Actually, this building behavior is pretty complex. Another design team has done something similar. A group of five somewhat larger flying robot quadrotors assembled a six-meter tower made of 1,500 polystyrene foam blocks at France's FRAC Centre. (You can access a video here.)
The lack of technical information from the GRASP Lab may be because it is participating in the Scalable sWarms of Autonomous Robots and Mobile Sensors (SWARMS) project, which has military-related goals and is associated with the Army Research Office and the Army Institute of Collaborative Biotechnology. SWARMS combines artificial intelligence, control theory, robotics, systems engineering, and biology to apply biologically inspired models of swarm behavior to large networked groups of autonomous vehicles, such as deploying them to carry out a predetermined mission and to respond as a group to high-level management commands. These robots could also be used in rescue missions after natural disasters.
The KMel Robotics Website consists of a single page and a photo of the quadrotors, but it promises more information. Along with the 5.5 million other viewers of the latest YouTube swarming video, I hope it comes soon.
Jack, most of the swarming and flying robots, along with a lot of other robot research, seem to be funded by the military, usually DARPA. The one I mentioned also appears to be aimed at military applications.
Warren, I hear you. The huge advances in semiconductor shrinks and system-on-chip have made processors and memory capable of such feats, as well as big reductions in sensor size and rise in abilities because of MEMS technology.
Jack, wait 'til you see the much smaller flying bug in an upcoming robot slideshow: it's about the size of a quarter. I think that one will fit under the door. Not only that, but these are self-assembling: shades of Crichton!
It's funny how we used to think about how much memory it would take for such a task and know it was totally unrealistic. Now, it is reality. We have the memory and processing power. Now we just have to work out the "bugs."
Jack: Didn't the robots do something similar in iRobot? I seem to remember a scene where "robotic spiders" snuck under a door to look for a criminal suspect.
The robots use some kind of continuously adjusted mapping functions to locate themselves in space and explore unknown environments, as Kumar states in the TED talk video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/vijay_kumar_robots_that_fly_and_cooperate.html I don't know if that technology is based on SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping), but I wouldn't be surprised. It's pretty popular for this type of application.
BTW, the robots in the story are the same robots from the U of PA GRASP Lab that play the James Bond theme in that video.
Hey, oldtimer8080, I did read PREY. It was very scary. In fact, I thought of that book when I saw the first video on these little robots, although I think they are also cool. I hadn't thought about the invasion of private property issues, good point. Your 'tude sounds like the 'tude of many of my neighbors up here in the mountains.
The 100-percent solar-powered Solar Impulse plane flies on a piloted, cross-country flight this summer over the US as a prelude to the longer, round-the-world flight by its successor aircraft planned for 2015.
GE Aviation expects to chop off about 25 percent of the total 3D printing time of metallic production components for its LEAP Turbofan engine, using in-process inspection. That's pretty amazing, considering how slow additive manufacturing (AM) build times usually are.
A $1,500, hand-operated, bench-model, plastic injection machine crowdsource-funded via Kickstarter can be used to mold small, quality, plastic parts inexpensively, on demand.
The federal government is launching competitions to kickstart three more manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on Lightweight and Modern Metals Manufacturing Innovation.
The airframe of Airbus's A350 XWB consists of a bigger proportion of carbon-fiber-reinforced composite structures than any other commercial jet to date: over 53 percent by weight.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
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For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
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