Robot

A robot is a machine that can perform preprogrammed physical tasks. Some robotic devices, such as the robotic arm of the space shuttle, act under direct human control. Other robots act autonomously, under the control of a preprogrammed computer. Certain robots, such as the space shuttle arm, are used to perform tasks that are too difficult or dangerous for humans to engage in directly. Others, including those used in automobile production, have made it possible to automate repetitive tasks and to lower the cost of performing them relative to direct human involvement.

The word robot is also used to describe an intelligent mechanical device constructed in human form. This type of robot is common in science fiction, but major breakthroughs will need to be made in the field of artificial intelligence before we can produce a robot that even begins to resemble the robots of fiction.

A humanoid robot manufactured by Toyota appears to be "playing" a trumpet.

Definition

The word robot is used to refer to a wide range of machines, the common feature of which is that they are all capable of movement and can be used to perform physical tasks. Robots take on many different forms, ranging from humanoid, which mimic the human form and way of moving, to industrial, whose appearance is dictated by the function they are to perform. Robots can be grouped generally as mobile robots (eg. autonomous vehicles), manipulator robots (eg. industrial robots) and Self reconfigurable robots, which can conform themselves to the task at hand.

Robots may be controlled directly by a human, such as remotely-controlled bomb-disposal robots, robotic arms, or shuttles, or may act according to their own decision making ability, provided by artificial intelligence. However, the majority of robots fall in-between these extremes, being controlled by pre-programmed computers. Such robots may include feedback loops such that they can interact with their environment, but do not display actual intelligence.

The word robot is also used in a general sense to mean any machine which mimics the actions of a human (biomimicry), in the physical sense or in the mental sense.

The word robot comes from the Czech word robotnik, or worker, and robota, industrial labor.

Robots in history

The idea of mechanical men and semi-intelligent mechanical devices stretches back to the legends of ancient civilizations. For instance, in classical Roman and Greek mythology, the god of fire and metalwork (Vulcan in Rome and Hephaestus in Greece) created mechanical servants ranging from intelligent, golden handmaidens to three-legged tables that moved about under their own power. Jewish legend tells of the Golem, a clay statue animated by Kabbalistic magic. Similarly, Norse mythology (in the Younger Edda) tells of a clay giant, Mökkurkálfi or Mistcalf, constructed to aid the troll Hrungnir in a duel with Thor, the god of thunder.

Model of Leonardo da Vinci's mechanical knight, with a display of its inner workings.

One of the first recorded designs of a humanoid robot was made by Leonardo da Vinci around 1495. Da Vinci's notebooks, rediscovered in the 1950s, contain detailed drawings of a mechanical knight that can sit up, wave its arms, and move its head and jaw. The design is thought to be based on his anatomical research recorded in the Vitruvian Man*. It is not known whether he attempted to build the robot.

In 1737, French engineer Jacques de Vaucanson made the first known functioning humanoid robot that played the tabor and pipe. He also made a mechanical duck that reportedly had more than 400 moving parts and could flap its wings, eat grain, drink, and defecate.

Nikola Tesla invented a teleoperated boat, similar to a modern remotely operated vehicle (ROV), that was demonstrated at an 1898 exhibition in Madison Square Garden. Based on his patent for "teleautomation", he hoped to develop the "wireless torpedo" into an automated weapon system for the U.S. Navy.

Between 1937 and 1938, Westinghouse made eight similar humanoid robots nicknamed Elektro, exhibited at the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs. Each of these robots was about seven feet tall, weighed 300 pounds, and could walk, talk (using a 78-rpm record player), smoke cigarettes, and move its head and arms.

In 1948 and 1949, W. Grey Walter at Bristol University, England, created the first electronic autonomous robots, named Elmer and Elsie. They were often described as tortoises, based on their shape and slow movements. These three-wheeled robots were capable of phototaxis (movement guided by the influence of light), by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power.

Robots in literature

Robots have been frequently used as characters in works of literature. The word robot first appeared in the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), written by Czech writer Karel Čapek in 1920 [1]. In a short letter, Karel Čapek credited his brother, painter and writer Josef Čapek, for having coined the term robot [2]. It is derived from robota, which means "compulsory labor" or "corvée" in the Czech language and "work" in Slovak.

Science fiction writers have devoted many volumes to robots and their interaction with humans. Of particular note is the work of Isaac Asimov, who has centered a large portion of his work on robot-related stories [3]. In his three "laws of robotics," he codified a simple set of behaviors for robots to remain at the service of their human creators.

Literary works have adopted specialized terminology when referring to different types of robots. For instance, the term "robot" has come to mean a mechanical human, while "android" is used for an artificial human with organic parts, and "cyborg" or "bionic man" refers to a human form that contains both organic and mechanical parts. Organic artificial humans have also been referred to as "constructs."

Robotics

According to the Wiktionary, robotics is the science and technology of robots, their design, manufacture, and application. Robotics requires a working knowledge of electronics, mechanics, and software and a person working in the field has become known as a roboticist. The word robotics was first used in print by Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction short story "Liar!" (1941).

