3 ms·

I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for cer

by _bxg1 7y ago

I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for certain dystopian scenarios.

leggomylibro 7y ago
The ones in the article look like they're basically photocells which get activated by lasers to move the 'legs'. At that scale, you probably couldn't have much battery power either. Maybe it'd be possible to power a small microcontroller off of radio signals which also send instructions. They wouldn't need to be very "smart" as long as something else in the room was, like a phone or router or something.
- _nalply 7y ago
  When I looked at the animated picture I wondered about the flashing dots on the circuit till I realized that these are probably reflections of the laser beams directed onto the microbot.
Zenst 7y ago
A cluster brain/Hive mind would be one option and splitting the brain across several robots. However - No need to have the computing/brain in the robot at all. Equally a group of these robots sharing sensor data would make some central processing design even more suitable and allows the robots to not be limited by just their own sensors. So many upsides with that aspect. Onboard you would need very limited processing and wireless comms and that would be it, all the intelligence can then be offloaded and would also make such robots cheaper and less energy dependant. More so as with lower power usage, wireless powered becomes much easier, as well as offer a wireless communication channel using ambient backscatter.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
A simple one. With robots this size, you'd want to rely on numbers, not smarts. Kind of like life does at cellular and sub-cellular level - things don't think much, but they sure do bump into each other frequently, and there's a lot of them.

3 ms·

I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for cer

by _bxg1 7y ago

I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for certain dystopian scenarios.

leggomylibro 7y ago
The ones in the article look like they're basically photocells which get activated by lasers to move the 'legs'. At that scale, you probably couldn't have much battery power either. Maybe it'd be possible to power a small microcontroller off of radio signals which also send instructions. They wouldn't need to be very "smart" as long as something else in the room was, like a phone or router or something.
- _nalply 7y ago
  When I looked at the animated picture I wondered about the flashing dots on the circuit till I realized that these are probably reflections of the laser beams directed onto the microbot.
Zenst 7y ago
A cluster brain/Hive mind would be one option and splitting the brain across several robots. However - No need to have the computing/brain in the robot at all. Equally a group of these robots sharing sensor data would make some central processing design even more suitable and allows the robots to not be limited by just their own sensors. So many upsides with that aspect. Onboard you would need very limited processing and wireless comms and that would be it, all the intelligence can then be offloaded and would also make such robots cheaper and less energy dependant. More so as with lower power usage, wireless powered becomes much easier, as well as offer a wireless communication channel using ambient backscatter.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
A simple one. With robots this size, you'd want to rely on numbers, not smarts. Kind of like life does at cellular and sub-cellular level - things don't think much, but they sure do bump into each other frequently, and there's a lot of them.