Tiny Dancing Robots: Display-Based Computing for Multi-Robot Control Systems Maki Sugimoto *1 Masahiro Tomita *1 Tomohisa Aruga *1 Naohisa Nagaya *1 Noriyoshi Shimizu *1 Masahiko Inami *1 *1: The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, JAPAN 1 Introduction Computer graphic (CG) images exist only in a display device, and cannot physically interact with the real world, whereas robots have a physical existence that can be controlled by a computer. In this study, we developed robots that behave along with fiducial graphics. This technology can be used to synchronize physical actions based on the graphics shown in the display devices. Figure 1 shows tiny robots controlled by this technique. Figure 1: Tiny Dancing Robots. 2 Display-Based Computing Display-based Computing (DBC) technology is a novel technique that uses graphic displays to output arbitrary optical information with division and multiplexing of time and space. A remarkable prior study of a robot control system uses a projector with line tracer robots [1]. In that study, the system controls the position of the robots. However, our technique can be applied to not only position control, but also to direction control of the robots with the fiducial graphics. Position and direction are the full properties of robots in a 2-dimensional coordinate system. Thus, the robots are considered as an incarnation of the computer graphics. Using this technology, we demonstrated a measurement system and a simple robot control system [2]. After the demonstration, we attempt to implement multi-robot synchronization and try to control the limbs of the robots with the technology. In the technique, the robot motion can be controlled by just the image frames on display devices. Thus, many graphic designers and animators could edit robot motions with regular animation software or web tools. This would provide an easy way to create physical contents including robots with graphics. 3 Tiny Dancing Robots In this study, we use vehicle type robots to create a multi-robot synchronization system and bear type robots to control gestures. Figure 2 shows the vehicle type tiny robots, a bear type tiny robot and the configuration of a control system using the DBC technology. Figure 2: (a): Vehicle type tiny robots. (b): A bear type tiny robot. (c): A robot with various displays. (d): System configuration. For limb control, we made gesture robots that can be used in tele-communication systems. In a chat system, users can send messages with the gesture as sign graphics. They can thus easily share the robot motion with a regular display device. It no longer needs wireless communication modules such as Bluetooth or WirelessLAN modules. As well, because of the DBC technology, these robots are suitable as position dependent controls. 4 Conclusion Robots will become a familiar object for people when robot control becomes easy. At that time, applications that can use robots will spread worldwide. In such situations, the concept of Display-Based Computing for robot control will probably be considered a good control method. Robots controlled by a display can be used in tele-communications, broadcasting, gaming and so on. These robots greatly enhance the possibilities open for graphics displays. References 1. R. Jarvis, Video plane robot swarms. Journal of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing, 11(4):249-258, 1994. 2. M. Sugimoto, M. Kojima, A. Nakamura, G. Kagotani, H. Nii and M. Inami, Augmented Coliseum, SIGGRAPH 2005 Full Conference DVD-ROM Disk1 Emerging Technologies, 2005 dbc(at)hi.mce.uec.ac.jp a b c d