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."

Comments

obligitory...

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine a Boewulf cluster of those!

Re:obligitory...

[Anonymous Coward]

no actually i wont imagine a beowolf cluster of these so there...

Re:obligitory...

[Anonymous Coward]

nah. I want to imagine a Beowulf cluster

Donkey The Conqurer

[DonkeyHote]

Another victory for retards over the cultists of the goat, RWD 2002

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modular ass crack

[Anonymous Coward]

fr0st

i think not

Lazy

[sandidge]

Sounds like someone was behind on an article, looked at the Legos and their desk and started writing. :)

Re:Lazy

[jmccay]

Actually, there is a more appropriate toy. I couldn't remember the name, but after a lot of searching on the web, I found it's name. It was called Capsella, and it was around in either the late 1970s or the 1980s (or both). You bought a bunch of interconnecting parts (most looked like clear spheres with pipes coming out of them that had gears and stuff inside). You would then connect them to motorize your creation. This was before Lego Mind Storm, but Lego Mind Sotrm is far more complicated. The basic idea is the same as what they are trying to do with these robots. I always wanted one as a kid.

Expensive?

[Marx_Mrvelous]

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?

Re:Expensive?

[LordNimon]

You'd be surprised how much costs can be reduced when something becomes mass-produced. Most of the construction cost comes from having to build different objects and then assembling them.

Re:Expensive?

[inerte]

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?

Maybe. But the cool thing of modular design (such as in OOP) is reuse of components. You could define a 'walk' module, reusing in several different goals. And you would only need to engineer once this 'walk' module, thereby saving a lot on Research/Development, and on the machines that build the modules on factories.

What I really want from Slashdot...

[ringbarer]

Is for Rob Malda to die.

A simple dream.

Re:What I really want from Slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

And Rob wants you to die from anal bleeding caused by a date raping dyslexic with a rusty steel strap-on.

Didn't I see these thngs taking over the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't I see these thngs taking over the world on Stargate SG1?

Special

[sysrequest]

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.

Re:Special

[-=OmegaMan=-]

"Soon we'll have to hunt robot mosquitos and spiders"

Thanks for giving me Daikatana flashbacks. :-(

God'Dammed AC! You have defiled the Donkey!

[DonkeyHote]

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What kind of advances in AI?

[amhax]

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?

Re:What kind of advances in AI?

[CMiYC]

I think your question is a little vague. "... that have fairly advanced AI?" What does that mean? AI to do what? In my 3rd year of school we had to build robots that searched a maze, blew out a candle, and came home. It was a pretty smart robot. You could put ramps in the hallways, change the room after he finds the candle, or put 3 candles in a room.

What application are you looking for in regards to AI? Its highly doubtful AI will ever get to a point where you just install an EEPROM, turn it on, and the "thing" figures out why it is there.

Re:What kind of advances in AI?

[amhax]

By advances, I was talking in general. Is there any type of systems developed for consumers that can make decisions based on outside input and make physical reactions based upon a large set of rules or guidelines. The generalized question was to ask if there were any robots or mechanized devices that can be purchased at affordable prices(
Beyond your average "Programmed to go towards light, then programmed to bark" kind of robot you described.

Re:What kind of advances in AI?

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Lego Mindstorms. The physical sensors are rather limited though. Touch (A button pretty much) Heat, (Thermometer) Light, (Detects brightness) Rotation. Limitations aside, ive seen some really impressive things hacked out with these little bots. (A copying machine for one)

Re:What kind of advances in AI?

[amhax]

What kind of prices do we need for a simple Mindstorms kit? Are they actually decent? What kind of OS and interface is needed to interface with the system's programming and design?

I am guessing proprietary windows software... right?

Re:What kind of advances in AI?

[CaffeineAddict2001]

Nope, if youve got a serial port you can develop on em pretty much.

Re:What kind of advances in AI?

[mlk]

They cost ~£150 (or atlest thats how much I paied when they first came out)
They are pritty cool, and by default you can make some niffty stuff (like RADAR's). See the website, or the back of the box for actual content.

