A Nuts-and-Bolts Housekeeper by Lindsey Arent   It can vacuum the carpet, wake you up in the morning, or trudge your TV dinner to you. Just don't ask it to be your friend. Such are the abilities of Cye, a new domestic robot that uses wireless technology to place itself at the beck and call of its owners. "Everybody dreams that there is an R2D2, and there's a piece of it now," said Henry Thorne, CEO of Probotics, a Pittsburgh-based robotics company. At US$695 a pop, Cye won't save you money, but its creators are hoping that it will save you time. The domestic bot, which is sold only off the company Web site, can be programmed to wake you up with the national anthem, swipe a vacuum cleaner across a pre-programmed patch of carpet, and tote lightweight objects, like drinks or mail. However, Cye is not meant for serious household chores (or meaningful relationships with its owners, for that matter). "It's not useful like a car. It's more like the power window in your car," Thorne said. "It's not a lot of work to roll down the window by hand, but people love to push a button and have it done for them." Cye is controlled by a graphical user interface called Map-N-Zap that loads onto a PC. A pod that contains a transmitter plugs into a computer's serial port. In other words, the two-wheeled wonder harnesses the processing power of a PC to do your bidding. After installing the mapping software, users acquaint the robot with its surroundings by dragging an icon around on the screen. Cye in turn is dragged around the room. By communicating with the PC ten times per second, Cye learns about its environment and reports information back to the computer about the location of obstacles and free space. Cye's first movements are recorded on the computer screen, which is initially shrouded in gray to represent the bot's unexplored world. As Cye familiarizes itself with the room around it, patches of fog on the screen gradually clear up, revealing a rough floor plan of its environment. The places where Cye finds obstacles are marked as black areas. The places where it finds free space become white areas on the screen. Cye keeps track of its placement by calculating the number of turns of each wheel. Once it is "housetrained," Cye can be programmed to perform multiple tasks throughout the day. By clicking on menu options, users can schedule Cye's movements and tasks. With a separately purchased wagon and vacuum attachment, Cye can be programmed to clean the floor or drag objects from room to room. Unlike Sony's robotic dog, Aibo, Cye's canine competitor, it cannot respond to voice commands to sit or lie down, or express various "emotions," such as anger, sadness, and happiness. But Thorne thinks that the interest in Aibo, which has seen tremendous success in the United States, is a potential boon to Cye's future. But make no mistake, Thorne said, Cye is no dog. "The Aibo proves that people want robots," he said. "Cye is cute and has great motion and is fun, but it's not fuzzy. We do not feel it should have fur." But Illah Nourbakhsh, an assistant professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, thinks that Cye's physical and emotional development has some very serious potential. Nourbakhsh is attempting to make Cye more interactive, with improved algorithms for navigation and mechanisms that will direct the robot to plug itself in when it needs a charge. Nourbakhsh is also dedicated to better defining Cye's personality. "We want to make it a more valuable member of the household. You will be able to talk to Cye someday or maybe it will babysit your dog while you're away." Another goal is to instill Cye with a heightened sense of servitude. "Wouldn’t it be great if Cye could find you and wait near you and wait until you asked it to do something?" said Nourbakhsh. "And when you have your date over and that romantic moment arrives, you can just ask it to leave." So far, 128 Cyes have been sold since December. Reproduced from Wired Magazine.05 Aug 99