14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists focused on something like drunk-texting, but not quite, show that vodka-powered texts now have an experimental use in robot communication.
Academics researching methods of delivering messages, came up with the idea that alcohol can be a very good channel of delivery in case of emergency and failure of current systems.
Three professors from Toronto's York University and Warwick University in the UK proved that alcohol could serve as a means of facilitating wireless communication between two robots. Nariman Farsad, Andrew W. Eckford and Weisi Guo successfully delivered text messages between two robots through vodka sprayed into the air.
The system is quite simple, as the “two robotic systems, which analyze concentrations of alcohol, convert the data into coded messages,” notes The Register. The alcohol is sprayed at certain intervals with concentrations mimicking binary patterns of 1s and 0s, by one of the units, while the other, placed at a distance, analyzes and transforms the data into digital messages.
The purpose of the research was to create an alternative means of communication that would serve as a backup, in case wireless systems were disabled due to emergency situations. In the experiment, academics used a small fan to spread alcohol concentrations transmitting the message “O CANADA.”
The concept is similar to animal marking systems based on urine or pheromones used to track data over long distances. The robots would be able to trace patterns of chemical data, working like a chemical bar code, and transform the codes found in the alcohol concentrations sprayed into the air into actual messages.
The study was published in the reviewed journal under the name “Tabletop molecular communication: Text messages through chemical signs.” In the future, the three scientists hope to modify the findings and use them as a nano-scale means of communication for machines.