Autonomous Light Air Vessels

Posted 30 Jan 2006 at 18:26 UTC by steve

The Swirling Brain pointed out a story at we-make-money-not-art.com on the Autonomous Light Air Vessels designed by Jed Berk and Nikhil Mitter of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. ALAVs are flocking, robot blimps that exhibit a variety of behaviors depending on whether they are alone, interacting with other ALAVs or interacting with humans. They change colors to indicate particular states. The ALAVs include sensors based on Sun SPOT boards (PDF format). You'll find lots of photos and video on the ALAV project page. A few more details about the concept can be found on the new ecology of things class website and an ALAV overview document (PDF format). The class was sponsored by Sun Microsystems. And, in case you were wondering, the three ALAVs are named Bubba, Flipper, and Habib.