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Linux-Based Robot To Explore The Forest

Posted by timothy on from the sasquatch-is-running-scared dept.

crashoverride025 contributes this link to a BBC story about Treebot, "A Linux-based mobile robot equipped with a webcam and sensors swings into action to help monitor forests." Despite the Tarzan reference, it looks like this robot moves along a cable, rather than swinging from place to place.

13 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, just great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now the forests are going to be polluted with non-indigenous directory trees!

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    Rate Naked People at FuckMeter (not work-safe)

  2. what leads to... by demonhold · · Score: 3, Insightful

    what we all agreed before...

    probes sent to mars should've been run by linux. Instead of worrying us to no end, now we would be discussing the data obtained and ways of improving the performance of futere missions.

    Not only that, I'm sure that the code for those probes beeing opensource would've meant people contributing and finding solutions and apps no one would've thought of...

    Wouldn't it be lovely that the routines of a mission to space would've been a truly world project, with programmers from all over the world taking part in it?

    Well, I'm dreaming, maybe I'm not...

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    ... y Dios vio que Linux era bueno... Genesis 99.666
    1. Re:what leads to... by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Informative

      probes sent to mars should've been run by linux

      Are you kidding? what do you think they run, Windows?

      Linux is great, but nowhere near the level of certification required for software that runs on space probes. The latter, as well as software running on airplane computers, space shuttles, etc ... are so strictly checked that many parts of them are proven mathematically, with great care, at great expenses.

      Just propose NASA or ESA to power their stuff with Linux and they'll probably look at you with a thin smile and the kind of condescending look one makes while shooing a slightly annoying retarded child.

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      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  3. An Alternative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Instead of remotely viewing a forest over the web, maybe a walk would solve some problems?

  4. So the questions will be answered by dcw3 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Finally, we'll find out...

    * Do bears shit in the woods?
    * If a tree falls and nobody's there to hear it, does it make a sound?
    * Is the Pope Catholic...

    Oh well, maybe 2 out of 3.

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    Just another day in Paradise
  5. stealth by Pompatus · · Score: 3, Funny

    helps by being stealthy enough to travel through the forest canopy along specially-constructed cabling

    I suppose a piece of metal crashing through tree branches hanging from a cable is more stealthy than, say a jackhammer. Wouldn't it be more quiet if many sensors were placed about the forest and used wifi to connect and send information? They could even still run linux to do so and get mentioned on slashdot!

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    Squirrel ... It's not just for breakfast anymore
    1. Re:stealth by aXis100 · · Score: 2, Informative

      WiFi and tres dont mux well.

      1) Trees contain water. Water attentuates microwaves really well.

      2) Microwaves have a similar waevlength to leaves - lots of diffraction/

    2. Re:stealth by Demodian · · Score: 2, Funny

      So basically, you are saying it can't see the forest for the trees...

  6. What this article doesn't touch upon: NIMS AI. by SexyKellyOsbourne · · Score: 2, Informative

    What this article really doens't say much about is that NIMS isn't just an open source program for controlling robots, it's a program developed by grants given to UCLA to develop AI, or Ambient Intelligence in this isntance. This robot isn't entirely remote controlled, and though the article touches on continual monitoring, it doesn't say that it's using open source robot AI developed by UCLA.

    For more info about NIMS:

    UCLA doc in PDF

    Google HTML Cache

  7. Cannibal Holocaust 2.. by Channard · · Score: 2, Funny

    .. featuring web cam footage of the tragic demise of a team of SCO lawyers who went into the woods to impound the robot due to the makers not paying the Linux license fees for it, only to be eaten by a tribe of hithertoe unknown Cannibalistic Californian Forest Dwellers.

  8. Routing to a mobile wireless sensor network node by dtmos · · Score: 2, Informative

    As the article says, the treebot is part of a "Networked Infomechanical System", a type of wireless sensor network, developed by the UCLA Center for Embedded Networked Sensing. The forest network is used to develop practical wireless sensing technology while simultaneously providing an example of its utility. The use of a mobile network node in a wireless sensor network requires some engineering of the multihop message routing protocol, since such networks are usually assumed to have stationary nodes. I don't know what they've done to address this; it could be anything from MANET-style routing (e.g., AODV, in which they accept the resulting increase in route establishment overhead), to a quasi-static approach in which the treebot reassociates to the network every time it stops.

  9. You mean like this ? by ErrorBase · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://flightlinux.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Or by proxy Like these

  10. Design Screwup by CrankyFool · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I heard about this some time ago. I seem to recall that due to the fact it's travelling along the tree tops, it has a problem actually seeing the forest because the trees get in the way ...