 March 2, 2010 - 8:55pm | I'm curious, at what robot level would you say an anthropomorphic robot would have to be to drive a ground car on roads? How about off road? Cycles? Hover and flying vehicles? (I limit it to anthropomorphic simply because they would operate vehicles designed for biologicals, something that a standard bodied robot would likely have difficulty with). Now what if the vehicle itself is robotic? My own opinion would be that it would take at least a level 4 anthropomorphic robot to drive a ground car on roads. Their programming would be sophisticated enough to handle a stable and easy to drive vehicle in the well regulated street environment as a function of its mission. I think it would take at least a level 5 anthropomorphic to drive either more sophisticated vehicles or on more challenging terrain. Perhaps a lower leveled robot could be programmed with a mission as a driver, and all of its functions would support that mission, but would it make sense to spend anthropomorphic type money on a chauffeur only? When the vehicle itself becomes the robot, it's mission changes to purely transportation. If that is all it is designed to do, I think a level 2 robot is sufficient as a minimum in every case. The only requirement for such a low level robot would be an up to date map of the area it is expected to traverse and the sensors to detect and avoid obstacles. Of course, higher level robot vehicles would be better able to modify its route as necessary. On a side note, what level is w00t, and is he capable of safely piloting a ground car to the local spacer club? The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
 March 3, 2010 - 7:05am | w00t not only drives you to the spacer club, he joins you then stiffs you with the bill since he can't own credits.  |
 March 3, 2010 - 2:34pm | What if the robot just plugs into some control port then uses the vehicle's sensors and directly controls the vehicle? The anthopomorphic body is just along for the ride. w00t makes a great tour guide too. Plug him into the PA system and he'll tell you the full history of the next corner and the pub. -iggy -iggy |
 March 3, 2010 - 5:39pm | I've spent a quite of bit of time thinking about this and in much the same way a robot needs an attack/defense program to be able to fight or a self defense program to defend itself or a computer link program to understand how to communicate with a computer and accept direction from it then I think that we could also say there are a host of other programs that tell it how to go about doing something. Like drive ground vehicles, drive hover vehicles, fly jetcopters, fly aircars, collect and analyze environmental sample program, Medical triage program (diagnosis, first aid, administering drugs), Medical treatment program (requires med triage; control infection, disease and poisons) Surgical Treatment program (requires triage & treatment; minor and major surgery and activate freeze field) The above programs only tell the robot how to do these things and have nothing to do with the mission or functions For instance a Buttler bot would have a Mission: Serve and protect and obey the master Functions would read F1: defines who the master is F2 defines serve F3 defines protect F4 defines obey in order to do these things he would need an attack defense program probably drive ground or hover vehicles but it the master had an air limo then drive air cars program computer link might be handy especially if it was a high level bot and needed to link to the mansion's central computer to order it to turn on the bath and fill the tub or access the net mail for the master. Medical triage program might not be bad to have for this bot especially if the "master" was the young heir to a corporate fortune We could imagine that there are Human grooming programs, Yazirian grooming programs, Protocol programs. any number of those would apply as well. What diplomat would go anywhere without a protocol droid, I mean robot. As for cost I'd make a rough comparison to existing robot programs to come up with a price: search and destroy program and pilot jetcopter program would cost the same, Computer link and pilot air car would cost the same. Human grooming might be as cheap as 100-200. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 3, 2010 - 7:08pm | What if the robot just plugs into some control port then uses the vehicle's sensors and directly controls the vehicle? The anthopomorphic body is just along for the ride. I guess this depends on how the vehicle is controlled in the first place. Real life vehicles, by and large, are still primarily controlled mechanically. But there are more advanced vehicles that are moving more towards a fly-by-wire approach where everything is electronically controlled. This second drive system could support the plug in drive system. ... An interesting train of thought, and it makes a lot of sense. Special skills for a robot cost extra. What is left to be determined is what constitutes a special skill vs. mission/functions, and how much should it cost. Adding 'driving programs' to the list of robot equipment is certainly a solution, especially for specialized robots. It simply seems to me that higher level robots could have the decision making routines necessary to perform basic driving tasks among their functions if it supports their mission. Maybe we just need to consider special programs for advanced driving conditions (i.e. off road and flying). Adding driving programs also adds more complexity to the system. Especially when you consider that a heavy duty robot can be level 2 and have rotor movement and still cost significantly less then a jetcopter. (Not that I'd trust one to ferry me anywhere...) If I were designing a robotic jetcopter that can carry 4 passengers, I would start with the cost of a jetcopter. We can assume that some of the cost of the robotic 'altered movement mode' is the control program, but how much? If you go with your example, i.e. rotor program cost = search & destroy = 3000cr, that would mean only 2000cr of the standard robotic rotor movement mode (cost = 5000cr) goes into the mechanics. This would lead to a modification of the robot design cost chart at the least. So that's food for thought (which I'll need 'cuz you got me thinkin'). The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
March 6, 2010 - 4:11pm | The UAV topic in Open Discussion referenced the survey robot from module KH2, so I looked it up. It has all sorts of special programs that are not listed in the canon rules. Therefore, I concede to jedion357 and his suggestion that driving, any driving, should be a special program. I maintain that the minimum level for vehicle operation is level two, provided that it is radio controlled via a control handset or a computer's Transportation program (e.g. robotic taxi). Also, that it would require at least a level 4 robot for independent operation. As for a price list, I guess the referees will just have to wing it.  The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of
the strong. * Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi |
 March 9, 2010 - 7:58pm | I'd say LVL:3, as that's what AD rules state as being "intelligent enough for communication". |
