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This reminds me of Rodney Brooks' (et al) work on Subsumption architecture, which I find quite enjoyable. A subset of the AI group at MIT and also some non-MIT

This reminds me of Rodney Brooks' (et al) work on Subsumption architecture, which I find quite enjoyable. A subset of the AI group at MIT and also some non-MIT people (eg, R.Beer, L.Steels) during the 1980's produced many [similar] papers that I really enjoyed. Really, ALL of the autonomous mobile robot people working with subsumption were pretty fantastic. (Also, check out the Roomba vacuum lineage) http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/ http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/ -- "Elephants..." is a simple one. Edit: (adding) If anyone in the Seattle area wants to chat about this, I can talk your ear off. I'm up for coffee/beers.

jpm_sd 4y ago
My experience has been that this architecture is really overrated. Sure, you can make an "instinctive" robot, but does it do anything useful, or just zoom around randomly like an insect? Robots are built to perform useful tasks that typically need to be precise and predictable. Two of the biggest categories of robot deployment are "lawnmower"-style operation (surveys, farming, etc.) and factory automation; what use is an unpredictable platform? Roomba's gotten its ass kicked in the market by competing products that actually map and plan, instead of chaotically bouncing around and constantly missing spots on the rug. iRobot came around to doing (some) of the same thing, but it took them years to admit that it was the right approach.
- Rediscover 4y ago
  Overrated? I believe that is appropriate if using subsumption by-itself as a higher-reasoning task. I think it is more useful at foundation/primative-level controls with other architectures above it. Eg, I want the brakes in a vehicle orchestrated by some "world-overview"/3,000-meter view but the low-level stuff handled with direct-feedback of actuation and sensor pairings.
wrycoder 4y ago
Brooks and his team developed an embedded version of lisp for robotics called L. As far as I know, it was never released publicly, though they published a paper describing it. Do you have more info on L?
- Rediscover 4y ago
  https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2949173_L_--_A_Common_Lisp_for_Embedded_Systems https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2949173_L_--_A_Comm... http://www.chuckrosenberg.com/pubpg/index.html http://www.chuckrosenberg.com/pubpg/index.html L mentioned here: http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.ps.Z http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.ps.Z or http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.pdf http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.pdf Also, see this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28831353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28831353
sitkack 4y ago
A perfect venue for this kinda thing was http://dorkbotsea.org/ http://dorkbotsea.org/ now it looks like it might be https://seattlerobotics.org/ https://seattlerobotics.org/
lioeters 4y ago
Today I learned: > iRobot Corporation is an American technology company that designs and builds consumer robots. It was founded in 1990 by three members of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, who designed robots for space exploration and military defense. > The company's products include a range of autonomous home vacuum cleaners (Roomba), floor moppers (Braava), and other autonomous cleaning devices. The founding members are: Rodney Brooks, Colin Angle, and Helen Greiner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Angle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Angle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Greiner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Greiner

jpm_sd 4y ago

My experience has been that this architecture is really overrated. Sure, you can make an "instinctive" robot, but does it do anything useful, or just zoom around randomly like an insect? Robots are built to perform useful tasks that typically need to be precise and predictable. Two of the biggest categories of robot deployment are "lawnmower"-style operation (surveys, farming, etc.) and factory automation; what use is an unpredictable platform? Roomba's gotten its ass kicked in the market by competing products that actually map and plan, instead of chaotically bouncing around and constantly missing spots on the rug. iRobot came around to doing (some) of the same thing, but it took them years to admit that it was the right approach.

Rediscover 4y ago
Overrated? I believe that is appropriate if using subsumption by-itself as a higher-reasoning task. I think it is more useful at foundation/primative-level controls with other architectures above it. Eg, I want the brakes in a vehicle orchestrated by some "world-overview"/3,000-meter view but the low-level stuff handled with direct-feedback of actuation and sensor pairings.

wrycoder 4y ago

Brooks and his team developed an embedded version of lisp for robotics called L. As far as I know, it was never released publicly, though they published a paper describing it. Do you have more info on L?

Rediscover 4y ago
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2949173_L_--_A_Common_Lisp_for_Embedded_Systems https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2949173_L_--_A_Comm... http://www.chuckrosenberg.com/pubpg/index.html http://www.chuckrosenberg.com/pubpg/index.html L mentioned here: http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.ps.Z http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.ps.Z or http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.pdf http://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks/papers/AIM-1227.pdf Also, see this discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28831353 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28831353

sitkack 4y ago

A perfect venue for this kinda thing was http://dorkbotsea.org/ http://dorkbotsea.org/ now it looks like it might be https://seattlerobotics.org/ https://seattlerobotics.org/

lioeters 4y ago

Today I learned: > iRobot Corporation is an American technology company that designs and builds consumer robots. It was founded in 1990 by three members of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Lab, who designed robots for space exploration and military defense. > The company's products include a range of autonomous home vacuum cleaners (Roomba), floor moppers (Braava), and other autonomous cleaning devices. The founding members are: Rodney Brooks, Colin Angle, and Helen Greiner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Angle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Angle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Greiner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Greiner