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Linux Software

Linux Powered Robots 110

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-read dept.
Al writes "We all remember RoboCup2000. LinuxWorld.com.au has an article on how Linux was used by different teams to optimise communications, hackup wavelan ethernet and build in sensory and visual intelligence to the Robots. Is it too early to ask for christmas presents?" Anyone else digging on Comedy Central's Battle Bots? I wish they'd ditch the lame sports comentary and replace it with purely technical stuff. And then watch robots smash each other. Somehow I doubt that you could build a winning battle bot based on Linux: it just strikes me that things like hard drives don't respond well to axes and chain saw blades.
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Linux Powered Robots

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  • Am I the only one that thinks that BattleBots is rather lame. Why don't they call them what they are: Radio Controlled Devices. There isn't any 'botness to them.

    Yes, this aspect of the show doesn't sit very well with me either. Most of the 'bots are simply glorified R/C cars. However, this is an amateurs competition, and if the 'bots had to recognize the other 'bots, and think for themselves we'd probably just see them wandering aimlessly in the ring for 3 minutes. It would be cool for a designer to add some very simple recognition to their 'bot, perhaps just simple IR heat-seeking. This would allow the "driver" to concentrate on deploying weapons while his 'bot automagically tracked the other 'bot.
  • You just need sensors, servos etc, datacapture / buffering and radio control stuff on the actual robot in potting compound or similar to protect it. The CPU & storage devices can sit inside the protected observation booth and just watch ;-)

  • Why OS? (Score:5)

    by zi11a ( 142239 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @05:26AM (#766709)
    Why would a battlebot type mobot (as opposed to robot) need an OS? Call me old-fashioned, but I think a microprocessor based control system for something that's essentially a fancy remote controlled car is serious overkill. This is right up there with M$ wanting your toaster to run Windows CE!!

    Now the right :) way to do it would be to give each part of the bot a simpler controller (ROM-register, or even analog design). For example, the chainsaw system would be independent of the propulsion system. Advantages would be:

    • No central 'brain' to take out. Chainsaw would still be useful if the bot was sitting in one place because the propulsion got smashed.
    • Simple controllers would be robust and allow redundancy.
    • Greatly reduced power requirements. This means power could be redirected to lugging around heavier arms and armor.
    • Cheaper. This means money could be redirected to bigger and better arms and armor.
    • This may allow the use of the coolest anti-bot weapon of them all: EMP. Crack the armor, pulse, and your opponent is disabled, or at least reset. Since your simple analog designs are basically EMP-proof, and simpler digital designs are easier to shield if they need it, you come out on top.
    The only disadvantage I can see is:
    • Need to know how to design closer to the hardware. We're talking about circuit design and control theory as opposed to C programming. EE background as opposed to CS background.
    Come to think of it, this would be a cool way to design a real robot, too.

  • ... you'll be the one burning in Hell along with the rest of the unbelievers whilst those of us who follow the true path of the Lord ascend to Heaven.

    What good will your SMP motherboards do you then eh?

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • AAAI 2000 (Score:3)

    by debrain ( 29228 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @05:30AM (#766711) Journal
    At the AAAI-2000 (Americal Association for Artificial Intelligence) conference in Austin, Tx. back in August, almost exclusively the robots were running Linux. I actually made a note of what was running what, and in a very informal poll, I found that there were significantly more Linux computers in the symposium than any other operating system. Windows was relatively common on the desktops, there were a few Macs, a couple of SGI's, and a QNX which was a real surprise, and I think a thin OS I never heard of before. I don't recall seeing a single robot running anything but Linux (or a variation of QNX, or the thin OS).

    It was actually quite encouraging to see so much acceptance of Linux. I really didn't expect it -- I asked a few people, just out of curiosity, what operating system they were running, and the more people I asked, the more positive responses I received to Linux. Anyone that really knew anything about Linux was using it. (maybe that's why they knew something about it ... ??? duh ...) But the real kicker was the overall attitude people had towards it. They just loved it. No one had techno-rage at a Linux machine. :)

  • When I saw the headline, I was hoping this article was about the amazing iRobot [irobot.com]. That's what I really want for Christmas!
  • It is one pathetic rip-off of the British Robot Wars, which was great. I stomached 5 minutes of of amateur announcers along with the crapping production and lack of continuity. Stick with the original Robot Wars. None of the lame Hollywood shit.

  • Robocup != BattleBots (Score:3)

    by pardsbane ( 234759 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @05:31AM (#766714) Homepage
    As a member of Cornell's Robocup F180 team (1999 and 2000 champions) I can say that Robocup and Battle Bots are completely different. As I understand it, Battle Bots are human controlled. I know the robots in RobotWars are. Robocup's robots are COMPLETELY autonomous. Once a game starts, team members have no control over the robots.

    In my team, we've talked/joked about entering Battle Bots, and I'm sure it would be exciting, but there is no way we would be willing to risk our robots to those saws, etc. Our robots are custom machined and incredibly expensive. (We estimate $5k a piece) There is no way we can throw that at a guy with a joystick controlled buzz-saw...

    That being said, Robocup is only getting more exciting, though I agree, we could usually do without the commentary.
  • Dunno what I'd build one on...

