ROBOTS: A Robotic Honey Bee?

18 September 2014

NOTE: This article was posted one day later than scheduled due to several security issues that made an earlier posting impossible.  I am sorry for the delay and appreciate the patience of those who regularly read and/or follow this weblog.  This particular blog has had more than its share of security issues.  I am a bit puzzled by the attention.

HOPE AND FEAR

            Technologists at Harvard are well on their way to developing the first robotic bee.  They envision a robotic bee with all the abilities of the organic original: the honeybee. 

            Begun in 2009, Harvard’s “Micro Air Vehicles Project” is now using titanium and plastic to replicate the functions, if not the appearance, of the familiar honeybee.  The robo-bee pops up, complete with wings, from a quarter-sized metal disk.  The developers predict that these “bees” will be engineered to fly in swarms, live in artificial hives, and coordinate both their target locations and pollination methodologies.  [2]

            In fact, this program’s goals, if achieved, would produce swarms of robotic bees of such organization and efficiency that one writer expressed the wish that the project spokesperson add the phrase “for the good of all mankind” to each progress report.  Without it, readers might be reminded of all the movies “about technology that eventually destroys mankind.”

            While science fiction films have suggested the replacement of human beings with robots, films have never “warned” us about the sinister side of the robo-bee.  Imagine a robotic “Stepford Bee” hiding quietly in the wings plotting an unfortunate end for the last of the world’s honey bees.  And, then, a “brave new” technological world without any “real” honey bees at all!

            There is something definitely creepy about humanly engineered mechanical bees pollinating crops grown from humanly engineered seeds.  One writer described the disturbing vision as “swarms of tiny robot bees . . . pollinating those vast dystopian fields of GMO cash crops.” 

NOT SO FAST

             To read some articles, this robotic bee has not only been perfected, but is poised the replace its natural counterpart in a brave new world full of disconcerting, mechanical replicas of the familiar and comfortable wildlife around us.  However, that future is definitely . . . in the future. [1]

            In the 1950’s, futurists predicted that we would all be operating flying automobiles by 1970.  Similarly, the prediction of working robotic honeybees may be an optimistic fantasy.  But if the goal is never reached, it will be for no lack of effort on the part of the Harvard researchers.  But there are many hurdles, challenges, and obstacles.

             With robotic insects, flight itself is the biggest challenge.  While bird-sized flying drones are being perfected with relative success, flying insect ‘bots present a special aerodynamic problem. 

            It’s the size. 

            If you shrink a bird-sized drone down to the size of an insect -- it won’t fly.  A roboticist at the University of California at Berkeley, Ronald Fearing, told the Washington Post that “the rules of aerodynamics change” with an object as small as an insect. [5]  Unlike bird wings, insect-sized wings must move with amazing precision.  Replicating these precise wing movements is a formidable engineering challenge.  In fact, scientists only recently came to understand how insects fly at all.  Compounding these problems, such precision wing movements require yet larger supplies of portable power. [6]

            In order to create a robot that does what a honeybee does, the ‘bot must be the same size as a honeybee.  Currently, no lightweight, portable power source exists with both the small size and large energy output needed by the robo-bee.  But even with a suitable power source, the ‘bot must also be equipped with a portable guidance system.  And there is no guidance system small enough, and lightweight enough, to do the job. [3]  

            For now, Robo-Bee is a sensation because it can fly.  But the word “fly” is used in the most restricted and technical sense.  For most of the last few years, Robo-Bee has been able to flap its wings, and rise into the air – “fly.”  However, when it does, it shoots from its starting position across the room and crashes into the nearest wall.  Flight over.  Total flight time – about a second.

            This constant crashing is even more discouraging when you realize that the current prototype is stabilized by a fixed wire.  And, without that practical, portable power supply, Robo-Bee still needs “a power cord.”  Figuratively speaking, you still have to plug it into the wall. 

            Recently, however, researchers have figured out how to guide the robo-bee in flight.  Now, with the latest guidance breakthrough, the robo-bee can be made “to pitch and roll in a predetermined direction” and, then, it crashes into the nearest wall.  
            Discouraged yet?  Well, to their credit, the would-be developers of Robo-Bee aren’t the least bit discouraged.  And, as modest as the current Robo-Bee’s performance may be, it’s an incredible achievement.  Only with the persistence of the project’s engineers have a host of seemingly impossible challenges been met and problems resolved. 

            Progress has, and will, be made through a series of small advances over a long period of time.  So, the rumored release of a swarm of robotic bees to replace our honeybees is far, far away.  [4]  It will be a long time before the first Robo-Bee rolls off the assembly line, flies into the fields, and begins pollinating.

ANOTHER HORIZON

            Whether a particular article expresses hopeful optimism or fearful apprehension about a “future” robotic bee, I seem to hear the same description – again and again.  The list of goals extends to the ability to fly in swarms and coordinate swarm maneuvers and strategy.  But a robotic honeybee needs more.  Much more.

