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

Tedious Tasks

[Archangel Michael]

Like reading Slashdot articles on SCO vs IBM? Slashdot Dupes?

think a wireless robot...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

For all tasks

[Faust7]

Learn how smarter robots can relieve us of the most tedious -- and dangerous -- tasks.

I tell you, if I had a wireless robot, I would never have to use my hand again. Hands. I meant plural. For typing.

Dangerous Tasks?

[H0NGK0NGPH00EY]

Wireless robots performing dangerous tasks? You mean like competing in death matches inside "the box?" Hmm...

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

[newsdee]

Make me miniature RF-controlled mechas, controlled by a PC, so that I can have a real-life table-top equivalent to Battlechess and Carnage Hearts (PS1). Of course, they should repair themselves, I don't want to have to clean up and glue them together after every match. :-)

If they're under $100, I'll buy more than one. Under $50, I'll buy a lot. Under $10, I'll buy tons. :-)

Ok time to stop dreaming. :-)

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

[burns210]

you want self repairing remote controlled robots, the size of which must fit on your table, that are strong enough to battle against each other, all by being controlled by wireless internet via your home pc... and you want this for under 10 dollars?

I think I heard of a guy you should talk to... something about ocean-front property in arizona, or somesuch thing. :)

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.

Been around for years

[Wyatt Earp]

There have been wireless robots for decades in the form of missiles.

Sure the first generation cruise missiles and guided missiles were dumb, pointed in a direction or steered by a wire but ever since Sidewinder they've gotten pretty danged smart.

DARPA and the DoD came very close to a roaming missile in the Tacit Rainbow program in the 1980s and theres been work on missiles which carrier smaller missiles.

I understand that this piece is focused on ground robots but alot of what the writer is talking about has already been done with missiles.

Air to Air and Surface to Air seem to be the most advanced when it comes to fuzzy logic and self-guidence in a variety of situations.

Re:Been around for years

[bulletproof troll]

Uh... We all know that missiles' ranges are limited because they're hooked by Cat5 to silos.

Re:Been around for years

[SuperBanana]

Sure the first generation cruise missiles and guided missiles were dumb, pointed in a direction or steered by a wire

Um...one of the first cruise missles(the AGM-86) used radar-based terrain profile matching. It was neither "dumb", "pointed in a direction" or "steered by a wire". Think that last one through-how the hell do you guide a cruise missile(speeds 500+ mph, range, 1000's of miles) by WIRE?(answer: you don't. Some TORPEDOES have wire-guidance.) The system was incredibly accurate, and capable of flying VERY low and VERY fast, making the missile virtually impossible to stop.

The standard cruise missile was later upgraded to include inertial navigation and self-correcting features(missle could correct its flightpath mid-flight based on available data), and then GPS was added very recently. For the last 10 years or so, it's been the Tomahawk we all know and love, great for reining shit down on your enemy from thousands of miles away, even from underwater. Nah, that's not cowardly at all :-)

Re:Been around for years

[Wyatt Earp]

Actually the first generation of cruise missiles were the Nazi V-1 and it's American, British and Soviet offshoots which were quite dumb.

Then we had things like Snark, Navaho and Regulus which had star trackers and spark-plug guidence systems but which were also dumb.

The AGM-86 series of GLCM. SLCM and ALCM were smarter, but they are not autonomous but they do have some logic built in when you get to the BGM 109 Tomahawk TASM.

The Tomahawk is about the third or fourth generation of cruise missile the US has produced.

The first Nazi anti-ship missiles were wire guided as are the TOW series of American missiles, the Sagger Russian missiles and the HOT European weapons.

Security

[Kallahar]

"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."

Brilliant, I say.

Kallahar

Fluff piece

[gpinzone]

This is a fluff piece on robots by IBM to sell their wireless networking solutions. Nothing to see here folks.

If American Cinema has tought me anything...

[Telastyn]

It's that evolving robots and humanity don't mix!

expectations

[geekmetal]

Pitfall 5: User Expectations. Users sometimes unrealistically expect that robots can make decisions. Solution: Educate users on what robots can do (learning tasks and motions) and cannot do (reasoning and making decisions).

User Expectations. The double-edged sword

I have never read such crap in my life

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Check out this stuff:

Defeat the defects...here are some ways you can overcome the pitfalls

Pitfall 1: Vibration. Many robots vibrate due to their fast motors. Vibration can cause a robot to move from its designated location and not perform its task successfully. Solution: Test the robot for stability and reliability and change parts when necessary.

Since when is vibration a big problem? Printers, scanners and all sorts of other devices have vibrating motors and can still work accurately at over 1000dpi. They can also be damn quiet.