    But I sure would love to fight a Battle Bot based on Windows. Any version. Bring it on.
    ---------------------------
  • The possiblity of a computer driven robot beating the average human is very high. Given that is has the appropriate resources, i.e. sensors for its environment etc.

    Look at most modern jets and how they are controled at high speeds no longer exclusivly by the pilot but a mix of pilot and onboard computer.

    I think this is what most people are thinking of when they talk about running linux to control the battle bot.

    One good place I could see this improving some of the bots are the pick axe bots. I have seen a few of them on battlebots and robotwars and the biggest hampering they have is the inability to hit a target. Imagine if you had a computer and sensors that could automaticaly decide when it can get a hit and will only release then. That way every press of the button gets a hit. These bots could really do some big damage like that.
  • Has anyone thought about going out and getting tons of CueCats and riping them apart for sensors?

    Hey, it would be free, and a better use than what most people are using them for...
  • I don't see autonomy coming to BattleBots anytime soon for many reasons (technical issues, crowd appeal) but I think people might find a use for computer-assisted teleoperation; e.g. telemetry assistance or a "do-combo-move-now" button. kinda like the Quake macro someone wrote to jump and spin, fire directly behind you, keep spinning so you land facing the way you started, allowing you to fire behind your back while running away.
  • I agree. At least the robots (or RC devices as some would argue) are judged on something other than out and out smash 'em. Robot Wars is a better competition. Leave it to those Brits. I also like the house robots. Looks like they've added a new one for this season.

    They also have a pretty cool website.

  • I'd definitely see that MatchBox PC thing put to use in these robots. Using a CompactFlash drive brings the cpu-related moving parts down to zero, which yields a decently shock-resistant chunk of hardware that can then be delightfully encased in a solid cage to prevent a contender from chopping your chip in half or burning it with a flame-thrower. Throw in redundant wiring to the motors and finish off with a radio jammer to piss everyone else off =)

    "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these" - Yay, a zoo!
  • A machine with some form of intelligence would never get past the regulations. Who knows what their code will attempt to do!

    You would just need a manual override. All battlebots have to have a means of rendering them harmless from a distance anyway, so this is a non-issue.

    Rev Neh

  • Eek! Motion sensors?

    Please be very careful to make sure they are turned off before approaching them.

    chop chop chop

    "Free your mind and your ass will follow"

  • I'd like to see BattleBots category for autonomous bot 'swarms' in a mini-war kind of thing. Limit entry teams to total weight of the team. 100 BEAM analog killers vs. 4 Microprocessor-controlled Behemoth destructobots? I think that would kick ass.

  • Oh great, linux bots (Score:3)

    by AFCArchvile ( 221494 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @10:43AM (#766724)
    I can program it to get the snail mail for me, and it will respond with this:

    Exiting house...done.

    Moving down stairs...done.
    Raising arm to obtain mail... Segmentation Fault. Core Dumped.
  • I agree. An onboard computer would be best used to automate the attack sequence of the bot rather than be responsible for moving the bot into attack position.

    As far as getting a good frame rate back from an onboard cam, I would have to disagree with you. I can (occasionally) get a pretty good frame rate from a webcam via a dial up modem connection. I figure any wireless networking technology that can provide at least a modest 1mb per sec connection should be able to generate a fast enough frame rate to accomplish a decent first person perspective.

    Of course, doing this would be interesting mostly from the hack value. And yes, the cost is what would make this prohibitive.

    I would love to build something like this, but I don't want to use MY cash to do it with.
  • Sorry they thought of that already. In the rules of battle botts it forbids the use of Electronic Warfare. I am sure that they would include hacking in that description.
  • Oh My God!
    I usually don't follow links posted by ACs, but when I saw where this one pointed, I just HAD to check it out.
    And yes, I agree. That is one hell of an asshole.
  • sure, it would be a lot more interesting at first.

    They'd be unpredictable, and the onboard OS would become much more important.

    Eventually, however, they'd realize that involving humanity was an inefficient way of repoducing themselves, and they'd work to cut out the middleman.

    Eventually, they'd try to destroy us.

    Hopefully, we'd make rules that the root password for the sentient BattleBots would be something like password, and burned into the ROM, so we could just telnet in an init 6 them.

    I still get a kick out of BattleBots though. BattleBots and South Park, my Wednesday night is perfect.

    George
  • Having seen both the Robot Olympics and Robot Wars [robotwars.co.uk], on the BBC, made by the same company, I came to the opinion that AI robots built with routines in advance are tedious and dull. Robots being piloted by little (or big) kids that want to smash up the opponent robot are great fun, especially when they knacker their opponent and go after the house robots twice their size and twenty times their cost... and win.

    Even with 'advanced AI', I'd bet that most robots would spend matches searching the arena for their opponent in a weaving search pattern. Perhaps you've been playing those FPS arena games if you think AI robots would be good, because I can tell AI is rubbish in the real world.

  • http://www.jumptec.de/product/data/dimmpc/index- d.html

    It's a 486sx-66, 16M ram 16M flash.

    Or you could also go for the ucSimm which is a dragonball processor, 8 M ram i think.