A HONEYBEE’S BRAIN

            After all of the above issues are resolved and all the goals reached, there will still be something missing.

            Even with an on-board computer to direct its flight, how will the Robo-Bee pollinate flowers?  Just think about it.  To do so, these robots would have to see and smell.  They’d have to master the varied challenges of the pollination of each individual bloom.  To do that, these ‘bots would almost have to be able to . . . think.  How are they going to do that?  Well, the members of the Green Brain Project are glad you asked them that question.

            Researchers in Great Britain, specifically, at the Universities of Sheffield and Sussex not only know the question but, about a year ago, decided to do something about answering it.  In an article describing the project, George Dvorsky, reports that, late last year, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) put up £1 million (USD $1,614,700) for the development and creation of the “first accurate computer simulation of a honey bee brain.” 

            But, when you consider the challenging goal of the project, even this “front money” is not so very much.  After all, the project couldn’t afford the kind of computer muscle that would seem to be needed to tackle a job like this.  However, a creative solution to the computer problem has been provided by California’s NVIDIA.  That corporation will provide the project with a number of high-performance graphical processing units called GPU accelerators.  This will allow the researchers to simulate aspects of a honeybee’s brain by using a large group of paralleled desktop PCs.  In other words, put together enough desktops and you can approximate some of the functions of a cluster of supercomputers, but at a fraction of the cost.

            No matter how much or little money and equipment are involved, this part of the Robo-Bee project, building the bee’s mind, is an even more formidable challenge than building a robotic insect that just flies.  The mind of even an insect is breathtakingly complex, but the Green Project researchers are not trying to tackle the replication of the honeybee’s entire brain.  Instead, they are focusing on only two functions: vision and the sense of smell.

            Researchers are attempting to develop cognitive models of sight and smell.  To duplicate even part of an actual bee’s brain, you need to study an actual bee or, at least, work with someone who has.  That someone is Martin Giurfa of Toulouse, “an expert in all aspects of bee brain anatomy, physiology, and bee cognition and behavior.”  The ultimate goal is a robotic bee that can detect particular odors or particular flowers.  But, more immediately, the researcher are hoping to develop computer models of these processes that, someday, will be downloaded directly into the “brain” of a robotic bee.

            However, the description above understates and ambition of one aspect of this project.  The researchers are attempting to develop models with true artificial intelligence.  That is, they are attempting to develop a computerized intelligence that will allow a robotic honeybee to act autonomously.  Put yet another way, these robotic bees would have the cognitive ability to perform certain basic tasks without pre-programmed instructions.  In other words, these robotic bees would be able to think.

            These types of cognitive models are more than a few steps beyond simple programming.  But why bother?  Why do researchers need models of cognitive processes associated with vision and smell?  Couldn’t they develop an artificial intelligence without these senses?

            The surprising answer is . . . probably not.

“EMBODIMENT” – SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

            What do we think about?  We think about what we see, smell, hear, feel and taste.  Could a human intelligence ever be “designed” without senses and sensory input?  No. 

            So, in order to develop a real artificial intelligence — an intelligence that thinks -- that intelligence must be “embodied” with those senses that provide the necessary sensory input (something to think about).

            Simply put, the concept termed “embodiment,” applied to robotics, “holds that any true artificial intelligence is impossible unless the robot has sensory and motor skills that connect it to the world.”  In other words, without a sensory interface with an environment, cognitive intelligence, as we know it, wouldn’t exist.

CONCLUSION

So, if Robo-Bee is going to pollinate, Robo-Bee will have to be able to think.

POSTSCRIPT

            As I made my way through each layer of technological development necessary to launch that first Robo-Bee into the meadows and fields, I couldn’t help but notice a strange contrast.

            The goals of Harvard’s MAV project include perfecting an insect-sized robot and that flies like an insect.  This finished Robo-Bee would even be able to fly in swarms with other Robo-Bees -- adapting its responses to changing conditions.  But reaching these goals, alone, wouldn’t produce a practical robotic honeybee – one that could go into agricultural fields and pollinate. 

            The Green Brain Project, on the other hand, picks up where Harvard’s MAV project leaves off tackling the daunting task of perfecting the artificial intelligence needed to make the robotic bee do what a bee does.

            The contrast is in the funding. 

            Harvard’s MAV project is quite well funded and has allowed researchers to work their way, slowly, around and through an amazing number of obstacles.  And, a lot of slow progress is still ahead.

            The Green Brain Project is certainly funded, but not anything like Harvard’s MAV project.  The Green Brain Project has to run desktop PC’s in tandem instead of being able to afford the computer “muscle” ideally required.  The accommodations are adequate, but considering the importance of the cognitive functions to a working robotic bee, why the “dip” in financial interest when it comes to the Green Brain Project?

            Maybe the answer can be found in the story of the mysterious Robo-Fly.

Thursday 18 September 2014

GCLM5444HOxenia

The Next Post Is Coming On: 4 October 2014