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Modular Robots
levin writes "An article in the latest issue of IEEE spectrum discusses modular robots--robots made of small, identical components or modules. These robots can slither, roll like a tank tread, inchworm, or crawl like a spider. The idea is that modular robots will be not only cheaper to build because the modules are all the same, but will be more able to repair themselves (by shedding damaged modules). Even cooler, each of the 5cm cube modules in Xerox PARC's polybot sports its own PowerPC 555 and 1mb ram."
Sounds like someone was behind on an article, looked at the Legos and their desk and started writing. :)
Hmm.. the more that each module has to do, the more "expensive" that module becomes. Would these be more expensive, both in energy and $$, than just having specialized robots?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
I can't wait until these things get mass-produced and more intelligent.
Soon we'll have to hunt robot mosquitos and spiders with the fly swatter -- or possibly with a hammer if these damn things keep repairing themselves.
Anyone have any experience with cheap robotics that have fairly advanced AI? Or AI that can be reprogrammed and added to? What kind of cost is there for this type of system?
an interest in robots or something? This is like the 50th story today on robots. Ok, second, but still.
Quick breakdwn of robot topics lately:
microscopic robots
tiny robots that can move in different ways
robots designed to kill other robots
as well as the 3 or 4 AI articles, and a few others I didn't bother to read.
Maybe....
News for Scientists, Stuff for Robots?
ok, this comment was posted in jest, so don't get your robots in a wad.
Sent from your iPad.
Haven't you all seen that show "Cubix- Robots for Everyone" on the WB?
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Legos and mindstorm soon to come out with a rxc compatible version of this for upcoming sets
Soon we'll have to hunt robot mosquitos and spiders with the fly swatter -- or possibly with a hammer if these damn things keep repairing themselves.
:)
How many modules do you think it would take to build a modular mechanic mosquito? Take into account that you're dealing with "5cm cube modules."
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
The 'imagine a beowulf cluster' comments are more applicable here than in most of the articles I read... Imagine billions of robots able to work in tandem, infinitely reconfigurable. An office building/space craft? An automobile/boat. Hello Transformers...
Guvegrra?
>>Modular reconfigurable robots are built up from tens to hundreds, and potentially millions, of modules.
Millions of modules? Like molecules? Can you say "liquid metal alloy?"
Damn, I hope the company doesn't start calling itself "Cyberdyne".....
load "windows7"
I don't think making these things is such a good idea. TV has taught us that they will eventually take over a Russian submarine and almost destroy Thor's home world.
What, you didn't see "Small Victories" from the fourth season of Stargate SG1?
Get a modular robot in robo-wars. The chainsaws, flippers, and spinners wouldn't have a chance against something self-repairing and configuring.
The rules for BattleBots specificly mention "polybots" (aka a modular robot). However, I can only remember seeing one robot a few seasons ago that used such a design, and it didn't do too well.
The rules for polybots go like this:
I believe there is also a rule that only two people on your team are allowed to be by the arena for driving, which will limit the number of peices that can be manualy controled. (I'm not sure about that rule, though).
There are also practical considerations to when taking the third rule into account. Imagine bringing in your highly-modular robot and telling the judges that your bot has a total of 2^32 possible configurations, and it must be weighed in all of them. The best thing to do in this circumstance is to call up the judges before the tourny and ask them if the bot can just be weighed in the configuration you're about to send into the arena. Bots are reweighed before each fight anyways, so this shouldn't be a problem.
Anybody have ideas for a good polybot?
Not a typewriter
Or maybe Fusebox code...
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This opens up quite a number of doors in the robotics industry; as each new module can [potentially] add processing power to the chain -- making the robot even more capable. Furthermore, as long as the interfaces between modules are kept consistant, it would be possible to engineer special modules for specialized tasks, which only adds to the versatility of the robot.
It's kind of like having industrial-grade legos.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
This is where it all starts... robots that can make more robots... add a pinch of AI and next thing you know we're all being used for energy farms....
oh well, I doubt these robots will stand up against a shotgun blast, so if I see any little cubic robots near my house... BOOM!
Q. What's it take to get a story posted on
... That this was what Lego is for? Build large structures of smaller components.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
a BattleBot made of these?
Wham! --The pulverizer knocks off an arm, several nodes crawl out from a compartment and shed the broken nodes, reattach to form a new arm.
