12 ms·

Infineon chip solves Rubik’s Cube in 637 milliseconds

103 points by upen 10y ago

aaron695 10y ago
Sooooo this is a hardware problem. Rubiks cubes are solved. So it doesn't have to do the 'minimum' moves as they say, might waste time working it out. But even so it probably does the minimum moves. Since I think that's mostly easy, just hard to prove. But either way, even if you add 5 moves to use a lookup table, back to hardware. For humans rubiks cubes are very easy, just memorise the instructions. Books have been out for decades. [Edit] it's interesting that they imply it might take more moves for physical reasons. Not sure if it's about destroying the cube or speed of turning.
- MertsA 10y ago
  >So it doesn't have to do the 'minimum' moves as they say, might waste time working it out. Maybe they're counting moving the top and bottom at the same time as two separate moves? I don't know why it wouldn't just be considered moving the middle but that might be what they're talking about. They mentioned that it doesn't do it in the minimal amount of moves on the basis that it would take longer so I'm assuming that's it. As far as the computational time needed to do so, it's absolutely trivial. This thing is built around a single microcontroller and it can handle 6 stepper motors, solving the cube, vision processing, and state tracking all by itself. The only thing impressive about this is how fast the cube is being manipulated but even that might not be too impressive considering the fact that they just attached stepper motors directly to the center piece of each face as opposed to using an unmodified Rubik's cube.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    >They mentioned that it doesn't do it in the minimal amount of moves on the basis that it would take longer so I'm assuming that's it. It might often be useful to spin opposite faces in different directions. Two moves by normal counting, but done in the time of one.
ntauthority 10y ago
"The microcontroller AURIX™, one of the world’s most powerful minicomputers, also contributed to the record-breaking effort: It is one of the essential elements that enable autonomous driving." I do not think the term 'minicomputer' was intended to mean... a microcontroller.
SimeVidas 10y ago
Two popups within 10 seconds. Ban that site from HN!
seesomesense 10y ago
This story is a testament to the poor quality of current journalism.
Cyph0n 10y ago
I'm kind of surprised that the fastest machine is less than 10x faster than the best human.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
13of40 10y ago
'The computing chip, or the “brain” of the machine...' Well, that's some serious 1983 Omni Magazine shit right there. (Sorry to point it out, but it just seems like maybe the sort of thing we're past having to ELI5 nowadays.)
Animats 10y ago
Fast stepper motor control was solved a long time ago, and takes little computer power. Watch this daisy wheel printer, a technology from the 1970s.[1] The print wheel is driven by a stepper motor, and for each character, it must be spun to the correct position, brought to a precision stop, and held while the hammer hits the selected letter tine. Daisy wheel printers were the first mass-market device with multiple powered mechanical moving parts coordinated entirely in software. The four actuators (daisy wheel stepper, hammer actuator, carriage stepper, and platen stepper) were connected only by electronics and software. Invented by David S. Lee. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTBM9JELUYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTBM9JELUYQ
m3kw9 10y ago
They use rubber gripper to spin each side and known algorithms to solve. The hard part is the speed of the visual recognition.
- bizzleDawg 10y ago
  Even then, this seems like a poor choice of demonstration of visual recognition capabilities since you only need to read the initial state and then adjust it when you make a move. They've used stepper motors which normally don't need feedback too, do movements can probably be done open loop. Perhaps they do only use visual feedback for determining the state, which would be a better demo, but I doubt anyone would be able know from that article!
Jun8 10y ago
I think the achievement of building a cube that can withstand such quick moves should also be mentioned.
- chadgeidel 10y ago
  Oh, wow, this is solving a physical cube.
  - conistonwater 10y ago
    I guess this mimics human competition settings: you're allowed to examine the whole cube beforehand. Figuring out any valid solution is really trivial, esp. on a computer, it's just not hard.
- Luc 10y ago
  Looks like a MoYu Weilong stickerless cube. I think it can handle that speed without modifications. Any 'legal' rotation is pretty easy on the insides, mechanically. You can adjust the tension and add some lube. It doesn't seem to do any corner-cutting in the slo-mo part of the video.
- jawbone3 10y ago
  Yeah, compare with this home made machine that solves a real rubiks cube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTddQQ2Hs4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTddQQ2Hs4
patejam 10y ago
"It takes tremendous computing power to solve such a highly complex puzzle with a machine." It doesn't. I can be done quickly on any conventional computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_solutions_for_Rubik%27s_Cube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_solutions_for_Rubik%27... The time is still impressive, but this doesn't showcase any real improvements to any technology.
- shas3 10y ago
  Infineon makes electronics for cars and such. Quite likely it is aimed at that, to showcase actuation, etc.
- SilasX 10y ago
  The article seem to be referring to the problem of manipulating a physical Rubik's cube. In that case, the bottleneck is the mechanical interaction, not the computation of the necessary steps, right? The real achievement here is the speed of robotic manipulation? It's kind of misleading to phrase it as the chip solving it, when the focus is on the actuators.
  - mpclark 10y ago
    That'll be because that's what the press release said. Any seasoned journalist would have re-nosed this story to lead on the fact that it is a machine that manipulates a physical cube very quickly and poor old Infineon would not even have got a mention.
  - user5994461 10y ago
    For the comparison, this is a ~ 6 seconds solver made up entirely of Lego NXT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=staapsj3eRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=staapsj3eRQ
  - smilekzs 10y ago
    The chip is targeting ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) applications, and I would assume that the hard part is to run vision algorithms (that is responsible for reading the cube and/or visual servo) on an automotive MCU, which almost always prioritizes safety and standard compliance at the cost of performance and has weird custom architecture (PowerPC in the auto world is already "mainstream"), at a really high frame rate.
mavhc 10y ago
Sub1 not reloaded solved in 0.887 seconds in Jan 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVF_XUccMuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVF_XUccMuo

