Tag Archives: #robotics

When Objects Communicate

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Vorwerk robot vacuum

I guess if a robot is going to vacuum a carpet, it should be able to talk to the carpet. And that’s basically what this puppy can do – talk to the carpet via embedded RFID chips (just wait until they use inks and dyes to weave it in). From the Discovery Channel news website:

Now the manufacturing company Vorwerk in Hamlin, Germany, has partnered with Infineon in Munich to develop an electronic carpet that wirelessly navigates a self-propelled robot over every square inch of a floor, and can even direct the machine to revisit sections it unintentionally missed.

I assume the next rev will have the carpet complaining about dirty spots and directing the robot to specific locations to do a more thorough job.

My favorite part of this news item though is when Burcu Akinci, the “expert” that apparently was in the office to answer the phone that day, makes this insightful statement: “If the whole room gets flooded, then I think the robot wouldn’t be able to navigate easily.” Classic.

(As an aside, the generic topic of object-to-object communication is especially interesting in that this capability is very much a “virtual space” feature. Barriers just keep dropping between the real and the virtual.)

(above image Copyright © Vorwerk)

The Ultimate ARG (or This Is Not A Videogame)

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Image of the J-UCAS system in action

C|Net has a slideshow from the currently in-progress Paris Air Show. Notice that the first image in the slideshow shows a UCAV (Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle). Now look close and you should see a few of those flying drones/robots in the above conceptual image taken from the Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) website. If you read the MIT Technology Review article I mentioned a couple months back in this post, the videogame aspect of all this is pretty obvious. Since that time however a couple more related bits have come along, including: news about swarming robots, word on an attempt to create a virtual brain, an announcement that the keel is being laid for a new kind of warship (the Littoral Combat Ship, a variation of which would presumably make an excellent platform for UCAVs), and plenty of discussion about military spending. There’s even another article similar to the MIT Tech Review piece – this time over on the Popular Science website (read “Trust Me – I’m a Robot” here) .

And all I wanted to see were some pretty pictures of the new Boeing jet I mentioned a couple days ago. Looks like pieces of this augmented reality stuff are everywhere; it’s just maybe not entirely obvious how it all fits together.

PolyBot Politics

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pic no worky

When Jeff Goldblum starts explaining insect politics to his love interest during Cronenberg‘s remake of “The Fly“, I visualized this mass of insects swarming over something dead, but somehow communicating and politicking – a hive mind. Creepy thought. That thought returned to me upon seeing this site. Watch the Tricycle demo and also the “Reconfiguration” video. Now imagine tiny polybots… working together… reconfiguring… creepy creepy creepy. Maybe I should have recalled the scene in “Prince of Darkness” where the dead body is animated by insects and talks to the researchers. Brrrrrrrr.

What does this have to do with my blog’s current focus? Nothing. Just creeped me out.

Fido, sit. Fido, fetch. Fido, infiltrate and detonate.

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Image of Boston Dynamics BigDog Robot

Read something today that reminded me of this, the first paragraph from William Gibson’s novel Count Zero:

They set a slamhound on Turner’s trail in New Delhi, slotted it to his pheromones and the color of his hair. It caught up with him on a street called Chandni Chauk and came scrambling for his rented BMW through a forest of bare brown legs and pedicab tires. Its core was a kilogram of recrystallized hexogene and flaked TNT.

Having read that, now take a look at this link (courtesy of Engadget) on what the mad scientists at Darpa are trying to create.

[Note: Links went dead, so here’s a Wikipedia entry – BigDog]

SkyNet Rising

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skynetRisingOne of my favorite sites (obviously), MIT’s Technology Review, has an article on “The Ascent of the Robotic Attack Jet“. But don’t let the “robotic” part fool you – it’s really quite alot about the software, hardware and interaction design necessary for a person to remotely control those nasty little buggers. I’d posted this on the Core forum, but it didn’t seem to be of interest to anyone. I’m feeling a little like Kyle Reese being interrogated by the police in The Terminator – no one will listen. “You can’t stop it!” Don’t say you weren’t warned.