Although their appearance and capabilities vary, all robots share the features of a mechanical, movable structure under some form of control. The structure of a robot is usually mostly mechanical and can be called kinematic chain (its functionality being akin to the skeleton of a body). The chain is formed of links (its bones), actuators (its muscles) and joints which can allow one or more degrees of freedom. Most contemporary robots use open serial chains in which each link connects the one before to the one after it. These robots are called serial robots and often resemble the human arm. Some robots, such as the Stewart platform, use closed parallel kinematic chains. Other structures, such as those that mimic the mechanical structure of humans, various animals and insects, are comparatively rare. However, the development and use of such structures in robots is an active area of research (e.g. biomechanics). Robots used as manipulators have an end effector mounted on the last link. This end effector can be anything from a welding device to a mechanical hand used to manipulate the environment.

The mechanical structure of a robot must be controlled to perform tasks. The control of a robot involves three distinct phases - perception, processing and action (robotic paradigms). Sensors give information about the environment or the robot itself (e.g. the position of its joints or its end effector). Using strategies from the field of control theory, this information is processed to calculate the appropriate signals to the actuators (motors) which move the mechanical structure. The control of a robot involves various aspects such as path planning, pattern recognition, obstacle avoidance, etc. More complex and adaptable control strategies can be referred to as artificial intelligence.

Any task involves the motion of the robot. The study of motion can be divided into kinematics and dynamics. Direct kinematics refers to the calculation of end effector position, orientation, velocity and acceleration when the corresponding joint values are known. Inverse kinematics refers to the opposite case in which required joint values are calculated for given end effector values, as done in path planning. Some special aspects of kinematics include handling of redundancy (different possibilities of performing the same movement), collision avoidance and singularity avoidance. Once all relevant positions, velocities and accelerations have been calculated using kinematics, methods from the field of dynamics are used to study the effect of forces upon these movements. Direct dynamics refers to the calculation of accelerations in the robot once the applied forces are known. Direct dynamics is used in computer simulations of the robot. Inverse dynamics refers to the calculation of the actuator forces necessary to create a prescribed end effector acceleration. This information can be used to improve the control algorithms of a robot.

In each area mentioned above, researchers strive to develop new concepts and strategies, improve existing ones and improve the interaction between these areas. To do this, criteria for "optimal" performance and ways to optimize design, structure and control of robots must be developed and implemented.

Contemporary uses of robots

File:Industrial Robotics in car production.jpg

KUKA Industrial robots assemble a vehicle underbody.

Robots are growing in number and complexity, and they are being more widely used in industry. Most often, they are used to perform repetitive tasks. Industrial Robots can be manufactured in a wide range of sizes and can therefore handle much larger tasks than a human could.

So far, the main use of robots has been in the automation of mass-production industries, where well-defined tasks must be repeated in exactly the same fashion, with little need for feedback to control the process. A prime example is automobile production, in which large, complex robots are engaged in the assembly, welding, and painting stages. In addition, robots are useful in environments that are unpleasant or dangerous for people to work in, such as in toxic waste cleanup, bomb disposal, mining, and working in outer space or deep water.

Certain mobile robots, called automated guided vehicles (AGVs), are used in large facilities such as warehouses [4], hospitals [5] [6], and container ports, for the transport of goods [7] and for safety and security patrols. Such vehicles can be programmed to follow wires, markers, or laser guides to navigate around a given location.

Some robots are available for performing domestic tasks such as cooking, vacuum cleaning, and lawn mowing. In addition, robot kits made of plastic or aluminum are becoming increasingly popular for education in schools and professional training by companies.

Humanoid robots are being developed with the aim of providing robotic functions in a form that may increase their appeal to customers [8]. These types of robots, known as social robots, are made to interact with and provide companionship to people.

Current developments

Recently, background technologies of behavior, navigation, and path planning have been solved for basic wheeled robots. Consequently, roboticists are moving on to develop walking robots, including SIGMO, QRIO, Asimo, and Hubo. The field of robot research inspired by the principles of biological systems is known as biomorphic robotics.

It is extremely difficult to develop a robot that can move with a natural human or animal gait. One reason is that human and animal body movements involve a very large number of muscles, and replicating them mechanically is difficult, expensive, and requires a large amount of computational power [9]. A major challenge in creating a bipedal robot is in getting it to keep its balance. Initial work has therefore focused on building multi-legged robots such as hexapods [10], which are statically stable and easier to work with.

File:Robot hand holding an egg.jpg

Robotic manipulators can be very precise, but only when a task can be fully described.

Researchers are making progress in the area of feedback and tactile sensors, which give a robot the ability to sense its actions and adjust its behavior accordingly. This ability allows the robot to perform complex physical tasks that require some active control in response to the situation.

