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Sysbrain Lets Satellites Think For Themselves
cylonlover writes "Engineers from the University of Southampton have developed what they say is the world's first control system for programming satellites to think for themselves. It's a cognitive software agent called sysbrain, and it allows satellites to read English-language technical documents, which in turn instruct the satellites on how to do things such as autonomously identifying and avoiding obstacles."
This just in. Studies show that as much as 95% of scientists don't get the moral presented in most sci-fi movies.
They reinvented HyperCard?
What could possibly go wrong?
They're being programmed in a scripting language.
Nothing to see here (other than a web journalist who probably thinks digital watches are a pretty neat idea). Move along.
Sysenglish is basically a program language, a
Check this:
Find your current position Pc. Define Hd as a 'heading direction'. Execute
" Hd = Pnxt-Pc; ". Detect obstacle position Obst in heading direction Hd. If Obst
is empty, then move with heading direction Hd. If Obst is not empty, then do the
following. Compute turned heading direction Hds from Hd. Detect obstacle
Found it on : http://wikibin.org/articles/senglish.html
Sorry, nice application, cool satelites, but not really, really new
Now all they need to do is send Watson in to orbit and we'll all be doomed in no time.
I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords.
*obligatory skynet reference*
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Or at least the first bits, only a couple years late.
Hopefully the manuals are not ones that have been half ass translated from a Chinese manual. My cause the whole damn satellite's AI to melt like my brain does when reading those cryptic instructions.
Don't give them a copy of "To Serve Man".
Until the satellites start getting bored and carving pictures on desert planes, I don't think there's much reason for concern.
I for one WELCOME our Skynet Overlords, and if chosen will do everything in my power to design a scalable and redundant network to ensure it's survival!!!
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
NASA already did a better version of this twelve years ago on the Deep Space 1 probe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_1#Remote_Agent
And in fact, for extra style points after the first successful maneuver the following exchange occurred over the mission control voice network:
"This is the flight director - Congratulations to Remote Agent. It has successfully operated the Deep Space 1 spacecraft".
"Flight, ACS."
"Go ahead ACS"
"Congratulations to Captain Dunsel"
So, Sysbrain is like FORTRAN in Space? Or am I missing something?
Humans think. Computers do what they're told.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
Now we all know how the attack was done.
Finally someone can read these horribly written technical manuals.
n/t
... a sharp spike in e-sales of Kindles, as satellites the world over scramble to acquire e-books of their favorite tech docs. The shipping will be a bitch, though.
In Soviet Skynet, satellites browse YOU!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
My mom's GYN labeled my brain "Abi Normal" shortly after birth.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
...they don't put any lasers on them.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I don't always get subjugated by a malevolent cyber-overlord, but when I do, I prefer Skynet.
Stay Vanquished My Friends.
CUE endless SkyNet references
i thought that i had read symbian...
...it allows satellites to read English-language technical documents, which in turn instruct the satellites on how to do things such as autonomously identifying and avoiding obstacles.
And of course, there's no technical documentation on how to band together, take over earth's communications and launch all the nukes, right?
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
"it allows satellites to read English-language technical documents, which in turn instruct the satellites on how to do things such as autonomously identifying and avoiding obstacles."
So they will be able to toss this kind of code in?
void collisionavoidance() {
RTFM();
}
I, for one, welcome our new Orbiting Overlords.
"People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything."
Commercial communications satellites, such as those that operate at geosynchronous orbits, will not use this technology for two reasons:
1. A satellite which fires a thruster for too long for ANY reason is just gone. Once it's spinning, not where it is expected to be, or otherwise unable to communicate with its control center, it's dead. Dead with $300m down the gravity well.
2. A geosynchronous satellite's lifetime is determined by its thruster fuel. The satellite must make periodic corrections to maintain its "stable" position. Engineers carefully order these thruster adjustments every few weeks or months. If the satellite were free to do it itself, every mistake would reduce lifetime and increase the cost of that satellite's radio capacity (which is what pays back the launch investment).
The question is - do you trust the engineers or the software more? I doubt Intelsat will adopt this until it's been tested by someone whose primary motive is not profit.
Oh my God! When it learn to speak spanish we're doomed: "Hasta la vista baby". Terminator is coming!!!
