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Two users are confronted with each other. They sit, face to face, engaged in a non-verbal dialogue, a round table in between them. The system reflects the users' inter-relation.
The table's glass surface is the terrain for a population of solar robots. It is light-controlled and set up to be illuminated from both sides. The solar robots wait for light energy upon the glass. The two users are interfaced with headmounted brain wave sensors. Their brain wave frequencies are continuously measured, analyzed, and compared. The inter-relation of these frequencies is interpreted and determines the environmental situation of the robots' terrain. The results are applied in the form of changing light intensities of lamps, projected onto the glass plate from above and below. The intensities control the robots' speed, behavior, and the terrain areas of robot activity. Due to the different combinations of users and their inner response to each other, varying light patterns from top-down and bottom-up affect the terrain. The robot population begins to move in significant patterns of motion over the changing terrain area. The patterns are the interpretation of the two users' synergy, embodying subliminal tendencies: the more closely the brain wave frequencies of the users resemble each other, the more homogeneously the robot population moves, attaining a fluidity of motion and behavior over the entire robot terrain.
The round glass plate that constitutes the terrain is lit by groups of electroluminescent flat-lamps (EL-Sheets) from below and halogen spotlights from above. Each top light group correlates to a floor-light group and activates the area on which it is focused. The lamps project from two sides, sections of dimmable patterns onto the terrain. The sections are controlled separately in correspondence to the correlation of the brain wave frequencies of the two users.
The top-down lamps provide light energy to the robots' solar cells, which supply the power needed for movement, sensing, and behavior. The more that light hits the solar panel, the faster the robots move.
The robots are equipped with five front, one back, and one bottom sensor. The front and back sensors are photo-transistors that point onto the immediate surrounding floor area. These "robot eyes" see the top-down light intensities cast on the environment. In contrast to lit areas, dark areas function as an important environmental factor: dark shapes, like the robots' shadows and terrain border are viewed as "objects to avoid" and cause the robots' directional decisions.
According to variances in light intensity the electromagnetic wave emissions of the EL-Sheets located below change. The robot's bottom sensor, a pick-up coil, measures the wave. If the robot moves to another floor area with a different EL-Sheet intensity, its bottom sensor will detect the new wave signal and the robot will switch to the new behavioral state determined for it:
no behavior: the robot drives straight forward |
