About The Leaf Project

I first found out about the Leaf Project about a one month ago when John Edwards showed off his newly constructed base for a robot built on the open source Leaf Project - A robotics project using artificial intelligence and vision.

I later contacted John via e-mail to get his input on the project. He described how get got involved in the project:

After playing around with microprocessor controlled robots for a few years I started to get bored with them and started to look for ways to give them more powerful brains. During the time I was a member of the Robotic Society of Southern California I had a few conversations with Alex Brown about ways to use a PC type processor to control a robot.

Late in 2003 Alex posted to the Robotic Society of Southern California (RSSC) list that he and another RSSC member, Bruce Weimer were going to work on a robot using a laptop computer for the main processor. I joined the Yahoo group for that robot which was to be called Leaf that same day.

In April of this year Alex posted that he was putting together a group order for bare microcontroller circuit boards for the Leaf project. I placed my order for 2 boards and thus began my active participation in the project.

Currently, Leaf has the ability to do voice recognition and speak. The software runs on a mid-range laptop and interfaces to various sensors and motors via, "a Motorola microcontroller [that] will be used for real time control and as an interface device for sensor inputs and discrete I/O. The microcontroller will communicate with the laptop via USB."

A full system description of Leaf can be found here, along with hardware, software, and electronics.

John went on to say:

Through a cooperative effort between Triangle Amatuer Robotics member Bill Foard and Bruce Weimer, leaf will have the ability to control things in your house using home automation techniques. As an example you could say "Leaf, turn on livingroom lights" or "Leaf, turn on stereo" and the robot would do it.

Another exciting feature of Leaf is its "emotional responses" - for example, it will become 'bored' if it's left alone for too long. Leaf also responds to different people, perhaps saying, "I don't like you" or "I'm happy to see you."

The vision control software for the robot, called Mavis, can be found here.

Stay tuned for updates on this interesting project as it progresses. The Yahoogroup is active and welcomes new users and input. The project is open source and accessable.

Not too long now, and you'll be able to build your own "fetch me a drink from the fridge"-bot.