Posted on 11/01/2003 2:28:58 PM PST by John Jorsett
NEW YORK (UPI) - Tiny mobile robots zipping through the wilderness on cables could monitor endangered species discreetly and analyze environmental chemistry linked to global climate.
The robot networks, strung on their steel webs, also could screen urban streams for pollutants and germs and probe bridges for cracks. The little machines could even help archaeologists explore ancient sites while minimizing damage to precious artifacts, and any data they collected could be beamed, wirelessly and instantaneously, to public Web sites for researchers and students to analyze.
"We would like, in particular, to enable students in grades 6 to 8 to participate," Bill Kaiser, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a developer of the mobile robot sensor concept, told United Press International. "On a given day, a class could reach in and view things, maybe even take control and do their own measurements, take their own images - be there for that day," he said.
Kaiser and his colleagues have been testing prototypes of the robot networks over the past year.
Though fixed sensors can gather an incredible variety of data, such as video images and sounds, as well as water vapor, sunlight, heat and chemistry readings, "scientists do need to be able to explore a three-dimensional environment, including the regions in-between the trees and above the surface," Kaiser explained. He added it could prove difficult or impractical to deploy many fixed sensors to monitor a site adequately. But the new, networked, infomechanical systems, or NIMS, can travel along a light, easily deployed network of cables to make the most of their capabilities.
"Another advantage they have is the ability ... to collect a physical sample, and then return that sample to a repository for subsequent analysis," Kaiser said. Though the robot's sensors might not be keen enough to spot a small concentration of germs in water, it could detect events linked to such microbes, such as changes in water flow or color.
After completing a rough NIMS prototype after only three months of work last year, in September Kaiser and his team field-tested a fully-loaded version, equipped with a rotatable camera, a wireless Internet connection and sensors it can drop down and via cable swoop back up to measure temperature, humidity, sunlight and gather water or air samples. The prototype is designed to get power from solar power generators on the cable itself. It generally travels at a leisurely pace of roughly 20 feet per minute, although a NIMS can travel up to 20 miles per hour if necessary.
"Its similarity to a spider is very strong," Kaiser said.
The federal National Science Foundation has awarded Kaiser $7.5 million to continue his NIMS work. Over the next five years, Kaiser and his UCLA colleagues plan to build 100 of the robots. Next spring, they plan to deploy a prototype in the James Reserve in California's San Jacinto Mountains, the home of 50 endangered species. He said they anticipate completing a fully sustainable system in March that can operate for about one year outdoors.
"The societal, technological and economic impact is that in this ever-complex, rapidly changing, environmentally degrading world we're in, we need every trick in the book to keep tabs on how things are transforming," James Reserve director Michael Hamilton told UPI. "NIMS is a robotic sentry that can augment what a human expert will be able to do."
Although people tend to mention the "Big Brother" aspect of the robots' surveillance work, Hamilton said, "I don't think any of the animals I study (would) care. The whole point of this is to not disturb animals. It's a lot more intrusive to catch an animal and tie a band to it than to monitor it without its knowledge - which these robots allow us to do."
No center fire cartridges, except shot guns, or wire cutters allowed.
A family sport since the bots are slow and numerous.
Bot Limits?
How does one know we live in a environmentally DEGRADING world ?
Every TRICK in the book indeed!
"Plastic pie, plastic pie,
Shot a spastic in the eye.
Jesus heal'd that spastic's eye!
Pretty, pretty plastic pie."
Do the robots sing, we cry?
Sing unbounded in the trees?
Robots sing, and robots fly,
Flying, singing in the breeze:
"Pretty, pretty plastic pie,
Much more fun than just plain pie.
Me, oh my, oh why can't I
Have a pretty piece of pie?"
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