You need a serial port (Mac users think USB to serial port atapter).
To develop "applications" for them, either use
The Stuff That They Come With (crappy, aimmed for kids)
VB, or other OCX-enabled Windows Delopement System

Not Quite C, aviable on most plateforms, including UNIX (and alikes (Linux)), Win32, BeOS and MacOS. As the auther of the BeOS port, I can say it's piss easy to port if you need to.

LegOS, A miniOS for the RCX, looks pritty darn cool.

leJOS, Java RCX and tinyVM for Java based interfaces.

mlk

Did somebody find...

[Em Emalb]

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.

Re:Did somebody find...

[SweetAndSourJesus]

robots for robots, stuff that robots?

Looks like Rob has a thing for bots lately. Understandable, I have those kind of days.

Any modular robot that doesn't have a gauss cannon module just isn't worth my time, but it would be great if we could go down to fry's, pick up autonomous components, and launch full scale (or at least 1:10 scale) attacks on our neighborhoods.

I tried it with my mindstorms, but they're pretty easy to defeat.

Re:Did somebody find...

[Anonymous Coward]

"This article did not have enough screw sorting in it."
-- screw sorting robot X-43 (much better movie review than that CAP weirdo!)

Re:Did somebody find...

[ethereal]

Lego bots are invincible if you just program them to park next to someone's bed and make a loud noise in the middle of the night - think of them as kamikaze mindstorms :)

"Ow! Sharp!!"

When will it come down to this?

[October_30th]

Bender: "Only Robannukah, the holiest two weeks on the robot calendar."
Leela: "Aw, come on, Bender. Last month it was Robamadan. And before that, Robanzaa."

The mandatory post

[pankajsethi]

How about a bewoulf of these!!

This techology is allready patented

[xenocide2]

Haven't you all seen that show "Cubix- Robots for Everyone" on the WB?

robot

[karmalien]

Legos and mindstorm soon to come out with a rxc compatible version of this for upcoming sets

These robots will never suck blood.

[UberQwerty]

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." :)

Re:These robots will never suck blood.

[modecx]

I'm not sure, but if it ever does get to that point, wee's in bIg troble.

Nano-bots, Cellular AI, oh my.

[maniac11]

These, like cells in a human body, are few in type but many in number. Such robots are called n-modular systems (where n is the number of module types).

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...

Re:Nano-bots, Cellular AI, oh my.

[Anonymous Coward]

but whose going to design the matrix? (no, not the movie, go watch a cartoon and figure it out)

Re:Nano-bots, Cellular AI, oh my.

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine sitting down on your 1000 module reconfigurable chair, with it's powerpc's and
1 horsepower motors in each segment.

And once comfortable, you smile and look through the plexigless window on your computer case, which reveals another little plexigless window on your hard drive.

And then you hit the power button. The last thing
that eenters your sensorium is a slight twitch from the chair, and then *splat*.

Re:Nano-bots, Cellular AI, oh my.

[Anonymous Coward]

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Re:Nano-bots, Cellular AI, oh my.

[Tenebrious1]

A beowulf cluster, using Gb wireless... we'd have to keep these robots apart- getting too many in a group and they might just get too smart and rebel against humanity. Isn't that what scifi writers have been warning us about for the past 75 years?

Cyberdyne Systems

[ipxodi]

>>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".....

Re:Cyberdyne Systems

[Hiro Antagonist]

No, they'd get sued for trademark infringement by Microsoft.

I love all things modular!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I love all things modular!!! that is why I only eat tater tots and cocktail weenies!

Re:I love all things modular!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

i wish I could buy more food in tot form like asparagus tots and ice cream tots and icecream tots!

modular robot goat cheese

[Anonymous Coward]

giddyup.
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Ack! Replicators!

[RandomCoil]

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?

Re:Ack! Replicators!

[IronChef]

But we also learned that they are susceptible to damage from chemically-powered projectile weapons. Whew!

Robo-wars

[Mattygfunk]

Get a modular robot in robo-wars. The chainsaws, flippers, and spinners wouldn't have a chance against something self-repairing and configuring.