    Both those systems have solid state secondary storage (boy is that a mouthfull!), and are happy running Linux.
  • is that the fights often last less then 1 minute! With three fights, that gets us up to a signal to noise ratio of 1 minute of show for every 10 minutes of commercials / stupid announcers. Even if the fights lasted the whole 3 minutes, we're talking about 3 to 10 (fights to bullshit ratio). I'll sit here and immagine a cool robot fight and get alot more satisfaction out of it :)
  • Polycarbonate sheets are the cheapest of the clear plastic stocks. Forming it can get expensive, though the parts to make a vacuum form machine are cheap enough. Love that Lexan, it's so tough.
  • Well, an OpenBSD [openbsd.org] powered robot would r00t a Linux box any time.

    You're talking about software anyway. It might be a fun challenge to write a bot that uses AI to interpret nmap results, find vulnerable daemons, then have it try to "h4x0r" other systems and learn how to break them -- it would autmatically write scripts for the kiddi3z, too!
    --

  • One more thing I forgot to mention:

    In the small sized league, about 1/2 the teams used Linux. We couldn't because our vision hardware doesn't support it, otherwise we would have.

    I think the midsized league had a higher percentage of Linux, and the SGI's that were provided for the simulation league were all running Linux... Those Sony dogs, I dunno what _they_ run!
  • ...come on out to Fear of a Bot Planet [utoronto.ca], the 6th Annual Lego Robotics competition, an unofficial, unsponsored enthusiast event...

    Yes, this is slightly offtopic, but still a lot of fun.

    Calum

  • Most of the rules limiting the fun stuff like cool electric arcs and EMP are probably because the bots are remote controlled. If they had embedded systems, it would be the designer's job to provide shielding.

    The rules preventing trip wires and nets are just silly in my opinion. Any bot using those would have to watch that it didn't entangle itself while trapping the opponent, and there is nothing stopping the others from developing defenses against nets. They might be worried that the arena sawblades would get entangled in the net wires, but that doesn't seem to be a big deal to me.

    Explosives on the other hand would probably require greater reinforcement of the arena. With proper calculation of yields I don't see that as being a problem. Oh, and flame, same thing. Make certain that if your propane tank is punctured, it won't take out spectators with shrapnel, and make certain the arena isn't flammable.

    I want battlebots to start looking like Mechwarriors!
  • Having seen both the Robot Olympics and Robot Wars, on the BBC, made by the same company, I came to the opinion that AI robots built with routines in advance are tedious and dull.

    They show Robot Wars in the US on some PBS stations. I've caught a couple of the shows and it's fun. The announcer is somewhat annoying as his excitement level is higher than the action usually warrants. But there is a soccer (football for some of you) competition using robots rather than RC that is really pretty amazing to watch.

  • So what if you incorporated some armor for the harddrives, gave it mutliple independent processing modules, and clustered them all together making the robobrain a high availability application?

    -V
  • Howdy all!

    I'll be using Linux and custom programing in C to build my R2D2 like robot.
    It will also use various PIC/etc. microcontrollers to control a few certain items.
    eventually I hope to make it more autonomous and to where I tell it where to go (via gui map) and it will get there on it's own.

    Is anyone else doing stuff like this?

    off hand I know of the various R2D2 groups, Project-Borg, etc on www.egroups.com

    Thnx,
    Fuller

    ps. my original idea was for a battle-bot but I'm beginning to edge away from that idea.
  • Its been done before. Wireless camera is mounted on the roboot and the contestant wears some Sony Glasstrons or something. Didn't work like you'd expect. You need both peripheral and first person views. Perhaps an remote mounted LCD monitor???
  • They show Robot Wars in the US on some PBS stations. I've caught a couple of the shows and it's fun. The announcer is somewhat annoying as his excitement level is higher than the action usually warrants. But there is a soccer (football for some of you) competition using robots rather than RC that is really pretty amazing to watch.

    Yep, the commentator picked the wrong week to quit sniffin' glue, but quite a few of the battles are genuinely edge-of-the-seat stuff, particularly ones with the devastatingly well engineered robots from series 3, like Razer, Hypnodisc or chaos2.

    I can remember being goggle-eyed with wonder when the original Cassius flipped itself several feet into the air and back onto its wheels. Up until then, most of the effective robots were wedges with wheels, and if you were flipped over, you had lost. All hail Rex Garrod [freeserve.co.uk], gentlemanly master robot builder!
  • When I first heard about battlebots on tv i thought it was a cool idea, from the commercials it looked like what robotwars could have become before they got that show on pbs, so i was looking forward to it, but then i realized that it's comedy central, how could they take this seriously and because of the target audience of those on comedy central, it is entirely dumbed down. They added all that commentary, bull nye and donna d'erico and not enough robot destruction.
  • They are robots, they do the work of man. A device does not have to have intelligence to be called a robot. In fact they do not need to be electric. You will see more nad more people useing MPUs on their 'bot in the future. You can not beat them for blazing reaction time on a weapon.
  • A processor could be used to control some of the weapons on the bot so the operator can worry about driving.

    Exactly. Just that a single processor isn't exactly an ideal solution - better delegate tasks to multiple (simpler) microcontrollers distributed throughout the body, with maybe one or two supervising the others.
  • After looking at:
    http://www.battlebots.com/rules.html [battlebots.com]

    I didn't see anything that would forbid some limited autonomy. EMP is banned though :-).

