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Robotic Space Workers of the Future

Posted by timothy on Sat May 29, 2004 08:52 PM
from the all-hail-the-bender-units dept.
Robotics Space Science
Roland Piquepaille writes "In an article named "Puckish robots pull together," Nature describes the work done at the Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory (PRL) of the University of Southern California on self-reconfigurable teams of robots. There, Wei-Min Shen and his colleagues simulate the absence of gravity by creating a 2D representation of space by using an 'air-hockey table.' With jets of air flow blowing on the surface, the 30 cm-wide robots, working in pairs, evolve in a frictionless environment, pick elements such as girders to assemble structures like if they were in space. NASA will use these teams of autonomous robots to build space systems like 10 km-long arrays of solar panels and other huge spatial structures. You'll find more details, illustrations and references in this overview."
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  • Is it truly frictionless? (Score:5, Informative)

    by NightWulf (672561) on Saturday May 29 2004, @08:59PM (#9287681)
    It's an air hockey table! It's not exactly frictionless, as there is air resistence and other factors. Maybe these scientists know more than I do, but I can't really imagine an air hockey table can even remotely simulate space; where you bump into something and when you bounce back you'll keep going forever, etc. Other than that, it looks intresting of them all working together, a beowulf cluster of space robots, heh.

    • Re:Is it truly frictionless? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Maybe these scientists know more than I do...

      You bet.

    • Re:Is it truly frictionless? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quisph (746257) on Saturday May 29 2004, @09:35PM (#9287804)
      No, of course it's not perfectly frictionless, but it's "frictionless enough," you might say, to test the concept. Anyone who's taken more than a little bit of physics has probably done an experiment using "frictionless" air pucks at some point in time; this is nothing unusual.

      A much bigger shortcoming is that this is 2-d instead of 3-d. But then, a ride in the Vomit Comet doesn't come cheap.

    • Re:Is it truly frictionless? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kfg (145172) on Saturday May 29 2004, @09:49PM (#9287854)
      Maybe these scientists know more than I do. . .

      I know that when we bought the air hockey table for the physics department we knew what we were doing.

      You are correct, it isn't "frictionless," but it is a much closer approximation to frictionless than is, say, a shuffleboard table, which itself is fairly low friction as these things go. It is frictionless enough that if you were to build an airhocky table a mile long you could drive the puck from one end to the other ( for that matter a golf ball has been driven a mile across a frozen lake, which has both more surface friction and air resistence than a puck on an airhockey table).

      Having so little friction that miles are inside the bounds of relevant behavior makes yards even more so and remember that Gallileo was able to deduce frictionless behavior by rolling crude wooden balls down crude wooden ramps. You can do this thing called "extrapolating."

      Nor is space itself frictionless. It is close enough that one may discuss it in those terms when discussing certain phenomenom, but this too is dealing only in pragmatic approximations.

      Stuff doesn't "keep going forever." Space is not empty. Energy is lost throught various "winds" and collisions, just like on an airhockey table. In the real universe "when you bump into something" you often lose energy because real collisions are not ideal, and even light loses energy when it "bumps into something" (like, oh, say, something vaguely blackish). The total energy of the universe is conserved (the universe itself being "the system"), but the total energy of individual objects is not.

      The airhockey table itself is an example of this, the puck slows down because it bumps into things and transfers some its energy to that thing. Like the table itself. Which loses energy to the universe.

      Think about it, and perhaps you will come to a smaller gap between what you know and what the scientists know.

      KFG

    • Re:Is it truly frictionless? (Score:4, Informative)

      by WindBourne (631190) on Saturday May 29 2004, @10:16PM (#9287943) Journal
      Keep in mind, this was not about physics, but about controlling devices. This was a test of the AI and logic that exists rather than a validation of the mathmatics of how to manuever.

  • For the last time (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 29 2004, @08:59PM (#9287682)
    For the last time, meatbag^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeople...

    Please, do not use the "R-word".

    We prefer to be called Electronic-Americans.

    Thank you.

    end transmission.
    • We prefer to be called Electronic-Americans.


      What about the Robots who don't live in America?


      -Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
      • R-word? What, recession?

        From the article:

        In space, however, there is the added complication of a weightless, friction-free environment, which can make movements harder to control. Two robots carrying separate components for assembly might easily collide, or career past each other.

        Hm, can't be recession if they're career -ing so easily.

  • working in space? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xlyz (695304) on Saturday May 29 2004, @09:00PM (#9287690) Journal
    it seems that in the U.S. people really dislike working. they are sending jobs everywhere.

