It's not easy to find research in the field of robotics without military applications (or militiary funding), and Brown University's latest is certainly no exception. Starting out with iRobot's PackBot (and some pocket change from DARPA and the Office of Naval Intelligence) researchers at the school have achieved several advances that will someday produce robots that follow both verbal and nonverbal commands from a human operator, indoors and out, without the need for a controlled environment or special clothing. The goal, according to Chad Jenkins, is to devel
