuse and even sexual harassment. A 2019 UNESCO Artificial Intelligence report demonstrated how AIs can 'reflect, reinforce and spread gender bias' today. With a whole generation of young people interacting with these AI engines daily, this is a growing area of concern. How AI responds to abuse is another challenging area for software application development professionals. Curry explains that about 5% of the interactions recorded with an experimental chatbot during the National Robotarium’s Amazon Alexa Challenge could be classified as abusive. Although that figure in and of itself sounds pretty high, the proportion is even higher for AI bots like Kuki (which records around 30% of abuse)... so the concern here is that when and where these behaviors are becoming regular and normalized at the AI bot level, it could have an external impact on online interactions between humans. AI has a carbon footprint implication
“The environmental impacts of AIs are rarely talked about - when an individual asks an AI assistant to switch on the light (as you would do with another member of your household), that command must be sent all the way to the company to be processed involving potentially massive cloud computing inputs/outputs and connections. When that command does gets sent back to your AI assistant, it uses a lot of energy and produces a lot of carbon,” highlighted Curry. The more realistic our AIs become, the more likely it is that we will be asking them to do more -– so, questions Curry, does that mean we will be increasing our carbon footprint unintentionally as a result? Given all these negative forces then, what does Curry think makes a good AI chatbot? “The most useful chatbots, are not perhaps as sophisticated as some of the overly-realistic variety on the face of it; instead, they are more functional and transactional. The ones that are slightly more realistic are not necessarily as sophisticated behind the scenes. Often there is no real Machine Learning (ML) going on behind it; it is more rule-based and actually not half as smart as people might think,” said Curry. At the National Robotarium, the team’s goal is not to create something that is indistinguishable from a human, but rather something that is very natural and easy to interact with. The academics say they have noticed that when people know that it's a system they are talking to, like an Amazon Alexa/ Echo, they don't try to have the same conversations that they would with a human. “Once people know it is a chatbot, I think they are less interested in its life and what it likes to do for a living, what its favorite color might be etc. They see it more as a spoken dialogue interface for something like a search engine i.e. another ‘gate’ to the Internet so-to-speak,” said Curry. AI times are a-changing
Curry believes that, humans don’t always want systems that are completely indistinguishable from humans. When we know we’re talking to a software robot we don’t want idle chit chat and thoughts on the weather. “Initially our bot was designed to replicate a conversation in a bar maybe talking about politics or movies. But then we felt people wanted to consume information so we made that design decision. So, if they were talking about their favorite actor, they wanted the fun facts about that actor and their movies or other performances, rather than opinions and wider thoughts,” concluded Curry. In April 2021, the European Union (EU) proposed rules that would require companies to disclose when an individual is speaking to an AI software bot - and similar regulations are already in place in California for bots. The EU AI regulation states that people should be able to trust what AI has to offer. According to the EU, proportionate and flexible rules will address the specific risks posed by AI systems and set the highest standard worldwide. Its plan outlines the necessary policy changes and investment to strengthen the development of human-centric, sustainable, secure, inclusive and trustworthy AI. It turns out, AI’s role with robots may be to make them more robot-like and not more human-like after all. Yes okay we still like hardware robots to have fingers, arms and probably a couple of blinking eyeballs, but for the most part, don’t get too human please - okay computer? UK National Robotarium

Hello Robot, Why Overly-Realistic AI Is Bad

Google

Redwood Robotics

Hstar Technologies

Meka Robotics

This Collection includes companies developing smart home devices, wearables, home electronics, and other consumer electronics.

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Companies in the advanced manufacturing tech space, including companies focusing on technologies across R&D, mass production, or sustainability

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Grant - II

Hello Robot develops robotic technology offering a fully integrated mobile cobot (collaborative robot) built on open-source software and customizable hardware. Its products include Stretch, a robotic mobile manipulator that includes a gripper, computer, sensors, and software programmed to implement a wide range of tasks. The company was founded in 2017 and is based in Martinez, California.

Name	Work History	Title	Status
Aaron Edsinger	Google, Redwood Robotics, Hstar Technologies, and Meka Robotics	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Current
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Name	Aaron Edsinger	Subscribe to see more
Work History	Google, Redwood Robotics, Hstar Technologies, and Meka Robotics
Title	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Subscribe to see more
Status	Current	Subscribe to see more

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