Tiny Robots At Play, In Words And Pictures 55
justin sane writes: "The NY Times has an article about the one of the tiniest
functioning robots to date.[Note: free reg. req. [?] -- t.] They faced numerous problems and build the robots layer by layer with photolithography on expoxy compounds. The microprocessor is raw (i.e. without a package to save on size). The batteries are the biggest part by far (not surprisingly). There is an MPEG of
one in action as it's speed 20 in/min velocity but alas it just looked like a photo album on my M$ player--still the photos are cool. No word if they are working on a port of Embedded Linux that can run the 8k memory space though. That would be my next step, then ... Python ;-)"
Re:No registration required... (Score:1)
Re:Collaboration (Score:1)
For example termites can organize sawdust in seemingly complicated ways with a rule stating once you run into a piece of sawdust if you are carrying a piece drop it and if not then pick up the new piece and walk some more. There are ways to make a large number of small robots handle complicated functions without an explicit need to coordinate their actions.
It is the same.. (Score:1)
Re:No registration required... (Score:1)
Re:No registration required... (Score:1)
No registration required... (Score:1)
Password: setecastronomy
Re:tiniest functioning robots? (Score:1)
(I wonder if they are programmed in multiple techniques?)
-Peter
"There is no number '1.'"
Re:Hardening and radio capabilities, then... space (Score:1)
But it reminds me of the scene in The 5th Element where they're using a "bug-mounted bug" to monitor the president, and he smacks it with his shoe. I'll just have to start wearing bigger shoes.
-Puk
p.s. Sorry, this is just the paranoid in me saying "hi".
Re:Why batteries over other energy sources? (Score:1)
Do radio stations intefere with one another? No. Why? Because they are modulated and different frequencies. EM waves of different frequencies(and hence different wavelengths) do not interfere with each other. Since power transmission is likely to occur at VERY low frequencies(like current AC which is 60Hz) and most communications are modulated in the 100's of MHz band, there is NO way you would have any interference.
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"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"
Repeat (Score:1)
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Sure thing. Simply put, the navigation logic isn't communication.
Okay, less glibly, consider how you and two friends would move a sofa if there were some compelling reason not to communicate. (A sleeping tiger in the room, or whatever. Granted that doesn't rule out gestures, and I want to do that, but you get the idea.) One of you goes to one end of the sofa, the other two might abort a move to that end, one gets the other end, and whoever didn't make it to an end of the sofa opens doors and whatnot. It's really not neccesary to say "I'll get this end" except to be social.
This sort of behavior is an extension of obstacle navigation on this premise: the way Actor #2 gets to far end of the couch is that he sees that Actor #1 is at the near end; even more generally, Actor #2 only sees that the near end is blocked, so he grabs the far end and starts moving the sofa. The fact that the other end is being supported and moved is dandy, but under this sort of behavior scheme, Actor #2 is pretty much ignorant of the fact.
Applying this to micro-bots, a dozen of the little puppies get set to move a brick. None of them alone is capable of moving it, but all 12 go at the brick and try to push directly on it. If there's something not-brick in the way, avoid it. Adjust the angle of push so that the brick goes the right way, but constantly make adjustments, so that as new robots come in contact and start pushing, the brick goes in the right direction.
The long and the short of it is that the robots don't have to know that they'll have help, or supposedly be cooperating. The programmers needs to understand that, and abstract the knowledge out of the algorithm coded into the bots.
Sorry to be long winded, but my grasp here is a little fuzzy, so I'm try to lay out everything I know in the hopes of getting something accross.
Ushers will eat latecomers.
Re:Can you imagine... (Score:1)
Anti-MS sentiment (Score:1)
I suppose if I wanted to do the same thing in reverse, I could say "but alas it wasn't viewable on my Linux box, since it doesn't have good drivers for my video card and I don't feel like tangling with dozens of packages to try to install a full windowing system in a restricted amount of hard drive space". But I don't, because my Linux box isn't built for that, because I don't use Linux for that. Whereas if you think Microsoft's mpeg viewer is slow, there's a real simple solution, folks - DON'T USE IT. Even if you're stuck on Windows, there *are* other mpeg viewers - I avoid Media Player also.
Bah. Enough rant for a situation that's been rehashed over and over :/
You really have a QA problem when... (Score:1)
Re:Hmm, this seems familiar (Score:1)
I got this responce from someone there: (Score:1)
Um... Repeat of old news? (Score:1)
Re:Hardening and radio capabilities, then... space (Score:1)
Re:Don't limit yourself to "nature" (Score:1)
My point is that if designers limit their concept of cooperation between individuals to what nature has implemented (with visual, audible, electrical, or sensory communication), then we'd be sitting still technologically.
Do what works now. Then refine, refine, refine.
