Page 17 - PDA Robotics Using Your Personal Digital Assistant to Control Your Robot

PDA 00 5/28/03 8:19 AM Page xvi
PDA Robotics
complete this project. I will also make suggestions for enhancements
and modifications to the electronic, mechanical, and software design;
enhancements that I will leave up to you to explore.
The only limit to any enhancements or changes will be that of your
imagination. This book will give you the expertise to create anything.
One of many areas that I will touch on is the smart distributed network,
where each robot can pass the information that it gains onto the “col-
lective” to be shared with other robots. For instance, if two PDA Robots
pass each other they can exchange information about a room in the
house that has been mapped, saving any duplication of effort. The
robots can synchronize to coordinate effort as well. A good example of
a coordinated autonomous effort is the idea of traffic being directed by
a computer system. In the future, I believe the key to making the world
a better place is to effectively and fully use the resources we have avail-
able. Traffic congestion on the freeways could be eliminated for years to
come without building anymore highways if it was managed properly.
Cars outfitted with sensors and wireless technology could be tied into a
central coordination system making the commute to work an enjoyable
and relaxing experience. This is something that could be achieved on a
smaller scale with this project if you take it a step further.
Artificial intelligence, self-modifying code, and the emergent behavior
of computers is a fascinating area of research that will be touched on
in this book. Emergent behavior in a system is the system’s ability to
become intelligent over and above the programming that has been
coded into it. Sometime this is seen as a behavior or unanticipated
function that is the result of the interaction between two systems. I
have seen this happen with smart digital imaging archiving software
at the medical imaging company where I currently work. One must be
careful when enabling a machine with AI to make decisions around
humans though. A “smart” robot building an office tower may decide
that the best course of action may be to remove a support beam and
put it up at a later time. But if the programmer made a mistake and
didn’t have another algorithm check the structural integrity before
approving of the decision, then the whole building would come down.
A simple coding error of “if (StructuralIntegrityOk = TRUE){
RemoveBeam(BeamNumber); }” spells disaster. The equality operator
== is mistaken for and the assignment operator =. One must ensure
that AI bots stay within safe operating parameters, are monitored
closely, and have a remote kill switch.

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