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Self-Repairing Spacecraft Uses Ant Logic 111

Posted by Zonk from the made-of-liquid-metal dept.
Elitist_Phoenix wrote to mention a New Scientist story about what could be the first steps towards a self-repairing spacecraft. From the article: "The team at CSIRO, Australia's national research organisation, is working with NASA on the project and has so far created a model skin made up of 192 separate cells. Behind each cell is an impact sensor and a processor equipped with algorithms that allow it to communicate only with its immediate neighbours. Just as ants secrete pheromones to help guide other ants to food, the CSIRO algorithms leave digital messages in cells around the system, indicating for instance the position of the boundary around a damaged region. The cell's processor can use this information to route data around the affected area."
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Self-Repairing Spacecraft Uses Ant Logic More

Self-Repairing Spacecraft Uses Ant Logic

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  • Why do I get the feeling.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DoraLives ( 622001 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:42PM (#13528875)
    that when this thing gets built that it won't do ANY of what it was originally intended to do but will wind up costing about twenty times more than originally budgeted?
  • Something you'd see on late night TV where they implant a spaceship with proprietary "ant-logic". The spaceship becomes sentient and runs straight into a planet in a vain attempt to lift it.
    • Its basicly a tcp/ip network in brick form.

      woohoo.

      hell, even i could have come up with that:
      1) Put a 4-way switch in a brick with one connector on each side.
      2) Use power-over-ethernet
      3) 'fuse' every incomming connector.

      Tell me if i'm wrong.

  • Great Concept... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nerd Systems ( 912027 ) * <ben&nerdsystems,com> on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:46PM (#13528893) Homepage
    Distributed computing on a different scale then we are used to seeing... quite interesting concept...

    It is nice that these skin cells can detect that they have been damaged, yet I read nothing about if they have been damaged, how they plan to repair the damages caused?

    I guess this is just a way for processing of a system to continue, even if a certain chunk of the spacecraft is destroyed, that it can still function seperate from the rest...

    Few Question though about this layout:

    1. How is the power system? Is this a central powered source, such as from a battery pack with a solar panel to recharge it, or is each cell having it's own power cell and solar panel to recharge things?

    2. What is going to be implemented, as far as damage recovery systems? Is there going to be another group of devices onboard, that can be dispatched to repair cells? Is there going to be a collection of extra cells waiting, so that the damaged cells can be discarded, and the new cells brought into place?

    3. Communications among cells are discussed, yet what about relaying this information back to NASA? Also, what happens if the primary communications antenna is destroyed... is there provisions to replace this as well, using this technology?

    It looks like this is a start to promising self-healing taking place in satellites and other devices, not to mention the implementations of it being used on Earth...

    • I think the simplest ideal you could react with a linked system such as this would be having a computer port available at any of the nodes.

      Main processing computers goosed? Ahhhh well, just plug in a spare laptop into the bathroom wall and carry on.

      Could even have various redundent machines connected wherever around the ship.

      It becomes fun when additional modules (ISS habitats) connect into the net and can access information from any other part of the ship.

      It makes for an amazingly robust communications cha

    • Great Start (Score:3, Informative)

      by nurb432 ( 527695 )
      I think its more of a 'start' of something..

      You cant repair something if you dont know its broke...

      So, this would be the logical first step.

    • Re:Great Concept... (Score:5, Informative)

      by MonkeyBoyo ( 630427 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @08:29PM (#13529071)
      It is nice that these skin cells can detect that they have been damaged, yet I read nothing about if they have been damaged, how they plan to repair the damages caused?

      Um, no, a skin cell cannot detect that it itself is damaged. Undamaged neighbors that can't communicate with a cell can decide it is damaged.

      "repair" in the sense used means routing communication and tasks around the damaged cells.
      • When did we start using impact sensors to see whether neighboring computers were transmitting data? Obviously, it is also intended that each tile can detect damage which does not reach the circuitry, such as big-shallow-crushed-surfaces like the one that caused Columbia to break up. It also says they hope to be able to discern between different types of damage. Types of damage do not matter for routing communication, nor is there any reason that rerouting would only be done rapidly in certain cases. This
      • Um, no, a skin cell cannot detect that it itself is damaged. Undamaged neighbors that can't communicate with a cell can decide it is damaged.

        A meteorite had knocked a large hole in the ship. The ship had not previously detected this because the meteorite had neatly knocked out that part of the ship's processing equipment which was supposed to detect if the ship had been hit by a meteorite. --Mostly Harmless, DNA.

  • Hey, we can actually use the real quote here! (Score:4, Funny)

    by sgant ( 178166 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:48PM (#13528902) Homepage Journal
    Kent Brockman: "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords".

    You know...the one about Homer in space and the ant experiment they sent up got broken and there are ants floating around....guess you had to have seen it.

