Fast Navigating Guessing Robots

holy_calamity writes "A new navigation technique for robots allows them to make predictions about what's around the corner based on where they've been already. It works well in repetitive environments like office buildings. If this were a Japanese project I'd say it'd be useful for robotic secretaries new on the job, but since it's an American one I suppose it'll be used for automated SWAT teams."

Comments

swat

[mastershake_phd]

but since it's an American one I suppose it'll be used for automated SWAT teams.

Ya last corner terrorist, next corner must be terrorist, come out shooting.

Re:swat

[cp.tar]

If it were possible to rate topics like individual posts, I'd be torn between Insightful, Flamebait and Troll.

Quick decision maker

[Centurix]

[Enters maze] ... First corner, bushes, snow ... Second corner, bushes, snow ... Third corner, bushes, snow ... Fourth corner, bushes, snow, Jack Nicholson behind me with an axe
+++NO CARRIER

First Person Shooters

[Ohreally_factor]

I could see this being applied to game technology before it gets applied to law enforcement. This is an interesting approach to an AI (or AI-like) problem. The implementation just happens to be (and is well suited for) robots.

Expect the unexpected

[Silver Sloth]

From TFA

But the method does have limitations, Lee says: "It works well in indoor environments, but wouldn't be very good in less-repetitive outdoors environments." So maybe a hybrid? Whilst in structured environments expect what you know, otherwise expect the unexpected. No one single answer will ever solve all problems (except 42)

Re:Looks like a twist on behavior-based robotics

[timmarhy]

the reason is they lack the ability to put things into context. computers compute, therefor they calculate numbers and stats very well, but the context of a number, that elusive subtle meaning that a number has completely escapes them.

example, say i presented you with the number 42. on here you might associate it with hitch hiker to the galaxay or maybe something else depending on the infinte number of ways i could put it in a sentence.

stereotypes are all wrong

[alphamugwump]

If this were a Japanese project I'd say it'd be useful for robotic secretaries new on the job, but since it's an American one I suppose it'll be used for automated SWAT teams.

More likely, you'd have a Japanese robot who is a waitress by day and a combat cyborg by night. And she happens to be a vampire from the future. And she wears a bunny suit. And she's also a suicidal paranoid schizophrenic.

At least, that's what I've learned from watching anime. For God's sake, if you're going to troll, at least try to get your stereotypes right.

But since it's *American*...

[Anonymous Coward]

If this were a Japanese project I'd say it'd be useful for robotic secretaries new on the job, but since it's an American one I suppose it'll be used for automated SWAT teams. Or, as is more likely the case, it was a bunch of American college grads being bored one night and wondering if they could make a robot guess what their lab looked like. I'm not sure why the author had to take a cheap swipe at a nationality under the flimsy guise of a guess as to its functionality. I'm not even sure why the author had to guess at its use in the first place; this is a website for nerds, and frankly, something like this is plain and simply cool.

Naaaaah, it has to be for automating our SWAT teams, because we're a bunch of killcrazy cowboys looking for new ways to blow things up. Um... yee-haw?

Is this really profound?

[Hammerself]

I don't know much about AI, but is the idea of making predictions based on previous data some kind of breakthrough? I'm assuming this is just an application of some firmly established concepts in AI. When confronted with a redundant or repetative data set, make predictions based on your experiences as to the nature of new elements in that set. I mean, aren't we paying these guys to tell machines how to recognize patterns? Is it news when they teach a machine to recognize patterns?

I'd venture that the purpose of this post is to discuss Terminators, and Japanese robot secretaries, and to hail our coming robot overlords. This is just a guess based on a highly redundant data set I've been analyzing (rather than doing my work).

Sound like Predictive Run Encoding

[ishmalius]

The more you know about the context, and the more you know about the result to a given action, the less information you need from the environment (or from the other side of a communication channel). This is the Holy Grail of information theory and data compression, and it seems as if they are applying its principles here. Higher CPU and better expert programming will likely produce some nice results in the near future.

Been there done almost that

[noddyxoi]

In my project called DATMO (Detection And Tracking of Moving Objects) i've made a tracker that followed people that could "guess" where the people would appear next, using an industrial laser scanner, check the video at http://miarn.sourceforge.net/videos/pv3d_peopletra cking_and_scene.avi

Overkill.

[jpellino]

"I'd say it'd be useful for robotic secretaries new on the job"

As they get chased around the desk by their robot bosses? It's pretty much left, left, left, left... etc...

Re:Or.. This could be an opinoin

[zero_offset]

The actual problem is that when these statements are made in the story summary, they are not subject to any moderation, deserving or otherwise. Regardless of whether you feel the statement deserves moderation, it clearly isn't adding anything to the summary. It's an old slashdot problem, and you can bet that the comments which survive just happen to match the slant of the editors: in effect, by making it into an untouchable story summary, it received the ultimate up-mod...