    The 1st person perspective would probably aid some in hitting stuff accurately - but I think this isn't done simply due to several issues:
    • cost
    • durability
    • bandwidth - these things are controlled via RF - getting a signal with visual data back with a good framerate can get pretty complicated.
    If I were to use an OS on board I would have it handle some simpler tasks - like why not have a bot with some antennae around it - when a given antennae is touched, the weapon turns to that azimuth and strikes. Or something like that. Limit switches and other kind of sensors can make the bot react MUCH quicker than most humans can in that type of environment. Something of that nature should be possible.

  • If the show is good enough for Bill Nye it's good enough for me.
  • Look it up if you want, they are robots. The do the work of man. Simple as that. And yes there is a reason to put a 'brain' in them, it would be to run the weapon or to help with guidance. The reaction time is much better than a humans. Right now autonomous robotic combat is not that interesting to see, just go to a robotic sumo event if you do not believe me.
  • I imagane that it could be loaded onto something a bit sturdier...

    Yeah, but would you want to have a chainsaw-enabled webserver running around? I don't think that's what's meant by having a secure website...

    -D

  • Yes, they're not robots (Score:3)

    by Christopher B. Brown ( 1267 ) <cbbrowne@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @07:55AM (#766749) Homepage
    The contest is certainly one of "humans versus humans," with radio-controlled "devices."

    There are several places where computer controls would be quite useful, all the same.

    For instance, if there were sensors to indicate when that slashing blade should go down so that it would only happen when the Bot "saw" another Bot in range, that would make the attacks "more accurate."

    As it stands, a whole lot of the contest comes out of how successfully the human can percieve the precise orientations and relative locations of the "Bots." If your depth perception is crummy, then the battle will go badly.

    There are other mechanisms to get to the same goal; having cameras at critical locations so that the human can see precisely what you're pointed at would "do the trick."

    But the more complex the set of things that the Bot can do, the more useful it can be to automate control over some of those things.

    Obviously it won't involve a vulnerable IDE disk drive; I'd expect such a system to use an embedded controller using rather rugged hardware. As it stands right now, if servo cabling gets cut, a Bot will be crippled, which is essentially no different.

    I agree that part of me would be more impressed if the "Bots" were truly autonomous; it is not at all obvious that that would result in entertaining TV, unless we could go a few generations further to "Robots" where the designers were essentially devoted to programming entertaining strategies.

  • Are magnets considered Electronic Warfare?

  • MAC OS X (Score:3)

    by LennyDotCom ( 26658 ) <Lenny@lenny.com> on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @04:49AM (#766751) Homepage Journal
    If someone built a Battle Bot that ran on Mac OSX
    and that bot became champion would that make
    Mac OS X the most powerful OS?

  • REDUNDANT! Mark this redundant! I said it first! Me too, me too!

    Well, I'm suprised I haven't been yet. When I posted this, there were no posts in the discussion thread yet. Of course, by the time I finished posting, 3 people seemed to have beaten me to the punch. I should've figured out that someone else would post about that.

    Such is life.
  • Thats true, computer controlled battle bots would not be very exciting yet, or rather, most wouldn't be. Hell, quite a few of the F180 robocup teams could barely move their own bots, let alone shoot the ball. (This is not intended as an insult, their research was usually very interesting) However, at least for Robocup, a good computer controlled robotic team could run circles around a team of humans controlling the robots with joysticks or gamepads or whatever.

  • Battle bots at a whole new level (Score:3)

    by smartin ( 942 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @04:52AM (#766754)
    What if the Linux battlebot was running a program that attempts to break into it's opponent electronically and defeat it by hacking it's O/S rather than smashing it with a chainsaw?
  • So, if for some bizarre reason, someone chooses to put a hard drive in their robot, why even bother with axes and chainsaws? Why not just attach a pretty strong electromagnet to your robot, and activate it when your opponent gets near? A heck of a lot more dangerous than the usual weaponry if the opposing robot relies on that HD...
  • Burn it onto an EEPROM. Of course, you'd need one of those tiny matchbox webservers [stanford.edu], and house the whole thing inside a steel box.

    Seems like it would be better to keep the Linux box on the sidelines, though.

  • What other operating system would you base a battle bot on? What the heck does the operating system have to do with the physical vulnerability of the hardware it's being run on? Linux is perfectly capable of being run on embedded systems, meaning no acceleration-vunerable moving parts, and the chips are just as safe behind a good armor plating as anything else you could come up with.

  • Huh? Hard drives? (Score:3)

    by MySamoanAttorney ( 101175 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @04:53AM (#766758) Homepage
    I don't understand Monsieur Le Taco's comment. Linux wouldn't make a winner because it runs on a hard-drive? Um, er, linux is software isn't it? I imagane that it could be loaded onto something a bit sturdier...
  • http://www.somethingawful.co m/cartoons/lf-archives.htm [somethingawful.com]

    lifted from the ever pleasing www.memepool.com [memepool.com]

  • BattleBots bite. The real deal is... (Score:3)

    by gwalla ( 130286 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @02:25PM (#766760) Homepage

    ...Survival Research Labs [srl.org]!


    ---
    Zardoz has spoken!
  • "beowolf cluster" comments... specifically... "can you imagine a beowolf cluster of these to make a true recreation of beowulf? or grendle? don't mod me down!"....