  • ants? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by convolvatron ( 176505 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:49PM (#13528907)
    substitute 'adjacency updates' for 'pheromones' and you have a generic dynamic routing protocol...

    • Nope (Score:1, Troll)

      by Julian Morrison ( 5575 )
      Steps of dynamic routing:
      1. discover an efficient route
      2. detect loss of connectivity
      3. goto 1

      This is only step 2 and only for a finite, non-expanding, known set of nodes whose relative topological positions are pre-arranged for convenience. Ie in terms of relative complexity this is to Tic-tac-toe as dynamic routing is Go.

    • Re:ants? (Score:1, Troll)

      by mrogers ( 85392 )
      Check out AntNet [nasa.gov] and MUTE [sourceforge.net].
      (JetiAnts [jetiants.tk] and AntsP2P [sourceforge.net] are offshoots of MUTE as far as I can tell.)

  • Yeah, well. (Score:5, Funny)

    by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:52PM (#13528921)
    Everything sounds just fine until the damned things carry off your picnic lunch.
    • They are telepathic and can spot a picnic basket from orbit. On the upside they go great covered in Chocolate. But the size factor would make the many gallons of Chocolate very expensive to ship from earthside.

      Guess it's time to get cracking on those orbital farms.

  • Ah, finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nmb3000 ( 741169 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:54PM (#13528930) Journal
    Finally we can have a system that tells us stuff like:

    Rerouting through secondary coupling.

    Bypassing damaged pathways.

    Red alert! Red alert!

    Diverting power around fused regulator 4A-CJ1.

    The colony is under attack! Protect the Queen!

    Which one's the Queen? I'm the Queen! No you're not!

    Freedom, horrible horrible freedom!

    The ants and space stuff kinda threw me off, but either way it's about time if you ask me.

  • These will all come back in super-intelligent... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:56PM (#13528940)
    ...v'ger mode demanding all the Earth's sugar.

  • Why is that needed? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by autopr0n ( 534291 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @07:57PM (#13528944) Homepage Journal
    I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why they would need to use 'ant logic' or whatever for this system. All it does is take readings and process them in each cell... why not just use a central database of all the cells and a central (yet redundant) computer to process all the data.

    Seems like you'd get the same result, but it wouldn't be as 'cool' or expensive to develop...
    • Because it wouldn't be as cool or expensive to develop. Duh.

    • Re:Why is that needed? (Score:3, Informative)

      by fabs64 ( 657132 )
      for the very reason this technology was created.
      to try and get rid of the central point of failure.
      • "Centralized" dosn't mean single, thats why I said "redundant" centralized systems, rather then a weird, unessisary CA system.
        • what's it help if you have "redundancy" if a meteor punches through that section of the hull?
          The whole point in a cooperative cell system is that it's ultimate redundancy, there is no 1 or 2 systems that if destroyed bring down the whole system.

          If you don't see the merit in that for a spaceship... well, hopefully you never get a job designing spaceships :-P

          Just an addon, it's "unnecessary" yes, it's true, the english language doesn't use the exact same letters for every sound.
    • A system like this has a greater degree of redundancy built-in at the cell level than you could possibly hope to achieve with a centralised database; each cell is already checking the status of its neighbours, so for a square grid you have four way redundancy (the grid needn't even be regular, as long as individual cells know how many neighbours it should have). Also, a central controller needs a direct link to each cell, which would probably mean a complex and heavy wiring loom (introducing another point o
    • The answer is dynamic reconfiguration. With smart cells you can have much greater flexibility. Consider M-Tran [aist.go.jp], a self-reconfigurable modular robot [engadget.com]. These designs are (potentially) much better than centralised systems, because you can reconfigure them any way you want. Want to add a new antenna on your spaceship. Ask some cells to prepare for holding it, passing over their current functions to some neighbouring cells.

      Yes, you can have a central database, but then you need to waste a lot of system resources
  • "Human scientists discover the secret of Automated Repair"

  • Cue the "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that" jokes...

  • Misleading title (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10, 2005 @08:05PM (#13528984)
    Erm, I don't get the reason behind the "Self-Repairing" part. As far as I can see, it's Diagnostic they have in mind. As long as they're one piece, solid state cells they ain't going to repair anything. But sure, they can tell you stuff, like any sensor array out there. Imho, we shouldn't consider this anything more than it is: smart skin. Sure we have ceramic/metalic/whatever thingies protecting the space ships now. But if instead of that we could have smart ceramic/metalic/whatever skin that can tell us what exactly is wrong with it (burn, corrosion, impact, radiation levels?), I still think it's a great thing, which doesn't need the bombastic allusion to self contained tech. The only way I see self contained tech occuring is nanotech, and that's just because the "bricks" of it are too small for our perception. In fact, our whole tech is self contained, but we don't really accept it because we see the "parts" being so different and apart. Being small enough will create the illusion of it, but hey, who said we're smarter than that ? :)
    • Erm, I don't get the reason behind the "Self-Repairing" part

      Exactly. It's not self repairing, it's just self redirecting. If it was self repairing, it would actually repair the affected region instead of bypassing it using the neighbor cells.

