RE: New subscriber to List

Hi everybody :)

Just joined this list and didn't see much happening yet.  Is everyone on summer vacation?

I have an interest in helping to develop GPL'd software for robotics.  For a few years now, I have had an idea for a new protocol.  I call it RIMCP (Robotics Inter Module Control Protocol) and it would be similar "in principle" to http.

This new protocol would allow robot limbs from different manufacturers to learn from each other and eventually function normally without having to rewrite ANY software.  The nice thing about RIMCP is that it would be "human readable" and easy to understand with a little knowledge of robotic actions and parameters.  This would not hold true for the data stream during the "learning process" but would be true afterwards.  Once the learning process was complete, the volume of data for controling limbs would be significantly reduced, thus allowing the robot to react more quickly to different stimululi.  Each limb would contain its own CPU, memory, and I/O chips.  Communication would be done via either a 10/100BaseT connection or a fiber optic connection, dependin
g on the data needs.  For example, a 3D vision system might require a fiber optic connection with the "master CPU".

There would of course be a need for mfgs of robotics parts (or limbs) to standardize the mechanical fittings where the limbs attach to the main "torso" of the robot.  I believe that this type of development is the key to future practical robotics development.

After sharing this idea with another robotics enthusiast, he pointed me to this website and list.  I hope you have much success in your efforts and am willing to help in any way I can.

Sincerely,

Arthur Baldwin