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Who Innovates?
The debate over who is most there have been examples of large
likely to innovate dates back to, companies like GE adopting radical
at least Schumpeter, who first innovations while well-established
suggested that small entrepre- players like Xerox have failed to
neurial firms innovate. Later recognize incremental innovation.
people suggested that large To solve this dilemma, other inno-
firms with some degree of mo- vation models have been proposed,
nopoly power in their business which are quite interesting. These
have the potential and will to classify the innovation on the basis
innovate. The focus has shifted of the architectural components that
to individuals and then back to they alter or on the basis of the mar-
firms. But with the evolution ket disruption that they cause. It’s
of study on ‘innovation’ per se, often believed that well established
better classification mecha- companies have more market
nisms have arisen. These at- knowledge and they can thus cater
tempt to categorize the type of to the requirements of the customers
innovation and then explain the Attacker's Advantage, R. Foster, 1986 in terms of the innovation.
source of the same.
It is important here to revisit the differ- While all these are static ways of classify-
The first is a simple distinction between ence between invention and innovation. ing innovations, the actual technology goes
incremental and radical innovation, which Innovation is invention + commercializa- through different life-cycles, and hence the
as the name suggests is based on the extent tion, i.e. putting the invention to a use for dynamic nature of innovation is also impor-
to which the technological knowledge re- the people. While new firms have the tant. In this respect, many people are famil-
quired for the innovation differs from ex- capability and incentive to go for radical iar with Foster’s S curve, which shows that
isting knowledge. Similarly one could innovation, existing companies might not technology goes through the phases of slow
classify it as radical or incremental based have the same, and contribute to only growth, then rapid growth and finally ma-
on the economic impact of the innovation. incremental change. At the same time, turity. (Contd. on Page 10)
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 3 (MAY ‘08) Page 3
Interesting Projects—Robotics and Healthcare
This is a project that I, Advait Jain, such that the eye-in-hand camera is
have been a part of since joining the above the object (the front edge of the
Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia object can be determined using the
Tech as a PhD student in August 2007 laser range finder). Then, the object is
and would love to share with the stu- segmented from the background and is
dents in CSE, IIT; because innovation modeled as an ellipse. We choose the
fosters innovation. grasp point as the center of the ellipse
and align the two fingers of the gripper
Our project's aim here is to build a
along the minor axis. This approach is
robot that can perform everyday tasks
successful for a number of common
such as retrieving objects, opening
objects including bottles, wallets, cell-
doors, operating light switches etc.
phones, toothpaste tubes and cups.
with the hope that it can provide peo-
More complicated methods are re-
ple with disability greater independ-
quired for grasping plates, bowls,
ence in their day to day activities. The
books, laptops etc. and that is some-
project started in the summer of 2007
thing that we are working towards.
and so I got the opportunity to work on
this robot from the conception stage Today El-E is a prototype which works
itself. We have now built the first pro- well within a laboratory setting. It
totype of our robot El-E (shown in the takes around 3 minutes to deliver an
figure), which is designed around two object back to a person, too long for an
key ideas. The form and features and able-bodied individual. But, from our
the various components of El-E are collaboration with ALS (Amyotrophic
shown in the figure. lateral sclerosis) Center at Emory Uni-
pointing at an object using a laser versity, we know that disabled people
First, El-E is able to translate its ma- pointer and letting the robot estimate sometimes need to wait for hours be-
nipulator and associated sensors to its 3D location. fore they can get back a dropped cell-
different heights, which enables it to
This is a joint work of three PhD stu- phone, wallet or TV remote. El-E can
grasp objects on a variety of surfaces,
dents (including myself) and my advi- definitely make a huge difference in
such as the floor and tables, using the
sor, Prof. Charles C. Kemp. We di- the lives of these people. My group
same perception and manipulation
vided the main components of the sys- will soon test El-E with patients suffer-
strategies. This effectively takes advan-
tem- laser pointer interface, mobility ing from ALS to better inform our next
tage of a common symmetry found
and manipulation amongst the three design iteration. In the long run, my
within human environments - smooth
students. The division was soft rather goal is for a service robot to relieve me
flat surfaces that are orthogonal to
than hard, with a lot of improvement to of tasks such as cooking, cleaning,
gravity.
all the components as they were inte- washing so that I can maximize time
Second, El-E has a laser pointer inter- grated together. I was responsible for spent on research ☺
face that detects when a user illumi- manipulation i.e. grasping unknown And the good thing is that we made it
nates a location with a green laser objects illuminated using the laser in the news as well! Here is an article
pointer and estimates the 3D location pointer. in the popular press about our work:
selected by the user. This enables a
Grasping is in itself an entire research http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/
user to unambiguously communicate a
area devoted to determining the best technology/16novel.html
3D location to the robot and is a direct
way to tell the robot which object to way to pick up objects whose 3D Also, Videos, publications and techni-
manipulate or where to go. The laser model is known. Our approach is in cal details are available from the lab
pointer interface is a different way of tune with the new thinking that grasp- website: http://www.healthcare-
looking at interaction between humans ing unknown objects is possible using robotics.com/
and robots. The current approaches for models which can be extracted using
human-robot interaction are speech, sensors like cameras and laser range
gestures, pointing. These methods have finders. We grasp objects from the top
Contributed by Advait Jain
greater ambiguity, spatial error and are (which we call an “overhead” grasp).
more complicated as compared to First, the Katana robot arm is moved (an alumni)
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.”
- Albert von Szent-Gyorgy
Contributed by:
Anshuman and Rahul
“What happens when you read some doc and either it doesn't answer your question or is demonstrably wrong? In
Linux, you say "Linux sucks" and go read the code. In Windows/Oracle/etc you say "Windows sucks" and start
banging your head against the wall.” --- Denis Vlasenko
A Poem—First flight
Don’t hold me this time, let me try Pace is just right On this first flight
Don’t push me away On my first flight The trees are greener than green
But don’t force me to stay New leaves awaiting to curl me
I need this test Testing my new feathered appendages New twigs and things awaiting my game of
pursuit
Even though I love my nest Seeking my own grains and bondages
Dusk comes and I settle in my nested space
I migrate far out across seas
And go to new skies, my heart warms with a With its blues and purples and violets
I will come back I tell you
new peace My heart yearns home and eyes threaten tear
My eyes sparkle
droplets
My steps are light -Contributed by Aditi Kapoor
The sun gleams its reds, oranges and yellows
Future seems bright
Newsletter Team
Magazine in-charge: Anubha Verma
Email—acm@cse.iitd.ernet.in
To leave you…
Who Innovates? (Contd.) Caption Contest
But the nature of innovation cycle is such that a new technol-
ogy can totally alter the curve. Typically such technologies are
called Disruptive Technologies. These technologies when com-
pared on conventional parameters have a lower benefit-curve,
but soon catch up to what the customers need at a much re-
duced cost. It is difficult to know upfront if the innovation is
disruptive or not, however, one could look at other features
which describe it as incremental or radical, architectural or
modular and decide its value. Besides valuation, knowing the
types of innovations also allows us to think along these lines,
especially when one runs outs of ideas.