Can You Have Too Many Roombas?
I have four Roombas of three different models (I blame Steve for telling me about “deals”). I think I may have too many. Regardless, the one thing they all have in common is a hacked together BlueTooth connection so I can run various software on them remotely. While I haven’t really talked a lot about those “various softwares”, I’m really excited about a project I’m working on now, working title of RooCluster.
RooCluster is a command-and-control application designed for the special needs of multiple robots operating in the same space, or over large multi-room spaces. Each Roomba is being fitted with an RFID tag, which, in coordiation with some more wireless access points, allows me to triangulate where a Roomba is and its travel vector (sometimes, math is cool). This information can help RooCluster avoid nasty Roomba-on-Roomba collisions, and also presents the possibility of meta-virtual walls.
If you have a Roomba, you probably have a virtual wall – the little pylon that sends out an infrared beam that the Roombas treat just like a wall. With some work, RooCluster should be able to honor coordinate-based lines (which could, in turn, form other shapes) and effectively “wall-off” areas without needing a physical barrier, or a battery-sucking virtual wall. You can also overlay the position and vector data onto floorplans, and see exactly where the Roombas are, and where they’re going.
Of course, you can also use it to make your Roombas dance with each other.
Or joust.
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By Jenica, October 9, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
Yeah, I like how you think.
(I also blame Steve for my Roomba.)
By Steve Major, October 9, 2009 @ 6:55 pm
Hey, the things sell themselves. At least his project name for them isn’t “SkyNet.”
By M, October 12, 2009 @ 10:02 am
That may be one of those “various softwares”, Steve…