Project

Tribble: The Robotic Interactive Ball-Based Living Entity

Groups

The Tribble project demonstrates the application of dense, distributed sensor networks to electronic skins. The Tribble is a one-foot diameter sphere tiled by a 32-node systolic sensor network, with each node capable of multi-modal sensing (pressure, light, sound, temperature) and actuation (glowing, purring). There is no central controller�all behavior evolves from communication between proximate patches of electronic skin. Current research on this platform is exploring algorithms for distributed sensor calibration.

The Tribble project demonstrates the application of dense, distributed sensor networks to electronic skins. The Tribble is a one-foot diameter sphere tiled by a 32-node systolic sensor network, with each node capable of multi-modal sensing (pressure, light, sound, temperature) and actuation (glowing, purring). There is no central controller�all behavior evolves from communication between proximate patches of electronic skin. Current research on this platform is exploring algorithms for distributed sensor calibration.