Consider the following scenario: A scout surveys a high-rise building that’s been crippled by an earthquake, trapping workers inside. After looking for a point of entry, the scout carefully navigates through a small opening. An officer radios in, Go look down that corridor and tell me what you see’. The scout steers through smoke and rubble, avoiding obstacles and finding two trapped people, reporting their location via live video. A SWAT team is then sent to lead the workers safely out of the building. Despite its heroics, though, the scout is impervious to thanks. It just sets its sights on the next mission, like any robot would do. In the not-too-distant future, such robotics-driven missions will be a routine part of disaster response, researchers at MIT predict. Robots are ideal for dangerous and covert tasks, such as navigating nuclear disasters or spying on enemy camps.
They can be small and resilient — but more importantly, they can save valuable manpower. The key hurdle to such a scenario is robotic intelligence: Flying through unfamiliar territory while avoiding obstacles is an incredibly complex computational task. Understanding verbal commands in natural language is even trickier. Researchers in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), are designing robotic systems that do more things intelligently by themselves. For instance, the team is building micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs), about the size of a small briefcase, that navigate independently, without the help of a global positioning system (GPS). Most drones depend on GPS to get around, which limits the areas they can cover. The group is also building social robots that understand natural language.
More information:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/profile-roy-1128.html
More information:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/profile-roy-1128.html