    • Why send jobs to robots? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Adolph_Hitler (713286) on Saturday May 29 2004, @09:41PM (#9287822)
      This is the worst thing we could do as humans. IF you want society to fall apart simply make the majority of humans useless. I mean if Robots can do what the average human could do, what the hell is the average human useful for? I guess its time to start slaughtering and killing about 6 billion useless people so we have space for these robots. Don't you agree?

      • Re:Why send jobs to robots? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Fweeky (41046) on Sunday May 30 2004, @08:42AM (#9289255) Homepage
        Well, it's going to happen sooner or later; one day it might even be cost effective in the general case. I hope we can come up with a better way of dealing with it than you when it finally is; that's probably giving humans a bit too much credit though.

        "what the hell is the average human useful for"? Who said we had to be useful anyway? We have to survive (well, not really, but let's pretend); whether we do that working our asses off or having fun while our technology does our work for us doesn't make a whole lot of difference.
    • I think this would be a better funny post than an insightful post, but anyways, it's not so much disliking work as it is safety and efficiency and cost.

      it's like replacing windows networks with linux, it'll cost a chunk at first, but then you'll later reap the benefits. unlike MS systems where they might offer a sweet deal at first, then the major payouts go on forever.

      in this case, replace windows with people and robots with linux, and you get the same thing.
      People = will want to be paid for work, and ev
  • Hmm, I just hope the robots don't stop working after they let 7 goals get by them.

  • Little buddy. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GhostChe (585665) on Saturday May 29 2004, @09:06PM (#9287714)
    These hocky puck things remind me of another robot [nasa.gov] devoloped by nasa. They both like floating around in space, but nasa's has more of the little buddy going for it.
    • The unit is supposed to have been inspired by the lightsaber practice droid in star wars but it smacks more of "Bit" from tron to me... floating over the shoulder and offering advice. Now if only they can make it pulse all spiky like that, it can poke out someone's eye, too.
  • Let's see how these things do in a swimming pool. It's probably a closer approximation to space than an air-hockey table... Astronauts Take a Dive [nasa.gov]
  • Will this come in time to protect us from the terrible secret of space?

  • Potential issue (Score:4, Insightful)

    by The_Mystic_For_Real (766020) on Saturday May 29 2004, @09:38PM (#9287814)
    It says that these things are able to continue to learn and adapt. I am not an AI expert, but how many mistakes does it have to make before it figures everything out? I have yet to see a machine programmed with every facet of the instincts that might prevent disasters from unforseen situations. Of course, humans make their own mistakes.

    • Re:Potential issue (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mostly a lurker (634878) on Saturday May 29 2004, @10:19PM (#9287958)
      I have yet to see a machine programmed with every facet of the instincts that might prevent disasters from unforseen situations. Of course, humans make their own mistakes.

      Indeed, humans make their own mistakes. Darwin had a theory (mostly accepted) about how humans have develop the "instincts" that help them improve their performance and in some cases keep them alive. Some experiments in AI based on similar principles seem to have held promise (e.g. see When Robots Play Games [slashdot.org]). Perhaps the key is to have multiple teams of robots with slightly different designs such that an error by one team is less likely to be replicated by all.

    • It says that these things are able to continue to learn and adapt. I am not an AI expert, but how many mistakes does it have to make before it figures everything out?

      I don't think that's the kind of intelligence they were talking about. There's a sort of "collective intelligence" you see in communities of "unintelligent" creatures, like ants or bees. Each does a fairly simple task which may or may not help out, but together they get something accomplished. The community seems intelligent, but the individu

  • I think that this is great - low-cost zero gravity, or a 2-D version - it may open up more possibilities for people who want to experiment with the robots or the AI. Pesumably, more people will build the hardware, which would (hopefully) be good for the AI people as well.
      • What exactly are we humans good for now?

        You don't have to have robots and nano-tech to make humans seem pretty useless. It's something humans have struggled with for a long time.

        Take it to the micro level - just one person, and in this case, I'll use myself as an example. In almost every case, I can find a way to replace myself and justify self-termination:

        I work tech services... someone else could do my job
        I have lots of friends... someone could fill my place for each of them
        I pay rent... someone else
        • What exactly are we humans good for now?

          Do you hunt your own food? Did you build your own computer? When you go to malls or resturants do you make your own meals or do everything yourself? Humans are still useful however human labor is a lot less useful than it were only 20 years ago. Robots/Machines decrease the value of HUMAN LABOR. Humans decrease the value of labor as well but at least the job is going to the better human.

