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Robot Swarm Control On Microsoft's Surface

Posted by timothy on from the moving-things-about dept.

zerOnIne writes "Dr. Mark Micire of UMass Lowell has built an intriguing new user interface on the Microsoft Surface, a multitouch-capable table computer. The interface is being used to control swarms of robots for disaster response, search, and rescue. One of the most interesting things about it is the intuitive tabletop joystick widget. Using a very fast hand-detection-and-identification algorithm, they can paint a touch joystick (dubbed the DREAM controller) directly underneath the hand. This joystick conforms to the size of the user's hand and tracks with hand movements, making sure that the control is always directly under the hand where the user expects it, even without haptic feedback. I've had a chance to go hands-on with this system, and I think it's truly remarkable."

5 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Unbelievable by thePig · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is amongst the coolest things that I have seen in a long time. Unbelievably cool and useful. Microsoft, I bow to you - the table seems to be the future of computing - if not amongst the masses - atleast amongst planners and decision makers.
    Although it makes me sad about my existence as a person though - doing a 9x5 job which is neither cool, nor very useful for humanity as a whole.

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    rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
    1. Re:Unbelievable by mmicire · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We have done this with real robots also. See links in posts below. Basically, if you had the ability to geo-locate your vehicles (via cell phone gps for example) and had a camera that could watch them, then you would have the circles drawn around them just like in this video. The simulation is on a completely separate server and is modeled as if it is being viewed from an overhead camera. So, the simulation is just for the robots. All of the registration and camera modeling is done as if it is real.

      We hope to be deploying this in the near future with real responders in the field.

      Hope that helps.

  2. NOG by Nethead · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Finally. A decent interface for C&C.

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    -- I have a private email server in my basement.
  3. Is it just me? by dangitman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Isn't the "swarm of robots" aspect slightly more interesting than the "touchscreen interface" aspect?

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    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  4. Re:Mod This Shit Down by Nerdfest · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I think these memes are an important part of SlashDot. Sometimes they're pointless, but they're also frequently very funny or apropos, and they help define the community.