BattleBots

[hardburn]

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:

• You have to show the ability to put the robot back together (without getting in there and doing it with your hands)
• The robot is KOed when 50% or more of the peices are incapacitated.
• If you have different configurations, your robot must meet the weight requirement in all its possible configurations

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?

Re:BattleBots

[ethereal]

A lot of the robots appear to have more communications difficulties than anything - either they were never tested at sufficient distance from the controllers, or else their antennae seem to be the first to go. A fully-autonomous bot with sufficient redundant sensors and the ability to hunt down other robots on its own would be a great advantage, I would think. The robot wars arms race is pretty quiet recently, since most of the really good weapons designs have been figured out and the only question is implementation. I predict that robot intelligence (at least enough to assist the human controllers) will be the next winning strategy.

the next step

[Anonymous Coward]

... is to replace the cubes by liquid metal...

Terminator 2, anyone ?

Artaxerxes

Like Object Oriented programming

[syn3rg]

Or maybe Fusebox code...

Possibilities.

[Hiro Antagonist]

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.

This is the end...

[greysoul]

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!

Re:This is the end...

[kin_korn_karn]

depends on the size of the shot you load your shotgun with. I'd be more inclined to use molotov cocktails, the heat will fry them.

Small Wonder?

[headchimp]

Hmm...make me wonder if they could be built with a human like hand. Ya know for hand jobs and such...always dreamed of one ever since the days of watching Small Wonder on TV.

Re:Small Wonder?

[Anonymous Coward]

robopaedophile!
You sir, DISGUST me!

The REAL question is....

[Anonymous Coward]

When are we going to get Sex-Bots?

This post sponsored by the retards for world domination in 2002, Unf Unf, Fear the Retards!

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But I thought...

[inerte]

... That this was what Lego is for? Build large structures of smaller components.

Can you imagine...

[steddyj]

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.

Re:Can you imagine...

[inerte]

Yep, imagine module Vaporizer Weapon being detached from competitor A. Then B picks it up and installs it on an open slot. If modular robots could enter BattleBot and do this, imagine the beasts that would compete over the finals. Assembled parts from the fallen enemies, that's very cool..

Re:Can you imagine...

[DohDamit]

Holy shit...is there a video game like this? For console or PC, I'd pick it up in a second. :^)

Re:Can you imagine...

[Capt. DrunkenBum]

The original MechWarrior.

interesting article

[Em Emalb]

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?

Re:interesting article

[hardburn]

The article mentioned exploring other planets or searching earthquake zones. Such environments often require something that can adapt quickly to changing circumstances.

These would make cool toys if...

[PantyChewer]

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.

Poly-Bots, The past / The future

[Anonymous Coward]

I am starting a holy jihad againt the cultists of the goat, we the retarded republic of donkeys (GOP) shall not rest until all cultists are removed from the earth, fear our wrath for we are legion!

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Frightening possibilities...

[stokes]

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.

Re:Frightening possibilities...

[Daemonik]

One step closer to virtual computer sex, babyyyy!!!

Re:Frightening possibilities...

[Dikarika]

If you are placing any body part into any open slot on said computer, that sex can no longer be considered "virtual sex".

It's now love... ;)

CYIaBCoX... SUYA!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

&ltvoiceover="Tom Sellek"&gt
Can you imagine...
&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp &nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp a Beowulf cluster of modular learning autonomic robotic goats...
&ltvoiceover="Tom Sellek",Mode="enraged"&gt
SHOVED&nbsp UP&nbsp YOUR&nbsp ASS?!!!!
&lt/voiceover&gt


The day I get a user account just so I can troll slashdot, the terrorists have won.

Re:CYIaBCoX... SUYA!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Try to get your < tags sorted out, stoopid.

Re:CYIaBCoX... SUYA!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sorry, I use Lynx."

-- Screw sorting robot X-43

Life more like Battletech

[To0n]

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

Re:Life more like Battletech

[ethereal]

Yeah, the Transformers had interchangeable weapons too. At least until they started making the holes in their fists slightly different sizes :(

1mb of RAM?

[Daemonik]

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?

