Roomba Pac-Man

Posted 11 Nov 2009 at 20:07 UTC by steve

The Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECUV) at the University of Colorado at Boulder has been developing software that helps robots form ad-hoc networks and distribute cooperative control of their operations. Some of the individuals at RECUV decided to create a cool demo on their own time to show off what their software can do. They've implemented a real-life version of Pac-Man using Roombas. They are quick to point out that despite the fact that the Blinky, Inky, Clyde, and Pinky Roombas seem determined to kill the Pac-Man Roomba, all the robots are actually quite safe. This is because, they say, all are "instilled with the Three Laws of Roombotics". And we'll note that the software is safe to download and use too because it protects your rights to examine, use, modify and distribute under the GNU GPL. There's one more video after the break with details on the waypoint navigation software used in the demo.