6 ms·
"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: htt
by 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 agoInfineon makes electronics for cars and such. Quite likely it is aimed at that, to showcase actuation, etc.
- SilasX 10y agoThe 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 agoThat'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 agoFor 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 agoThe 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.
- patejam 10y agoYou don't need "vision algorithms". Just average the color of a couple of pixels per square. The cube is always in the same place, no need to do anything fancy.
- Waterluvian 10y agoFlat colours in a 3x3 matrix? It's as if computers were meant to handle and manipulate data like that.
- paulmd 10y agoTechnically 6x3x3 but true. ;)
- Waterluvian 10y agoYou are the best kind of right.
- taneq 10y agoIt's an advertorial for Infineon.
- saulrh 10y agoThey didn't even improve actuation. Instead, they appear to have used a specially-constructed cube (no doubt designed to be suited for their machine) and literally bolted their actuators to the center caps. I'd like to see them do this with an unmodified vanilla cube like the other cube-solving machines I've seen. If you want impressive actuators, check out modern pick-and-place machines [1]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8qkaTsr2_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8qkaTsr2_o
- eridius 10y agoLuc suggests that it looks like an off-the-shelf cube: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12935104 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12935104
- saulrh 10y agoHmm, I guess that that's not a factor, then. Bolting the caps to the actuators was the bigger trick anyway. Compared to cages or grippers, dramatically reduced inertia and much stiffer, so less damping required and it's easier to dump energy back into the actuators. I'm half-tempted to call that "cheating", but I don't know what the actual rules are - I doubt that this robot can "put down" or "pick up" the cube in less than a minute or two. The older version had the cube actually soldered in.
- rimantas 10y agoIt is not a new idea and now need to bolt anything, just drill some holes: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/watch-worlds-fastest-rubiks-cube-robot-solve-puzzle-just-one-second-1539934 http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/watch-worlds-fastest-rubiks-cube-ro...
- mplewis 10y agoConfirmed – I have a MoYu Weilong stickerless at home. It looks identical to this cube.
- nom 10y agoAlso, for awesome actuators, check out flying probes. Here a video from 2008, I think it's not sped up but I can't confirm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHsZQ1WiojE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHsZQ1WiojE edit: here a better impressions of flying probes, but not as fast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjmjYVNuLEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjmjYVNuLEE
- Kenji 10y agoYeah, very true. The algorithm to solve the cube is simple. The accomplishment here is the mechanical part.
- matheweis 10y agoI think the image recognition part is fairly impressive too. At 60 fps, unless you're streaming subframe data you're looking at around 160ms ms per frame, and that's not counting any time for image processing. (Presumably they could cheat by looking at the cube beforehand, but it sounds like a realtime thing)
- gohrt 10y agoRecognizing 48 colored dots in parallel in 160ms is not hard.
- wmf 10y agoYou mean 16 ms per frame?
- dogma1138 10y ago60fps is 16ms per frame.
- matheweis 10y agoGah yes, don't know where that extra zero came from!!
- mpclark 10y agoDoes it need to look at the cube again after it has observed the starting position?
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoNo. More accurately - probably not. It depends how the actuators work and whether they include optical monitoring of the twist. If so, the solution won't need to monitor the colours, but it will need to make sure the actuators spin the sides accurately. Otherwise - cube explosion.