London's Robotic Fire Brigade 82
dustpan writes "The BBC has a story up about a quartet of robotic fire fighters that the London Fire Brigade is testing and with which have been achieving 'tremendous results.' The robots were developed by QinetiQ, which is a defense contractor. The LFB has been testing the units since last year and the machines are primarily used in fires involving acetylene canisters. The group commander for hazardous materials and environmental protection with the LFB says that the robots have cut the time to resolve these potential hazards from 24 hours to 3. From the article: 'Three years ago we were shutting down parts of London for over 24 hours every other week. Now it doesn't even make the news.'"
Re:Same platform different end-effectors (Score:3, Informative)
If it makes some decisions for itself, it might be a robot. Arguably, ABS is an example of robotics in action, so the line is pretty blurry.
Re:Same platform different end-effectors (Score:5, Informative)
(UAV engineer here)
Not necessarily true. Like most UGVs, it has autonomous terrain handling, station keeping and obstacle avoidance functions. But it requires a human navigator, and a human operator for the effectors and other payload delivery.
So, you can accurately say it's a "robotically piloted waldo" if you wish. The media likes to simplify this into simply "robot," granted, and not without some sensationalism.
Re:Same platform different end-effectors (Score:5, Informative)
I've been programming, repairing, and designing end effectors for industrial robots for about 10 years now. Here's a real quick and simple example of how robots make decisions.
When you program an industrial robot, you position the end effector in a particular point in space, program that point, then position the end effector in another point and then give it a command on how you want it to move there: straight line, arc, air cut, etc.
What I don't have to do is determine the speed and encoder count shift needed for each individual servo motor (axis) on the robot. The internal logic of the robot does that. On a standard 6 axis robot, it would take hours to program a single straight line if you had to program a path for each servo motor. I tried it in school once, never again.
Re:Same platform different end-effectors (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of bomb-disposal "robots" have stair-climbing wheels attached to one end-these typically are small wheels with large spikes on.
Anyway, real Daleks don't climb stairs, they just level the building.
Re:Same platform different end-effectors (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How often does this happen? (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently there are a lot of rogue acetylene canisters catching fire in London on a regular basis
It's not just the acetylene. The gas is often stored in suspension in liquid acetone [wikipedia.org], which is also flammable and can be explosive, as well as being a solvent for everything from nail polish to styrofoam. That stuff's nasty.
Re:Same platform different end-effectors (Score:3, Informative)
Depends on what you mean by known obstacles. A fixed obstacle, maybe. That would be defined usually as an boundary in the work envelope and some systems can find there own way around them. Material handling systems, like an automated palletizing system, may have a support structure in the work envelope to work around. For the most part, its a good idea to keep the work envelope as free of obstructions as possible.
If its a mobile object, like part of a weld fixture, then no. If you tell the robot to move from point A to point B, it will try to move from point A to point B regardless of what is in the way. Its the programmers job to work the robot around obstacles.