
Modeled After Ants, Teams of Tiny Robots Can Move 2-Ton Car - dejan
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/14/technology/modeled-after-ants-teams-of-tiny-robots-can-move-2-ton-car.html?_r=1
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hanniabu
While I was expecting something completely different than what the video
showed, it's still pretty damn impressive. Even though this was performed
under pretty ideal conditions, it really shows the future potential of what's
possible when you have a handful of robots each about a cubic inch able to
pull a car. I would like to know how much they were actually pulling though,
since it's a bit misleading to say the pulled a 3900lb car. I'd wager it only
takes about 75 pounds(give or take) of force. Nonetheless, still impressive.

Edit: just saw it says 200N which another commenter says is about 45 pounds.
I'd still say that's pretty sweet for such small trinkets.

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saosebastiao
I'm familiar enough with the research on the individual robots (before
synchronizing them) to know that these robots are pulling between 1000x and
10000x their own weight. That alone is amazing.

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Retric
Winches normally lift around ~1,000x their weight if you ignore the cable
weight. Considering these don't include the cable's weight and are really slow
it's far less impressive than you might think.

Granted, the fist time you see a car lifted off the ground by a dinky 1.5 hp
motor it does seem crazy.

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HeyLaughingBoy
The impressive thing (for me, at least) wasn't the "force to weight" ratio, it
was the "traction to weight" ratio.

Tractors, bulldozers, etc., are designed to be HEAVY so they can get traction
on loose ground. In fact they're designed so the operator can add weight to
them in order to get more traction. That these very lightweight objects can
get so much friction was truly amazing.

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trhway
this is probably where "ant" similarity comes into play - the higher number of
legs allows for higher traction as for small point of contact traction
coefficient may be higher. And thus the synchronicity becomes very important
as each one leg can sustain only small traction force.

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foofoo55
That was one of the most disappointing robotic demonstrations and videos I've
seen in a while. I fail to see the ant correlation. On the surface I don't see
anything robotic, just a bunch of light winches operating in parallel (albeit
with a nifty sticky footpad). Are they somehow autonomously synced, or just
automatically load-limiting?

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yoodenvranx
Welcome to modern university life! The main goal is not good research but good
PR to get more money.

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ejk314
I'm not getting why this is supposed to be impressive. It just looks like they
lined up several tiny motors and used a small gear ratio. There's very little
ant-like cooperation.

Edit: large -> small

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oldmanjay
Does your negative impression spring from a belief that you could have done
the same thing if only you had the skill, experience, idea, and ability to
execute?

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andrepd
I don't have to be a pro footballer to say that Man Utd are playing like crap
this year.

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onion2k
You don't, but only because you have experience seeing footballers playing
well to compare against.

What's your point of reference for judging these robots? Unless you're well-
versed in the field you probably aren't qualified to say whether or not this
is good or bad work. Consequently it's not _that_ unreasonable to accept the
article at face value. It's not like you've got anything to lose.

You don't look stupid if you believe a believable story so cynically
protecting yourself by saying it's unimpressive compared to, say, the latest
Boston Dynamics video, isn't really very fair on the people who did the work.

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stephenitis
What is this a robot for ants? It has to be at least 3 times as large!

I'm curious how much electricity did the robots use to move the car? How much
distance over what amount of time? Can we get a video of these robots dragging
away a human so that doomsayers can panic more?

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jcromartie
They moved a 2-ton car... on wheels, on sealed concrete, with winches...

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brink
And it's on the top of HN. Come on guys, really?...

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formula1
Im curious of application. So, hypothetically, they can infinitely scale the
net force required to number of robots. However, the movement speed stays at <
meter/hour.

Is the next step ensuring absolute precision? What about terrain with minimal
friction to hold on to? How does the "ant" "latch on" to arbitrarilly shaped
/sized objects? Is it possible to lift the objects onto wheeled bots to enable
accelleration or are we trapped at slow speeds?

Its important to note that currently these robots pull but do not push. So for
high precision heavy objects movement I think if space, more specifically,
when I want to dock my shuttle at a doace station. Unfortunately, only pulling
will cause acceleration that would still need to be offset somehow. So, i am
not exactly sure where else to gigantic objects need to be slowly and
precisely moved by tiny little robots.

That being said, Im excited to find out

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robotresearcher
They can't scale infinitely. They can fit finitely many robots close to the
target. The further the robots get from the target, the longer and thus
heavier the tether they need. The more interesting part of the ant behaviour,
not addressed yet here, is how they use each other's bodies as tethers and
arrange forces so they add up in the right direction.

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mhb
INDIAN MAN PULLS LOCOMOTIVE WITH PONY TAIL:

[http://abc7news.com/archive/8816949/](http://abc7news.com/archive/8816949/)

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SixSigma
They pulled a 2 Ton Car.

From the actual paper [1]

A team of six [bots] pulls with [combined] forces exceeding 200 N.

[1]
[http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=7407333](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=7407333)

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anotheryou
that's 20kg if I'm not mistaken

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lorenzhs
It's roughly the gravitational pull of 20kg at sea level (20.4kg or
something). Unit-wise, Newtons are N = kg * m/s²: Force = mass * acceleration,
Newton's famous formula.

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SixSigma
Here's another story on it, including a video

[http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/03/watch-100-grams-of-
robot-p...](http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2016/03/watch-100-grams-of-robot-
pull-1800-kilograms-of-car/)

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moron4hire
I want to know what sort of future-world all of these naysayers live in that 6
tiny robots, together weighing only slightly more than half my smartphone,
pulling any load larger than a bread basket, is not impressive. I know for a
fact I could not build such small robots to pull anything over a few pounds. I
know because I once tried on a whim (the details don't matter). Did someone
invent lassos for ants and ant training regimens while I wasn't looking, or
something?

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Ensorceled
The problem for me is that it was over sold. From the title, I was expecting
robotic ants lifting a car and carrying it with the whole "ants can lift 50x
their body weight thing". What was shown was interesting but a massive let
down from the title hype.

~~~
moron4hire
Maybe work on your reading comprehension? The title says move, not lift. What
title would you have preferred to avoid your current feelings of personal
betrayal?

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Ensorceled
Personal betrayal? Take this crap to reddit.

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moron4hire
You're the one who describe a perfectly reasonable title as a let-down. Maybe
you're the one who should go back to Reddit.

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Ensorceled
"Modeled after Superman, I can move a 2-ton car."

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enahs-sf
Am I the only one who's mind immediately thought about the ocean's eleven
style heist capabilities these ants could provide?

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emodendroket
Considering how slow they are you'd need some very clueless guards.

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tonyle
There are too many feats of strengths that pull a car, truck, airplane, heavy
thing on wheels,etc. Stay tuned after this commercial as these robots prepare
to do the impossible! It makes me kinda tune out the video.

It be cool to see if they had some ant like behaviour, like robots recruiting
more robots.

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CatMtKing
It's also how muscles work, isn't it? A ton of tiny myosin heads pulling in
parallel.

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ytrobots
The video is a bit misleading:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbTCW9CVHLA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbTCW9CVHLA)

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moron4hire
Is it misleading? That little girl is significantly larger and stronger than
the individual robots.

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vixen99
Fascinating stuff! But why are so many video clips of this kind accompanied by
irrelevant musical backing? Are interested viewers incapable of listening to a
commentary without added garbage. I use the word because it is indeed a
useless addition to the presentation. Or is it there to test my powers of
concentration? I don't think so.