Re:1mb of RAM?

[real_b0fh]

because you use windows, of course.

poor bastard.

Re:1mb of RAM?

[Daemonik]

It takes at least 64mb of RAM to comfortably run X too. Windows doesn't own the market on bloat.

Re:1mb of RAM?

[stud9920]

So why does my PC need 128mb just to type a Word document without crashing? 128 millibits of RAM for a word processor is a pretty nifty hack.

Well, duh....

[mblase]

...I've been doing this with LEGO Mindstorms for a couple of years now.

Sounds similar to...

[vrmlguy]

... 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.

sweet!!!

[brad3378]

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

Re:sweet!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

something tells me you are going to loose that bet.

Reminds me of HHGTTG

[Anonymous Coward]

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."

But when...

[sharkey]

Are we going to get Constructicons? I want Devastator to do my bidding!

Cool

[Dark Phantasmo]

These robots look cool, my kids would love em! heh

side note:
Why is it that on every topic that is posted on /. people always bitch and complain about the post being stupid, etc???

in space, no one can hear you spend

[mr.ska]

Not necessarily. Consider, say, a mission to Europa, or Mars. Space flight is still very expensive, and the price tag is direclty related to cost. It is quite conceivable that using a much more expensive modular robot that can reconfigure itself into a rover, drill, excavator, etc., will actually be CHEAPER to launch than a gaggle of single-purpose robots.

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. : )

Re: BOOM

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

reminds me of the song...

[Anonymous Coward]

the transformers,

more than meets the eye

autobots wage their battle to destroy the evil forces of

the decepticons.

the transformers

Spliting and Merging

[regen]

Something that they really don't talk about in the article is spliting and merging robots. They talk about reconfiguration of a single robot, but I think spliting and merging with a group of robot would be very interesting.

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.

Re:Spliting and Merging

[TheConfusedOne]

Cooperative robots were studied earlier.

The idea was to create a lot of small relatively stupid robots that could somehow self-coordinate (be it one brain bot or something). Imagine a bunch of ant-sized lifter bots coordinating and lifting and moving a heavy object. The heavier the object, the more "assistants" would get called in to do the task.

Re:Spliting and Merging

[dylantech]

If you dig through the Second generation movie archives these robots actually simulate such reconfigurations.

Re:Spliting and Merging

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called fork(2) stupid.
oh wait, you said robots.
yeah, the hardware folks are miles behind us.

Re:Spliting and Merging

[Anonymous Coward]

change your sig to end "when I'm in danger" from "when to duck." it's funnier that wya.

Re:Spliting and Merging

[Grunhund]

You may want to check check out marsupial robotics.

Re:Spliting and Merging

[ndinsil]

In his "Rocheworld" series Robert L. Forward describes a robot that did just that, called the Christmas Bush.

From a core body it had six arms, these branched into six fingers each, which themselves branched likewise until reaching near-microscopic size. Each segment had a power store, motor, and limited processing capability. Power, communications, and senses were driven by laser diodes giving the machine a colored, sparkly appearance (hence the name), and it was operated remotely by the habitat's supercomputer, relying on its own processors for simple reflex behavior.

A pretty cool machine it was; it'd be quite an accomplishment to build something like it in real life.

Stanford's Modular Bot: Polypod!

[advtech]

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

--

Power requirements?

[PantyChewer]

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?

Re:Power requirements?

[neonstz]

Well, I've not read the entire article, but one solution would be to put the energy one module needs into the module itself. If you need more endurance, just put a few idle modules somewhere which will give their energy to the others. Putting idle modules could be useful for other purposes too, such as backup and ballast (to lower the center of gravity etc).

For the heat problem I guess the one million module monster won't be a 100x100x100 module cube, but a large structure with lot of space.

Re:Power requirements?

[markmoss]

That is a pretty good question. In the likely uses for these things only a few motors will run at any one time, with the rest of the modules just maintaining a locked position. So they'd better design them so they can lock in position without a continuous power draw.

