Immobots, 25 Years Later
Model-based programming is back. This time it's not just for machines.
Almost 25 years ago I read an article on immobots in MIT Technology Review. It stuck: Immobots Take Control.
I was a fresh grad at Husky Injection Molding Systems, assigned to improve self-diagnostics on injection moulding machines and their robots. It was a lovely problem. It got me thinking about monitoring systems for errors — and, more importantly, about what an error is. An immobot doesn’t watch a machine from the outside. It carries a model of the machine, compares that model to what the machine is doing, and reasons through the delta. The error is the drift — the gap between what ought to be happening and what is. That reframing has stayed with me for 25 years.
