Maelzel
Detailed Agent (Controller) Information
The robot's controller, built on 4.50 x 6.09 inch wire wrapped cards, provides the agent access to an engine of intelligence. Each wire wrapped card communicates with the other cards in the card cage over a back plane whose effective bandwidth is primarily a function of the data rate transferred between the card cage, the vehicular host, and the P-Type Turing engine's rate of accommodation and assimilation.
Only two of the three cards must be installed in the card cage in order for the controller to be functional. The card on the left is a P-Type Turing engine. It is essential for the autonomous agent's operation. Likewise, the center card provides the robotic agent with an artificial ganglionic connection between its P-Type engine of intelligence and the vehicular host's chassis. This card too is essential for autonomous operation. The card on the right however, is an optional PC interface operating at 57.6 KB. Although the robot can be completely controlled by this RS-232 port, if this card is removed then the agent functions autonomously.
The controller demonstrates the feasibility of controlling a situated and embodied agent with a P-Type engine. Further, due to the simplicity of instantiating Turing's P-Type algorithm, the two "essential" circuit cards described above could easily be replaced by a single Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).
Controller 106 KB Download