103 points by upen 10y ago

Sooooo this is a hardware problem. Rubiks cubes are solved. So it doesn't have to do the 'minimum' moves as they say, might waste time working it out. But even so it probably does the minimum moves. Since I think that's mostly easy, just hard to prove. But either way, even if you add 5 moves to use a lookup table, back to hardware. For humans rubiks cubes are very easy, just memorise the instructions. Books have been out for decades. [Edit] it's interesting that they imply it might take more moves for physical reasons. Not sure if it's about destroying the cube or speed of turning.

MertsA 10y ago
>So it doesn't have to do the 'minimum' moves as they say, might waste time working it out. Maybe they're counting moving the top and bottom at the same time as two separate moves? I don't know why it wouldn't just be considered moving the middle but that might be what they're talking about. They mentioned that it doesn't do it in the minimal amount of moves on the basis that it would take longer so I'm assuming that's it. As far as the computational time needed to do so, it's absolutely trivial. This thing is built around a single microcontroller and it can handle 6 stepper motors, solving the cube, vision processing, and state tracking all by itself. The only thing impressive about this is how fast the cube is being manipulated but even that might not be too impressive considering the fact that they just attached stepper motors directly to the center piece of each face as opposed to using an unmodified Rubik's cube.
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  >They mentioned that it doesn't do it in the minimal amount of moves on the basis that it would take longer so I'm assuming that's it. It might often be useful to spin opposite faces in different directions. Two moves by normal counting, but done in the time of one.

ntauthority 10y ago

"The microcontroller AURIX™, one of the world’s most powerful minicomputers, also contributed to the record-breaking effort: It is one of the essential elements that enable autonomous driving." I do not think the term 'minicomputer' was intended to mean... a microcontroller.

SimeVidas 10y ago

Two popups within 10 seconds. Ban that site from HN!

seesomesense 10y ago

This story is a testament to the poor quality of current journalism.

