Subject:
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Re: A Generic Idea
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Mon, 6 Jan 2003 12:56:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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833 times
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In lugnet.robotics, "Andrew J. Huang" <ajhuang@velocitus.net> writes:
> Steve Baker summarized neatly:
I summarized neatly too, while he got into the intricacies of DTMF and
Phreaking in the 70s... :D
> The big design issue is whether to have the brain
> near or far. If far, you need more communications
> bandwidth, but you can have a mongo brain. If
> near, you can minimize your investment in
> communications overhead, but you have to live
> within the constraints of CPU that you can support
> on board. Both designs have their advantages.
> The problem you're solving will make the decision
> for you. Neither solution is generic because
> different problems will need different solutions.
It wasn't a generic solution, it was a generic idea. The generic cel phone
would provide a generic link to any generic PC in the world. You can
construct a football goalkeeper any way you like, but if you're gonna need
more CPU power than what's in the RCX you're gonna have to look at the link
to the better brain.
> On the third hand, if the problem is a bomb
> handling robot, then you would really want purely
> remote control by a human capable of
> differentiating between an innocent plastic RCX
> brick and a plastique brick.
hehe
> A few other comments on this thread:
>
> It looks like we are reducing the RCX to simply a
> smart I/O controller which is slaved to a more
> capable CPU. If that's what it boils down to, we
> can simply buy a cheap notebook ($400-$900) and
> then use it's parallel port to drive an I/O
> controller (I saw such an I/O controller many
> years ago, for $300?). This would replace the
> "brain" and the RCX, and move the sensor/output
> limitations up to 8 or 16. Technically, it's
> trivial.
Yes I agree, but Steve B sees all kinds of problems just talking to the
parallel port in c...
> If you really
> want to be generic and do some fancy robotics,
> throw out the RCX and get real.
Ah, but then you'd have to go the long haul and start all over with
electronics and calibrating sensors of 70 different brands. And you wouldn't
make something generic, because there is no standard so every robot you
solder together would be custom.
> Regarding PDAs and cell phones: even those with
> cameras do not have the CPU power to do image
> analysis. They are only really capable of storing
> the data after the hardware-based compression
> algorithms have reduced the pixels to a manageable
> lump. The analysis needed to detect motion or
> recognize objects is way beyond their
> capabilities. PDAs have roughly the CPU power of
> a 1990s PC - think back to 1990 and recall what
> kind of graphical manipulation you could do
> then - it wasn't much and it entirely consumed
> your CPU while it took 30s to think about it.
I had a P3-600 in 1999... :P no, I don't expect anyone to use cel phones for
image processing, just image transfer. I regret ever bringing it up. Use it
if you make a spy bot. Bah :D
Here's something to sum up my thinking about PDAs, which was a reply to my
fellow Norwegian, I got a "Delivery Failure Notification" in my Outlook so I
guess it got lost:
In lugnet.robotics, Øyvind Steinnes writes:
> So all we can conlude with todays equipment is that you need more CPU
> power to handle the data from a camera? Can a palm do this? Or other
> smallsize computers that exist today? Does anyone know of such a
> device? My thinking was to use a usb camera and the usb tower connected
> to this "robot brain" to controll the RCX from inside the same robot.
> And some of these palm-size computers probably have built in (or can be
> connected to) GSM, so there should be no problem sending the result of an
> spy mission back to base and sending back information about what to do next.
> Was that a stupid idea?
"All ideas are stupid until someone proves they work." :D No, I've been
thinking the same thing. (So it can't be stupid haha). A PDA with built-in
webcam (and mike) + hotwiring an RCX input to a serial port on the PDA would
probably be the ultimate choice. But a wireless camera, a palmtop, and a USB
tower could work too, though it requires more space.
With the images and sound being put directly into the PDA "brain", the only
communication that needs to be transmitted to/from the RCX has to do with
the "feet", i.e. the wheels/bumpers/grippers.
feet says: "oops! I bumped into sth"
brain says: "back up for 1 sec and I'll look what it was" (takes picture)
brain says: "Ooo it was a clutch gear! I've been looking for that for ages!
Pick it up! Pick it up!" feet says: "I can't pick it up twice" brain says:
"blah. Very funny, Brainless. Bring it here." feet says: "I ain't goin'
nowhere, bub. Prrft" <-- CODE Pilot "Truck" SFX
And so on ad infinitum :D
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: A Generic Idea
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| (...) When did I say that? Talking to a parallel port in C is easy in most OS's. ---...--- Steve Baker ---...--- HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net> WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com> HomePage : (URL) : (4 URLs) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | RE: A Generic Idea
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| Steve Baker summarized neatly: The big design issue is whether to have the brain near or far. If far, you need more communications bandwidth, but you can have a mongo brain. If near, you can minimize your investment in communications overhead, but (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jan-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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