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Open Design for ~$800 Swarm Robots
An anonymous reader writes "There are lots of multi-robot designs out there. Most are either research platforms well over $2K (often $10K or more), or are hobbyist bots under $400 with tiny brains and few sensors. But George Mason University's new FlockBots wiki is interesting. They're trying to pack as much functionality as possible into a roughly $800, 7" mobile swarmbot, and publish the design and software as a free and open spec. So far their design includes a wireless 200MHz Gumstix Linux computer, a camera, range and bump sensors, wheel encoders, a can gripper, and lots more. It's a great-looking design and I think the cost could drop to $500 with vendors doing consolidation."
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I for one welcome our new low-cost overlords.
When they come up with something like this
= 234
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic
THEN I'll be impressed. ok.. so I am already, but hey.
Awesome stuff though!
The world according to SComps
I wonder if we'll see freedom fighters in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan start to use robots like these such as weapons (assuming these researchers do succeed in keeping the cost low). Indeed, considering the US military's increased use of drones and unmanned combat vehicles, it is doubtful that those they are fighting against will not soon resort to employing he same methodologies.
This particular device uses Linux, which brings up another question: should developers of open source software license their software so as to prevent it from being used in such killing devices? Or should freedom trump such an argument?
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
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Its interesting that they chose to pair the Gumstix with the Acroname Brainsem. I've been working with the brainstem for mobile robotics as part of CSCS and found it extremely flexible for robotics development. In what we've been doing, we used the brainstem chained to Zaurus PDA's, to achieve a similar linux control environment for the actual board (as the TEA language used to program the brainstem is somewhat restrictive). This platform seems like a great way for people to start out with a known good set of equipment, something that would really have helped us when getting started. (We had a whole load of teething issues getting the PDA's and brainstems talking, not to mention creating working combinations of servos)
Business Voyeur
If you could mix this with the NERO game that was mentioned a few days ago: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/27/ 2129214&tid=206&tid=10 That would be cool, except you'd have to destroy them before they got to smart or they'd take over the world.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." - C.S. Lewis
Now we can start playing R/C Pikmin.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
When the time comes to start smashing up robots, count me in!
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
...The replicators!
Thor's beam won't save us this time, they are already here and are replicating through mental manipulation of the scientists' brains to convince them as if they are their own creation!
Leonid S. Knyshov
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Having an Open Design is well and good, but I think there is still one main factor that prevents the field of robotics from flourishing. The problem stems from the lack of standard in both the development of the software, hardware, and mechanics.
Since there is no standard, someone can be using Microcontroller A with Motion Controller X using Programming Language N. Then finally combining these electronics with Servo K. When drivers for Motion Controller X has already been written under Programming Language M, developers have to spend time porting the code for another language for a different microprocessor, which might or might not work with the Servo.
When there are so many variables in robotics without any standard, a lot of development time are wasted either porting code, finding minor differences between devices and motors that causes incompatibilities, or choosing non-optimal parts for ease of implementation. In order for the field of robotics to advance at a faster rate, there needs to be a more standardized open environment in the software, hardware, and mechanical aspect.
No "traveling beowulf" jokes?
Not a single Skynet reference?
Where the hell AM I?!
Make sure the switch is set to 'serve', not 'kill'.
...seems the ultimate goal is to fetch another beer without leaving the couch (and without organizing the fridge). AI has officially arrived when that has happened.
Table-ized A.I.
Cheap swarm robots? Hopefully they can find the room to post this somewhere in their workspace.
~jeff
Great! When I finally built one, it saw the other ones and decided to migrate to the south... ...I guess thats why they call them swarmbots
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
It'd be even better for high school applications ... $10k-$20k grants aren't difficult to obtain (relatively speaking), and that would help a nice chunk of kids who would otherwise have nothing.
Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
our 2003 southeast conference robot entry, I mean exactly like ours. We had two basic stamp's on the multi level platforms, two wheels, and the shape was identical. Sorry I don't have pictures.
This is gonna give a new meaning to making a plugin to an open source project.
You really have to physically plug it in!
Nah, that's not right. There should be software written for the robot to install the plugin himself otherwise m$ will claim linux isn't user-friendly. It's gonna need to be a bit more friendly that windows installshield or we're gonna have some physical crashes and broken windows all over the lab - which would make Microsoft claim they're not the only one with *that* problem.
I'd be impressed to see a few of those swarms do a "put mittens on kitten's paws" competition. Or empty a bottle of ketchup. Or replace their own batteries. (-;
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
You can do USB host today, with a CF adapter and a USB Host CF card (drivers for the CF1U from Ratoc are in the 2.6.12 kernel).