From what I have read in the Tournament Rules and Procedures and the Technical Regulations, there is nothing restricting a bot from self-regeneration.
Am I Over-Moderating??
but I guess I missed it. What would these things be used for? I mean, in the article it said they would be able to traverse difficult terrain, etc., but we already have robots that can do that.
This is a serious question, What the hell would they be used for? Did someone see that in the article or somewhere else?
Sent from your iPad.
They could get the price down to something reasonable. They wouldn't need the uber processors in each module either, just something cheap. I'd love to play around with something like this, and be able to go and pick-up a few extra modules whenever I needed/wanted. It would be great for experimenting.
Consider first that the CPU in these machines is of the same family as a Power Macintosh. Then consider the jointed arm that the latest iMac employs to support the screen. I can see a future model of Mac that not only smiles at you when you boot it up, but tries to hug you as well.
Ok, so I'm probably going to be pointing a giant neon sign at my head that reads "NERD!" but, back when I was into table top RPG's, Battletech in particular, There was a segment of the Battletech universe called "The Clans" which had mechs that had modular weapons. Meaning, all you had to do was supposidly slide in and out the weapons for configuration. Now in actual game play, this didn't really show up (Gameplay being much more cooler when Mech's have an individual shape - Mad Cat as opposed to a Thor for those of you that played the video games) but it is just a little bit of background factoid which runs similar with the story
blah
Hrmmm, interesting. They can program a module that's self aware, knows when a module connected to it is damaged and is capable of repairing that module. Plus fulfilling it's mission requirements, and all in 1mb of RAM.....
So why does my PC need 128mb just to type a Word document without crashing?
...I've been doing this with LEGO Mindstorms for a couple of years now.
... the Christmas tree robot in Robert Forward's "The Flight of the Dragonfly". Dr. Hans Moravec designed it for Dr. Forward, and it has since been used in several other novels by other authors.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
These could be really useful for
modular manufacturing processes.
Imagine an assembly line of really cheap
robots that can build stuff cheaper in America
than the cost of shipping "made in China" stuff back here. To compete against dirt cheap labor,
we basically need to have dirt cheap robots.
If these things are cheap enough, I may just be
able to win my bet to be able to build a
shell script controlled CD changer for my Linux box for under $50.00
May not be completely right
The Sirius Robot Corporation began its campaign for designing robots for the common people. The slogan was "Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!!!" The Hitchhiker's Guide states that the Sirius Robot Corporation is a "bunch of mindless jerks who are going to be first against the wall when the revolution comes." In an future Encyclopedia Galactica that was fortunate enough to go through a time warp to our time, the Sirius Robot Corporation is listed to be a "group of mindless jerks who were first against the wall when the revolution came."
Are we going to get Constructicons? I want Devastator to do my bidding!
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
In fact, the cost savings from the launch might well pay for the extra cost of the robot. Especially once modular robots are the de facto NASA standard and are cranked out in quantity by the lowest bidder. : )
Mr. Ska
Blam goes your shotgun and you scatter the robot into tiny little pieces.
In front of your very eyes, the little pieces of robot start gathering themselves together and advance towards you.
Blam You give it the second barrel, but to no avail. The modular robot appears to be impervious to damage, simply rebuilding itself from its fragmented component parts.
You're gonna have to think again buddy!
Imagine a robot being able to break a portion of itself off and send it to perform a sub task. Imagine two robot getting together to cooperate on a task by combining and spliting apart again once the task was completed.
The Economics of Website Security
For more information on modular robots, and the 1993 research done at Stanford University on polypod, the bot that preceeded Xerox PARC's polybot, visit The Edge Report, which has posted a brief follow-up to the Slashdot article.
Direct link to the story is:
http://www.edgereport.com/article.php?sid=138
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They talk about systems of up to 1 million of these modules. 1 million processors is gonna suck up a hell of a lot of power not to mention the motors etc. Its gonna generate a lot of heat too, where is the power for these things supposed to come from if they are supposed to be used for plant exploration and stuff?
They finally brought the Soda Constructor to life!
My favorite module is Keep on the Borderlands. Although, Village of Hamblet come in a close second. Of course, as a purest, I never liked Purple Mountain, the one with the space ship.
Someone you trust is one of us.
