 |
| EMagazine Volume 6 Issue 1 Feb / Mar 2001 |
Features |
|
|
|
New Products Interviews
Mentors |
|
Free
Email Updates |
|
|
 |
| Home
Toys Article - February 2001 - [HTI Home Page] |
HomeTech Hot Products Continuously Updated [Click Message To Learn More] |
|
|
Every day or hour the robot makes its rounds on patrol. Every day or hour it notes changes in its environment. When a new hot spot is found, the robot will know of the potential danger and call attention to the new hot spot. If the robot smells smoke when proximate to the new hot spot, a fire is either imminent, or has already achieved combustion temperatures. |
Since the first dreams and thoughts of the potential usefulness and value of mobile robots we have believed that those utilitarian tasks would be physical in nature. Vacuuming, lawn mowing, doing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, dusting furniture, walking the dog, fire extinguishing, etc. are but a few of the physical tasks we have been expecting the first autonomous, mobile personal robots to perform for us. And there is a great deal of validity to that view. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, this common orientation expecting physical tasks only leaves a great deal of usefulness unspoken or unrealized.
|
Suppose a mobile, autonomous robot were equipped with sensor systems that could hear and smell like a dog, see like a hawk, and sense heat (infrared radiation) like a pit viper?
An autonomous, personal robot with some degree of enhanced senses could protect our dwellings and loved ones in ways that no living creature can. For example, our CareBot PCR's have advanced mapping software that is sensor loving. At present our advanced, proprietary software maps (measures distances) the robot's environment in three basic ways: sonar and infrared (IR) range finding, and tactile, or bump sensing. The addition of machine vision will add another mapping attribute, as will sound listening, and directional heat sensing.
Our CareBot's Fuzzy Hybrid Software Architecture, unlike it's predecessors and most contemporary mobile robot brain architectures, is "sensor loving." This means that in addition to the robot "memorizing" only distances to walls, chairs, tables, and their proximity to each other, it can also, with the appropriate sensor systems in place, map its environment according to temperature and smell. In the early prevention and detection of fires this capability has some significant implications.
For nearly twenty years, due to the U.S. space exploration effort, the technology to detect human body heat from distances of several hundred feet has been developed and cost reduced. The infrared night vision goggles used by the military "shift" the invisible infrared to a light wavelengths visible to the human eye such that they may "see" the persons they wish to observe under the cover of darkness. Several firms produce this technology with sensor costs in the tens of dollars, and yet capable of discerning a person up to two or three hundred feet away.
Recently this technology has been taken into the automotive engine compartment troubleshooting arena. The mechanic simply points the handheld, digital IR temperature gauge at suspected hot spots under the hood of the vehicle to quickly determine what is abnormally hot and hence probable to be in need of repair or replacement. These handheld units sell for less than $300.
Smoke and toxic gas detectors have become so common due to their early detection and prevention of fires that insurance companies routinely discount their insurance premiums when these now low cost smoke detectors are in place. For all the right reasons, insurance companies have long championed the use of technology for early fire detection and prevention.
Many if not most fires start out very small. Overloaded electrical circuits heat up and then ignite their insulation or surrounding. Overloaded, or poorly maintained machines heat up and ignite themselves and/or their surroundings. Spontaneous combustion bursts into flame in buckets of greasy or solvent soaked rags after having achieved sufficient heat to ignite. And the careless smoker tossing an unextinguished cigarette into a trash can causes many fires. Fires start out as hot spots in areas that were probably not hot before. Otherwise that area would have already burst into flame.
When we extend our CareBot's sensory systems to include off the shelf infrared and smoke detection systems, in addition to intruder detection, we also get fire detection before flames have been generated! Every day or hour the robot makes its rounds on patrol. Every day or hour it notes changes in its environment. When a new hot spot is found, the robot will know of the potential danger and call attention to the new hot spot. If the robot smells smoke when proximate to the new hot spot, a fire is either imminent, or has already achieved combustion temperatures.
Immediately the robot can notify by wireless communications those parties most interested in knowing a fire has broken out or is in imminent danger of breaking out. While necessary fire fighting support is arriving, the robot may, with an onboard fire extinguisher discharge its entire reserve in an attempt to either extinguish the fire or slow its advance.
Is the foregoing scenario science fiction? Perhaps, today it is. In the coming year, "we shall see."
(C) GeckoSystems, Inc. 2001 All Rights Reserved
CareBot is a trademark of GeckoSystems, Inc.