Cyph0n 10y ago

I'm kind of surprised that the fastest machine is less than 10x faster than the best human.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

13of40 10y ago

'The computing chip, or the “brain” of the machine...' Well, that's some serious 1983 Omni Magazine shit right there. (Sorry to point it out, but it just seems like maybe the sort of thing we're past having to ELI5 nowadays.)

Animats 10y ago

Fast stepper motor control was solved a long time ago, and takes little computer power. Watch this daisy wheel printer, a technology from the 1970s.[1] The print wheel is driven by a stepper motor, and for each character, it must be spun to the correct position, brought to a precision stop, and held while the hammer hits the selected letter tine. Daisy wheel printers were the first mass-market device with multiple powered mechanical moving parts coordinated entirely in software. The four actuators (daisy wheel stepper, hammer actuator, carriage stepper, and platen stepper) were connected only by electronics and software. Invented by David S. Lee. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTBM9JELUYQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTBM9JELUYQ

m3kw9 10y ago

They use rubber gripper to spin each side and known algorithms to solve. The hard part is the speed of the visual recognition.

bizzleDawg 10y ago
Even then, this seems like a poor choice of demonstration of visual recognition capabilities since you only need to read the initial state and then adjust it when you make a move. They've used stepper motors which normally don't need feedback too, do movements can probably be done open loop. Perhaps they do only use visual feedback for determining the state, which would be a better demo, but I doubt anyone would be able know from that article!

Jun8 10y ago

I think the achievement of building a cube that can withstand such quick moves should also be mentioned.

chadgeidel 10y ago
Oh, wow, this is solving a physical cube.
- conistonwater 10y ago
  I guess this mimics human competition settings: you're allowed to examine the whole cube beforehand. Figuring out any valid solution is really trivial, esp. on a computer, it's just not hard.
Luc 10y ago
Looks like a MoYu Weilong stickerless cube. I think it can handle that speed without modifications. Any 'legal' rotation is pretty easy on the insides, mechanically. You can adjust the tension and add some lube. It doesn't seem to do any corner-cutting in the slo-mo part of the video.
jawbone3 10y ago
Yeah, compare with this home made machine that solves a real rubiks cube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTddQQ2Hs4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ixTddQQ2Hs4

patejam 10y ago

"It takes tremendous computing power to solve such a highly complex puzzle with a machine." It doesn't. I can be done quickly on any conventional computer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_solutions_for_Rubik%27s_Cube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_solutions_for_Rubik%27... The time is still impressive, but this doesn't showcase any real improvements to any technology.

shas3 10y ago
Infineon makes electronics for cars and such. Quite likely it is aimed at that, to showcase actuation, etc.
SilasX 10y ago
The article seem to be referring to the problem of manipulating a physical Rubik's cube. In that case, the bottleneck is the mechanical interaction, not the computation of the necessary steps, right? The real achievement here is the speed of robotic manipulation? It's kind of misleading to phrase it as the chip solving it, when the focus is on the actuators.
- mpclark 10y ago
  That'll be because that's what the press release said. Any seasoned journalist would have re-nosed this story to lead on the fact that it is a machine that manipulates a physical cube very quickly and poor old Infineon would not even have got a mention.
- user5994461 10y ago
  For the comparison, this is a ~ 6 seconds solver made up entirely of Lego NXT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=staapsj3eRQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=staapsj3eRQ
- smilekzs 10y ago
  The chip is targeting ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) applications, and I would assume that the hard part is to run vision algorithms (that is responsible for reading the cube and/or visual servo) on an automotive MCU, which almost always prioritizes safety and standard compliance at the cost of performance and has weird custom architecture (PowerPC in the auto world is already "mainstream"), at a really high frame rate.

mavhc 10y ago

Sub1 not reloaded solved in 0.887 seconds in Jan 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVF_XUccMuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVF_XUccMuo