Pitfall 2: Overload. A robot can overload when it underutilizes tasks with respect to its speed. Solution: Change the design to properly balance out the tasks and the speeds needed to perform those tasks.

Uh!?? You have to be a moron to make a robot that can't handle underutilization. Come on! Is this article a spoof?

Pitfall 3: Development. Using C and C++ to program your robot might cause problems with arrays and pointers. Solution: Use Ada to help you apply software-engineering principles and better track the progress in each life cycle stage, from concept to deployment. (See "Using Ada-Based Robotics to Teach Computer Science" in Resources.)

Use Ada? This isn't for real. Here's news for you: your OS was probably written in C and does it blow up all the time. Even XP is stable these days and it has millions of lines of C. What in heaven's name are you talking about?

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.

You must be one of those overpaid consultants. We're under threat from terrorism. Hey! Easy! Just install safeguards doh!

Pitfall 5: User Expectations. Users sometimes unrealistically expect that robots can make decisions. Solution: Educate users on what robots can do (learning tasks and motions) and cannot do (reasoning and making decisions).

Er? Is this a robotics problem? Sounds like a marketing problem to me.

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.

See 4 above.

Pitfall 7: Dimensions. The mouse can only provide two-dimensional positioning for a three-dimensional robot. Solution: Use a program that lets you create and view a three-dimensional robot or a game of robots in progress.

And a keyboard lets you type only at a certain speed. Solution: invent a faster input method. Wow! Can I get paid to write articles like this.

Pitfall 8: Batteries. Battery power can wear off and slow down, for example, the speed of the arm and the agility of its fingers. It can cause the fingers to accidentally drop an egg, creating a mess on the floor. Solution: Implement power management software that can sound an alert when the robot reaches a low power level; redesign the robot to lengthen the battery life; or switch to better-grade batteries.

Batteries can run out? You don't say. And the way to deal with it is do design the robot so the battery lasts longer? Wow! Never thought of that one!

Pitfall 9: Analog to Digital Conversion. When using wireless technology for robot communication, human agents and external objects are impacted by the technological limitations in converting analog inputs into digital outputs. For instance, the conversion process can distort soft sounds in voice recognition (analog "hear" converted to digital "held"). Solution: Take advantage of conversions not significantly affected by technological limitations.

Now you're really making stuff up. I'm not even going to comment. I think a 5 year old wrote this

Re:I have never read such crap in my life

[elpapacito]

Today we learned that
1) Yes, you can spot the obvious
2) Yes, you know better than him/her yet you're paid a lot less (?) or not paid at all.
3) Yes, you spent 5 minutes of your life realizing all of that, writing it down and giving in out for free to slashdot, which is proof prooved you're not slimy so you can't be a consultant (or not slimy enough, given today standard of BSitting)

the most tedious -- and dangerous -- tasks

[darth_MALL]

Like starring in a movie with Steve Gutenberg?

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.

Robot Pitfalls

[SimHacker]

Pitfall 9: Analog to Digital Conversion. When using wireless technology for robot communication, human agents and external objects are impacted by the technological limitations in converting analog inputs into digital outputs. For instance, the conversion process can distort soft sounds in voice recognition (analog "hear" converted to digital "held"). Solution: Take advantage of conversions not significantly affected by technological limitations.

Alternate Solution: Poke the human agent's eyes out with a sharp stick, to mask the impact of the bandwidth limitations of wireless technology on the analog human visual input system.

-Don

Article Text

[stratjakt]

Hi, this site is all about robots, REAL robotS. This site is awesome. My name is Robert and I can't stop thinking about robots. These guys are cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Facts:

1. robots are mammals.

2. robots fight ALL the time.

3. The purpose of the robot is to flip out and kill people.

Testimonial:

robots can kill anyone they want! robots cut off heads ALL the time and don't even think twice about it. These guys are so crazy and awesome that they flip out ALL the time. I heard that there was this robot who was eating at a diner. And when some dude dropped a spoon the robot killed the whole town. My friend Mark said that he saw a robot totally uppercut some kid just because the kid opened a window.

And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't believe that robots have REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or they will chop your head off!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.

robots are sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants. I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. These guys are totally awesome and that's a fact. robots are fast, smooth, cool, strong, powerful, and sweet. I can't wait to start yoga next year. I love robots with all of my body (including my pee pee).

Q and A:.

Q: Why is everyone so obsessed about robots?

A: robots are the ultimate paradox. On the one hand they don't give a crap, but on the other hand, robots are very careful and precise.

Q: I heard that robots are always cruel or mean. What's their problem?

A: Whoever told you that is a total liar. Just like other mammals, robots can be mean OR totally awesome.

