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Swarming And Hopping Planetary Robots
An anonymous reader writes "Recently Dr. Penelope Boston (U. New Mexico) and Dr. Steven Dubowsky (MIT) discussed their NASA advances to develop 'hopping microbots' capable of exploring hazardous terrain, including underground caves and planetary extremes. 'We came up with the idea of many, many, tiny little spheres, about the size of tennis balls (slide show), that essentially hop, almost like Mexican jumping beans. They store up muscle energy, so to speak, and then they boink themselves off in various directions. That's how they move...They behave as a swarm [of 1000s]. They relate to each other using very simple rules, but that produces a great deal of flexibility in their collective behavior that enables them to meet the demands of unpredictable and hazardous terrain.' Test prototypes available in March will initially explore terrestrial lava tubes."
Is it just me, or have these people been watching Aeon Flux a little to much? Haven't seen the movie, but the scene from the trailer of the hundreds of explosive balls running down the hall comes to mind.
Man is the lowest-cost, 150-pound, nonlinear, all-purpose computer system which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor.
Yet again, scientific progress goes "boink".
If the robots are boinking themselves off, don't the run the risk of going blind?
Let the adolescent humor begin!
Iceworms are real
I like this idea. Personally, I think that remote planetary rover designers often put the cart before the horse. We often send the robotic equivalent of (evolutionary speaking) contemporary insects out to explore planets, when perhaps we should look at methods employed by fungus, plants, one celled organisms for inspection for somewhat to more so reliable designs...
:-)
As for Heisenburg,... I can see a lot of NASA guys sitting around the data feeds... "hrmm... it seems that the surface of venus is covered in 1000's of pock marks the size of tennis balls..."
And hey, even better, they do in fact come in clusters! Now in only wonder if in Soviet Russia, swarms are boinking you!?
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
lets hope Galen can get there in time to take out the control centre then ;)
(b5 - crusade , 1x10 reference for those who dont get it)
As Calvin and Hobbes once said, Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink'...
Ten bucks says that this whole concept was invented just so some NASA scientist could win a bet that he could get the phrase "they boink themselves off" into an official press release :)
At least, this one thing that Douglas Adams didn't think of.
Oh well, what the hell...
I like the idea but if it just a swarm of balls, they might inspect a cave one time only. If like 1000 Balls hop arround and 200 explore a cave, they might all roll down into a big hole all together. They need some rover or insect like master that collects their sensor information. If they are the size of a tennis ball they can't store much energy and can not send their data for long distance.
If you want a sphere shaped information-gathering robot, look no further .
I must get more sleep. I would have sworn that said Java tubes. Exploring tubes of coffee?? Exploring tubes of a programming language?? Hrmm...
I like the idea of carrot-shaped probes, as featured in Lexx. Let the bunnies do the hopping - carrots with legs are the way forward.
it's the title of a Calvin&hobbes book
Long after humankind is dead, some new race will explore the galaxy. This new race will find 1000s of small balls covering half the worlds they land on to explore and wonder, "What the f*ck?"
So what if we actually encounter aliens? This is not the best way to make first contact.
Wasn't there a movie with Walter Koenig about this ?
Later, when the Runaways hit the fan, they'll moan thet "no-one could have imagined it".
Seen that movie already.
Bye ol' planet. (*yawn*).
Isn't the main issue how to power the balls? They'll need energy to hop around, make measurements and communicate.
I don't think the ad hoc wireless network aspect of things is likely to be the hard part: if people can solve the power problems, Siemens, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Philips will likely take care of the network/software part in the course of solving our more earthly problems.
E.g. a security system built of these would seem to have wide appeal.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
we don't make them self replicating and capable of lift-off. Among many galactic societies, that is considered the ultimate rudeness.
Which are completely unheard of in Mexico.
[dramatic chord]
ARTHUR:
What?
TIM:
There he is!
ARTHUR:
Where?
TIM:
There!
ARTHUR:
What, behind the rabbit?
TIM:
It is the rabbit.
ARTHUR:
You silly sod!
TIM:
What?
ARTHUR:
You got us all worked up!
TIM:
Well, that's no ordinary rabbit!
ARTHUR:
Ohh.
TIM:
That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on!
ROBIN:
You tit! I soiled my armour I was so scared!
TIM:
Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!
What were those probes called? Dorothy-1 and Dorothy-2 I think. They release all those metal tennis balls into the swirling vortex and they quickly get nifty graphs on their laptop computers.
I don't believe the comment that they are torturing and killing the child. So what the heck are those giant swiss cheese balls doing?
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Breakage and disorientation are a given.
If you want to move around on rough terrain, look at what the military uses. The recent 6-wheel rovers match of pretty well, with appropriate adjustments for running a motor without oxygen and diesel supplies of course.
Hopping around is silly. In some places you might prefer a tracked vehicle. In some places you could use buoyancy like a submarine or blimp, perhaps like a sea glider if you can vary buoyancy enough. In some places you could use a jet (supplying oxidizer instead of fuel). In some places you might want to make a few small rocket-based flights. (fuel is heavy and bulky though)
As opposed to the aboveground caves? They are just caves, and by their nature, are underground. Yes, there are caves with water in them, and are properly termed water filled caves.
There's some interest in this as a new generation of land mine. Dump out a few hundred of these and they wait for a target, like a convoy, to come along. When they find a suitable target, the hopper that found it calls for backup, and the hoppers in the neighborhood swarm to attack the target.
This reminds me of DARPA's self-healing minefield, where mines communicate with each other and 'hop' to fill any gaps in their net. DARPA's page here: http://www.darpa.mil/ato/programs/SHM/
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. - Will Rogers
I'm sorry. Wouldn't this article been better off posted @ BoingBoing?
Mmmmm .... delicious robot clusters.
UNM is University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, with about
30,000 students. New Mexico Tech (New Mexico Institute of
Mining and Technology), also known as the New Mexico School of
Mines, is a land grant mining school about 75 miles south of
UNM, where truly crunchy geology and geophysics things happen.
Dr. Boston was in a documentary on PBS, (Nova, October 2002).
She seems to be riding a crest of research that is shaking up
the science of cave formation, postulating that caves are
created as a consequence of primarily biological activity,
rather than primarily chemical activity.
"then they boink themselves...They relate to each other using very simple rules..."
Sounds like human behavior to me.
These things could pass the Turing Test.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
e...?
Maybe somebody at Sandia was hopping, ummm, hoping to generate an offical press release:
"Sandia to SandBlast Your Ass in Our New Minefield"...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I was going to ask if these things run Linux. I was going to : then I noticed that there were 2 inventors - 1 female and 1 male. Now I'm sure that we're talking human behaviour here. These 2 learnéd souls have in fact discovered how to make .... well, babies (the description of their behavior fits exactly). Have we discovered a "cruelty to children" issue here ? Will Doctor Penny be able to supply the demand by herself ? Have we discovered scientifically justified polygamy ? How does Doctor Steven feel about the projected use of his progeniture (lava tubes can get awful hot, after all) ? These (and many other) questions must be answered !
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Should hav been boink boink.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
French slang gives another meaning for "cave" and these are to be found underground, aboveground, and some (though not many) have a pilot's licence.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?