Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Robot Swarms Controlled With Augmented Reality
Jared Alan Frank of NYU uses augmented reality (AR) as a robot control interface; it runs on a conventional smartphone or tablet.
(Augmented reality control of robots)
Using Xcode, Apple’s software development platform, Frank built an app that can detect robots and objects in the environment and create a virtual grid—along with a coordinate system—to keep track of those objects on the screen. The user can then manipulate the objects on the device and watch as the robots carry out the desired actions in the real world. Commands from the app are sent via Wi-Fi to the robots, which in the current version use Raspberry Pi as the main controller.To help his app make sense of the environment, Frank places visual tags on the robots and on the objects he wants the robots to move. The smartphone or tablet captures the scene using its camera, and the app detects the tags, using that information to keep track of marked objects. These tags, also called fiducial markers, are commonly used in AR apps to integrate physical landmarks and objects into a virtual world.
Ease of operation is one of the key features of this technology, but another advantage that Frank emphasizes is its mobility. He explains that if you’re able to control a swarm of robots using a simple mobile device, it becomes much easier to bring robotic applications outside the confines of the lab environment.
Fans of the still amazingly prescient 2009 novel Daemon recall that writer Daniel Suarez conjured a vision of a level 40 darknet sorcerer, threatened with capture, who uses an augmented reality environment to release a controllable drone army:
Gragg concentrated on the plane of D-Space. The entire floor plan was replicated there, spread out around him a life-sized wire-frame model overlaid on the GPS grid...Gragg looked far beyond the concrete walls of Building Twenty-Nine, to distant, glowing call-outs in D-Space. He selected dozens of virtual objects he'd stored there, then launchd his prearranged summoning sequence, making somatic gestures and speaking the unlock code to the VOIP module...
"This is your last warning: surrender..."
Loki shook his head. "You're not thinking in enough dimensions, Doctor. Only part of me is in this building..."
Ross examined the screens. "Computer-controlled vehicles. Dozens of them. The Factions call them AutoM8s."
(Read more about Daniel Suarez' controllable drone army)
Via IEEE Spectrum. Found this video twitter thanks to Wolfgang Lehmacher.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 4/21/2017)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Computer ")
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
Cortex 1 - Today A Warehouse, Tomorrow A Calculator Planet
'There were cubic miles of it, and it glistened like a silvery Christmas tree...' - Clifford Simak, 1949.
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.' - Isaac Asimov, 1975.
Jetson Orin Nano Super 70 Just $249
'Rayno folded up the microterm and tucked it back inside his jumper.' - Bruce Bethke, 1983.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
AI Operates An Excavator
'So far as I could see, the thing was without a directing Martian at all.'
US Army IBEX Exoskeleton Walks Troops Out Of Danger
'The suit stands up and starts walking, gripping me round the calves and waist, taking the bulk of my weight off my throbbing feet.'
Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
't came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal.'
Elon Musk Wants Data Centers In Space
'Internally it’s made up of millions of components, but the most important ones are the thinking and memory parts of the Mind proper.'
Origin F1 Humanoid Robot's Facial Skin
'I could look down at that face of carefully molded synthetic rubber, tinted the exact shade of the doctor's living flesh.'
Grok And The City Fathers From 'Cities In Flight' By James Blish
'Chris, the City Fathers are not interested in your welfare; I suppose you know that. They're interested in only one thing: the survival of the city.'
Why Not Move A Warehouse District?
'Did you never see a moving house before?'
Will An AI Found A New Religion?
'You must decide how you will worship Me.'
Terraformer Industries Make Methane
'Drake was the young spatial engineer he employed to terraform the little rock...'
I Need An Outdoor Spherical Display
'Usually a spherical display hovered in the centre...'
Worm Disrupts Physics Simulations Undetected For A Decade
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
Muxcard Redditor's DIY Credit Card-Sized Computer
It's a computer, but just barely.
'Soft Assembly' Fashions That Fashion Themselves On The Wearer
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
Orwell's Nightmare Of AI-Written Novels Comes To Pass
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
ISS Plagued By Leak - Again!
'There were perhaps a dozen bladder-like objects in the tunnel...'
Ridiculous 'Ghost Murmur' Tech Still Science Fiction
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
