Industry Insights | 5 min read
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Andrew Singletary
August 5, 2023
Andrew Singletary
August 5, 2023

3Laws Is NOT a General Data Visualization Platform

The 3Laws product stands apart from a general data platform by emphasizing unique analytics and insights that accentuate the safety and performance of these systems. Our platform employs minimal data representations and processes key metrics onboard, thereby offering a streamlined and efficient network load. Moreover, it provides a comprehensive, holistic perspective on robotics systems, revealing nuanced interactions between subsystems often overlooked in individual subsystem analysis.

In other words, we are not a general data visualization platform.

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What 3Laws Is

3Laws core technology was created principally for safe robotics operations. By characterizing your robot and its environment, and encoding your safety goals, we ensure that your robot stays within its safety envelope while accomplishing its desired objective.

To accomplish these core goals, the team has developed novel tools for system identification, fault detection, error handling, and recovery maneuvers. With this, we are able to modify control and planning signals to ensure safety and reliability.

3Laws Supervisor (read-only mode) is a low friction software module installation to provide the valuable information and analytics available from these tools directly to developers and support personnel of robotic systems. Its purpose is to provide your development and operations teams with a deep introspection of your system and its subcomponents (sensors, actuators, logic) at various phases of your development process.

Once your robotic system has been characterized and you define your safety criteria, the next level is to transition from read-only mode to read-write mode.

In read-write mode, when Supervisor detects abnormalities, it modifies the planning or control signals to ensure that the robot does not violate its safety envelope – such as avoiding collisions, overheating or other constraints. When Supervisor Read-Write mode is activated, you will have mathematically proven, certifiable safety for your robot.

Our 3 Key Differentiators

1. Focus on safety and performance

Our focus is on our unique analytics and insights related to the safety and performance of robotic systems. In this way, our platform complements an existing data platform by offering novel information that would not be redundant with the existing data set.

2. Minimal data representations

Rather than sending large amounts of data over a network or filling drives, 3Laws computes key metrics onboard and streams minimal representations of safety and performance. The result is a network load of only a few dozen KB/s.

3. Holistic robot view

It can be difficult to determine where issues arise and how performance evolves in large, modular autonomy stacks. Rich analysis of individual subsystems are informative, but cannot offer a holistic view of the robot. By analyzing the effects that individual subsystems have on each other, we are able to offer information about the system as a whole that would otherwise be lost in subsystem analysis.

Why 3Laws Is NOT a General Data Visualization Platform

A robotics data platform serves as a centralized system or infrastructure that manages and processes data generated by robotic systems. The primary purpose of a data platform in robotics is to enable effective data collection, storage, analysis, and utilization, thereby enhancing the overall performance and capabilities of robots. A comprehensive data platform provides a range of functionalities:

  • Data Collection: Robots generate vast amounts of data through various sensors, cameras, and other input devices. A data platform allows for systematic and efficient data collection from multiple robots or robotic systems, consolidating the diverse data streams into a unified format.
  • Data Storage: A data platform provides a reliable and scalable storage solution for robotic data. It allows for the secure retention and organization of the collected data, ensuring that it is readily accessible for analysis and future use.
  • Data Analysis: By leveraging the data platform, robotics researchers, engineers, and developers can perform in-depth analysis on the collected data. This analysis can involve extracting valuable insights, identifying patterns, detecting anomalies, and understanding the behavior and performance of robotic systems.
  • Machine Learning and AI: Data platforms play a crucial role in facilitating machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in robotics. The availability of large and diverse datasets allows for training machine learning models to improve the capabilities of robots, enabling them to make more informed decisions, adapt to changing environments, and perform complex tasks.
  • Algorithm Development and Optimization: Robotics algorithms often rely on extensive experimentation and fine-tuning. A data platform provides a convenient environment for researchers and developers to iterate on their algorithms, collect relevant performance data, and optimize their solutions based on real-world observations.
  • Performance Monitoring: Monitoring the performance of robotic systems is vital for maintenance, diagnostics, and troubleshooting. A data platform enables continuous monitoring of robot-generated data, facilitating the identification of issues, anomalies, or inefficiencies. This information can then be used to improve the performance and reliability of robots.
  • Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing: A data platform can serve as a centralized hub for collaboration and knowledge sharing among robotics researchers and practitioners. By providing a common repository of data and analysis tools, it fosters collaboration, enables reproducibility of experiments, and facilitates the exchange of ideas and insights.

Overall, a data platform in robotics serves as a foundational infrastructure that empowers researchers, engineers, and developers to collect, store, analyze, and utilize data generated by robotic systems. It enables advancements in areas such as machine learning, algorithm development, performance monitoring, and collaboration.

Robotics data platforms are powerful and important tools. But as you can see, they offer a different functionality set to 3Laws. We can work with these tools – but we are a very different entity.

Less Data, More Safety

For the reasons stated above, 3Laws apart from a general data visualization platform by emphasizing unique analytics and insights that accentuate the safety and performance of these systems.

Instead of vacuuming and storing vast data amounts, 3Laws Supervisor employs minimal data representations, processing key metrics onboard, thereby offering a streamlined and efficient network load.

3Laws provides a comprehensive, holistic perspective on robotics systems, revealing nuanced interactions between subsystems often overlooked in individual subsystem analysis. More importantly, 3Laws Supervisor delivers certifiable robotic safety.