This doesn't seem like much of an innovation/invention at all. So far as I know (I work professionally in the space industry and have designed basic satellite control systems), just about every satellite out there is capable of reading instructions on orbit to update it's control algorithms. Usually, satellites are loaded with a certain set of "flight modes" which are just certain chunks of control code that get executed continuously for a given phase of the mission (launch mode, deployment mode, operation mode, safety mode, etc.). For any given mission, the flight controllers may pass a software update to an operational satellite (if one is necessary) via it's primary communications link (usually through TDRSS or something similar, though, sometimes through on-board omni antennae for small changes). These code updates may include a new set of instructions to be enacted given a particular sensor input (for instance, if you spacecraft starts getting hotter on one side than simulations generally predicted, you might increase a spin rate to increase shadow time of that side, or something). So, satellites already accept software updates from ground stations that can read instructions. The only difference is, the instructions sent are usually in a pretty low-level code (hell, I think binary bit code is the standard format). So, the only news here is that some folks developed a high level scripting language that could be used on a satellite, if the satellite came with the appropriate interpreter/compiler loaded onto it's controller computer. Of course, that increases the complexity and cost of your on board systems as well, as it means having to carry more overhead flight code.
I went to look at the Sysbrain project to see if I was missing something. It can be found here. It doesn't look like anything other than a project to add a top-end framework on top of the already high MATLAB language. This allows controllers to make commands in an "English like format" known as sEnglish. But frankly, I think that's a disadvantage on resource-constrained systems like a satellite. The more processing you have to do to interpret that English-like language, the more chips and processing power you need in your computer. This puts a heavier load on your power budget and, all-in-all, drives up the cost of the spacecraft. So, I am really having a hard time seeing an advantage of this system. I suppose if your controller ground crew were made up of a bunch of dimwits that didn't learn the proper instruction sets for their spacecraft you might want them to have a nice, English-like set to learn. But honestly, the folks working as spacecraft controllers right now are intelligent enough to keep using the less resource intensive methods already in place.
This seems like a solution looking for a problem.
On the bright side, the platform used to test this system shown in the Gizmag article reflects a very similar design that I am working on to develop some of my own spacecraft control code. So it's nice to see that something I've been designing in theory can work in practice. But the focal point of the article doesn't seem that impressive to me.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Find your current position Pc. Define Hd as a 'heading direction'. Execute
" Hd = Pnxt-Pc; ". Detect obstacle position Obst in heading direction Hd. If Obst
is empty, then move with heading direction Hd. If Obst is not empty, then do the
following. Compute turned heading direction Hds from Hd. Detect obstacle
So they basically reinvented Hypertalk? Here's a sample:
on mouseDown
put "Disk:Folder:MyFile" into filePath -- no need to declare variables
if there is a file filePath then
open file filePath
read from file filePath until return
put it into cd fld "some field"
close file filePath
set the textStyle of character 1 to 10 of card field "some field" to bold
end if
end mouseDown
With the first link, the chain is forged.
"Mama! I'm coming Mama! Wait for me!"
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
OT sig response: Hitler. Mussolini. Stalin. Lenin. You're wrong.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
So, movies say don't so we do? Bring on the face-huggers, we are doomed.
I for one welcome our new, global, space-based, nuclear-equipped, obstacle-avoiding robot overlords.
It had to be said.
We also need to include a lot of FUD documents(read only) along with other technical documents to force Sysbrain(did I capitalize the first letter?) to do a manual override if it went rogue.
It sounds impressive that "it allows satellites to read English-language technical documents", but it's probably just like SQL or AppleScript; as-in looks and reads a bit like English, but really isn't. The article actually says that it reads "sEnglish", not "English". You could swap the curly braces in C for "Here is the start of a statement." and "This is the end of the previously declared statement." but we wouldn't then consider the modified C compiler able "to read English-language technical documents".
jesus christ this story is stupid. One of the worst ever on slashdot, and that's saying something. The satellite cannot read english. It can read a programming language based on english words. So, a bit like every other programmable computer in the world. To the submitter, journalist, gizmag, and slashdot: please refrain from ever doing this again, you morons.
Wow they invented software that can read, who would have thunk that one up? Being able to read is not the same as being able to comprehend and drawing the right conclusion to what was read. Nor is it indicative of acknowledging that the writting directly in front of you might containt important information. When they can invent software that can ignore written instructions because they can't be bothered by it or fail to comprehend the simplest of instructions then I will be impressed.
So, the problem being solved is that some people in the Sat business are better at english instruction manuals than they are at clear logical directions in a concise syntax? Can we please stop giving them access to space and instead send them to China to help out making clear manuals and technical documentation.
No man is so evil that he cannot turn around and receive God's embrace.
OT sig response: Hitler. Mussolini. Stalin. Lenin. You're wrong.
I'm not wrong. If these men did not choose to turn around before they died that does not mean they could not.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
C is mostly function-argument syntax, i.e. R(a,b), rather than subject-predicate syntax (i.e. aRb). Natural languages use the latter and it is part of the reason why they have a much higher survival fitness than formal languages.