Page 177 - Anatomy of a Robot

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162 CHAPTER SEVEN
The following URLs describe industry initiatives that are designed to save power in
computer systems.
Mobile technology www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/
20020304comp.htm
Instant on www.intel.com/technology/IAPC/index.htm
It is a very complex task to bring the power consumption of a large computer system
way down. It’s much easier if the computer system is designed specifically for low
power. The system components probably were developed specifically for an energy-
saving situation. All the new software can be written to suit the requirements.
In PCs, the impetus for the setting of standards came from the portable PC market.
The trouble was that the entire architecture evolved from a desktop PC architecture that
had few power-saving features. As such, the design is too leaky to be useful as an
embedded design.

Energy Conservation

It makes sense to model the overall type of energy conservation states that the robot will
have. Computer companies give fancy names to these states, so I thought I would make
up my own names too. The energy control systems of computer control systems and
robots can be described using the same terms. Each energy state can be described with
a set of characteristics including how it uses and conserves energy, how the state is used,
and how the programmers interact with the software.

ENERGY PIG

This would be a robot that always runs at full throttle, whether it needs to or not.
Energy use All the lights are on and no attempt is made to conserve energy to
speak of. The computer runs full tilt all the time, and the motors are continuously
trying to servo into the right position. Most of the components are using energy
at their maximum consumption rate.
Conservation tactics No intentional energy-saving methods are designed in.
Method of powering up None exists; it’s always awake and active.
Delays The robot is always powered up, so no processing delays take place.
Special uses Since the software always runs, no restrictions are made on the
types of systems that can be created this way.