Evolving the Wireless Robot

An anonymous reader writes "This article is one of the first to discuss wireless robotics from an integrated approach. It explains the ins and outs of wireless robots: their components, their shortcomings, and how they can interact in a competitive or cooperative team within professional environments. Learn how smarter robots can relieve us of the most tedious -- and dangerous -- tasks."

Comments

think a wireless robot...

[Anonymous Coward]

...that could tool around wardriving would be pretty cool.

This tells me nothing

[bih]

This article was full of fluff and contained little or no real information:

Pitfall 4: Security. Hackers can exploit a robot's vulnerabilities and turn it into a weapon or completely disable it. Solution: Install safeguards to counter these vulnerabilities.
Pitfall 6: Viruses. PCs that are wirelessly communicating with robots might contain viruses. Solution: Install anti-virus programs and present security awareness programs for programmers and users.

The article could easily have been written by an undergrad just finishing an introductory course in artificial intelligence or robotics. I'm a bit dissapointed that it was posted on Slashdot at all.

Re:ok, if they want my money here's how:

[tomhudson]

... and you want this for under 10 dollars? </quote;>

Sounds inevitable. Give it time.

1. Cell phones used to cost 1/4 the price of a new car, now they give them away
2. Individual transistors are cheaper than staples (cimpare the cost of a meg or ram and a meg of staples).
3. A 32-inch color tv costs less today than a 12-inch black and white a couple decades ago
4. 3 years ago a dvd burner was $5,000.00. Now they're $200.
5. vcrs used to cost over a grand. Now you can buy a dvd/mp3 player for $50.00
6. The original 1-speed pc cd player was $700.00, now you can get 52x for $20, or a combo dvd player and cd-rewriter for $39.99
7. 17 monitors used to cost almost $2,000, now they're about a tenth of that
8. The original sound blaster was $200, for mono 8-bit sound. Now you get 5-channel sound free on your mobo
9. 5 years ago, 10mbit nics were still $100.00. Again, 100mbit are now free w. your mobo
10. 4-meg video cards used to cost $500.00. Now, 32/64 meg free w. your mobo.
11. Ten years ago, a gig of hd space was $1,000.00 - now it's a buck
12. 20 years ago, 64K of ram cost $100.00. Today that gets you a gig.
13. The first electronic watches were $100.00 (with the ugly red led display) - now they're given away with all sorts of things like magazine subscriptions, etc.
14. 300-dpi laser printers were a couple of grand, not a couple of hundred.
15. 300-dpi canners were $3000 10 years ago. 9600 dpi scanners are $50.00 today
16. Today's sub-$500 box can do more than multi-million-dollar computer sites 20 years ago

Sure, it might cost a lot NOW, but, like everything electronic, the price will drop by several orders of magnitude. So, $10,000.00 today will probably cost $10.00 in a decade.

Wire Guided Missiles

[Wyatt Earp]

There are of course no wire guided cruise missiles but there are a large number of wire guided missile with fairly good range.

BGM-71 / M-220 Tube-launched, Optically tracked, Wire-guided missile (TOW) was the standard US helicopter mounted anti-tank weapon from the early 1970s through the 1990s for the Marine Corps and through the mid to late 80s for the Army. It is still the standard truck or tank mounted ATGM for the Army and Marines. It carries 3700 meters of control wire for command input.

Euromissile HOT is the standard EU helicopter mounted ATGM. It carries 4000 meters of control wire for command input.

Euromissile Milan is the standard EU guided manpack ATGM. It carries 2000 meters of control wire for command input.

AT-5 Spandrel was the most advanced Soviet wire-guided ATGM from the late 70s on. It carries 4000 meters of control wire for command input.

All of these missiles exceed 600 mph during thier flight

Beware: Flawed, incomplete article

[Anonymous Coward]

This article is extremely flawed, has typos, major omissions, and should not be used as a serious reference. Wireless robots are in use now, with the iRobot Packbot series as the best known from it's deployment in the Middle East though other DARPA robots use wireless as well. Wireless robots were used at the World Trade Center, with one robot lost due to comms dropout. The Predator and Global Hawk are "wireless" robots, too; they provide some insight into the bandwidth management problems, loss of connectivity, and other real issues.So there's good information to be had, but it's out there not in this article. Oh yes, the real Behavior-Based Robotics book is by Ron Arkin and is a classic, somewhat like Stroustrup only for mobile roboticists.