36 iRobot Create Robots clustering boxes, 10 x speed

To demonstrate emergent clustering / construction, we placed 36 Create robots in an arena with their packing boxes, running their default demo program.

The movie is at 10x speed, and shows 20 minutes of real time in 2 minutes.

http://autonomy.cs.sfu.ca

Copyright 2007, Richard Vaughan. Thanks to Jens Wawerla and Pooya Karimian.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• robot
• Autonomy
• Laboratory
• iRobot
• Create
• multi-robot
• clustering
• demo
• box
• pushing
• Vaughan

[fergiefart2]

Wow! 2 minutes and 2 seconds of iRobots ramming into boxes!

[autonomylab]

Did you observe what happened to the boxes? Is it what you would have expected?

[Linuxeyes]

Imagine how much more efficient it would be if they were programmed to avoid each other.

[autonomylab]

Unfortunately it's not just a matter of programming. The robots only have bump sensors. To avoid each other they would need some sensors to detect each other at a distance. The robots would also have to be able to see the difference between robots and boxes, so they could avoid robots and push boxes. So even adding such an apparently simple feature is quite complex - this is very common in robotics.

[sweavo]

Is this anything more than a warm gas expanding and pushing a cool gas out? Or poured sand forming a cone? i.e. this "emergent behaviour" is nothing more than physics, is it? Like saying it's emergent behaviour for a clockwork mouse to fall off a table.

?

[MucusFelidae]

Molecules build a crystal.

[BIG96SMOKE]

I don't know why, but that was hilarious.

[shadeydave]

That is cool. I especially liked the way all the boxes lined up parallel to the walls. And how they eventually found equilibrium. Crazy. Yet more evidence suggesting that consciousness is an emergent property of neurons.

[GunnarBiorn]

@autonomylab I expected the boxes to line up. Instead they were pushed into somewhat regular shapes. Also did the iRobots stop moving? The video simply stopped. What happened after it ended? Did the robots achieve some goal and stop moving and expending energy, or did they keep on aimlessly moving around?

[Pilkingtube]

If nothing else, you've probably got the cleanest section of floor in the world now

[RKMultiMedia87]

loool nice!!!

[autonomylab]

Sure. Shaking a box of rocks of various sizes will sort them by size, smallest on the bottom, biggest on top. This local increase in order is paid for thermodynamically by requiring energy input from outside (the shaking) which increases disorder elsewhere. It's quite easy to find examples like this. Evolution is an important example.

[sweavo]

good point. sediment settles in a glass, but that's not the same as this as there's no analogy to gravity here. Thanks for the thought.

[bfdpowers]

I don't know about that. Have you every seen anything is physics go from a state of disorder to one of order.