What is the next step in the evolution of BEAM robotics?
Here are some ideas off of the BEAM mailing list and from Tilden himself: • Vision. Mark’s (Tilden) been doing some neat work with foviation, building light-seeking vision/head mechanisms powered by Nv technology. • Hygene. If you consider the problems of an autonomous machine with an extreme lifetime, the big question is how to keep yourself clean so that your performance remains constant. The sleek look and grooming habits of insects is to optimise this characteristic. We can make machines robust against such things (teflon wire insulation on many surfaces), but what does this mean when you’ve got dirt splattered on your sensors? Make a machine that can negotiate mud in the rain and still keep track of itself, and you’re well on the way to an advanced life form. • More recently Tilden has been doing some advanced work into the nature of minimal cognitive architectures. Better brains for BEAM bodies involving Nv arrays, some with hundreds of neurons. The resulting robots will be… bi
