Domestic Robots by Denis Susac   Yesterday I found an interesting message posted to our Bulletin Board: as Mr. Gipson Arnold said, "It looks to me like personal robots are entering the stage that personal computers were in when the Apple I and the Vic-20 were first introduced". Yep, I heard this statement several years ago, and nothing happened. Where are those "PC XT level" robots? Seems that things are finally changing. There are several robots that offer decent functionality right out of the box, and the prices for such robots are constantly dropping. This week I'll describe first of them (and my personal favorite): Cye from Probotics, Inc. Cye is one of the first low-priced ($695) "domestic" robots. It is 40 x 28 x 13 cm (16 x 11 x 5 in) and weighs 4 kg (9 lbs). It can be operated from any PC (Pentium 133 or higher), and communicates via an FCC approved 900 MHz radio link. Its 2.9 amp hour rechargeable batteries will give power for 20 hours when idle, 4 hours when driving around on a light carpet and 30 minutes when pulling the vacuum on a light carpet. Yes, I was serious when announcing this article last week: Cye can actually serve you drinks and vacuum your apartment! As you drive Cye, it maps the environment directly to the PC screen. This map can be saved at any time and later used it to guide Cye around obstacles, race around the room, or drive a ball into any goal or target area you establish. Map-N-Zap software gives you total control of your robot and a bird's eye view of the world as he sees it. It can perform a whole range of tasks any time you specify. Just open the Zap window (Zap is a graphical flow charting tool which you use to create lists of tasks for your robot to execute) and, in a few seconds, you can set up a job for Cye to carry out by dragging the basic routines from a menu bar. The names of the destinations (HotPoints) are already available for selecting on pull down menus. The only elements you must type in yourself are the specific times you want events to take place. Of course, successful vacuuming requires that all vacuum paths be laid out carefully, in order to avoid getting the vacuum cleaner's cord entangled with the robot and the furniture. There are good news for developers and robotics enthusiasts, too: the Cye hardware and software is completely open. This facilitates the development of new software applications for manipulating the robot and the development of hardware that attaches to it. Communication from the user's PC to Cye is handled through an OCX server that can be accessed from any Visual Basic or C programming environment on the user's PC. Using the OCX, developers can create their own applications for Cye because the entire Cye hardware command set is exposed. There are 35 commands to the robot and 20 messages from the robot that are included in this protocol. Cye comes with an RJ 45 connector accessible just in front of Cye's LED. This 8 pin connector has a relay driving output, a 5 volt input, and a 12 volt and 5 volt power supply. With these signals, hobbyists can manipulate muscle wires, read sensor inputs, turn on lights or sirens, or do whatever else their imaginations can come up with. The input can be read and the state of the output can be set right from the Zap window as part of the user's program. Radio receive and transmit signals are also exposed on the RJ connector. Probotics Inc. will provide the C code for the communications protocol to anyone wishing to communicate to their own remote microprocessor board through Cye's radio link. Cye has a unique address and only responds to messages sent to this address. Additional hardware mounted to Cye and connected through the RJ45 connector can have another address and share the radio link with the robot. Probotics founder and chief guru, Henry Thorne, developed a set of 5 patented technologies that make the old navigation system known as "ded-reckoning" accurate in dealing with the distortions and errors created by slippage and other problems of traction produced by the robot as it travels. Forget expensive GPS and similar navigation systems and problems they introduce: novel urethane-tipped wheels and FunDr - functional ded-reckoning - will keep Cye on-track over all kinds of surfaces. There is no doubt that people are expecting to see robots and Jetsons-style homes really soon. It will be interesting to wait and see will this generation of robots (including Cye and other robots, which will be described in Part II) live up to expectations. Anyway, these things are fun and easy to use: I can't wait to do my own programming to access and control all Cye's features... If you want to learn more about Cye, check the links below. As always, you are invited to post your questions and/or comments to the AI Bulletin Board. At the end, I would like to wish you all a happy Christmas and a wonderful New Year. Happy Holidays! Reproduced from About.com 12 Dec 98