      But if instead of that we could have smart ceramic/metalic/whatever skin that can tell us what exactly is wrong with it (burn, corrosion, impact, radiation levels?)

      That should also be integrated, or at least something along those lines, they would be stupid not to

    • Erm, I don't get the reason behind the "Self-Repairing" part.

      The system as a whole "fixes" itself.
      You could think of it as the software being self-repairing by routing around the damaged hardware.
      To use a human analogy, a person who has a stroke can recover to some extent, even though individual neurons may be permanently damaged or killed.
      The system as a whole (human/spacecraft) is self-repairing, even though individual components (neurons/cells) may noy be.

  • prior art?

    http://web.mit.edu/teamhtml/Athena/watchmakers/ [mit.edu]

    there is a book by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournell called "The Mote in God's Eye" and the moties are some interesting charactors...

  • Obligatory Atom Ant reference... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Brad1138 ( 590148 ) <brad1138@yahoo.com> on Saturday September 10, 2005 @08:43PM (#13529115)
    "Up and At'em, ATOM ANT!"

  • Not Really Ant logic but Skin logic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobertF ( 892444 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @08:43PM (#13529116) Homepage
    Don't you think? Exactly what our skin does, or rather, the nervous system endings in our skin. If you get cut, all the nerves around the cut go off and send signals, like pain. So, the same can work for a spacecraft, sending off messages about the problem. Now if scientists can just get these processors to perform mitosis so that ships can "heal" themselves, we'll be all set!

  • A note for the scientists (Score:3, Funny)

    by Cliffy03 ( 663924 ) * <thecanadiangeek@@@gmail...com> on Saturday September 10, 2005 @08:44PM (#13529121)
    Just don't call them Replicators [wikipedia.org].

  • Good, cuz that'll solve this problem... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @09:33PM (#13529265)
    "Click, click, hum.

    Click, hum, click, hum, click, hum.

    Click, click, click, click, click, hum.

    Hmmm.

    A low level supervising program woke up a slightly higher level supervising program deep in the ship's semi-somnolent cyberbrain and reported to it that whenever it went click all it got was a hum.

    The higher level supervising program asked it what it was supposed to get, and the low level supervising program said that it couldn't remember exactly, but thought it was probably more of a sort of distant satisfied sigh, wasn't it? It didn't know what this hum was. Click, hum, click, hum. That was all it was getting.

    The higher level supervising program considered this and didn't like it. It asked the low level supervising program what exactly it was supervising and the low level supervising program said it couldn't remember that either, just that it was something that was meant to go click, sigh every ten years or so, which usually happened without fail. It had tried to consult its error look-up table but couldn't find it, which was why it had alerted the higher level supervising program to the problem .

    The higher level supervising program went to consult one of its own look-up tables to find out what the low level supervising program was meant to be supervising.

    It couldn't find the look-up table .

    Odd.

    It looked again. All it got was an error message. It tried to look up the error message in its error message look-up table and couldn't find that either. It allowed a couple of nanoseconds to go by while it went through all this again. Then it woke up its sector function supervisor.

    The sector function supervisor hit immediate problems. It called its supervising agent which hit problems too. Within a few millionths of a second virtual circuits that had lain dormant, some for years, some for centuries, were flaring into life throughout the ship. Something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong, but none of the supervising programs could tell what it was. At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing.

    Small modules of software -- agents -- surged through the logical pathways, grouping, consulting, re-grouping. They quickly established that the ship's memory, all the way back to its central mission module, was in tatters. No amount of interrogation could determine what it was that had happened. Even the central mission module itself seemed to be damaged.

    This made the whole problem very simple to deal with. Replace the central mission module. There was another one, a backup, an exact duplicate of the original. It had to be physically replaced because, for safety reasons, there was no link whatsoever between the original and its backup. Once the central mission module was replaced it could itself supervise the reconstruction of the rest of the system in every detail, and all would be well.

    Robots were instructed to bring the backup central mission module from the shielded strong room, where they guarded it, to the ship's logic chamber for installation.

    This involved the lengthy exchange of emergency codes and protocols as the robots interrogated the agents as to the authenticity of the instructions. At last the robots were satisfied that all procedures were correct. They unpacked the backup central mission module from its storage housing, carried it out of the storage chamber, fell out of the ship and went spinning off into the void.

    This provided the first major clue as to what it was that was wrong."

