Give Me a Beer!

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced the most practical application for robots to-date: beer delivery.  While it may sound like a very trivial task whereby the robot asks what you need, goes and gets it, and then brings it back, it actually could have very important applications in life-and-safety situations.

Their design relies on a team of three robots working together in tandem to take the request, interpret the request, and then deliver the request.  The real achievement in all of this is that the robots had to be programmed to react appropriately in unpredictable situations.  For example, what happens when the robot assigned to the task of delivering a beer accidentally drops it.  Nothing is more disappointing than sad robot trying to explain that you will not be receiving your beer because sad robot failed at its only job.  The scientists designed the robots in such a way that instead of trying to predict all of the possible outcomes (good or bad) in a situation, they focus instead on the results.  So the robot can focus on the primary goal - putting a cold brew in your hand.  Until it has achieved that goal, it must try and retry variations of its assigned duties until all variables line up and the goal is completed.

Additional unpredictability occurs when you have the added complexity of three robots working as a team.  So one robot having an interruption in its assigned duties can have a cascading effect on the others.  The robots were designed to be resilient to these sorts of disruptions and to keep trying until they were successful.  The video below shows how the cooperative nature of these robots lead to efficiencies in being served as well as overcoming the problem of multi-variable environments.