Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!linus!philabs!ttidca!hollombe
From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath)
Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Subject: Re: Info wanted; robot pool player
Message-ID: <21775@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: 11 Dec 90 19:59:10 GMT
References: <12247@life.ai.mit.edu> <21680@ttidca.TTI.COM> <2323@greek.csd.mot.com>
Organization: The Cat Factory
Lines: 32

In article <2323@greek.csd.mot.com> lance@motcsd.csd.mot.com (lance.norskog) writes:
}This brings up a subject dear to my heart:  I'd like a robot fencing
}partner.  Are there low-cost robots around which have the speed and
}flexibility to handle this?  I've got the Power Glove already...
}
}Software for repetitive training drills shouldn't be a big problem :-)

I've heard the human arm has something over 30 degrees of freedom.  I
don't think there's anything commercially available that even comes close
to that, let alone adding the flexibility of the human body supporting it.

I can visualize your fencing partner being built around a nine or ten DOF
hybrid arm with a force sensing gripper.  You'd have to wear a position
sensing garment to tell its controller where you were and what you were
doing.  The computing power required would be non-trivial, but doable with
custom, dedicated hardware.  The power needed to give it useful speed would
also make it very dangerous.  It still wouldn't behave like a human being,
or even look much like one.

As for low-cost, it could probably be kept under $1 million.  If you could
get the grants to pay for it and were willing to trust unpaid student
labor for design, construction and programming it might be kept under
$200K, but I doubt it.

Paul Atreides wanna-bes are just going to have to wait for technology to
catch up with their dreams.

-- 
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com)
Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp(+)TTI             Illegitimis non
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (213) 450-9111, x2483       Carborundum
Santa Monica, CA  90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe