Robotic Sensory Loops and Whatnot

(via)

Which is pretty cool. They kindof need to be nuclear powered though, because I bet the battery life is dismal. Either that, or sugar-powered… and have them constantly eating stuff. Cake.

There’s quite an interesting video here:

about robotic vision using a pixel-array that does edge/movement detection rather than capturing full-frames of video (which is processor/memory expensive). Makes for far faster feedback loops. I have a vague feeling that cat-vision works a bit like this – if you keep very very still, they can’t see you. They’re kindof optimised for movement. That’s why they do that head-bobbing thing when they’re hunting. The best example I can find is a lizard doing it:

Elsewhere, Volvo are working on a thing…

… that senses when people (or whatever) are nearby, and kicks in automatic braking if there’s likely to be an accident.

What is interesting about this, is that the Conservative Fear Reflex take on robotic vehicles is “a human must always be present to take over in an emergency”, whereas this is “a robot must be present to take over from a human in an emergency”.

I think robo-vehicles will be driven by the insurance industry (which isn’t a real industry). It could be that fear of completely autonomous vehicles is overcome by auto-braking being a mandatory safety feature. So robots do a) the boring stuff and b) the scary stuff, and the gap between the two gradually closes.