I have almost completed my Omnibot code as an autonomous pet. I am about an elegant and effecient solution to AI. Of course, giving the impression of awareness is all in reactive behaviour. By combining a few concepts and sensors, Omnibot now acts like he has a mind of his own.
For example, when he is in Sleep (or stop) mode, his camera is always follow motion or a color. This means he will turn towards the TV and watch it. Or he will follow a person with his head.
His decision is based on two random generators, and of course some environmental decisions. But primarily he decides what to do by a random mode selection, and then a random time selection. The random mode determines between
- autonomous (long, short)
- follow motion
- follow a color (red green or blue)
- body language (turn head, nudge forward, nudge left, beep, etc)
The length of time to run each mode is randomized.
The microphone is always listening to voice commands. I set the voice command recognition to 90%, so he will recognize words that aren't exact. This adds some interesting behaviour by responding to words that are similar. For example, I am having a conversation with my friend while Omnibot appears to be watchin tv. He says something and the robot turns around and looks at him. When he moves, the robots head follows him. This of course freaks him out. Why? Because a phrase "turn around" was recognized at near 90%. He didn't actually say that, but the robot thought he did and reacted. This made it appear that Omnibot did it on his own.
Now for the Autonomous exploding 2D mapping code...
The concept is quite simple by implementation, but requires much testing for your robot size and speed. Some of my other robots have a much more compicated version of this concept using a 3rd dimension in the map.
The distance sensor is attached to the servo on the chest of Omnibot. The servo sways back and forth. As it scans, it remembers each distance in an array from left to right (or vice versa depending on the direction). When the servo gets to the end of the scan, it performs a quick calculation by examining the array.
It adds the Right and Left distance values up of every respective position in the scan. It compares the left and right distances against some constants that are determined by its speed and size during testing. The decision to properly align itself down hallway, or enter a door is determined.
Download the source code on his robot page to get a good look at the concept: synthiam.com/Robots/Tomy-Omnibot-V1
Here is a little video of the version 3 Omnibot that I just finished. It demonstrates this 2D Environment Mapping Code working...
HI
Well my Omnibot is almost complete
Do I need to downlaod Trial of Visual Studio to get your code above to work or can I use Visual C# Express which is a completely free download? I can get it to sort of work with Visual C# Express but it won't stay connected so I guess various settings may need changing
confused
You can download visual studio express. That will work fine
I am excited for your omnibot! I love the videos and it's looking great!
Good news on Visual studio express
Unfortunately he had an accident the other day and cracked his dome head!! So I will have to get another plastic head from somewhere. He is all finished apart from that and trundles about under joystick control (PS3) which works great btw. I'm keen to try your code above for autonomous operation just wondered if it will work though with a newer firmware version in the EZ-B board?
:)
Oh my!! Cracked dome?
That is sad to hear. I hope you are able to find a replacement. If not, measure the diameter and see if you can find a plastic bowl that will work. Or a plastic dome. I remember seeing someo on eBay. I did a search once for "plastic dome" and found a bunch.
As for the code, I will put the latest release up for you now on Omnibot's page.
I have a new release of ARC soon, that will totally dominate!
It allows scripts to interact with controls. I'm excited
Yep I've been looking for clear plastic bowls. No doubt I will some sort of substitute ahh the joys of robot building
Thanks for the code on Omnibots page I must admit I'm struggling to get any of this working in Visual C# express I get these errors
Warning 1 The referenced component 'EZ-B' could not be found. Warning 2 The referenced project '..EZ-BEZ-B.csproj' does not exist. Robot - Omnibot
Warning 17 The primary reference "Properties.Resources.Designer.cs" could not be resolved because it has an indirect dependency on the .NET Framework assembly "mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" which has a higher version "4.0.0.0" than the version "2.0.0.0" in the current target framework. Robot - Omnibot
Perhaps they are a clue that the version is wrong??
Can't wait for the new release of ARC that you describe it just gets better and better
Right Click on the project References. Select "Add Reference". Then BROWSE to the EZB.DLL and add it to the project. I think that should resolve your issue.
:)
Yep did that still no joy confused going to try another laptop next
I've got the same error.
Did you find a solution ?
Nope I didn't tried lots of different ideas then gave up as it was frustrating me. However there have been so many developments with ARC thats keeping me busy and it just gets better and better my Omnibot is in pieces at present as he is going through a major upgrade program. I have found a solution to silence his motors which includes anti vibration mounts for the motor box just finishing that off
DJ I checked his page for the code and did not see it, am I missing it or was it removed?
It's an old post. The code for all projects (if you're looking for the source code and not ARC project files) are in the sdk package.
Otherwise, ARC examples are in ARC under file menu
Thank you I will try to find them.