(FYI - This is a the "replicator" from Stargate: SG-1)
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
This started as somebody's grad project. The idea is that you can mass produce the modules cheaply and they can be configured as needed for a specific task. I think the software is probably what is slowing them down...
science is a religion
I have seen this episode of star-gate.....
oh no.. they are alive... run for the hills... run for the
Cruise TT
It's aabout time that this is getting publisized. Wasn't Rodney Brooks working on theory for something like this a way back?
The problem with non-modular bots is that there is a need to have a central processor computing all the complex tasks for every part of the bot. put a "brain" that only needs to perform very simple computations, and you speed up the process dramatically. Incidentally, this architecture more closely mirrors that of wetare (a whole bunch of neurons--modules.)
Well, I know we're wandering Off-Topic here, but...
(Also, I'm snatching that NERD sign from you and running head-long into the crossfire.)
The idea was that the shape of the robot was still unique (Light, Medium, Heavy, arms, legs, etc) but the robot contained "bays" for weapons and engine modules.
Anyways, back to the topic.
Modular robot design is actually a pretty good idea. First off, you could get the cost savings of scale/quantity, second you avoid the "puprose-built" robot problem.
I think a tool like this would be more useful in hazardous environments and unknown areas. Suppose we want our next robot explorer for Mars, sending a self-reconfigurable robot might be a better idea. We don't know exactly what we'd encounter and we can adjust for strange things. This would also be useful in contaminated areas where you don't want to get three special robots ruined or send someone in to modify the one already there.
...Now if we could just cram a CPU, battery, and connections into a swiss army knife and download the McGyver AI program...
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
haven't you played Mega Man?
With these modules it would be easy to simulate those robots with a genetic algorithm. This way the compilation of modules which fits the task best is computed.
A simliar approach to that is the golem project
Imagine you set the task to build a house and the robots that fulfil it best are copied with slight mutations. Then the simulation starts again until you have the perfect housbuilder robots.
The best UI people on the planet are those working in the car industry.
So people that brought us spoilers and racing stripes should be designing my OS?
...that can kick your ass when you're about to make "Imagine a beowulf cluster" posts.
Mike Hoye
Sexbots would be expensive; if you get bored with one, your only alternative would be to go buy a new one, which would be costly. But with modular sexbots, you can save money and just go buy a new head module, personality module, arms, legs, and other sundry body parts. I'd be much cheaper than having to buy an entirely new sexbot.
I'd invest in the company that produces these...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
If it turns out to be an incarnation of the robots from Screamers, I call first dibbs on the patent to the heartbeat shield thingies. And total rights to the distibution of them.
Polybots, transform and roll out!
I know it's dumb, I just couldn't help myself. =)
Txurlo
But imagine what you could do with a 5 cm^3 computer if it were a self-powered cube that could automatically share number-crunching resources with any other cube it got connected with.
Specifically, I address in this off-topic post the feasability of simulating the human brain with current technology.
Before we start, see here for the statistics I am using.
Note especially that:
I'll now interpret this information.
Let's posit for a second (wrongly) that a five hundred megahertz computer ("PowerPC 555" in article, though again the article refers to robots, not mere number-crunching computers) could simulate with each hertz all that a neuron does in one firing. (By contrast, a typical "hertz" in today's gigahertz computers is less than required to retrieve two thirty-two bit numbers, add them, and store the result.)
With this assumption, we'd only need (upper estimate) 200,000 such processors [1] to simulate the brain real-time.
200,000 * 5 cubic centimeters (size of these suckers) is 1,000,000 cubic centimeters, or 100 centimeters to each side of a cube, which is 1 cubic meter.
That's not very big at all, and even if these robots cost $2,000 each, 200,000 of them would only cost $400 million.
The problem, of course, is that no way one hertz on these babies is going to simulate all that a neuron does, even on average, since each neuron is connected to up to 5,000 other neurons, and has a small interaction with each one each time it fires.
Since a 32-bit integer can enumerate ("address") just over 4 billion items, we would need an integer and another byte (we'd only use half) to address each of the other 50 billion neurons. In other words, just to pass information about which current connection we're looking at we need to handle two 4-byte integers and another byte on each end of your dendrite (connector and connectee). If we assume that an "interaction" between two neurons, when one of them fires, takes a hundred real hertz to process (I think this is fair, since the amount of logical information that a neuron stores can be represented by two or three variables, which you'd read, compare, see if a threshold is met, then store), then we'd need not one hertz per neuron but 100 hertz * 5000 dendrites (connections to other neurons with which it transacts). Our 1 cubic meter has just jumped to 500,000 (five cubic kilometers), and our $400 million price-tag has just jumped to $20 trillion.
