Herding robots: New system combines control programs so fleets of robots can collaborate

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~4/0p80EGz2e5U

A new system combines simple control programs to enable fleets of robots — or other “multiagent systems” — to collaborate in unprecedented ways.Writing a program to control a single autonomous robot navigating an uncertain environment with an erratic communication link is hard enough; write one for multiple robots that may or may not have to work in tandem, depending on the task, is even harder.As a consequence, engineers designing control programs for “multiagent systems” — whether teams of robots or networks of devices with different functions — have generally restricted themselves to special cases, where reliable information about the environment can be assumed or a relatively simple collaborative task can be clearly specified in advance.This May, at the International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) will present a new system that stitches existing control programs together to allow multiagent systems to collaborate in much more complex ways. The system factors in uncertainty — the odds, for instance, that a communication link will drop, or that a particular algorithm will inadvertently steer a robot into a dead end — and automatically plans around it.For small collaborative tasks, the system can guarantee that its combination of programs is optimal — that it will yield the best possible results, given the uncertainty of the environment and the limitations of the programs themselves.Working together with Jon How, the Richard Cockburn Maclaurin Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and his student Chris Maynor, the researchers are currently testing their system in a simulation of a warehousing application, where teams of robots would be required to retrieve arbitrary objects from indeterminate locations, collaborating as needed to transport heavy loads. The simulations involve small groups of iRobot Creates, programmable robots that have the same chassis as the Roomba vacuum cleaner.Reasonable doubt”In [multiagent] systems, in general, in the real world, it’s very hard for them to communicate effectively,” says Christopher Amato, a postdoc in CSAIL and first author on the new paper. “If you have a camera, it’s impossible for the camera to be constantly streaming all of its information to all the other cameras. Similarly, robots are on networks that are imperfect, so it takes some amount of time to get messages to other robots, and maybe they can’t communicate in certain situations around obstacles.”An agent may not even have perfect information about its own location, Amato says — which aisle of the warehouse it’s actually in, for instance. Moreover, “When you try to make a decision, there’s some uncertainty about how that’s going to unfold,” he says. “Maybe you try to move in a certain direction, and there’s wind or wheel slippage, or there’s uncertainty across networks due to packet loss. So in these real-world domains with all this communication noise and uncertainty about what’s happening, it’s hard to make decisions.”The new MIT system, which Amato developed with co-authors Leslie Kaelbling, the Panasonic Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, and George Konidaris, a fellow postdoc, takes three inputs. One is a set of low-level control algorithms — which the MIT researchers refer to as “macro-actions” — which may govern agents’ behaviors collectively or individually. The second is a set of statistics about those programs’ execution in a particular environment. …


Read More: Herding robots: New system combines control programs so fleets of robots can collaborate

#Agriculture, #Amato, #Computerscience, #Engineering, #George, #King, #Mit, #Video

Sit Out

http://www.mybiologica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/8e8fsit-out-75x75.jpg

How to FitnessSit OutThe sit out works the entire body and promotes balance and coordination. Pay close attention to Alison Sweeney’s end position in this video: You should be looking up toward your raised arm. Hold for 2 seconds, then repeat on the other side. That’s one rep; do 8 to 10 total.Alison Sweeney’s first workout moveSee the full workout #arms #legs&butt #strength


Read More: Sit Out

#Entire, #Fitness, #Fitnesssitoutthesit, #Health, #King, #Moveseethefull, #Sitout, #Thenrepeat, #Video, #Workstheentire

180-Jump Squat

http://www.mybiologica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/e66f180-jump-squat-75x75.jpg

How to Fitness180-Jump SquatAre you bored with traditional squats? In this video, Alison Sweeney shows you how to do 180-jump squats, which really get your heart pumping in addition to strengthening your legs and butt. Look straight ahead while jumping to help with balance. Do 12 to 15 reps.Alison Sweeney’s next workout moveSee the full workout #cardio #legs&butt


Read More: 180-Jump Squat

#Aheadwhile, #Alison, #Alisonsweeney, #Alzheimer, #Fullworkout, #Moveseethefull, #Sweeney, #Thisvideo, #Video

One-Legged Deadlift with Leg Extension and Overhead Press

http://www.mybiologica.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/e6eeone-legged-deadlift-75x75.jpg

How to FitnessOne-Legged Deadlift with Leg Extension and Overhead PressAdding an extension and press to a single-leg deadlift works every muscle while improving your balance and stability. All you need (aside from motivation) is a set of dumbbells. Watch this video with Alison Sweeney and do 10 to 15 reps on each side.Alison Sweeney’s next workout moveSee the full workout #abs&core #arms #legs&butt #strength


Read More: One-Legged Deadlift with Leg Extension and Overhead Press

#Alison, #Alisonsweeney, #Cancer, #Deadlift, #Dumbbells, #Fitness, #Leggeddeadlift, #Moveseethefull, #Pressadding, #Sweeney, #Video