Man, the moment I read the headline I immediately thought about Philip K. Dick's short story, "Second Variety". What a great story. I never saw the movie based upon it, "Screamers"; I wonder if it was any good? Hmmm, methinks the Netflix queue is about to get an update.
I didn't RTFA, but I'm going to assume there will be no deployable blades springing out from these swarmbots. I mean, it could be, but why take the chance and ruin a good nights' sleep?
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Swambots are a great idea - the most useful purpose of which is construction, I would think. But power is a problem. Someone needs to ressurect Tesla's wireless power distribution schemes w/respect to Swarmbots.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
I can think of another sort of open source robots that cost well under $100.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
What are you going to do with ONE $800 "swarmbot"?
If you have more than one, what's it going to cost again?
I mean, yeah, it's better to cost $800 than ten grand, but I thought the point of a "swarmbot" is that you need LOTS of them to get anything done. If ONE costs $800 - or even $400 - I don't think anybody other than Bill Gates is going to be buying them any time soon - certainly not for "gripping cans".
Gripping hand grenades or guns, maybe...Anybody remember "Runaway" with Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons? I loved that movie - mostly because Gene was totally cool in it.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
So is season 5 of '24' going to be Kiefer versus the $800 terrorist swarmbots? Chloe'll have them reprogrammed in no time.
You must think in Russian.
Their, - sorry
- Please no more spelling comments -
(I wasn't educated very well at the circus)
Here's the breast option
if you're willing to do some soldering.
A look at the list reveals some of the off-the-shelf stuff is very pricey (like the battery charger, boy oh boy, what a rip-off.)
I guess we'll see people come up with homebrew solutions to expensive off-the-shelf parts, and bring the price down to, say $400, easily.
Might be an interesting project to follow.
EXTERMINATE!
Can be found here.
What you need is another, similar bot with a flat top and a forklift-type arrangement on front. Then you can get a lifter bot and a normal bot working in cooperation to get stuff onto a table etc.
Now imagine a tower of these things...
ps. I think I've just worked out where this idea came from. Remember the episode of Futurama, where Fry, Leela and Bender are trying to escape from the robot planet, and the robots chasing them start stacking themselves on top of one another, before crashing to the ground because the bottom one slipped on the shipment of lugnuts?
I could see $8.00 swarmbots being practical, but only for limited purposes... until they're cheap enough that there's no point in stealing them the really interesting applications are pretty impractical.
I'm working on an underwater version. Bigest obstacle is communications. Blue-green LED (as opposed to infrared for use above water) gets good bandwidth but fallback to modulated 50kHz when link fails is a royal PITA. Power requirements aren't too bad as B&W camera with blue-green light source sees pretty well under water. Failsafe for dead main battery is valvewhich opens when power is lost allowing bladder to inflate and fish to float, belly up, like a dead fish. Beacon on belly mounted antenna runs on it's own battery which is connected when valve opens. Basic RDF to locate the dead fish.
...
Not ready yet so no pix. Perhaps another 18 months
Hrm, I've been mulling over converting an old Cannon BJC to a robot (you can see the mainboard here :-). ...but newer printers come with USB (gadget-side, yes, I know but it would be would be much more convenient/flexible than parrallel ports at least, and depending on the hardware it's possible host-side could be software added.) Maybe I should try to get my hands on one of those instead and see what the guts look like.
most of the way down the page.) That would be pretty damn cheap
Aren't there some IRDA/bluetooth/whatnot wire-free printers now? (Rhetorical, don't answer, I'll just google.)
Someone had to do it.
Outfits like roboticsconnection.com sell pre-cut kits (eg "Botster") that run standard microprocessors. These kits are much better made, and well under $800 already! Depending on the processor, you can get 'em for under $200.
The navigation package, the sensor package, etc. need standard interfaces to a "driver" level; just like the different drivers for various levels of the OS - file systems, disk drives, etc.
The OS would output a command like "turn 30 degrees, go forward 3 meters." The drivers would implement these commands. Or maybe, "start turning left" and monitor the output from the "Positional" driver until 30 degrees is reached.
Part of the standard OS (RobOS? Rollux? )would include things like building the virtual map of surroundings and obstacles to calculate the necessary navigation requirements...; receiving things like computer vision or ultrasonics via drivers, calculating arm movement requirements, etc.
would include a soda-can gripper as primary equipment on an $800 swarmbot...
I say like because if a dc motor with stops, a stepper motor, or a servo is the cheapest I'll do it. I'd preferably like the easiest/cheapest rig I can do for Thanks.
http://www.brentcastle.com