A Group of ‘electronic artists’

10350-00104 Lead author Maria Santos of Georgia Tech’s Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines and colleagues detail the scope of these painting robots’ tasks in Frontiers in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

In the study, Santos et al. designed a control system. In practice, the researchers don’t need to send instructions to each robot once, and more than 10 robots with collaborative functions can smear color in a designated area. However, the “colors” painted by the robot in the experiment are not from real-world paint, but the result of the overhead projector visualizing its movement on the canvas.

The robots can communicate wirelessly with each other, 10350-00104 and each individual robot can recognize its position in the canvas and know its position relative to the surrounding robots.

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10350-00104 According to the design system of the researchers, after the commander tells the color to be applied in a certain area of the canvas and the depth of the color, the robot will proceed according to the instruction, and move straight, turn, turn or circle on the canvas at different speeds and angles. The robot’s movement trajectory accumulates over time, and finally completes the task of coloring.

The system also enables interaction between humans and groups of robots. The robot can switch different spray colors according to the change of instructions. Each robot can carry one or more colors, and if the color it carries does not match the command, it will work 10350-00104 with other robots on the canvas to match the color as closely as possible.

In addition to adapting to the instruction switch, the robot will also adjust according to its own painting ability, and even know when to “rest”. For example, when multiple robots move in different areas of the canvas at the same time according to an approximate trajectory, if the designer’s instruction does not include yellow, the robot carrying yellow will stop moving. No longer apply color.