Blinded by speed, tiger beetles use antennae to "see" while running

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~4/lURfP0Lr1mM

Speed is blinding. Just ask the tiger beetle: This predatory insect has excellent sight, but when it chases prey, it runs so fast it can no longer see where it’s going.Cornell University researchers have discovered that, unlike insects that wave their “feelers” around to acquire information, tiger beetles rigidly hold their antennae directly in front of them to mechanically sense their environments and avoid obstacles while running, according to a study published online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.The findings raise questions about strategies used by other fast animals, such as birds of prey and some fish, to sense their environments when speed blinds. The research also has implications for autonomous vehicles that could use fixed antennae to detect obstacles. “For an insect with really good vision that is active in the daytime normally, you would think it would not rely on antennae for sensing its environment,” said Cole Gilbert, Cornell professor of entomology and the paper’s senior author. Daniel Zurek, a postdoctoral researcher in Gilbert’s lab, is the paper’s first author.”It has evolved important mechano-sensing behavior while running because it runs so fast,” Gilbert added.In an earlier paper, Gilbert reported that tiger beetles run so fast, their eyes cannot capture enough light to form images of their prey. Therefore, the insects stop for just milliseconds to relocate prey, then start running again.Gilbert and Zurek sought to learn how the running insects negotiate obstacles in their habitat, such as crevasses or grass stems, and what role their characteristically forward antennae play. To test this, the researchers set up a runway with a hurdle: In one experiment normal tiger beetles (of the species Cicindela hirticollis) ran the track and negotiated the hurdle, tilting their bodies up when their antennae touched the hurdle; in a second experiment, the researchers painted over the beetles’ eyes and found these blind beetles responded similarly. In the third test, they clipped the antennae of sighted beetles, and the insects smacked right into the hurdle.The experiment revealed that for fast-moving tiger beetles, “eyes are not sufficient or necessary to avoid obstacles,” Gilbert said. “The antennae are held extremely rigid with the tips 1.5 millimeters off the ground, so they would potentially pick up any discontinuity in the surface.”Gilbert questions how peregrine falcons and predatory fish compensate for blurry sight while speeding towards prey, potential research areas that no one has tested. The current study may provide a model for new questions. …


Read More: Blinded by speed, tiger beetles use antennae to "see" while running

#Alternative-Medicine, #Beetle, #Cancer, #Cicindela, #Cornelluniversity, #Health, #National, #Predatory, #Result, #Tiger, #Video, #Zurek

Virtual avatars may impact real-world behavior

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~4/Znci4t6GQy4

How you represent yourself in the virtual world of video games may affect how you behave toward others in the real world, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.”Our results indicate that just five minutes of role-play in virtual environments as either a hero or villain can easily cause people to reward or punish anonymous strangers,” says lead researcher Gunwoo Yoon of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.As Yoon and co-author Patrick Vargas note, virtual environments afford people the opportunity to take on identities and experience circumstances that they otherwise can’t in real life, providing “a vehicle for observation, imitation, and modeling.”They wondered whether these virtual experiences — specifically, the experiences of taking on heroic or villainous avatars — might carry over into everyday behavior.The researchers recruited 194 undergraduates to participate in two supposedly unrelated studies. The participants were randomly assigned to play as Superman (a heroic avatar), Voldemort (a villainous avatar), or a circle (a neutral avatar). They played a game for 5 minutes in which they, as their avatars, were tasked with fighting enemies. Then, in a presumably unrelated study, they participated in a blind taste test. They were asked to taste and then give either chocolate or chili sauce to a future participant. They were told to pour the chosen food item into a plastic dish and that the future participant would consume all of the food provided.The results were revealing: Participants who played as Superman poured, on average, nearly twice as much chocolate as chili sauce for the “future participant.” And they poured significantly more chocolate than those who played as either of the other avatars.Participants who played as Voldemort, on the other hand, poured out nearly twice as much of the spicy chili sauce than they did chocolate, and they poured significantly more chili sauce compared to the other participants.A second experiment with 125 undergraduates confirmed these findings and showed that actually playing as an avatar yielded stronger effects on subsequent behavior than just watching someone else play as the avatar.Interestingly, the degree to which participants actually identified with their avatar didn’t seem to play a role:”These behaviors occur despite modest, equivalent levels of self-reported identification with heroic and villainous avatars, alike,” Yoon and Vargas note. “People are prone to be unaware of the influence of their virtual representations on their behavioral responses.”The researchers hypothesize that that arousal, the degree to which participants are ‘keyed into’ the game, might be an important factor driving the behavioral effects they observed.The findings, though preliminary, may have implications for social behavior, the researchers argue:”In virtual environments, people can freely choose avatars that allow them to opt into or opt out of a certain entity, group, or situation,” says Yoon. “Consumers and practitioners should remember that powerful imitative effects can occur when people put on virtual masks.”Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Association for Psychological Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


Read More: Virtual avatars may impact real-world behavior

#Agriculture, #Alzheimer, #Association, #Avatar, #Chocolate, #Health, #Participants, #Pregnancy, #Science, #University, #Video