A Keen-Eyed Robot Goes to Work for a Paralyzed Veteran

In December of 2016, a team of researchers showed up at Romy Camargo's house with a better-than-average holiday gift. The front of the nondescript silver box lowered--like one of those spaceship doors from Star Wars, minus the dramatic clouds of vapor--to reveal a fetching robot, with cameras for eyes and a flatscreen for a hat. With the assistance of its human handlers, the Human Support Robot, as Toyota calls it, wheeled into Camargo's home on a mission: to support the quadriplegic veteran and in the process pave the way for truly useful care robots. First, though, the HSR had to surmount a host of obstacles. That's why self-driving cars are so promising: Urban planners have certain rules for signage, for instance, that the car can read.