Posted 03.09.2011 at 2:58 pm
8 Comments
Smoke Signals
African cave crickets communicate through pressurized rings of air similar to smoke rings like the one pictured. Robots could use the same mechanism to silently communicate without using radio or light signaling.
Traitor via Wikimedia
To keep their communications from being intercepted, robots are learning to talk like cave-dwelling insects. An Australian researcher has tapped the odd mating call of the African cave cricket to allow robots to speak through rings of high-pressure air, ensuring that their communications won’t be overheard.
The cricket--Phaeophilacris spectrum--doesn’t rub its wings together to call out to others of its species. Doing so might alert predators to its location, and that could seriously undermine an African cave cricket’s romantic aspirations. Rather, it repeatedly flings its wings forward to create tiny vortices of pressurized air. Like smoke rings, these bursts of air create a low-pressure region around their edges, causing doughnut-shaped rings to form in the air that can travel fairly long distances. And for the African cave cricket, a few of these rings of air in a row sends a clear message from a male to a female: it’s mating time.
Between robots, these communications could be just as silent but even more complex. An engineer at Monash University in Clayton, Victoria, Australia, has created a scheme wherein a speaker cone can project similar rings of pressurized air to a pressure sensor on a robot 30 centimeters away. Using a binary code, the two robots can exchange more than just carnal come-ons; the two bots can exchange and decode one ASCII character every four seconds without so much as a peep or a wireless signal exchanged between them.
8 Comments
To comment, please Login.
Popular Tags
Technology
|
|
|
|
|
|
June 2013: American Energy Independence
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.
Popular on Popsci
Most Commented
Technology
- This Newer, Stronger 3-D Printed Gun Costs Just $25
- Autonomous X-47B Jet Fighter Makes Historic First Launch From An Aircraft Carrier
- Russia Is Building Robots To 'Neutralize' Terrorists
- How To Turn An AK-47 Into A Soup Ladle
- America's Road To Energy Independence, Part 1
- Mapping The Simpsons' Slow Descent Into Suckitude
- Iran Unveils Absurd New Stealth Drone
- High School Student Wins Hackathon With A Tool That Blocks TV Spoilers
- 7 Reasons Why 'Star Trek Into Darkness' Is A Beginner's Guide To Star Trek [Spoiler Alert]
- Navy Completes First Flight Of Game-Changing MQ-4C Triton Spy Drone [Video]
Most Emailed
Technology
- The World's Most Expensive Weapon Just Got A Little Cheaper
- Will Google (And The US Government) Permit Google Glass To Recognize Faces On Sight?
- Big Pic: Hubble Space Telescope Captures The Ring Nebula In Astonishing Detail
- Robotic Kite Power Could Turn The Sky Into A Wind Farm
- These 11 Robot Bartenders Will Get You Drunk
- 11 Robot Bartenders That Will Get You Drunk
- Brazilian Government Invests In Robocops To Prep For World Cup, Olympics
- The BBC's New Radio Can Alter Broadcasts Based On Who's Listening
- Social Media Replaces Police Missing Persons Searches In France
- New Water-Repellant Fabric Is Like A Second Skin
Most Viewed
Technology
- The World's Most Expensive Weapon Just Got A Little Cheaper
- Will Google (And The US Government) Permit Google Glass To Recognize Faces On Sight?
- Big Pic: Hubble Space Telescope Captures The Ring Nebula In Astonishing Detail
- Robotic Kite Power Could Turn The Sky Into A Wind Farm
- These 11 Robot Bartenders Will Get You Drunk
- 11 Robot Bartenders That Will Get You Drunk
- Brazilian Government Invests In Robocops To Prep For World Cup, Olympics
- The BBC's New Radio Can Alter Broadcasts Based On Who's Listening
- Social Media Replaces Police Missing Persons Searches In France
- New Water-Repellant Fabric Is Like A Second Skin
Online Content Director: Suzanne LaBarre | Email
Senior Editor: Paul Adams | Email
Associate Editor: Dan Nosowitz | Email
Assistant Editor: Colin Lecher | Email
Assistant Editor: Rose Pastore | Email
Contributing Writers:
Kelsey D. Atherton | Email
Francie Diep | Email
Shaunacy Ferro | Email
Today on PopSci.com
Copyright © 2012 Popular Science
A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
One ASCII character every 4 seconds isn't very fast. I bet pretty soon they will find out how to encode data in the spin rate of the vortex or some such crazyness.
and they can easily be stopped, if not read, by a simple wall, or well placed sheet of paper.
You're right, it can't be heard at all. But I can see it, genius. I hope you didn't spend too much time or money trying to reinvent semaphore.
You can't see it if they don't use the smoke you dolt. Air pressure "rings" caused by the sending bot are not visable.
"pressurized rings of air similar to smoke rings like the one pictured" LIKE the one pictured...
And sure you can put a wall or paper between them, but that's not the point, the point is they can communicate with each other with no discerable signal. If it were radio, anyone could pick it up, light would be visable... it's just an experiement at using non-conventional communications and it's applications may limited, but you never can tell.
well 30 centimeters is not very far, all well for not using any sound or light i guessing that is good. i would use chemicals like a moths but that is still readable.
well keep at it guys. :D
the speaker cone is driven by electricity... therefore there are electromagnetic signals emitting from it...
BV.. most cables are shielded now to prevent electromagnetic leakage. Seeing as this speaker is placed inside a "robot" which should contain memory, cpu and hard drive.. shielding from the speaker should be even more prevalent, thus further limiting transmission. Heck a simple faraday cage woven inside the casing of the bot would prevent any signal leakage at all.
@CodeZero,
If the robots/speaker cones were inside faraday cages I'd imagine they would interfere with the air pressure waves as much as they would with the electromagnetic waves.
Also, the faraday cage would have to be grounded to dissipate the signals, which might not make the robots very mobile
Nothing just "goes away"... it just gets spread out to "ambient noise" level and then you don't notice it.