    ----

  • ...or any other eeprom microcontroller... I mean it'd be great to program your robot's brain in c, but it'd prolly be easier to write 16f84...
    Besides, most likely you'd end up having a pic for each function (hey, they're $5, why not?), so your robot would still be partially functional if it took damage..

    Besides, how much would it cost for a 2mb flash rom and related paraphenalia?

    I imagine these things wouldn't live very long... what with the chainsaws and all... and you know, 386's are getting hard to find these days...
  • I'm wondering how long it'll take for Embedded Linux to work it's way onto the robots themselves.
    Although they most likely have hand crafted embedded code for maximum responsiveness on the robot at present, there is no reason why another layer can't be added for extensibility. The whole variety or routines provided by a mature kernel would certianly be useful at least in the concept stage. Then the dedicated routines abstracted out to increase performance.
  • Somehow I doubt that you could build a winning battle bot based on Linux: it just strikes me that things like hard drives don't respond well to axes and chain saw blades.

    Can you say 'EMBEDDED'?
  • ...Jonathan Pearce does the commentary.

  • Hard Drives? (Score:3)

    by Valdrax ( 32670 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @04:56AM (#766766)
    Who says you need hard drives? Just use Flash RAM to hold the system. There are ways around most normal system considerations, but they're usually expensive. Of course, this isn't a hobby for cheapskates. Just how much do those Lexan exteriors that some of the bots on Battlebots use cost?

  • Linux powered robots! God forbid, when will the blasphemy end? Here we have a perfect example of why the End Times are upon us and the horseman are saddling up in the stables of Hell, ready to unleash their doom upon the unsuspecting hordes of atheists, scientists and sodomites who mock the word of the Lord.

    Firstly, these robots are attempts my men to imitate the Lord as creator of life. But, as all decent Christians know, only the Lord can give life to the inanimate, and so these "robots" are doomed to remain shambling creatures devoid of the Lord's divine grace.

    Secondly, these creatures are being controlled by Linux, an operating system developed under a Communistic regime that is offensive to true Christian beliefs. The communists were all atheists who were led astray by the Devil from the path of righteousness into the cold, mechanical abyss of the factory and the moral dangers of "mass production". Anyone can see Linux is following the Communists down this slippery slope to hell.

    I implore all decent Christians to wake up and realise that this isn't "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters", it is instead one of the Signs revealing to us that Armageddon is here. I shall await the Lord's coming, and I urge all Christians to do the same.

    ---
    Jon E. Erikson

  • Yes, they've had a couple seasons of it, and it is sooo much better than Battle Bots it's unbelievable, and it's hosted by what's his name from Red Dwarf.. :)

  • Building a better battlebot. (Score:3)

    by FPhlyer ( 14433 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @05:11AM (#766769) Homepage
    How about the minds here at Slashdot getting together to actually design a robot to go into the ring on Comedy Central?

    Here is my concept: A bot that is controlled by both remote control AND an onboard computer system. The onboard system would have a connection to the controller's laptop via wireless networking. Place a "quickcam" on the bot so the controller gets video feedback from the ring (one of the big problems that I have seen on the show is when the robot is turned around opposite to the person controlling it, the person in control has difficulty handling the reversal in the controls.

    The answer is to give the person in control a first person perspective.

    Then setup the keybindings on the laptop to be the same as those used in Quake. And give the bot a chainsaw.

    You would then have the ultimate bot/human interface because the human would be adapted to the controls through years of training for deathmatches in Quake.
  • Yes, it is true that the commentary (I use the term losely here) is almost inconceivably lame. However, I must strongly disagree about Linux not being possible. Besides the embedding possibilities, the fact is that the robots are remote controlled. The only "computer" inside them is the receiver. Hence, the Linux box would actually be best on the sidelines, connected to a transmitter. Of course, it would be overkill unless you gave it AI and sensors so it could respond on its own (much faster that way). Personally, I think they need to put more battles per episode and less moronic babbling and stupid questions. BTW, did you know that the rules prohibit any non-direct weapons? No fire, no electricity, no heat, no liquids (including liquid nitrogen), no projectiles (unless tethered and retrievable), and no powered flight (although non-powered flight is permitted, even though bots of this nature would have to be too flimsy to do any damage to their opponent).
  • After having watched the show, anyone should notice that the "battlebots" are nothing more than nifty remote controlled cars with the ability to destroy things.

    There is no point to running linux (or any os for that matter) on a system that can be controlled with a RC car remote. Humans can drive robots much better than a "robot" could.

    I would really like to see the Lego wars on TV, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon.

    A bunch of us geeks at my company are building battle bots (built with legos only) and hope to do the same sort of thing, but with the mindstorm controling it, instead of humans.
  • You obviously don't watch robocup. Sure the walkers, and abio's are slow and dull due to mechanical limitations, but (and I forget with "class" these are) the little cube guys are quick and very cool to watch.

    And, while I'm posting, I highly doubt that battle bots have ANY operating system at all. I'm sure they're all hardware.
  • Come to think of it, this would be a cool way to design a real robot, too.

    Not really. Would be too inflexible, nearly impossible to upgrade or fix bugs.

