From R2-D2 to Roomba

updated 10:16 p.m. ET May 31, 2005

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Watching the original "Star Wars" movie as a mathematically inclined 11-year-old, Helen Greiner dreamed of someday creating a robot like the heroic R2-D2. After enduring plenty of lean years chasing that elusive vision as a co-founder of iRobot Corp., Greiner can now boast a product that whirs and chirps much like the character she to this day calls her "personal hero."

The Roomba vacuum cleaner may be incapable of fixing an X-wing fighter like Luke Skywalker's trusty droid, but some 1.2 million of the disc-shaped robotic housekeepers have been sold in 25 countries in the past 2 1/2 years.

For the 37-year-old Greiner, the success of the Roomba and of iRobot's military machines validates the transformation of robots from the stuff of fantasy to practical tools.

"I think in the old days, robots had a perception of being kind of scary, and more science fiction than science fact," Greiner said in a recent interview. "These robots are on a mission, and so are we: to bring robots into the mainstream. ... We can make robots do a better job than humans in some cases."

IRobot is now the world's largest firm solely devoted to robotics, with more than 200 employees. But gaining that distinction didn't come easy.

Greiner spent long hours in the machine shop after iRobot's founding in 1990, struggling to create practical robots under continual threat of losing the financing that has kept the company going. Greiner had lucrative offers to go elsewhere, but stuck with iRobot.

"Just imagine going six and a half years, and having lots of opportunities thrown your way, and saying, 'Oh, actually I'm rather determined to make this particular activity work,'" said company co-founder Colin Angle, who met Greiner when both were freshmen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Angle, chief executive of the suburban Boston company, says his business partner's success stems as much from risk-taking and persistence as from technical expertise and management skills.

"She's the type of person who will say, 'What the heck? Why not? Let's go try this. Let's go start a company. Let's go snowboarding. Let's go play paintball.'"

IRobot's chief military robot, a track-wheeled rover called the PackBot, has gone on thousands of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan to disarm roadside bombs by remote control and search caves and buildings.

Perhaps the most rewarding aspect of her work, Greiner said, is receiving postcards from U.S. soldiers in Iraq who feel safer because of the 150 PackBots the military has deployed.

IRobot is producing about one PackBot a day but can't keep up with the orders for a product that has yielded $50 million in government sales and research contracts.

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