Intel combines Robots, WLANs, and Linux 62
An anonymous reader writes "This article by a researcher in Intel's Emerging Platforms Lab details some of Intel's current research into wireless, mobile robotics technology. A key goal of the effort, according to the article, is to efficiently combine the two technologies -- mobile robotics and wireless networks -- so that mobile robots can serve as gateways into wireless sensor networks.
The Intel project is providing robotics researchers with a robotics development package that includes standardized silicon, a Linux-based open-source operating system, and open-source software drivers for robotics applications. Additionally, Intel has released a test version of a technical library for building Bayesian networks, which will help advance the ability of robots to navigate their environments, and pilot systems based on Intel's open-source packages are already being deployed in a variety of flexible environments in agricultural, security, and military applications."
Research cool, not consumer cool (Score:5, Insightful)
So everyone's first instinct is to make some disparaging remark about how combining buzzwords --> profit!!!! I don't think that's what this is about. This has nothing to do with consumers, and presumably therefore little in the way of profit for Intel. This is about adapting a consumer technology for a research area in a highly useful way.
Mobile robotics has been hard hit recently, when one of the main companies making robots (Nomadic Technologies) was acquired by 3COM in 2000 for their wireless networking technologies. Obviously 3COM had no interest in research robots that cost thousands but sell only hundreds of units. Since then there's been a bit of a hole in the market for somebody to sell prepackaged wireless robot stuff to researchers, especially those that work in the software/AI/algorithms end of things don't care to spend effort developing hardware.
Intel's Centrino blah blah is supposed to make connected mobile computing easy and increase battery life. Well guess what drives my ancient Nomad Scout robot? A laptop connected to the robot's power supply in a hack'd fashion, communicating using a USB-driven RF link. This platform could have saved a couple of months development of things which aren't exactly shining examples of engineering anyway.
This hardware isn't the sort of thing that the average /.'er is going to drool over and plot how to justify purchasing it to their spouse. But it is very useful for the couple of thousand mobile robotics researchers around the planet.