  • Mars Probe Steals Potato Salad, News at 10 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @09:45PM (#13529302) Journal
    "Honey, there's a Mars Probe carrying away our potato salad! I told you we shouldn't have picnicked near JPL."

    Seriously, though:

    "Other groups are developing impact sensor systems controlled by a centralised processor. But such systems would fail if the area containing the processor were damaged. So a distributed system could be much more reliable, says Bill Prosser of NASA's Nondestructive Evaluation Sciences Branch in Langley, Virginia."

    That kind of seems like overkill. It's like "One processor is too risky, so we should instead have 100." Have 3 processors and 3 busses. If something can damage all 3, then the probe is F'd beyond all repair anyhow. You have to wire power to 100 processors anyhow if you do that such that a damaged power bus can still take out multiple panels. Weight is premium on probes, and 99 processors is not a very effective use of weight.
    • It's not overkill at all. As computing units become cheaper and smaller, it becomes increasingly more attractive to design a system of simple smart cells instead of a limited number of more complex processors. With 3 processors and 3 busses (sic!) you need to make connections to each of the surface sensors and what not. This isn't a problem when you've got barely a dozen surface sensors on the ship, but when you have 1000s of them, wiring every sensor up (not to mention doing this with 3 busses (sic!) ) bec
      • But then you need to wire power to each cell. Also note that you have to shield chips from radiation. It is less total shielding for a semi-central system than many duplicate chips. It is like building individual bomb shelters for each member of the family versus building one large one.

        Actually it may be cheaper just to have a camera(s) on a mobile arm to take images of the probe surface to look for problems. Such arm may also be able to nudge stuck antennas and booms, so it has multiple uses. Stuck booms a
        • Your reasoning is deeply flawed. You approach design with the assumption that sensors, actuators and various electronics is expensive and limited. This is how it was in the past and how it is to a large extent today. But we can already see that this assumption becomes increasingly less true and in the future will be totally bogus.

          There is no reason why you should NOT have electronics and sensors in every cubic centimetre of the space ship. Once you remove the considerations of costs, the default decision be
  • I saw this, and I thought it was cool that the spacecraft was issuing

    ant clean, repair

    to fix their spacecraft. Ah well. This is cooler.

  • Borg! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 )
    This is how the Borg got started. Watch out, NASA.

  • Oh swell... (Score:3, Funny)

    by anandamide ( 86527 ) on Saturday September 10, 2005 @11:01PM (#13529642)
    The first alien that comes along with a giant magnifying glass and we're screwed.

  • Somewhat old news (Score:2, Informative)

    by Kerhop ( 652872 )
    Saw an article some months ago in Popular Science about cars may eventually be made of this stuff so that when they get in a fender bender the "dent" in the car pops back out saving insurance companies millions of dollars currently going towards minor repairs. Also found an old article from 2001 here [geocities.com] and here [newsmax.com] on the same subject.
  • They should be using cockroach logic so the space probe will survive forever. You know... like Voyager 6 (V'ger). ;)

  • First Launch (Score:3, Funny)

    by tengu1sd ( 797240 ) on Sunday September 11, 2005 @01:55AM (#13530178)
    The first launch application will be on the Nomad probe, targeted to collect sammples, sterilize and return to Earth for analysis.
  • Self-Repairing Spacecraft Uses Ant Logic

    This is deceiving. From the title I thought they had java software recompiled in space :-)

    People should add either TM (Trademark) or RL (Real Life) when they use confusing terminology. This way nobody would be confused reading headlines like Self-Repairing Spacecraft Uses Ant (RL) Logic or Bug Found In Ant (TM)

    Actually this is a bad idea. Since Microsoft has copyrights on the whole english dictionnary it would be difficult to use english anymore: Windows, Office

    • A lot of these problems can be avoided by capitalising headlines as normal sentences. "Self-repairing spacecraft uses Ant logic" and "Self-repairing spacecraft uses ant logic" are easy to tell apart (assuming you can trust the writer to capitalise correctly, which may be unrealistic on Slashdot).

      Another fine example of degenerate American English. B-)
  • When can I use this on my car?? LOL!!!!
  • Believe me ants are awesome ;-). Though this may cost a fortune now, and I don't see it being near what it will be in the end, the possibilites with something of this nature are endles, from putting them on cars during crash tests, to better see how and what breaks first, to shapechanging objects.
  • he cell's processor can use this information to route data around the affected area.

    Are the sensors all Cell processors? That would rock! Just think, a synergistic CPU in a grid of hundreds or thousands... the space-based supercomputer. And no need for extra cooling if the skin is facing away from the sun!

  • Iron Mans' armor was made of something called flex-metal. It was a series of interconnecting tiles that acted independantly of each other, but communicated information on its condition and position. Sounds like NASA has cought up to the comics.

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