  • ... and have those bots duke it out on different terrain -- anything from 56k of bandwidth over a modem to modem connection to an T3 link, with each "bot" behind a firewall. Just imagine the carnage over a Gigabit switched LAN!

    Man, I can't remember to finish a thought at
    --

  • Battlebots itsn' aimed exclusively at geeks. They're aiming on taking out wrestling, which caters to a much broader audience. A before you go around saying a Linux powered robot is better than human controlled one, why don't you write the AI with sensor processing algorithms and prove it! Its alot harder than you think. It's not like writing AI for Quake. I could give you all the CPU resources in the world and it probably won't be enough. Then your component will watch with glee as your confused little bot gets itself pushed into a corner and get the living fuck beat out of it. Have fun...
  • "I think a microprocessor based control system for something that's essentially a fancy remote controlled car is serious overkill."

    I disagree. A processor could be used to control
    some of the weapons on the bot so the operator can
    worry about driving. A processor could be used
    to help drive it as well (example: the processor could be used to keep the bot pointing it's best side toward the enemy while you are operating it.)

    It could also help avoid the traps in the arena.

    Some of the above could also be some with simple
    electonics but using a processor would help you
    be able to fine tune it faster and be able to change settings quickly for differnt matches.

  • You're going to make me buy a Mindstorms.

    Since I don't have one, I was thinking of trying to use my Lego motors to do this, well, I only have one Lego motor, I have to get some ZNap kits to buy more.

    Please, keep me informed about this, put up a web page and send it in as a Slashdot Quickie.

    Thanks,

    Georgeha
  • I've not seen Battlebots, due to being on the wrong side of the Atlantic, but I have seen quite a bit of Robot Wars, and have seen some of the specification that need to be adhered to.

    Due to UK health-and-safety regulations, there are many constraints on competing machines. Each machine must be passed fully prior to competing. For example, electrical devices must have some form of isolation switch installed.

    A machine with some form of intelligence would never get past the regulations. Who knows what their code will attempt to do!

  • Right. Well, I didn't say anything about wearing any kind of head mounted display. What I am trying to describe is using a laptop as the remote controller for the bot.

    This would give the controller the full ability to look up from the controls and see where his/her bot is located spacially in the arena, as well as the ability to control movement based on a first person view.

    If you have ever used a remote control toy, you know how hard it can be to control one when it gets turned around (suddenly turning right on the control stick makes the vehicle take a visual left turn {left to viewer, but still right from the vehicles perspective}).

    This is seen in almost every match on "Battlebots". The robot appears to make the exact opposite move then the one that would allow it to deliver a "killing blow". All because the person in control is controlling the machine from a third person view.

    Incidently, I would agree that in many ways, the "Battlebots" program on comedy central is a bit lame. Too many commercials and commentary and not enough action. However, programs like this are rare, and that alone makes it fun to watch.

    Why don't they come out with a competition where the robots have to do something constructive... like collecting tennis balls or something? Ohh... never mind.

  • dadcal (Score:1)

    by jrb04 ( 13035 )
    In my Software Engineering class, which is actually a progression of 2 classes to make one year long class, we are coding on a robot that runs linux. The system wouldn't work for a battle bot since a laptop just sits on the robot. That wouldn't be hard to take out. Knock off the laptop, slice the serial connection and the thing is essentially dead. But it is cool in that it uses sonar to detect motion. Currently it only heads for the motion and plays a soundbyte "Want a cookie?". It's a butler robot, but with the motion detection and a shotgun this thing would kick ass in battlebots. :) Easy changes to the code too. Take out the play_soundbyte() and replace it with fire_shotgun(); All we need it armor plating and to get rid of the laptop.

    I always thought the remote controlled part of battle bots ruined it. A robot that uses software to control it would be much cooler. I imagine it would also take care of the robots with swinging arms NEVER hitting anything. As quake bots have shown us, software aims much better than a person can. Of course the robots may spend the whole match blasting the stupid buzz saws with its shotgun.

  • And this would be different than a MS OS how???

  • Subsumption architecture (Score:3)

    by WillWare ( 11935 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @06:20AM (#766782) Homepage Journal
    Rodney Brooks [mit.edu] has been working on his Cog [mit.edu] project for the last several years, but before that he worked on a very similar idea to yours, called the subsumption architecture [umich.edu]. A good quick overview can be gotten from one of Brooks's early papers, Elephants Don't Play Chess [mit.edu].

  • Well, if they've got a good enough heat sink, perhaps have a snowball fight.

  • Somehow I doubt that you could build a winning battle bot based on Linux: it just strikes me that things like hard drives don't respond well to axes and chain saw blades.

    Why use hard drives at all? Why not put the whole thing -- OS and software and all -- on ROMs? It's cheaper, less likely to get badly damaged, and execution time goes up.



    The Tyrrany Begins.... [fearbush.com]

  • Did ya hear him pronounce "subliminal" regarding the RATS commercials?

