Terminator Come to Life
Experimental AI Powers Robot Army
Darpa's Grand Challenge may have looked tough, but it was a piece of cake compared to the challenge facing robots currently being developed by the U.S. Air Force.
Self-learning and adaptability will be the key to success, and this is where the Creativity Machine excels. Give it any set of robotic limbs and it will master locomotion within minutes without any programming, swiftly finding the most efficient way of moving toward a goal. It will spontaneously develop new gaits for new challenges. (Thaler recounts how a virtual robotic cockroach adopted a two-legged gait and ran on its hind legs, not unlike basilisk lizards, when it needed to move faster.)
Perhaps the most impressive -- and spookiest -- aspect of the project is the swarming behavior of the robots. In computer simulations, they acted together to tackle obstacles and grouped together into defensive formations where needed, Thaler said. They also worked out how to deal with defenders, and spontaneously devised the most efficient strategy for mapping their environment, he added.
The AFRL says it has no immediate plans to build robot hardware, and the current program is concerned only with software. However, a trawl of Pentagon budget documents turns up a number of hardware projects. One, by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is tasked with dealing with WMD threats, commences in fiscal year 2007 for "technology necessary for robotic systems to attack tunnel complexes" and another for "microdamage technologies" for "very small robotic weapons."
The first market for Creative Robots will be the military, but given how easily this software can be transferred to other hardware, it could find civilian uses. If made available for commercial and industrial use, CSMARRT could potentially turn any robot into part of a versatile swarm intelligence capable of learning and carrying out complex physical tasks.
http://wirednews.com/news/technology/software/0,71779-0.html?tw=wn_index_2
Darpa's Grand Challenge may have looked tough, but it was a piece of cake compared to the challenge facing robots currently being developed by the U.S. Air Force.
Self-learning and adaptability will be the key to success, and this is where the Creativity Machine excels. Give it any set of robotic limbs and it will master locomotion within minutes without any programming, swiftly finding the most efficient way of moving toward a goal. It will spontaneously develop new gaits for new challenges. (Thaler recounts how a virtual robotic cockroach adopted a two-legged gait and ran on its hind legs, not unlike basilisk lizards, when it needed to move faster.)
Perhaps the most impressive -- and spookiest -- aspect of the project is the swarming behavior of the robots. In computer simulations, they acted together to tackle obstacles and grouped together into defensive formations where needed, Thaler said. They also worked out how to deal with defenders, and spontaneously devised the most efficient strategy for mapping their environment, he added.
The AFRL says it has no immediate plans to build robot hardware, and the current program is concerned only with software. However, a trawl of Pentagon budget documents turns up a number of hardware projects. One, by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which is tasked with dealing with WMD threats, commences in fiscal year 2007 for "technology necessary for robotic systems to attack tunnel complexes" and another for "microdamage technologies" for "very small robotic weapons."
The first market for Creative Robots will be the military, but given how easily this software can be transferred to other hardware, it could find civilian uses. If made available for commercial and industrial use, CSMARRT could potentially turn any robot into part of a versatile swarm intelligence capable of learning and carrying out complex physical tasks.
http://wirednews.com/news/technology/software/0,71779-0.html?tw=wn_index_2
posted by Dani @ 7:27 AM
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