Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #01945
To: James Wilson jameswilson@globalserve.net, beam@corp.sgi.com
From: Dennison dennlill@buffnet.net
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 00:41:04 -0500
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Socer bots/ Hive behaviour
I would agree. I had a sneaky suspicion about this all along, but having
built a prototype BEAM soccer bot, the obvious only becomes more so. Ideas
about mounting IR tags into the ball, and on the playing feild are all nice
ideas. But they defeat the point. You have to modify only the robot's
behaviors. You can't go and modify the environment so that the ENVIRONMENT
provokes the desired behavior from the robot. Self preservation is one
thing, and which some will argue, a very simple thing indeed. Basically we
always just do the opposite of what we were doing, as fast as possible.
Makeing a bot that Saves itself is easy. communication however with these
bots is imposible. They only 'compute' data which refers to their survival.
Anything higher level, like Working as a team seems impossible without
CPU's. Why? Becuase you have to build a working system out of individual
systems. However the individual systems are designed to be just that.
Individual. So, se va'. That basic stamp may come in handy after all.
But hey, keep trying! I'd rather be proved wrong than right.
Dennison
> This is really where the tire meets the road. The concept of Beam
>(and I'm sure if there are people out there that disagree with me they
>will tell me so) is to create robots with innate intelligence, i.e.
>humans have innate intelligence in all of our cells. They know when
>they are hungry or when they are full they can fight disease or heal
>wounds. Other examples would include placing your hand on a red hot
>oven burner and quick as lightning yoink its off then you think wow that
>was hot then you feel an adrenaline rush then comes the pain. All
>increasing in orders of though levels or processes.
> To make bots that work together weather it be as a hive or as a
>soccer team one thing is certain. Beam alone can not do it. I can
>think of only one way pure beam bots would work together but it would
>not be as a team more as a group of individuals with a common goal.
>Place an IR. tag on the 'ball', set two teams of bots after that ball.
>One team would be attracted to the ball and once they are in contact
>with the ball a new process starts move to the new IR. signal. If
>contact with the ball is lost it reverts to seek out the ball's IR.
>signature. This would end up with a Rugby like scrum occurring but
>instead of two teams opposing each other we would end up with two groups
>of like minded bots opposing each other very different.
> Thus, to make a group of bots work as a team we must give them a
>brain with higher order intelligence. Many if then else statements
>that, although could be built, are better programmed. A language that
>would be very good for this would be LISP, as it is recursive and has
>the ability to alter it self after it has been started. There are many
>old processors out there we just need to increase our knowledge base to
>incorporate innate intelligence (instinct) with higher level functions.
>Just think of the code saved already by not having to tell it how to
>walk!!!
>
>James
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