On 10/23/06, Bob Mottram <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Grinding my own axe, I also think that stereo vision systems will bring significant improvements to robotics over the next few years. Being able to build videogame-like 3D models of the environment in real time is now a feasible proposition which I think will happen before the decade is out. With a good model of the environment the robot can rehearse possible scenarios before actually running them, and find important features such as desk or table surfaces.
I worked for a robotics company called Arctec in the early 1980s. We built a robot called the Gemini. They essentially solved the navigation problem - in an office-space world. You stuck one small reflector on both sides of every door, at intersections, and on its recharging station, and if the world consisted of hallways with doors leading off the hallways, it went where you told it to go, and went back to its docking station and recharged when it had to. This was using a 1MHz 65C02. The navigational code took 12K of RAM. It relied largely on having highly-accurate narrow-beam sonar sensors all around its body, and on the reflectors. The problem wasn't technological. It was that nobody had any use for a robot. We never figured out what people would want the robot for. I think that's still the problem. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?list_id=303
