Project CERES

== Goal ==
The Goal of the CERES AI project is fairly straightforward: Produce and maintain a series of drones coordinated and managed by a control AI capable of taking care of the facilities of ARHK, performing the tasks of repairs, construction, cleaning and providing first-aid, as well as saving people from fatal falls to the ocean. The latter also provides the common pastime in ARHK of bungee jumping off bridges without any safety equipment save for the drones.
== History ==
The work on the CERES Project started during Damien August’s work as an Intern for the Engineers, while tending to his library the CLEAR (now the DOVE) were developed as a pet project to keep the place clean. And after being made aware of the ARHK Project, the idea was forwarded that a floating island-city would require a large amount of manpower to keep it operational, and it was then that a team of researchers was assembled to work on something, and the idea for improvements to the AI that controlled the CLEAR was forwarded.
The first improvement to the AI was to expand its capabilities from cleaning to something much more useful, repairs and construction. It was then that the RAM and Heavy-duty RAMs appeared, the latter being recently renamed to CRABs. After some workplace accidents during the construction of The Towers, the FEY came into production to prevent such things from happening. Much later, after countless lab-incidents ARHK’s Medical Department forwarded the idea of a medical drone to be added to the CERES mainframe, and thus the MER were born. Recently, the FEY have been renamed to the FAWN, the MER to the EMU and the CLEAR to the DOVE so as to keep a thematic consistency between the drones’ acronyms.
== Overview ==
The CERES (faCility maintEnance and pREServation) A.I. is a module used to maintain, coordinate and assess the various drones that make part of it. In ARHK the CERES mainframe, which connects the various drones to the whole of the towers, acts as a hub for recharging, resupplying and repairing the drones as well as a control center for their functions. A supercomputer is used to monitor the integrity of the towers, making sure the correct drones are dispatched to handle the correct issues, coordinating and synchronizing the drones’ actions and directives. New drones produced are also initially deployed through the CERES A.I. main hub to areas it calculates to be more in need of them. To keep the towers up and running at all times, recharging and repairing drones are constantly replaced in their tasks by active drones, never keeping a spot vacant for more than a few minutes.
While the drones may operate individually without CERES’ coordination, with the subgroups of the AI partitioned to operate outside of ARHK being able to utilize a computer as an information relay, or simply operating individually with much reduced effectiveness, they become far more efficient while linked to a mainframe. This allows for instant managing of functions between all drones, operating as synchronized limbs of a larger mind, instead of relying on communication between each individual drone.
Due to the nature of the CERES drones being civilian oriented and not needing the extra power allocated to weapons systems and advanced battle logic matrixes the drones’ battery life is capable of lasting for larger amounts of times of uninterrupted work. The CERES drones are also capable of spending several days of minimal activity without the need to recharge, having to then be recharged at a designated station or at a mainframe, depending on their function or the job they are currently undertaking. As they are built for utility rather than combat few of them have any armor protection, the exception being the RAMs and CRABs (formerly known as heavy-duty RAM) which are built for repairs and constructions, therefore being made more durable and sturdy materials for the work they are intended to perform.
The drones can operate synchronized within a 20km radius of a CERES mainframe and about 5 km from a relay station, outside of that area a suit capable of establishing a connection with the drones can control small groups if it has access granted to do so, with the range of communication being dependent on the suit’s communication systems. The drones are also capable of responding to basic voice commands if needed, as long as they remain within a relay’s range.
The current drones that make up the CERES AI arsenal of maintenance are as following:
*CRAB
*DOVE
*EMU
*FAWN
*RAM
Category:PACYOA: TE
Category:ARHK Research Projects
Category:ARHK