From Floor-Sweepers to Flying Robots

After unleashing millions of Roombas into homes around the world, Helen Greiner '89, SM '90 continued to conquer markets with her army of robots. But since stepping down from her position as CEO of iRobot in 2008, Greiner has kept her latest activities under wraps until now.

“I’m still building robots,” Greiner assured her audience in a 2013 TEDx talk. “They’re just flying robots.”

Last year, Greiner’s new DARPA-sponsored company CyPhy Works (based in Danvers, Massachusetts) finally debuted its two main projects: the Extreme Access System for Entry (EASE) and the Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) system.

Both the EASE and the PARC are Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), hovering robots that are controlled and monitored by humans on the ground. Their primary purposes are long-distance intelligence-gathering and navigating passages too narrow or dangerous for human soldiers. (Watch a video demonstration.)

Special features of these UAVs include high-definition video streaming, unlimited power, and resistance to RF communication jamming. So what is their secret? An old-fashioned microfilament cable that connects the robot to its ground control station. The stereotype of “tethered” robots being more limited than standard wireless UAVs might make some skeptical of the EASE and the PARC, but Greiner is certain that the pros far outweigh the cons.

“You add something, and then it makes another factor get worse,” Greiner said in an interview with Xconomy. “This is paradigm-breaking, because it actually solves those issues.”

Greiner is no amateur when it comes to military robots. Previously, she worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where she met iRobot co-founders Colin Angle '89 and Rodney Brooks. At iRobot, Greiner created the Government and Industrial division and oversaw the development of military robots. iRobot’s Packbot is well-recognized for saving the lives of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iran. The Packbot received attention this year when a Twitter photograph was uploaded of the Packbot being used to inspect a vehicle that the Boston Marathon bombers had hijacked.

In 2011, Greiner held the #7 spot in MIT150’s list of the top 150 ideas and innovators from MIT. She was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2013.

Since his iRobot days, Rodney Brooks has also turned his work with robots into his own startup, called Rethink Robotics.