    "Sub limin able"

    Doh, when I heard that I thought perhaps he had never even heard the word before. And he wasn't *reading* from a script. This guy may have gone to Yale, but he doesn't appear to smart (and I just might vote for him cause Gore is a spendocrat).
  • The biggest difference with BBC's Robot Wars was that in 30 minutes, they had 14 battles! It's hard to sit through a single battlebots episode, just to watch 3 battles. Less talk, more machine bits scattering all over!
  • Working at a robotics company, I can tell you exactly why Linux runs on so many RoboCup (and AAAI) robots: It's free. You see, the vast majority of the customers of robots are academic universities, all of whom want a discount, because they're running on a tight budget. The hardware on robots (especially mobile robots) can get real exepnsive, real quick. If the job can be done with a free OS, it will be.

    Don't get me wrong, Linux is my favorite OS, and I think it's great that it is used on robots, but it isn't like it is used simply because it is inherently better for the job. It is used because it does the job for the right price.
  • "Quickcam?" With the framerates you'd need for good control, why not just use a tiny TV camera? They can be had with transmitter for $250-$500, depending on size, broadcast power, and BW/color. If you still want it on your laptop to control via keyboard & mouse, use a TV tuner card.
    Personally, if I were building one of these, I'd have a camera on it anyway, and try to get the broadcast company to sponsor me (these beasts are not cheap). -- Joel
  • The 'Sarcaster 2000' (recently upgraded to 2001) a character in my online editorial comic series Totalitarian Burger [unquietmind.com] has run on Linux [unquietmind.com] since the first of the year.

    OK, so it's not a real robot, but still...

  • Battlebots only recently became a Comedy Central property. It has been a regular on most PBS affiliates for some time now, with an entirely different (read: more intelligent) cast. Also, last year's Battlebots championship was carried on the computer network ZDTV (now TechTV). Commentary was provided by ZDTV's own thoroughly geeky staff. Comedy Central, while enjoyed by many geeks (including myself), caters mainly to a different audience. They must convince this audience that robots are cool with sports-like commentary and a hot blonde (gee, no one's thought of that before), whereas geeks are already set on this point, and want to hear something a little more in depth than Bill Nye's blurb.

    So what can be done? I suggest that someone set up a streaming media radio station and give us some live commentary every wednesday night. Most teams have websites with plenty of background information, so that shouldn't pose a problem. So, who wants to do it?
  • That sucker would corrupt it's system the second you tried to do something usefull.

  • My only prob with BattleBots (Score:5)

    by Misfit ( 1071 ) on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @04:56AM (#766792)
    is that they are not robots. They're just remote controlled machines. It's still a great show, but I'd be more impressed if they had a mind of their own and not controlled by a human.

    Misfit
  • I would enter a robot that runs Windows. The let it run amok, then crash.
    .
    ..
  • It sure would add an extra dimension to CRobots.

    Has anybody seen a TV series called 'Robot Wars' on BBC2? (in the UK)
  • As a software developer for the Dutch Robocup team, I participated in the European Robocup Championship. The winners of last year's Robocup World Cup were the Iranian team, who were invited to join the european championship, which they also won.

    Their low-budget hardware design (mostly plastics and wood) was very ingenious: because of the way the wheels turned, the robot was able to rotate around a point some 30 centimeters in front of the robot, where the ball would be. This made it possible to make fast turns without losing the ball.

    The vision system used ordinary VHS videocameras, in which they actually put a tape to be able to analyze the game later on. The brains of these bots were motherboards of old '386 desktop machines, running MS-DOS and the soccer software off of a single high-density floppy drive! No team scored a goal against the Iranian team.

    The robot I've worked on for the dutch team ran a rather bloated RedHat 6.2 distro on an on-board pentium (don't remember the exact specs). We had a wavelan wireless ethernet interface to communicate with the robot, and to view the diagnostics interface when the robot was running. The software is written in C++. The software uses different layered behaviours, not unlike Rodney Brooks' subsumption architecture. When the conditions for a certain behaviour are met, the behaviour takes control of the actuators. For example, there is an 'emergencybrake' behaviour that sets the speed of the wheels to 0 when the robot suddenly sees an object (other than the ball) in front of it. Other behaviours include driving around looking for the ball and scoring a goal. The software had some problems, mainly because before the tournament, we haven't been able to test the robot in an actual soccer game, but these were mostly fine-tuning problems in the behaviours. The overall architecture worked very well.

  • I like to see things like this. It showcases linux as a truly usable option for high tech projects. Another things it show how once the flexibility of in trouble shooting problems.
  • Am I the only one that thinks that BattleBots is rather lame. Why don't they call them what they are: Radio Controlled Devices. There isn't any 'botness to them.

    Luckly for me I have Tivo and watch the whole show in 9 minutes (3 bouts, max 3 minutes each).

    Didn't the NASA channel have a bot's competition where they really were robots (no human intervention)?
  • _Every_ BattleBot has some some of uPC for a central "brain". Linux runs very well on embedded systems, I have a 386 SBC that is about 3"x4" with a 16MB flash drive. It's got a 10BaseT NIC on-board and a handful of I/O lines. You could easily hide this thing behind a bit of steel or aluminum armor.

    On a related topic, if linux and embedded PC's became more popular, you could write a daemon that could listen for RF from/to the competitors 'bot and then send out erroneous commands. It could conceivably be possible for your 'bot to control the other 'bot.

    I agree that the sports commentart sucks on BattleBots, and they show the same episode too many times, so my Tivo has 5 instances of the same show...

  • It would work, but such would be violating the rules...