          I work tech services... someone else could do my job
          I have lots of friend
  • I've been outsourced...

    ...and you'll never believe from where this time.

  • Accurate? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Wes Janson (606363) on Saturday May 29 2004, @09:56PM (#9287874) Journal
    What happened to that pesky 3rd dimension? Y'know, it tends to complicate interactions just slightly. Not to mention air resistance, air currents, and the possibility of friction if/when the pucks come too close to the surface. Sounds like a half-baked idea to screw around with robots and leftover air hockey tables.
    • If the algorithms and interfaces are designed well, it could scale up to three dimensions quite easily. Just replace all those 2D vectors with 3D vectors. It's extra calculation, but it's the same core concept nonetheless.

  • I can see it now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by robertchin (66419) on Saturday May 29 2004, @11:07PM (#9288103) Homepage
    "I am bender. Please insert girder."

  • Swarm? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by magefile (776388)
    So is this a true swarm relationship (as described, albeit badly, in Prey by Michael Crichton), or is it pair-only?

    And can they get a divorce if one of the robots is cheating?

  • The air-table robot thing is not new (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Animats (122034) on Saturday May 29 2004, @11:58PM (#9288277) Homepage
    Stanford has had air-bearing robots to simulate space operations [stanford.edu] for over a decade. Theirs, though, carry an air tank and work against a flat granite slab.

  • I'm one of the researchers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wildmage (163526) on Sunday May 30 2004, @12:23AM (#9288321) Homepage
    Hi folks. I'm very excited that this project is finally getting some attention. The concept is simple, but it has been overlooked for quite some while.

    Let me give some straight facts through all this futuristic market speak in the articles and from my professor. Where are we now?

    1. We are trying to do a proof-of-concept that a team of robots can indeed assemble structures together in a near-frictionless environment.

    2. We are currently trying to build a triangle out of 3 reconfigurable beams assembled by a pair of tethered robots. With a triangle we can realize more rigid and useful structures such as trusses.

    3. We are halfway there. We have achieved two-beam assembly with reconfigurable connectors and everything.

    We have been working on this thing for almost a year, and one of the things you might be asking is why is this so difficult?

    1. Main issue is connectors. You want to have connectors that can be automatically assembled together yet provided tight tolerances and carry heavy loads. These are often conflicting requirements and this has required a lot of tinkering to accomplish.

    2. Reconfigurable connectors. These are connectors that not only automatically connect, but also automatically disconnect. Give the above requirements in 1 and this becomes doubly more difficult.

    3. Precision control in a "near-frictionless" yet noisy environment. This is very difficult. Our positioning is kind of crude, our propulsion is non-linear, and the noise in the air-table is not predictable. We've been able to accomplish a lot of our results by using the tether to pull the two robots together and assemble the beams together with a rolling motion.

    For those of you who are interested in seeing our latest results I recommend going to the media page at our lab here [isi.edu]

    The last video (which is surprisingly not up yet) is here [isi.edu]

    For future reference, the research involved in "evolving and adapting" has not yet been done. That is future work.

    Thanks,
    Jacob Everist
    everist@usc.edu

  • new species alert! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Whitecloud (649593) on Sunday May 30 2004, @12:44AM (#9288373) Homepage
    NASA will use these teams of autonomous robots to build space systems like 10 km-long arrays of solar panels and other huge spatial structures.

    How long before the AI is advanced enough for the computer/robots are able to identify flaws in their design and reprogram themselves accordingly. This kind of intelligence will allow 'robots' to evolve, superceding humans as the dominate species on earth. The will have all the assets that belong to humans, ie technology, brainpower, but none of the weaknesses, such as the neccesity of oxygen to exist.

    Probably not in our lifetimes, but then the pace of technological development seems to be increasing exponentially...put it this way: take all the scientists that lived from year x to 1900: there are more scientists on earth today than in this total period.

    • "but none of the weaknesses, such as the neccesity of oxygen to exist."

      However, they'll still depend on a major source of energy, the sun perhaps. In such an event, we could scorch the sky, after all, without the sun, where would they get energy?
    • I think automation should be outlawed.

      Smells like a troll to me.

      Ludites reading /. now. What is this world coming to?

        • What will garbage men do once the garbage machine replaces them?

