RoboSpeed

A thread of 2 messages, 18 January 1991 to 25 January 1991, in the order they were sent.

#2090 RoboSpeed

Robert S. Dean · 18 January 1991

With regard to some of your comments regarding speed calculation for robots
that you included with the design package you uploaded:

I would expect that many robots would be operating in a mixed human/robot
environment, such as an office, a hotel, or a starship.  In that case, I
think that the amount of clutter in most people's offices/hallways/homes
would tend to keep robot speed low regardless of the theoretical maximum.

I know that if I had a wheeled Naasirka Office Mate here and I sent it to
the coffee maker for a cup of coffee it would have to dodge around a lot
of junk in the halls (not to mention the rest of the people).  There
wouldn't be a chance of zipping down there at 100kph.  Similarly, a grav robot
should probably be considered to be using NOE speed for most building interiors
which would limit them to 40kph unless they had avionics.  Even then, I hate
to get bumped by a 100kph robot in the hall.

Anyway, if you sent these robots out on the roads or other trafficways by
themselves, they could then use their speed effectively.  I know using the
P/W calculations on wheeled/tracked/legged robots will tend to make them
fast because they need a lot (comparatively) of power to run peripherals,
but there is really no reason to design an indoor grav robot with more than
a nominal amount of excess thrust (.1G or so?).  So some of this could be
covered in the design section without having to do a separate table for them.

Rob Dean

#2101 Re: Robo Speed

Bertil Jonell · 25 January 1991 · reply to #2090

[email removed] Robert S. Dean wrote:
> Anyway, if you sent these robots out on the roads or other trafficways by
> themselves, they could then use their speed effectively.

  If robots are present to some degree on a world, there is bound to be a
speedlimit for pedestrian traffic, probably around 10-20kph as an absolute
maximum.

  Maximum *possible* speed indoors would probably be determined with dexterity
in mind for the non-thrust driven robots.

> I know using the
> P/W calculations on wheeled/tracked/legged robots will tend to make them
> fast because they need a lot (comparatively) of power to run peripherals,

  The big trouble is that even now, I had divided the power output by 28.
Otherwise, even the legged robots would have had speeds reduced only by
streamlining.

> but there is really no reason to design an indoor grav robot with more than
> a nominal amount of excess thrust (.1G or so?).  So some of this could be
> covered in the design section without having to do a separate table for them.

  There is two things though, that requires high thrust in grav-robots. The
first is if they are supposed to work on different worlds. I don't think that a
robot with 0.1 excess gees at one standard gravity could even lift it's own
weight on a UWP size A world. The second is that for some robots (like the XT-3)
a large thrust is needed to enable it to carry heavy parts and machinery.
Actually I feel that the thrust of the XT-3 is inadequate, since the thrust
cannot support as much weight as the robot can possibly lift (about 600kg).

> Rob Dean

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