\u201cSometimes you feel like you just want to pet them,\u201d says one of the computer scientists who works at SRI International, speaking of the more than one hundred little red robots (called Centibots) that wander the company\u2019s halls as part of a military project funded by DARPA, the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The Centibots are designed to conduct surveillance in hazardous areas, spot intruders, and so forth. One of the project\u2019s leaders explains: \u201cThey autonomously decide where to go. Nobody is controlling them\u2026 A commander could tell the SWAT team, \u2018You are looking at this, and here is the guy we want and this is what he is wearing.\u2019\u201d The Centibots cost about $4,000 and are built from off-the-shelf components, including ordinary WiFi cards for communicating with each other and cheap PC cameras that send images humans can interpret.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
THE ROBOTS ARE COMING, THE ROBOTS ARE COMING<\/p>\n
International a year ago, one of the coolest things about his new job in the Engineering Building was the little red robots wandering the halls.<\/p>\n
Wobbling around on three wheels and resembling mutant ladybugs, they\u2019d stop at Gobbel\u2019s open office door and silently peer inside. \u201cSometimes you feel like you just want to pet them,\u2019\u2019 said Gobbel, a computer scientist who is working on a biochemical database.<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t a friendly visit. Though they looked like toys, they were working together to build a collective map, sending information back to a central computer. They were also on the lookout for objects interesting enough to warrant an alert to a human commander.<\/p>\n
The Centibots are part of a military project funded by DARPA, the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Working in teams of up to a hundred, they are designed to conduct surveillance in hazardous areas, spot intruders and find \u201cobjects of value\u2019\u2019 like prisoners or wounded people. After a year and a half of development, the Centibots\u2019 creators say they are ready to show their stuff to their military backers. On Friday, nearly 100 robots lined up in hallway for a class picture. They\u2019ll spend the next few weeks in final testing before snuggling into bubble-wrap for the trip back east.<\/p>\n
Charlie Ortiz, who oversees the Centibots project at SRI\u2019s Artificial Intelligence Center in Menlo Park, said the effort represents a step forward in getting robots to work together autonomously and as a team. \u201cThey represent a major contribution in distributed robotics,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
Researchers have built robots that vacuum rooms, explore shipwrecks, manufacture microchips, imitate puppy dogs and fly around hunting for Osama bin Laden. But for the most part, modern robots act alone.<\/p>\n
DARPA wanted machines that could coordinate with each other to create a map of an area. The Centibots communicate with a human commander who tells them where to search and reviews the information they send back. However, the commander doesn\u2019t need to give detailed instructions to each machine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey autonomously decide where to go,\u2019\u2019 said Regis Vincent, a computer scientist who helped build the Centibots. \u201cNobody is controlling them.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
SRI International, Stanford University, the University of Washington and ActivMedia, an Amherst, N.H., commercial robotics company, shared $2.2 million in DARPA funding to develop everything from a user interface to systems of navigation, communication and mapping.<\/p>\n
The Centibots cost about $4,000 and are built from off-the-shelf components, including ordinary WiFi cards for communicating with each other and cheap PC cameras that send images humans can interpret. Via Technologies, a Taiwanese company with operations in Fremont, supplied the motherboards. A Linux operating system manages 1.2 million lines of code, written in Java, C and C++.<\/p>\n
Sitting in a windowless command center, surrounded by tables laden with computers and shelves packed with Centibots, Michael Eriksen, one of SRI\u2019s research engineers, put a handful of Centibots through their paces. As they trundled through the hallways, a map formed on his screen. He pressed some keys, and the map became a 3-D image.<\/p>\n
Next, Eriksen put on a pair of glasses and selected Centibot No. 33. Streaming video showed him that the robot was \u201cseeing\u2019\u2019 a hallway and a person\u2019s trouser legs.<\/p>\n
Eriksen said the glasses could come in handy when the Centibots, or similar robots, are used in real-world situations. \u201cA commander could tell the SWAT team, `You are looking at this, and here is the guy we want and this is what he is wearing,\u2019 \u2018\u2019 Eriksen said.<\/p>\n
The Centibot researchers claim the maps the robots create are correct within a couple of centimeters. The robots can also find and identify an object, recognize each other and spot an intruder by separating moving objects from stationary ones.<\/p>\n
Though their skills are still somewhat rudimentary\u2014the object they best recognize is a big pink ball and they find each other by zeroing in on highly reflective material\u2014they\u2019ve come a long way during the past 11 months.<\/p>\n
Ortiz recalled when the Centibots were first turned loose in January, they kept bumping into each other. Equipped with sonar sensors that enabled them to identify obstacles, they would see another Centibot and try to move out of the way. But like two people trying to walk around each other, the Centibots moved in the same direction and collided.<\/p>\n
More code had to be written so that two Centibots looking at the same pink ball would realize they were seeing one object and not two.<\/p>\n
Now, the researchers say they believe they have succeeded in imbuing the machines with a new level of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
And even if the Centibots don\u2019t have human brain cells, the computer scientists in the Engineering Building have become attached to the hallway wanderers. They\u2019ll miss the robots when they\u2019re gone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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