          Umm... perhaps something more useful/productive? Yeah, the buggy drivers lost their jobs when cars came around. So what? Granted, it will cause short-term upset, but in the long term things will get worked out just fine.
        • Yes at first the reduction of jobs will be good due to increased productivity, this happened with the computer industry in the USA, but after a point the productivity stops increasing while the jobs continue to decrease. The need for unskilled labor will continue to decrease until the majority of people in the world simply won't be as qualified as the machines are. What the hell are service workers supposed to do once they are told the robot can do their job perfectly? What will garbage men do once the garb
            • why arent we tapping the people in the third world for "ideas" if theres truely a shortage? Theres billions of people who could come up with ideas but instead they are just being allowed to starve to death.

              That's a problem, there is so much talent and brainpower being wasted because we can't even come up with a way to feed people in in the third world, let alone educate them to the extent that they can exploit their abilities.

              Create better Robots? Yes we all have that PHD from MIT.

              But, maybe in the f

    • This assumes that capitalism is good, and that humans should be treated merely as a supply of labor. In a true utopia, do humans work?

      Completey OT: I'm surprised this user's name has such a high /. id#. Does a comment from this user automatically invoke Godwin's Law?

      • Capitalism and Robots do not mix. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Adolph_Hitler (713286) on Saturday May 29 2004, @10:01PM (#9287888)

        First I never said capitalism is good. What I'm saying is capitalism and robots can not co-exist. Humans become absolutely useless once robots become efficient. Yes at first robots increase jobs and productivity, but soon the knowledge and intelligence level required to continue to program/repair/ or stay above the robots will become too much for the average human to handle.

        Can we all have A PHD from MIT/Harvard/Yale/etc? Competition with humans in the third world is enough, and the population keeps increasing every year meaning competition keeps increasing. How the hell are we supposed to compete with each other as 6 billion humans along with the machines?

        • What I'm saying is capitalism and robots can not co-exist.

          I see no reasons why robots cannot exist within and maintain a capitalist society. Capitalism is just an economic system for allocating resources within a massive distributed multiagent environment --whether those agent are human or artifical is beside the point. Why couldn't a specialized robot sell its services/labor and use that money to invest in new equipment for itself and buy needed supplies (e.g., fuel, CPU time, lubricants, etc.). Why
        • Yes, I know that, but there's still that question of intent. Since we've added to the thread, Adolf_Hitler must be aware of Godwin's Law and intentionally trying to invoke it. His plan is doomed to fail.

          Thanks for the new (to my vocabulary) word 'codicil'. I like it when I'm forced to look something up in the dictionary.

    • The puncture problem can be solved or at least mitigated through two technologies, shielding and self-healing walls. Walls and even windows can be filled with some highly viscous material which will harden when exposed to vacuum and seal the hole at least most of the way, giving occupants time to apply a patch which will finish the job. And, of course, anything that doesn't need to be transparent can be shielded. This adds weight, but if we are mining asteroids that should give us very little trouble.

      This

    • What happens to these massive space structures when a 3 inch rock or space junk going at hyperspeed punches through them.

      Two or more three inch holes neatly punched through whatever happens to be in their way. What do you think?

      If I were building a space station I wouldn't be building windows, I would be thinking submarine with a thick hide.

      Do the math. (Warning, requires materials science.) You really can't build anything large enough to guarentee anything can't get through in space.

      Eh, I was goin
    • I am glad to see that people living through telescopes will always be immature little boys living in a fantasy world.

      Has it ever occured to you that astronomy is vital to human life? These boys playing with their toys have done far more to advance human knowledge. I for one find much practical value in knowing the state of the actual universe, instead of the fantasy universe you live in.

      Take, for example, the advances in sensor technology made as a result of astronomy. Thanks to the new CCD's and optics i
    • and they are subsequently sucked up against the hole in the wall and have the flesh torn from their bones.

      Someone's been watching too many bad sci-fi moovies *cough*alienresurrection*cough*. No to mention too many doom and gloom political manifestoes.

      An astronaut against the hole would plug the hole. Vacuum does not suck. Air expands into vacuum. Higher pressure expands into lower pressure. On Earth we call this "weather fronts.

      The scene in the movie where the alien is pulled through a tiny hole is ut

    • they are subsequently sucked up

      Pushed up! Pushed up!!!

    • Re:what I don't get is this (Score:4, Funny)

      by Tailhook (98486) on Sunday May 30 2004, @12:35AM (#9288349)
      Global warming - I don't care whether...

      Were talking about experimental robots that float around on an air-hockey table. Somehow, this guy manages to end up ranting about "global warming."

      Isn't it about time for you enviro-spaz activist types to take your hysteria elsewhere? Go find a political or environmental site and rant there.

      Thanks.

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