Don't limit yourself to "nature" (Score:1)
He's right, you know. Most robots in nature are fantastic at communication. [snicker]
Seriously, dude, that's also the ultimate argument against CPUs, RAM, DVDs, TCP/IP, Fast Fourier Transformations, floating point division, and possibly about a thousand other technologies and techniques in computer science: They don't exist in nature. So? I'm sure many inventors have been inspired by nature and occasionally model things after nature, but thank goodness they have the sense to abandon what nature does with pheromones, hormones, synapses, and chemical reactions when we're stuck working with motors, gears, and instruction cycles.
Re:tiniest functioning robots? (Score:1)
tiniest functioning robots? (Score:1)
Re:Can you imagine... (Score:1)
Re:Can you imagine... (Score:1)
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
Sometimes I get a little geeky, and I frignit all over the place.
Re:Short Circuit 2 (Score:1)
No disassemble! (Score:1)
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Re:Why batteries over other energy sources? (Score:1)
First that "new linux box" and now this!!!!!!! (Score:1)
UHH...How many times must we ask folks not to NYT? (Score:1)
whole new kind of danger (Score:1)
And they might be capable to reproduce themselves one day...
I really hope I won't ever be invaded by millions of micro-robots.
Battle Bots anyone? (Score:1)
No reg. req. (Score:2)
which would lead to (Score:2)
But they might be quite useful if we're ever invaded by armed paramecia . . .
Even better, we could use them for mounts for the Yeast Brigade, so it would be cavalry . . .
;)
BEAM robots... (Score:2)
Re:You just know... (Score:2)
Does Battlebots have a super-lightweight division???
Please... (Score:2)
But come on folks. Did you look at the thing? It's really not all that impressive. Sure, it's kinda cool. But impressive in any way? Not really. They mention all the nice techniques they use to miniaturize the electronics, and yet after all that work it has nothing but one single temperature sensor?
I am working on an extremely simple, very tiny robot myself. Very similar to this one in fact. I have access to none of the expensive things these guys do. In fact it will probably cost me about $20 total. Granted, it will probably be slightly larger. But it will also do more.
I don't mean to be so negative.. And in fact my response isn't so much to the article or the guys doing the work on the robot, rather than to the comments I've seen on Slashdot. Come on, folks. A machine that can barely climb over a dime on a level table is going to have a bit of trouble traversing even the smoothest parts of Mars. Even using them for surveilance would be silly. (Although this is actually one thing I'm thinking of playing with, simply for fun. Have it seek out audio in the range of human speech, and relay back what it hears. <evil laugh>)
The hardware is really not all that impressive. I have beside me two pager motors, which I'm using as the main drive system of my own tiny robot. They are roughly half an inch long, and about as thick as a pencil. Now align them in parallel, one with the shaft facing left and the other with its shaft facing right. Attach them to some small "tank treads" and you're in business. A drive system in about 1/2" square. The device they show doesn't even seem to need a microcontroller, it could be built to do the same with analog electronics. My mini robot has a "brain" of an 8-pin microcontroller, which has 6 I/O pins, leaving me plenty of room for expansion (light sensors, bump sensors..). Certainly it will get larger than the device shown. But not by very much, and its functionality would be superior (in this incarnation, at least). Sure, they have plenty of work left to do. I just think that we're all getting a little too ecstatic about something that's very very simple...
Shameless plug: Go to Indiana University? Join the IU Robotics Club! We're just getting started up.
Coins (Score:2)
seriously, it looks very cool, but will it actualy *do* something? Will it cary tiny loads etc?
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
But this only works as long as we both have the same plan in mind. It's obvious that both ends of the sofa have to be lifted and that the door needs to be opened. But what happens when we get to the door and the sofa needs to be turned? I start turning it on it's back so you follow suit, great. Still doesn't fit. I have the idea standing it on end, so I put my end down. Thinking I want to rest, so do you. Now I have to come over to your end to lift it up--but I can't, the sofa is in the way. I lift my end up instead--and you lift yours. OK, we'll just move the sofa back in the room and turn around, that way I (the only one with the right plan in mind) will be on the right side of the doorway. We do that. Now I need to lift my end up to stand it on end, but you need to put yours down--how do I make you do that?
With robots, I suppose the second actor could match the first actors actions against some kind of internal list of strategies to see which one it is employing. Then it could take the role labelled "helper". The trouble is, flexibility requires more scripts which entails more possibility for misunderstanding on the part of the second actor. It would take forever to get anything done. Simply put, acting in concert requires an overarching plan. If that plan is non-obvious, communication is required.
And here's the ultimate argument against communication-free robots: They don't exist in nature. If evolution could have gotten by without building the incredibly complexity of the human language system by some means as described above, it surely would have. Ants communicate via pheromone trails. Bees communicate with dancing. If they could have done without these systems, why don't they?
