nivek@rover.ri.cmu.edu (Kevin Dowling) (05/25/90)
Electric charging stations are now used by several robots. The Heathkit robots use it, Denning has one, and I believe Cybermation has one too. Some electric vehicles (AGV's) has also made use of them. The first one I know of though was Grey Walter's pioneering work on his Machina Speculatrix, or turtle robots of the late 1940's and early 1950's! (See Imitation of Life by Grey Walter in May 1950 Scientific American, and several follow-on articles including A Machine That Learns.) These machines were builts with vacuum tubes, inductors and resistors! The behavior of these machines bears a strong resemblance to Brooks' subsumption behaviors of several decades later. Several preprogrammed behaviors can supress or enhance other actions. Here's a relevant passage from An Imitation of Life: "For Elmer hay is presented, of course, by the electricity it needs to recharge it's batteries. Within the hutch where it normally lives is a battery charger and a 20-Watt lamp. When the creatures batteries are well charged, it is attracted to this light from afar, but at the threshold the brillance is great enough to act as a repellent, so the model wanders off for further exploration. When the batteries start to run down, the first effect is to enhance the sensitivity of the amplifier so that the attraction of the light is felt from even further away. But soon the level of sensitivity falls and then, if the machine is fortunate and finds itself at the entrance to its kennel, it will be attracted right home, for the light no longer seems so dazzling. Once well in, it can make contact with the charger. The moment current flows in the circuit between the charger and the batteries the creatures own nervous system and motors are automatically disconnected; charging continues until the battery voltage has risen to its maximum. Then the internal circuits are automatically reconnected and the little creature, repelled now by the light which before the feast had been so irresistible, circles away for further adventures." nivek aka : Kevin Dowling Senior Research Engineer net : nivek@rover.ri.cmu.edu Robotics Institute tel : (412) 268-8830 Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213