Willow Garage are doing exactly as they promised a few years ago and earlier today they announced the Personal Robot 2 (PR2) beta program opening the door for scientific institutions worldwide to get free access to one robot.

The company is now accepting proposals from any interested groups of researchers from anywhere in the world for the opportunity to be given full and free access to one PR2 for research in home, open source, humanoid robotics. This is the same robot that a few months ago was demonstrated to navigate flawlessly through an office-like environment opening doors, and seeking out power outlets for recharging its batteries (learn how the PR2 works.) Other than the hardware, Willow Garage are also putting a lot of resources behind the development of the Robot Operating System (ROS) and OpenCV. What they want from the researchers who are eventually selected to receive the robots is, other than to do some great research, to develop lots of open source software.

The call for proposals states,

By making the PR2 platforms available to researchers and developers, Willow Garage’s objectives for this beta program are fourfold:

  • enable scientific breakthroughs in personal robotics
  • expand the open source robotics community
  • develop reusable components and tools
  • explore new applications for personal robots

Willow Garage’s goal is to facilitate progress in the area of personal robotics, and to develop a world-wide community of researchers and developers contributing to open-source. Willow Garage works to facilitate progress in the area of personal robotics by sponsoring community-building activities and events, internship programs and visiting scholars.

Well done and good luck to all who apply. You can read the CFP here.