🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <BBC.90May19164725@sicilia.rice.edu> Benjamin Chase <bbc@rice.edu> writes:
>My first comment is to notice that both the ASV and the CM Ambler each
>weigh in at rougly 3 tons.  You'd think that somebody could build
>something a little more, ah, nimble.  ...

Brooks at MIT seems to have a reasonable solution.  They've built a 
6 legged walker which uses a simple Algorithmic State Machine network
as the control (simulated in a single 8bit 68HC11 processor).  The 
thing they built is the size of a cat but walks and thinks very
much the way any 6 legged bio-critter does.  Modifications to the network
make it capable of handling any rough terrain.  The talk I saw said that
the work was being done for inter-stellar rovers, and a 8bit uP is 
certainly more robust and compact than the multiple high-speed 68020 
systems used in the ADF and the Ambler (hence their size?  Not the 
only consideration I know, but it seems people keep on trying to 
push AI languages onto their machines.  Whatever happened to heuristic
systems, by God?).

Brooks is more interested in making small machines, not moon-stompers.
Anybody know why this work is not in the running for space exploration?

Is all.


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