Swarming And Hopping Planetary Robots 73
An anonymous reader writes "Recently Dr. Penelope Boston (U. New Mexico) and Dr. Steven Dubowsky (MIT) discussed their NASA advances to develop 'hopping microbots' capable of exploring hazardous terrain, including underground caves and planetary extremes. 'We came up with the idea of many, many, tiny little spheres, about the size of tennis balls (slide show), that essentially hop, almost like Mexican jumping beans. They store up muscle energy, so to speak, and then they boink themselves off in various directions. That's how they move...They behave as a swarm [of 1000s]. They relate to each other using very simple rules, but that produces a great deal of flexibility in their collective behavior that enables them to meet the demands of unpredictable and hazardous terrain.' Test prototypes available in March will initially explore terrestrial lava tubes."
Aeon Flux? (Score:4, Funny)
Boink.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:if you don't understand this joke (Score:1)
Or, more specifically, in Calvin's first attempt at making a duplicator out of his cardboard box, he climbs inside and convinces the dubious Hobbes to push the button by deriding him for wanting to hold back scientific progress; the button makes a "boink" sound prompting Hobbes to say "scientific progress goes boink?".
Well, that about ruins the joke I think. Is there a Google book search equivalent for Calvin and Hobbes? Because there should be...
Re:Dangerous behavior (Score:3, Funny)
Poor choice of words? (Score:5, Funny)
Let the adolescent humor begin!
Iceworms are real [suvalleynews.com]
Re:Poor choice of words? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Poor choice of words? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Poor choice of words? (Score:2)
What would Heisenberg think? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for Heisenburg,... I can see a lot of NASA guys sitting around the data feeds... "hrmm... it seems that the surface of venus is covered in 1000's of pock marks the size of tennis balls..."
not good (Score:2)
If you want to move around on rough terrain, look at what the military uses. The recent 6-wheel rovers match of pretty well, with appropriate adjustments for running a motor without oxygen and diesel supplies of course.
Hopping around is silly. In some places you might prefer a tracked vehicle. In some places you could use buoyancy like a submarine or blimp, perhaps like a sea glider if you can vary buoyancy enough. In some places you could use a jet (supplying oxidize
Re:not good (Score:1)
I, ... (obligatory) (Score:4, Funny)
And hey, even better, they do in fact come in clusters! Now in only wonder if in Soviet Russia, swarms are boinking you!?
Re:(obligatory) (Score:1)
oh noes (Score:2)
(b5 - crusade , 1x10 reference for those who dont get it)
Re:oh noes (Score:1)
Actually, anime references aside, one of the beautiful things about swarm robotics is that in many cases there is decidedly not a central intelligence. Each unit acts on its own according to relatively simple rules and a relatively low amount of communication with neighbors. The result is often very robust and surprisingly versatile. We are actually taking a cue from biology here. Think of a school of fish... each individual fish having relatively limited "computin
To win a bet... (Score:2, Funny)
Galactic boinking (Score:5, Funny)
balls roll down (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:balls roll down (Score:2, Interesting)
Swarm robots send that to the gateway, and the gateweay re-send the data...
Any way, those robots must come out from something else
Re:balls roll down (Score:2, Interesting)
I think a better means of transportation would be something like a dandelion seed; something that was light enough to have the wind pick it up and blow it around, but could anchor itself (grow roots) if an area prov
Re:balls roll down (Score:1)
Re:balls roll down (Score:3, Insightful)
Having said that, I agree completely that there will certainly be the possibility of the robots getting stuck or damaged by different terrain or obstacles. However, this is something swarms are good at dealing with!
First of all, having one bot getting stuck or damaged isn't catastrophic -t
Re:balls roll down (Score:3, Insightful)
While this is true, the best approach is likely to be one that combines the swarming and master bot approaches. During normal operations, individual bots maneuver indepe
Re:balls roll down (Score:1)
I don't know if its the result of my own intellectual deficiencies, but I had a lot of trouble getting any meaningful content out of your post. What exactly is a "normal operation", versus a "greater challenge"? More importantl
Re:balls roll down (Score:2)
The key to understanding my post is in the punch line:
And I'll form the head!
I make no claim about whether or not that constitutes meaningful content.
Re:balls roll down (Score:1)
Re:balls roll down (Score:2)
Hopping Microrobots? Pah! (Score:2)
Java tubes?? (Score:2)
I must get more sleep. I would have sworn that said Java tubes. Exploring tubes of coffee?? Exploring tubes of a programming language?? Hrmm...
What will they think? (Score:1)
Isn't the main issue how to power them? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think the ad hoc wireless network aspect of things is likely to be the hard part: if people can solve the power problems, Siemens, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Philips will likely take care of the network/software part in the course of solving our more earthly problems.
E.g. a security system built of these would seem to have wide appeal.
Re:Isn't the main issue how to power them? (Score:1)
As long as... (Score:2)
beans? (Score:2, Interesting)
Which are completely unheard of in Mexico.
Re:beans? (Score:1)
-- relevant wikipedia article [wikipedia.org]
Killer Rabbit Balls (Score:1)
ARTHUR:
What?
TIM:
There he is!
ARTHUR:
Where?
TIM:
There!
ARTHUR:
What, behind the rabbit?
TIM:
It is the rabbit.
ARTHUR:
You silly sod!
TIM:
What?
ARTHUR:
You got us all worked up!
TIM:
Well, that's no ordinary rabbit!
Reminds me of the movie Twister (Score:1)
What is happening in Photo 43? (Score:2)
Re:Underground Caves - missed the point (Score:1)
It's been done, at Sandia (Score:3, Interesting)
There's some interest in this as a new generation of land mine. Dump out a few hundred of these and they wait for a target, like a convoy, to come along. When they find a suitable target, the hopper that found it calls for backup, and the hoppers in the neighborhood swarm to attack the target.
Re:It's been done, at Sandia (Score:2)
That effort suffers from a fatal flaw: it does not fund the proponents of the current effort. With enough funding, this new effort's proponents should be able to overcome this shortcoming.
Re:It's been done, at Sandia (Score:2)
How is that not consis
Re:It's been done, at Sandia (Score:2)
Re:It's been done, at Sandia-- Sandia Press Releas (Score:2)
Maybe somebody at Sandia was hopping, ummm, hoping to generate an offical press release:
"Sandia to SandBlast Your Ass in Our New Minefield"...
DARPA has a similar product (Score:3, Interesting)
Mod -1 Off Topic (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Mod -1 Off Topic - No, no - spelling mistake (Score:1)
Dr. Penny Boston is at NMT, not UNM.. (Score:1)
30,000 students. New Mexico Tech (New Mexico Institute of
Mining and Technology), also known as the New Mexico School of
Mines, is a land grant mining school about 75 miles south of
UNM, where truly crunchy geology and geophysics things happen.
Dr. Boston was in a documentary on PBS, (Nova, October 2002).
She seems to be riding a crest of research that is shaking up
the science of cave formation, postulating that caves are
created as a consequence of prima
Robot Sex? (Score:3, Funny)
Sounds like human behavior to me.
These things could pass the Turing Test.
Re:Robot Sex? No robots involved ! (Score:1)