But $20 trillion will buy you the processing power (not necessarily the io bandwidth) to process as much as the human brain can possibly, ever process, if every neuron is connected to as many other neurons as it possibly can, and each one is firing as much as it biologically can, by the highest estimate anyone estimates, and is connected to as many other neurons as anyone estimates is possible.
Needless to say, your actual costs for doing as much processing as the human brain processes are much, much lower.
Why, if you take simply the fact that the max hertz we calculated as 2000, whereas the "max" is 250-2,000, and the "average" by most estimates is around 20 hertz (a neuron, on average, will not fire more than twenty times a second), you've just reduced your processing time by a factor of 100, going from $20 trillion back down to $200 billion.
Now let's look at the difference between the "processing" that we said we can buy for $2000 (500 megahertz) and the io bandwidth we need.
We estimated 100 hertz per neuron interaction with another neuron, and we said that a neuron was connected with 5000 other neurons, and that the "state" of each connection could be represented (logically) by three 32-bit integers (four bytes each) and another 5 bytes just to address the second neuron, we now need 8 bytes * 5,000 neurons available over the timespan of 100 hertz, where we're looking at a 500 megahertz computer. This means that to get the io bandwidth over one second, we multiply these eight bytes by 5,000,000 (the quotient of 500 megahertz and 100 hertz), and get 40 million / 1024*1024 = 38.14 megabytes/second.
If we forget about the 5-cm cubes (and any semblance of topicality) this actually isn't so unreasonable, since a $2000 computer needing only 500 megahertz shouldn't have any problem with 38.13 megs/second. Or 4 gigs of RAM.
Anyway, let me know where my numbers are off, but it seems I've concluded that, today, $200 billion will buy you everything you need to simulate a human brain real-time, without any compression or special optimization.
So then next time somebody says: "Computer will never think, because only human can think." You can proudly answer:
"Shut your face, ignorant person. Soon as we figure out all the laws of neural interaction and find a way to image someone's brain, $1.57 billion dollars will buy you all the computer processing you need to simulate that brain real-time. [10.5 years from now, or 7 Moore's law iterations -- I divided $200 billion by two to the seventh]. But, of course, if ten and a half years to you is longer than "never", then feel free to remain ignorant, moron."
ac.
of course, I've been known to be wrong. please correct me gently.
[1] this is 50 billion divided by 250,000, since 500 megahertz is 250,000 more frequent than 2,000 hertz.
What's this then?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Here's a guy with even grander ideas along these lines. Crackpot or genius? Take a look and decide for yourself....
"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, you're right." -
Soon they'll start producing these bots 5 nanometers on a side. Then we'll be in trouble!!!!
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
...to come up with the idea of building robots from interchangable modular parts. Lego hasn't quite managed to stick a PowerPC in each block, but they're much more affordable.
Seriously, it's nice to see things moving from the toy department to the research lab, instead of the other way around.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Did anyone else notice that on the polybot demo page, there's something quite disturbing in the Obstacle Course video? As this evil-looking metallic snake traverses a variety of terrains, the man grinning evilly as he takes notes is wearing camo. I shudder to think what he was imagining.
the super-duper EXOCOMP! yippee!!!
Exocomp, I command you to fashion a special kind of suction device for me this evening...
Safe sex in the 24th century!
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
"AI", that I thought was very cool, but many others thought was bunk. I especially liked the end, which featured robots that seemed to use modular floating structures, that configured themselves into flying craft, among other things.
The thought of our own thinking creations outliving us is cool enough, but the modular technology they apparently used was awesomeness as well...
I can see a wonderfully simple interfacing among the robotic parts. I would really like to see these controlled with embedded java to allow you to say go(NW,1000 * FT); to treads, feet or wheels, and the robot goes 1000 ft northwest. The possibilites are endless for a large amount of sophistication internal to the modules, while keeping a simple interface.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I notice the following on the PARC home page:
``In January 2002, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center became Palo Alto Research Center Incorporated.''
Sounds like it's not Xerox anymore...
playbot magazine?
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
its called Utility Fog
Unfortunately.. if thier made out of carbon compounds, and can self replicate (cheap production) the importance of control becomes life threatening... that with no OFF switch = the blob.--
What is the sound of this sentence?