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Re:Why batteries over other energy sources? (Score:2)
Of course, if you want to implant these somewhere (a body, a mine, etc) that won't work so well. OTOH, neither with broadcast power, especially underground.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Yuck, I'd hate... (Score:2)
There I am, standing around outside. *clunk* An interplanetary space probe lands next to me. *sssss...chink!* It pops open. Out "spews" (your word, not mine) a horde of tiny beetle-sized creatures. Creepy.
In any case, they aren't necessarily all that great for "exploring new habitats". Think about it: they are too small to move anything or contain any internal testing equipment. You probably can't put a lens on the thing that's big enough to show you more than about 5 grains of sand. It might be OK as a low-cost first wave to determine average temperature, etc--but you really need a rover-style device to actually EXPLORE.
However your "collaboration" comment gives me an idea. Shoot a bunch of these guys at the planet, say 1 million of them. In parallel, they determine the 100 most promising areas of the planet to concentrate on. The split into 100 teams of 10,000 each and home in on the centers of those areas. Only about 1 in 10 will make it and those 1000 join together (panda-monium!) to make a much larger unit capable of doing more extensive work.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Huh? (Score:2)
Ummmm...could you expand on that? I don't see how "logic used to navigate obstacles" is communication.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
And in the end, what did they accomplish? They moved a leaf. Big deal.
Off the top of my head, I can think of three ways to run a "many agent" system:
1) Like ants as you describe. The problem is that if the only workable strategy requires going over a "hump" in parameter space, this won't work. Think of it like evolution. In order to reach a goal, every mutation has to make sense on the way there. Evolution can't do something now to "lay the groundwork" for something later. Same with ants--if they need to perform some non-obvious preparation step it just won't happen. Adding intelligence could help with the foresight issue, but intelligence isn't enough to solve this problem because there's no way to coordinate plans so everyone knows WHAT preparation needs to be done.
2) Hardwired strategies. But we all know how inflexible those are.
3) Communication with at least one intelligent agent in the group. Now an over-arching plan with foresight can be created which will then be executed with the rest of the group essentially being extensions of the intelligent member's body. With humans, this is exactly what happens. I say "put your end down and hold it while I lift mine". Or you think of something and say "turn it over backwards".
What I should have said in my previous post was "communication-free robots that perform difficult, non-obvious tasks don't exist in nature".
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
Re:Don't limit yourself to "nature" (Score:2)
Don't they? Brains, memory, language all fullfill the same function. "Robots in nature" ARE fantastic at communication...we're doing it right now.
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Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
In other words, (Score:3)
:)
hawk
Can anybody tell me... (Score:3)
Maybe they are running some sophisticated AI code like the following:
while (battery_PCT()>10) {
move_forward();
}
-josh
Re:Collaboration (Score:3)
Surely the aim of this research is to see how small it is possible to go and then make it larger?
Now that it has been shown how to make such a very small robot, the techiniques &. learnt can be used to make more practical robots the next size up, with more power, commmunications and logic systems.
Can you imagine... (Score:3)
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Re:Hardening and radio capabilities, then... space (Score:3)
Frankly I don`t think putting things like this on the Marsian soil is going to give us a propper mapping of the surface. The terrain they can cover is practically unsignifficant, I suspect they`re not really protected from crashing into holes or gliding from slopes, and their broadcasting resources are limitted. It`s probably better if we could put bigger and more robust wheeled vehicles on the surface since they have better navigation capacities. But I agree that the distributed peer 2 peer broadcasting approach would be a nice angle
Why batteries over other energy sources? (Score:3)
Hmm, this seems familiar (Score:3)
Forth Is Still Good For Something??? (Score:4)
Collaboration (Score:4)
It seems that this sort of behavior would be ideal for these little bastards. I mean, they're cute and all, but radio transmission would zap their batteries, and coordinating communication would eat all their memory. But a small growth in memeory size would be enough to manage the sort of navigation algorithms I recall.
Unfortuantely, mass produced these things are supposed to run a couple hundred USD, each. Tough to rationalize many handy applications for that. Even cat entertainment seems to be a little overkilled by that sort of investment (although they do seem ideal, don't they? Maybe not fast enough.)
Ushers will eat latecomers.
You just know... (Score:4)
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Hardening and radio capabilities, then... space (Score:5)
Give them a single burst radio broadcasting capability, so they can report back, and you're away. Cheap, light, low volume - how many can you fit in a Mars probe? This should be great way of exploring new habitats.
One alternative to just dropping them is to land, and then spew them out - that way you get a lot more detailed information about a small area, and can control them so that if one of them finds something interesting, they can all go and investigate. Next step, of course, is to allow them to collaborate, and decide to do it themselves.