Slashdot Mirror
Polar Robots to Explore the Arctic
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's now almost certain that the world's ice shelves are melting. And while satellites provide lots of data about their evolution, ground-based weather stations could be even more useful. But if scientists can no longer stay on fragile and volatile ice sheets, what can they do? They can use specially designed robots called SnoMotes developed by U.S. researchers. 'The SnoMotes work as a team, autonomously collaborating among themselves to cover all the necessary ground to gather assigned scientific measurements.' More importantly, a SnoMote is an 'expendable rover that wouldn't break a research team's bank if it were lost during an experiment,' according to the lead researcher." Reader coondoggie adds a link to another story on these robots at Network World.
Wonder what those temperatures will do to the battery life? Could a battery compartment warmer allow more battery life than it costs?
...my job yet, that's what :P
When machines first began taking over jobs during the inception of the industrial revolution, I recall there being much resistance.
I wonder, as robots do begin to take the remaining jobs, will the same resistance be encountered?
I, for one, so welcome our robotic, network-administering, garbage-collecting, smooth-jazz-composing, polar-region-exploring robot overlords.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
A robot that goes out to collect data is just another scientific instrument to be used. Ultimately, people are still going to have to make sense of the data.
It takes a certain kind of person to want to go out into extreme conditions to take measurements. Being able to make meaningful conclusions based on them in the field when you have other things to worry about also takes a special kind of person.
Robots can go out, measure, and send back to you in your comfy office. The only sad thing is that we're moving towards a world of astronomers without astronauts, so to speak.
Without the adventure there is a lot less to inspire 8 year olds -- imagine if the draw to NASA had been "hey, kids! you can wear starched shirts and use a slide rule!" instead of "you can be a kick-ass fighter pilot, get a FREE Corvette and wear an Omega watch!"
The reality is that even the astronauts had to put on the starch and take out the slide rule, but that's not what you want to show kids up front.
That its being shown to them now that space is mostly going to just get the machine treatment and astronauts aren't going to do much past float around not be able to go to the bathroom for a few weeks, its small wonder that the smart kids who have the wanderlust as well look at Marine Bio as the new Apollo.
When I was substitute teaching about a year ago lots of kids wanted to be marine biologists. none of them were saying astronaut anymore.
Hope they float, even if they're cheap it's going to add up quickly...
Allowing these devices to function autonomously is going to be quite interesting. My research involved such issues, but only in mobile software agents. I've read, and been told by some of my then-fellow-students that autonomous land vehicles are more difficult to control than UAVs.
Combining this type of cooperation with autonomous navigation and the "bidding" system described could have some interesting commercial applications, ranging from autonomous "taxis" and delivery vehicles (such as an office-wide or city-wide version of FedEx) to branching out the bidding algorithms to help automate search and rescue efforts. Imagine if a group of specialized bots could be dispatched to look for signs of life - a large number with basic sensory capabilities that could then call in one of a smaller number of more advanced bots? Perhaps even summoning something similar to the much-chided "buddy bot" discussed earler on Slashdot.
I know the "buddy bot" seemed silly, but if you consider the more basic functions it could be very useful. It provides two-way communication with rescuers, so you can say "I'm alone" or "I'm here with two of my children, and one of them is bleeding badly", to "I'm trapped, but I'm otherwise OK." This could help rescuers better prioritise their efforts, much like triage on the field - if someone's bleeding badly, send help sooner, while the person who is trapped but otherwise safe can hang on a little longer, and then two lives are saved instead of only one. (I fully realize that type of situation may not always work out as desired - people lie, things can collapse further, etc.)
I also have to commend Dr. Howard for her creativity in utilizing what was essentially an "off-the-shelf" component for the main device - the little snow-mobile. Very well suited for the majority of the terrain for which it is designed.
There is much more behind this work than first meets the eye. I'll be quite interested in watching this one develop further. Now where did my 9-year-old put that Mindstorms NXT?
Well, first off, your choice is not whether to believe me, your choice is whether to believe the actual facts as observed by satellite. I'll leave that up to you.
... I undid Tabletop's undoing of my edits, thinking I had an unassailable response: "Tabletop's changes claim to represent Peiser's views. I have checked with Peiser and he disputes Tabletop's version."
And, um, wikipedia may be a even-handed resource for some things, but climate change is not one of them. Indeed, in any academic setting, their conduct would amount to actionable dishonesty. Here, let us relate a first hand account of specifically contrafactual editing on their part:
Tabletop undid my undid, claiming I could not speak for Peiser.
Why can Tabletop speak for Peiser but not I, who have his permission?, I thought. I redid Tabletop's undid and protested: "Tabletop is distorting Peiser. She does not speak for him. Peiser has approved my description of events concerning him."
Tabletop parried: "We have a reliable source to this. What Peiser has said to *you* is irrelevant."
Tabletop, it turns out, has another name: Kim Dabelstein Petersen. She (or he?) is an editor at Wikipedia. What does she edit? Reams and reams of global warming pages. I started checking them. In every instance I checked, she defended those warning of catastrophe and deprecated those who believe the science is not settled. I investigated further. Others had tried to correct her interpretations and had the same experience as I -- no sooner did they make their corrections than she pounced, preventing Wikipedia readers from reading anyone's views but her own. When they protested plaintively, she wore them down and snuffed them out.
By patrolling Wikipedia pages and ensuring that her spin reigns supreme over all climate change pages, she has made of Wikipedia a propaganda vehicle for global warming alarmists...
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=440268&p=1
A less reliable source of information would be harder to imagine, friend. Even if you refuse to look at the actual facts as I do and I suggest everyone else does, you really need to find an authority to mindlessly follow -- since that's your thing and all -- that at least makes some pretension to actual scientific process.