SELF-DRIVING VEHICLES SWARMING TO FUTURE ROADS

Analysis by Nic Halverson

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Schools of fish, flocks of birds -- even bicyclists in the Tour de France -- all use the principles of swarm behavior and drafting to conserve energy while moving in the same direction.

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Australian industrial designer, Charles Rattray, believes these concepts are the future of transportation. That's why he's designed Autonomo, a biomimicry inspired autonomous vehicle he hopes will revolutionize the auto industry by the year 2030.

Influenced heavily by swarm robotics and artificial intelligence, Rattray's omni-wheeled, self-driving Autonomos would travel in tight platoons while shifting their configurations to maintain an uninterrupted traffic flow. Microwave sensors would allow cars to travel a mere 7.8 inches apart, thus aerodynamically reducing vehicle drag and energy consumption, making tailgating actually a good thing.

Onboard computers would synthesize data from an array of sensors (radar, microwave, lidar, optical and infrared) and external feedback systems that would monitor the road 656 feet in front of and behind the vehicle or vehicle platoon. There's also hi-def cameras equipped with object recognition technologies that would help predict the path of other vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians and other hazardous objects.

Balancing these flocks of vehicles would be a centralized database controlled by intelligent algorithms that could adjust as new spatial information is fed to them.

Rattray's concept vehicle is a svelte 3.77 foot wide two-seater with bobsled-style seating. It's slim design would allow Autonomos to travel two abreast in a single lane so that existing road infrastructures would not need overhauling.

Vehicles would be charged wirelessly through electrodynamic induction or energy transfer lasers via charging pads embedded on the surface of the road.

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Obviously, this project aims to lasso the moon with an ambition of fantastical proportions. But as the great architect of Chicago, Daniel Burnham, once said, "Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized."

[Via GizMag]

Credit: Charles Rattray

I, for one, welcome our new farming robots

I, for one, welcome our new farming robots:

One step closer to the robots taking over!

Wired’s Eric Smalley has an awesomely titled article about a Massachusetts based startup, Harvest Automation, is testing a small farming robot to work in nurseries in the horticulture industry.

The Harvest Automation robots are knee-high, wheeled machines. Each robot has a gripper for grasping pots, a deck for carrying pots, and an array of sensors to keep track of where it is and what’s around it. Teams of robots zip around nursery fields, single-mindedly spacing and grouping plants. Think Wall-E without the doe eyes and cuddly personality, or the little forest-tending ‘bots in the 1972 sci-fi classic Silent Running.

Thank you Wired!

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EPFL Researchers Demonstrate Flocking

EPFL Researchers Demonstrate Flocking:

The above image is taken from a video of research done by Sabine Hauert, Severin Leven, and Dario Floreano of the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. As part of this research, they tested the effects of turning radius and communications range on programmed flocking behavior in a group of ten aerial robots. More details are available on the Wired Science blog, and in the video.

Incredible Collaboration of Swam Robotics

Incredible Collaboration of Swam Robotics:

In the very near future, these researchers believe robots will combine together to do all the tasks assigned to them. The Swarmanoid Project is a glorious example of a glimpse into the future which demonstrates 60 robots working together in a collaborative environment. The goal of the swarm robotic project (4 years in the making) is to use the different capabilities of each class of robot and combine them into a system to accomplish tasks.

The “Eye bots” sense the environment and provide an aerial overview. “Hand-bots” can climb vertical surfaces of walls or grab objects located in the environment. “Foot-bots” move on rough terrain and transport either robots. This distributed robotic system is inspired from the social behavior of insects where each member of the colony performs a particular task.

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Swarms Of Robots Out To Steal Your Books

Swarms Of Robots Out To Steal Your Books: "

Watch out Seal Team Six, there’s a new group of special forces entering the mix – and they’re out for your literature.

Evan Ackerman over at IEEE has written an interesting blog post about the Swarmanoid project.

The swarmanoid robots consist of three types, each specializing in specific tasks: hands, feet, and eyes. When their powers combine they turn into an unstoppable machine on a mission to steal your valuables.

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Video: Raid of the robot swarm

Video: Raid of the robot swarm: "Thanks to our sister site, New Scientist, for highlighting this rather sinister one - a co-ordinated raid by 'eye-bots', 'foot-bots', and 'hand-bots' to grab a book from a high shelf.

They are many, and they work together. And they are getting more clever...

(The award-winning film is by Mauro Birattari and Rehan O'Grady)




Thanks to our sister site, New Scientist, for highlighting this rather sinister one - a co-ordinated raid by 'eye-bots', 'foot-bots', and 'hand-bots' to grab a book from a high shelf.

They are many, and they work together. And they are getting more clever...

(The award-winning film is by Mauro Birattari and Rehan O'Grady)



Melissae Fellet writes:

You could call it Mission Impossible: Robot Library Heist. An army of flying, rolling, and climbing robots have been taught to work together to find and snatch a book from a high shelf.

In a striking display of military-like precision, the robotic team, dubbed the 'Swarmanoid', attacks the problem with flying 'eye-bots' and rolling 'foot-bots'. A 'hand-bot' then fires a grappling hook-like device up to the ceiling and scales the bookshelf. Footage of the experiment, conducted by Marco Dorigo at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium, and colleagues, won the video competition at the Conference on Artificial Intelligence in San Francisco earlier this week.

It's a simple demonstration, but in the future Dorigo says the robots could be tasked with more difficult and important tasks. For instance, a bot team equipped like firefighters could wait in a building and spring to action when disaster strikes.

Read the full post >>

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Robots listen only to the leader when building a roving quadcopter landing pad

Robots listen only to the leader when building a roving quadcopter landing pad: "

Swarm robotics is really starting to produce some interesting results. This image is from the video embedded after the break that show a group of five robots creating a landing platform for a quadrotor helicopter. The four that actually make up the platform are not in contact with each other, but instead following commands from the leader. We’re impressed by the helicopter’s ability to target and land on the moving platform. Takeoff appears to be another issue, as the platform bots stop moving until the quadcopter is airborne again.

These robots are part of a Graduate project at Georgia Tech. [Ted Macdonald] has been working along with others to implement an organizational algorithm that guides the swarm. The method requires that the robots have an overview of the location of all others in the swarm. This is done with high-speed cameras like we’ve seen in other robotic control projects. But that doesn’t discourage us. If you already have a flying robot as part of the swarm, you might as well add a few more to serve as the eyes in the sky.

[Thanks Supertroopa via Engadget]

Filed under: robots hacks

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