"Experiments with electromechanical computers (endomecanique) carried out in 1938 by Francois Dussaud. Dussaud ordered from SATME (a company building railroad equipment) an "endomechanical" truck.
This vehicle was controlled by a programmable automaton using two separate perforated bands of paper constituting "separate memories" which alternated according to information supplied by a photo-electric sensor or the front bumper.
This true mechanical computer enabled the vehicle to follow a pre-determined path (the base program which enabled such functions as "start, stop, move away, move back, hoot") or upon sensing an obstacle to avoid it (using the alternate program).
Endomechanics were also applied to a boat experimented on the lake of Geneva. The 1938 article also points out that endomechanics can be applied to torpedoes, tanks or recon airplanes.
Endomechanics as an early form of computer science was defined as an extended program automaticity which manoeuvres in function of the path encountered and not in function of the time elapsed."
(Source: sciences and vie 1938)
This vehicle was controlled by a programmable automaton using two separate perforated bands of paper constituting "separate memories" which alternated according to information supplied by a photo-electric sensor or the front bumper.
This true mechanical computer enabled the vehicle to follow a pre-determined path (the base program which enabled such functions as "start, stop, move away, move back, hoot") or upon sensing an obstacle to avoid it (using the alternate program).
Endomechanics were also applied to a boat experimented on the lake of Geneva. The 1938 article also points out that endomechanics can be applied to torpedoes, tanks or recon airplanes.
Endomechanics as an early form of computer science was defined as an extended program automaticity which manoeuvres in function of the path encountered and not in function of the time elapsed."
(Source: sciences and vie 1938)
ussaud Autonomous robot vehicle 1938
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