The first fully-formed robot from Luxonis, rae builds upon our award-winning OAK cameras to bring the power of cutting-edge robotics to users of all ability levels. OAK cameras bring the power of robotic vision to the edge. With AI, ML, and CV – all on-device – they make all kinds of complex vision tasks straightforward and accessible.

Luxonis, a Colorado-based robotic vision platform, has launched rae, its first "fully-formed and high-powered personal robot". Backed by a Kickstarter campaign to help support its development, rae sets itself apart by offering a multitude of features right out of the box, along with a unique degree of experimental programming potential that far exceeds other consumer robots on the market. The most recent of a long line of Luxonis innovations, rae is designed to make robotics accessible and simple for users of any experience level. Brandon Gilles, CEO of Luxonis, says: "rae is representative of our foremost goal at Luxonis: to make robotics accessible and simple for anyone, not just the tenured engineer with years of programming experience. "A longstanding truth about robotics is that the barrier to entry sometimes feels impossibly high, but it doesn't have to be that way.

What's New: Artificial intelligence (AI) developer Jagadish K. Mahendran and his team designed an AI-powered, voice-activated backpack that can help the visually impaired navigate and perceive the world around them. The backpack helps detect common challenges such as traffic signs, hanging obstacles, crosswalks, moving objects and changing elevations, all while running on a low-power, interactive device. "Last year when I met up with a visually impaired friend, I was struck by the irony that while I have been teaching robots to see, there are many people who cannot see and need help. This motivated me to build the visual assistance system with OpenCV's Artificial Intelligence Kit with Depth (OAK-D), powered by Intel." Why It Matters: The World Health Organisation estimates that globally 285 million people are visually impaired.

Luxonis' $99, Intel Myriad X based "DepthAI" module for robotics is available on CrowdSupply along with DepthAI-based Raspberry Pi HAT, USB adapter, and RPi CM3 B equipped boards. DepthAI provides up to 25.5 fps object detection. Luxonis has gone to Crowd Supply to pitch a neural accelerator module for the Raspberry Pi based on the up to 4-TOPs Movidius Myriad X Vision Processor Unit (VPU). The company claims its DepthAI can offload far more processing from the Raspberry Pi than a Pi mated with Intel's Myriad X based Intel Neural Compute Stick 2 (NCS2) USB stick accelerator. That's particularly notable since Intel owns Movidius.