Q: What do robots do when they're not cutting off heads or flipping out?

A: Most of their free time is spent flying, but sometime they stab. (Ask Mark if you don't believe me.)

It's close enough to the article text - trust me.

I have a wireless robot.

[mrklin]

Otherwise known as my boss.

Autonomous Robots

[Vivieus]

I had to work some about A.I. last year and I went across this site here Most might be in French though. I know there are several universities in France that do such research, and in North America too. I'll admit I'm quite curious about how it will evolve in the next years.

So do bomb sqad unions claim...

[geekee]

that these robots are taking away their jobs. Re:"Learn how smarter robots can relieve us of the most tedious -- and dangerous -- tasks" :-)

tiny cars

[poptones]

Exactly. And "connnected to the internet" means nothing today - you can buy a PIC and do it the hard way or you can buy an FPGA and put PIC, wireless NIC and who-knows-what-else all on the same die. There's the entire "brain" of a battle-mech. Now just make some durable actuators and bodies cast of PVC for durability...

If someone had said five years ago they collected radio control cars that are the size of the Hot Wheels I used to push around in the dirt thirty years ago, I'd have thought they were nuts. If they said these tiny R/C racers cost less than the slots I used to race twenty years ago I'd have been certain they were nuts. The one thing certain about the future is its uncertainty.

Pitfall: The walkthrough and strategy guide

[teamhasnoi]

Pitfall is an exciting game by Sierra! Here we discuss the different levels in the game and how best to navigate the obstacles to get the power-up and win the game!

Pitfall 1: Vibration. Many robots vibrate due to their fast motors. Vibration can cause a robot to move from its designated location and not perform its task successfully. Solution: Test the robot for stability and reliability and change parts when necessary.

This is an easy level.

Pitfall 2: Overload. A robot can overload when it underutilizes tasks with respect to its speed. Solution: Change the design to properly balance out the tasks and the speeds needed to perform those tasks.
Slightly more difficult. Watch those barrels!

Pitfall 3: Development. Using C and C++ to program your robot might cause problems with arrays and pointers. Solution: Use Ada to help you apply software-engineering principles and better track the progress in each life cycle stage, from concept to deployment.
Easy if you keep a calculator nearby.

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.
Tough level, but liberal use of your Mountain Dew weapon will make short work of the Hackers. Secret level: Mom's Basement - many power-ups here!

Pitfall 5: User Expectations. Users sometimes unrealistically expect that robots can make decisions. Solution: Educate users on what robots can do (learning tasks and motions) and cannot do (reasoning and making decisions).
Very Difficult. Users are unpridictible, and can make trouble for you. Avoid Users.

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.
Easy. Viruses are overrated, and usually accompanied by FUD. Shoot the FUD, and the Viruses will flee. The Linux bomb helps on this level.

Pitfall 7: Dimensions. The mouse can only provide two-dimensional positioning for a three-dimensional robot. Solution: Use a program that lets you create and view a three-dimensional robot or a game of robots in progress.
Medium Difficulty. The robots will attack and steal your medicine if you make a noise in the Robot Game Room. Sneak above them on the ledge. Watch for an ambush from behind.

Pitfall 8: Batteries. Battery power can wear off and slow down, for example, the speed of the arm and the agility of its fingers. It can cause the fingers to accidentally drop an egg, creating a mess on the floor. Solution: Implement power management software that can sound an alert when the robot reaches a low power level; redesign the robot to lengthen the battery life; or switch to better-grade batteries.
Difficult. Batteries are the key to winning Pitfall: Overload. Collect as many as you can, and when they are exhausted, be sure to drop them off in a hazardous waste receptacle. A Power Adapter can help in this situation.

Pitfall 9: Analog to Digital Conversion. When using wireless technology for robot communication, human agents and external objects are impacted by the technological limitations in converting analog inputs into digital outputs. For instance, the conversion process can distort soft sounds in voice recognition (analog "hear" converted to digital "held"). Solution: Take advantage of conversions not significantly affected by technological limitations.
Difficult. Dodging ones and zeros you must make your way to the output. If caught and questioned, use buzzwords and the guards will fall asleep, allowing escape. You're almost there!

Pitfall 10: Bandwidth. Bandwidth problems during wireless transmissions might cause a sensor, say vision, to produce jittery outputs. Solution: Optimize bandwidths so the human eye cannot notice the jittering.
Amazing

Yeah sound's easy

[Stonent1]

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.

If it were truly that easy, there would be no hackers. It sounds like a movie solution.
"The bad guy is hacking us!"
"Enable safeguards!"
"He's backing out sir! It's working!"

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