About mechanizedAI

Somax Proto I

MechanizedAI began to take shape in late 2015 with a curiosity for things robotic and a necessity for AI. A project at my then current job was generating huge amounts of data. Trying locate a needle in the enormous data haystack ultimately led me to AI. I dismissed AI long ago never seeing a practical example that could be applied to a general problem. When I witnessed Watson do what I thought impossible for a computer, I was intrigued and when I discovered Neural Networks, and understood them, I was sold. It took two years of work to build my first AI that was able to classify wild data, at any scale with accuracy of 93% and 62 % on training and test data respectfully. When I hit this landmark I knew my techniques were sound and I could build an AI that learns about a problem from the written words of humans. It read almost one million documents and then found inference where no other statistical or computational method had enjoyed such success.

About the time I discovered AI, I decided I wanted a job with a killer hardware company doing state-of-industry work. I needed to understand hardware so I started reading and then bought an Intel Edison, LN298 motor driver and mated them to a stepper motor pulled from slot machine. I worked on getting that motor to spin for weeks (the edison made things fun and challenging but in no way easy). I landed an interview at the hardware company. In the airport, on the way to the interview, I made the motor spin for the first time. Next to becoming the parent of three amazing girls, I will never experienced a moment of creation so profound and life changing! At that moment I realized I could make software move! I could now make the intangible...tangible!

Somax Proto II

I got the job, moved, settled in and started working on extending what I now call proto 1 to a three axis version proto 2. Proto 2 is a three axis gimbal, supporting a Intel R200 depth camera with a 9 axis motion sensor.

I slowed my work on Somax hardware to concentrate on the Somax AI. In Spring of 2018 I was absolutely sure I could build the brain using neural networks. I set AI aside and focused on building proto 3.

Somax Proto III

Proto 3 reduced the foot print by 300%, added dual attitude, heading and reference sensors/co-processors, dual (1.5", .3) color SPI OLED displays, a 4 channel TDM MEMs microphone array and a rectangular perimeter of 36 24 bit RGB addressable LEDs. Proto 3 is currently in the hardware bring up phase. Bring up Status is updated in the mechanizedAI Github repository.

Somax Proto IV

During bring up of proto 3 I made a couple of observations. I thought that Somax would need 6 axis of motion to properly fold the gimbal to its power off position. With a small amount of cad work I was able to add a 4th axis of motion at the cost of the RGB LED rectangular perimeter. After considering the use case for the LED's I found them to be redundant to the other methods available to achieve similar goals. Adding the fourth axis means that the camera gimbal will now have a low profile power off / resting position. In the power off / resting position the full height of proto 4 will be 60 millimeters. Proto 3 power off height is 109 millimeters. 60 isn't pocketable but it's a lot closer. This proto will be a short build and adds a motor and layout change to the camera gimbal. I have the design ready and as soon as bring up is complete for proto 3

Somax Proto V

This will be the first protoype I deliver to my wife, 5 children, parents, and two brothers. Proto V will inherit the Proto IV design and will mainly effect the layout of the hardware with the only important change being the power section switch to dc input. From a software stand point no new hardware drivers will be added. The input mixer and output composer will be complete and more Applications will be included. The HotplugAI engine will be up and able to load AI on demand. Data storage and Applications to interface with the DreamBox will be in place and functional at very basic level.

• power supply configuration from 120 ac to 4x 16850 3800 mah batteries with onboard high current charger.
• The gimbal and camera hardware will now be stowed inside the frame at power off, so that no components are above the frame polycarb top plate and if possible will be covered by hatch door system integrated into the frame polycarb top plate. This will reduce the power off height to a most 30 millimeters and with a little luck 25 millimeters.
• The overall dimensions when powered off will be 140 x 80 x 25 millimeters. The nearly the same length and width as a Samsung galaxy s9+ and only 3 times thicker. plate of the profile will reduce to a power off height of 40 millimeters
• Anything non essential like led meters, status lighting , or variable voltage regulators will be removed or replaced with more efficient components to reduce power and space.
• Myriad 2 HotPlugAi engines will be powered up and connected available for inference.
• The D400 camera will be operational and a max through put baseline for all sensors will be established for realtime data streamed to HotPlugAI's and Capture storage.
• The pipeline between Somax and the DreamBox will be functional. End to end Decision Stream will support a limited set of options and will prove the implementation is ready to scale.