Power-PC CPU's draw a lot less power than Pentiums (I think), but it's not going to be practical to have portable-powered units (solar, battery, fuel cell, or combination) with large numbers of them. They also built a chain robot with PIC CPU's -- that's an 8 bitter that draws a little more current than a digital watch. It could follow a pre-programmed plan but couldn't re-configure itself, and probably isn't brainy enough to handle unpredictability. So I expect a real world modular bot will be a lot of PIC "muscle" units, plus a few high-powered "brains". The PIC's will have just enough intelligence to follow the plan sent out by the brains, and not burn up much power when idling.

The lab model (powered by a wall plug) might put a "brain" in every unit, to make it easier to work out the basic motions. Then you compile that to PIC object code add it to the list of options the brain can activate.

Re:Power requirements?

[raga]

Using off-the-shelf AAA (!!) NiMH bateries, they get distances of 0.5 km / 45 minutes of continous operation.

Cheers

imagine that...

[Anonymous Coward]

imagine the power rangers coming together to form the megazord

They finally did it

[British]

They finally brought the Soda Constructor to life!

My favorite module

[selectspec]

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.

We're in trouble now

[LordNimon]

Looks like we're one step closer to these nasties.

(FYI - This is a the "replicator" from Stargate: SG-1)

Update to old story

[maddogsparky]

This has been on /. at least twice before (in earlier incarnations). I could only find one in the archives: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/09/13/233323 9&mode=thread

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...

I have seen this epsoide

[JohnHegarty]

I have seen this episode of star-gate.....

oh no.. they are alive... run for the hills... run for the

cool! no more bottleneck

[Anonymous Coward]

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.)

He did loft the banner and charge forward...

[TheConfusedOne]

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...

beowolf cluster

[x1l]

Imagine a beowolf cluster of these.....

Of course there is...

[Anonymous Coward]

haven't you played Mega Man?

genetic algorithms

[Ozan]

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 car industry?

[joshjs]

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?

Re:The car industry?

[joshjs]

"The best UI people on the planet are those working in the car industry. "

Naw, too many bugs in the car industy.

(Somebody was gonna say it.)

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster...

[Murmer]

...that can kick your ass when you're about to make "Imagine a beowulf cluster" posts.

One word: Sexbots

[Tenebrious1]

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...

Screamers

[Slickoil]

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.

What can I say but...

[Txurlo]

Polybots, transform and roll out!

I know it's dumb, I just couldn't help myself. =)

off-topic. (not goatsx, please don't censor to -1)

[Anonymous Coward]

These are robots, not computers.
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:

1. the brain runs at a MAXIMUM of 2,000 Hz in any given part of it. (A neuron cannot fire more frequently).
   
2. There are 20,000,000,000 (twenty u.s. billion) Neurons in the adult brain. (With an upper bounds of 50 ubillion in some estimates.).
   
3. Each neuron is connected to 2,000-5,000 other neurons.
   
4. The greatest frequency with which an individual neuron can fire is 250-2000 hertz. (Estimates vary).
   

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.

Didn't we talk about this before?

[AltGrendel]

What's this then?

Fractal robots

[the_consumer]

Here's a guy with even grander ideas along these lines. Crackpot or genius? Take a look and decide for yourself....

5 nanometers spells trouble

[Wargames]

Soon they'll start producing these bots 5 nanometers on a side. Then we'll be in trouble!!!!

This is the second advanced research lab...

[danshapiro]

...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.

Re:This is the second advanced research lab...

[Anonymous Coward]

why did you waist your time by rewriting your .sig.

PRICK!

What creeps me out...

[IIOIOOIOO]

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.

One more step toward...

[smagruder]

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!

OH GOD YES!!!!!

[ringbarer]

I'm pummelling my turgid member at the thought of it!!!!!!!!!

reminds of the recent movie

[Anonymous Coward]

"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...

Think polymorphic interfaces

[gte910h]

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.

PARC not Xerox anymore...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

perhaps a chance for

[dollargonzo]

playbot magazine?

QED

Re:Nano-bots, Ce.. (patented: called Utility Fog )

[Merik]

This(of robots able to work in tandem) actually ia already patented...

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.