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PhillyDeals: Penn's flying robots have grasped the imagination

The GRASP (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception) lab, upstairs at the University of Pennsylvania's Engineering School, is in the million-hits club at YouTube this summer, as videos of its book-sized quadro-rotor flying robots have been promoted as gadgets that can, as Gizmodo.com cheerfully put it, "fly in your window and kill you as you sleep."

A new health-care plan, with ties to the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, was cheered by Gov. Rendell
A new health-care plan, with ties to the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, was cheered by Gov. RendellRead moreFile photograph

The GRASP (General Robotics, Automation, Sensing, and Perception) lab, upstairs at the University of Pennsylvania's Engineering School, is in the million-hits club at YouTube this summer, as videos of its book-sized quadro-rotor flying robots have been promoted as gadgets that can, as Gizmodo.com cheerfully put it, "fly in your window and kill you as you sleep."

That's not what they're built for, says their creator.

Self-directed "robots are good at things that are structured. That means indoor environments," not skipping across the countryside like remote-controlled aircraft, says Vijay Kumar, the mechanical-engineering professor who has been building the machines with Ph.D. candidates Daniel Mellinger and Frank Shen and research scientist Nathan Michael.

In 2008, Kumar met with Philadelphia Police Capt. Walt Smith and other law enforcement and public safety officials to talk about what happens in schools and other buildings when some knucklehead gets loose with a gun.

"There were a lot of school shootings [nationally] they were very concerned about," Kumar told me. "Long corridors, with virtually no cover." Delays getting police and emergency personnel inside safely can cost lives, as wounded people can be left untended.

The result at GRASP, which is funded partly by basic-research dollars from the U.S. military, Lockheed Martin, and other public and private sources, has been the Hummingbird, with its four rotors and motors supporting a central-processing brain and sensor network. Hummingbird flies "autonomously" through hoops and open windows, and recovers quickly from being thrown across the room.

But those acrobatics rely on what the YouTube viewer doesn't see - an infrared, range-finding, motion-capture system, built by Los Angeles-based Vicon, that helps the robots' processors judge distances quickly and then correct for them.

Such systems are in wide use by special-effects units in the movie industry, Kumar says, but they are not installed in schools and other public buildings. "So that is just a cool YouTube demo, for now," he said.

The good news is there is also Pelican, a newer, larger robot built at GRASP that uses a laser system to measure distances and can move through rooms in a typical building. It can't yet open doors, but "you can always find windows," Kumar says.

This is going to get easier, Kumar assures: "Sensors will become lighter. Mobile processors will become faster." Batteries will be incorporated in structural elements.

How soon? "When there's a compelling case to be made for its use in the entertainment industry, it will happen," Kumar said. "That makes you a believer in capitalism."

The restaurant's cut

Gov. Rendell was in Philadelphia Monday promoting for-profit insurer United Healthcare's effort to get Pennsylvania restaurant owners to sign up an estimated quarter of a million low-paid, part-time, or seasonal workers with no health insurance, for the Restaurant Healthcare Alliance. It's a new plan that is rolling out in partnership with the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association.

Rendell cheered United for offering competition to locally dominant Independence Blue Cross and other "Blue" affiliates. A Blue Cross spokeswoman didn't return calls seeking comment.

Dawn Sweeney, CEO of the National Restaurant Association, acknowledged her group would get a fee for every restaurant worker who signs on with United Healthcare. She wouldn't say how much.

United Healthcare officials said plans start at $225 to $350 a month, and range higher, depending on benefits, deductibles, willingness to use plan doctors, and co-payment levels.

The governor and the insurers spoke at Rose Group's Applebee's Neighborhood Bar and Grill on 15th Street in Center City. Workers there told my colleague Jane Von Bergen they don't have health insurance and haven't yet been offered any.

Public support

Pennsylvania legislators will weigh plans to give developer Bart Blatstein $45 million for a new hotel and mixed-use project near his Piazza at Schmidts in Philadelphia, $25 million to complete his long-delayed conversion of the former state office building at 1400 Spring Garden St. into apartments, and more than $1 billion in other projects across the state, if the various builders can raise matching funds elsewhere.

The list is in House Bill 2291, and we'll be writing more about the proposed state payouts this week.

PhillyDeals: A Full Order of Coverage?

Gov. Rendell urges support for United Healthcare's efforts to get Pa. restaurant owners to sign up seasonal and part-time workers for coverage. PhillyDeals, D3.