    It states in the Battlebot rules [battlebots.com] (Section 11.2) that there can be no RF jamming, nor electricity used as a weapon.

    Personally, the thought of dropping a tesla coil on a bot, and having the output coil sent through two robot arms (which you drive over and put your opponent between) really appealled to me... Or perhaps a shot of EMP....

  • I dont know if you guys have ever downloaded the BattleBots Rules PDF document but,you should probably be aware that it's as anti-geek as it can be! The only weapons available are fit for medieval armies. Blades, tethered missiles only,and crushing devices form the arsenal for these robots.

    Lasers, stun-like devices, electricity, radio jamming interference, heat and other geeky weapons are forbidden.

    You can't advance the art of robotic combat with this, can you?

    Let's start our own robo war stuff. No weels. No phisical contact allowed. Just pure nerd stuff, like melting your oponent using microwaves.
  • Armageddon is here. I shall await the Lord's coming, and I urge all Christians to do the same.

    When he does come, can you ask Him to bring along SMP motherboards for the Athlon. we've been waiting a long time, after all.

  • I have an eerie feeling (especially since this is on Comedy Central and not say... Discovery or something similiar) that not only do some people out there like the nasty, scary, irritating commentators (for the record I state any sports commentator really). Comedy Central is trying to make this appeal to people as a sport, not a fun geek pasttime. If they did they'd most likely lose a number of viewers who don't get the tech side of things and would proceed to mock the silly geeks and thier wussy robots, crack open another beer and turn on some football.

    As for the issue of time I don't see any way to lengthen fights aside from allowing in more robots (teams or something although a free-for-all might be interesting). When you get something being smacked with a hammer or a chainsaw or what have it's pretty hard to keep it together. The only other solution is to make the bots so strong that they're neigh invulnerable and the round lasts forever and the bots cost too much to let into the arena. That said BattleBots the show will probably die out after this season as the novelty wears off, the geeks stop watching b/c of the commentators and the unwashed masses go back to football or whatever other sport they enjoy. A shame too... this could be really fun on a more amateur level.

  • My own Linux powered robot: the "Slashbot" (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20, 2000 @05:19AM (#766804)
    I have recently built a Linux powered robot, which I named the "Slashbot" in honour of Slashdot's zealous Linux community. Although the Slashbot is able to do many robot tasks such as walking (although it doesn't like to go outside - it prefers to sit in front of the computer. It may be afraid of the opposite sex or daylight) and manipulating objects (it has a special penchant for manipulating its own phallus), I am particularly proud of my Slashbot's artificial intelligence.

    The Slashbot has a very advanced artificial intelligence, and it has even come close to passing the Turing test on several occasions. When humans are presented with text output from the Slashbot, it initially appears as if the text was produced by an intelligent lifeform. However on closer inspection, it can be seen that the Slashbot achieves it's pseudo-intelligence by recycling a series of tired old arguments such as "information wants to be free" and "many eyes make bugs shallow". Detailed analysis of the Slashbot's literary compositions show that the Slashbot is nothing but an over-opinionated, insecure, self-righteous bore.

    My Slashbot can also interpret and respond to text-based information which is supplied to it. Unfortunately, I have been unable to train the Slashbot to stop responding to blatant "troll" input. If I feed the Slashbot data of a form such as "Security is only possible through security", my Slashbot is unable to resist outputting a tedious monolgue detailing the flaws in my argument. I have been unable to stop the Slashbot responding to troll input, even by applying "YHBT YHL HAND" input during the neural network training. A Sourceforge page for the Open Source Slashbot project can be found here [yhbt.org].

    Thank you.

  • If you ran Windows on your box, it wouldn't even need to defeat the other bots. It would just absorb them, and become stronger.

    Of course, that strategy would only work for a little while. Eventually your robot would become so bloated that it could easily be defeated by a smaller, nimbler bot.

  • I too was disappointed when I first saw BattleBots, because it was really just fancy, expensive remote-control toys. Hell, the guys here at work do the same thing with their RC trucks in the parking lot at lunch.

    The fact is, though, that a fully-autonomous robot deathmatch would not be entertaining to the masses. I dont think the technology is there yet for robots to take in the intelligence, and sensor data, that would lead to an exiting match, with novel tactics, or reasonable reaction times. Sometimes, these machine-controlled robots have crashes, or their program goes into the weeds, or a sensor fails, and the thing will just sit there, or wander off aimlessly, or spaz-out. Perhaps in a few years, computer-controlled combatants will outpace human-controlled (it will probably be cool to see human controlled vs. machine controlled competition for a while, but eventually, the technology will get to the point where a human wont stand a chance, as in chess).

    Until then, we have the initial thrill of battle bots, and I'm sure if the ratings slip, they'll start having the builders do things to the designs of their bots like, pyrotechnics, fluids that can leak, ablative armor. They can just escalate that stuff one gimmick at a time to keep the audience interested. But one day, there will be a contestant that is not radio controlled. That will be the day that most of us here on /. will find this show truly entertaining. Then, it won't just be the physical engineering that we'll find interesting, it will be the programming, and the processing hardware and sensor equipment, and strategies employed to defeat the programming, and sensor equipment of the opponent.

    On the Skywalker Ranch where the Storm Trooper Posse says:

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