A growing subdiscipline of robotics is medical robotics. Recently, regulatory approval was granted for the use of robots in minimally invasive procedures. Robots are also being considered for use in performing highly delicate, accurate surgery. In the future, a surgeon may use a remotely controlled robot to perform a procedure on a patient when the two are separated by a considerable distance.

Experimental winged robots and other devices exploiting biomimicry are also in early development. By using so-called "nanomotors" and "smart wires," researchers are attempting to drastically simplify motive power. In addition, they are using extremely small gyroscopes to improve the robot's stability during flight. A significant driver of this work is military research into spy technologies.

Future prospects

Some scientists believe that robots will be able to approximate human-like intelligence in the first half of the 21st century (see Timeline of the future in forecasts#Artificial intelligence and robotics). The cybernetics pioneer Norbert Wiener discussed the issue of robots replacing humans in fields of work in his book The human use of human beings (1950), in which he speculated that robots taking over human jobs may initially lead to growing unemployment and social turmoil, but that in the medium-term it might bring increased material wealth to people in most nations. Human perception and acceptance of robots has been considered and has led to the proposition of the Uncanny Valley in analyzing human feelings about robots.

Robotics will probably continue its spread in offices and homes, replacing "dumb" appliances with smart robotic equivalents. Domestic robots capable of performing many household tasks, described in science fiction stories and coveted by the public in the 1960s, are likely to be perfected.

There is likely to be some degree of convergence between humans and robots. Some humans are already cyborgs with some body parts and even parts of the nervous system replaced by artificial analogues, such as Pacemakers. In many cases the same technology might be used both in robotics and in medicine.

Dangers and Fears

Although robots have yet to develop to the stage where they pose any threat or danger to society [11], fears and concerns about robots have been repeatedly expressed in a wide range of books and films. The principal theme is the robots' intelligence and ability to act could exceed that of humans, that they could develop a conscience and a motivation to take over or destroy the human race.

Frankenstein (1818), sometimes called the first science fiction novel, has become synonymous with the theme of a robot or monster advancing beyond its creator. Probably the best known author to work in this area is Isaac Asimov who has placed robots and their interaction with society at the center of many of his works. Of particular interest are Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

Currently, malicious programming or unsafe use of robots may be the biggest danger. Although industrial robots may be smaller and less powerful than other industrial machines, they are just as capable of inflicting severe injury on humans. However, since a robot can be programmed to move in different trajectories depending on its task, its movement can be unpredictable for a person standing in its reach. Therefore, most industrial robots operate inside a security fence which separates them from human workers.

Even without malicious programming, a robot, especially a future model moving freely in a human environment, is potentially dangerous because of its large moving masses, powerful actuators and unpredictably complex behavior. A robot falling on someone or just stepping on his foot by mistake could cause much more damage to the victim than a human being of the same size. Designing and programming robots to be intrinsically safe and to exhibit safe behavior in a human environment is one of the great challenges in robotics.

Robot competitions

See also: Category:Robotics competitions and robot competition

Competitions for robots are gaining popularity and competitions now exist catering for a wide variety of robot builders ranging from schools to research institutions. Robots compete at a wide range of tasks including combat, playing games, maze solving, performing tasks [12] and navigational exercises (eg. DARPA Grand Challenge) [13] [14]

88888888888 From article on "Robot competition" in WP: Dean Kamen, Founder of FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), created the world's leading high school robotics competition. FIRST provides a varsity-like competitive forum that inspires in young people, their schools and communities an appreciation of science and technology.

Their robotics competition is a multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. Their outreach includes the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC), the FIRST Vex Challenge (FVC), the FIRST Lego League (FLL), and Junior FIRST Lego League (JFLL). These four competitons are each geared separately at students aged 14-18, 14-18, 9-14, and 6-9 respectively. In 2005, there were over 100,000 students and 40,000 adult mentors from around the world involved in at least one of FIRST's competitions.

Unlike the Robot sumo wrestling competitions that take place regularly in some venues, or the Battlebots competitions on TV, these competitions include the creation of a robot. For the FLL program, the robots are entirely autonomous; the FVC competition involves separate autonomous and driver control matches; and the FRC competition involves an autonomous period (10 or 15 seconds) followed by a driver control in their matches.

RoboCup is a competitive organization dedicated to developing a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team by the year 2050. There are many different leagues ranging from computer simulation, to full-size humanoid robots.

RoboCup Junior is similar to RoboCup. RoboCup Junior is a competition for primary and secondary school aged students. RoboCup Junior includes three competitions:

• soccer - two robots per team play autonomously in a game of soccer
• rescue - an obstacle course in which a robot must follow a line to retrieve an object, and bring it back to safety as fast as possible
• dance - robots are designed to dance to music and are judged on criteria such as creativity and costumes

As is the case with RoboCup, all robots are designed and developed solely by the students and act autonomously without any form of remote control or human intervention.

The DARPA Grand Challenge is a competition for robotic vehicles to complete an under-200 mile, off-road course in the Mojave Desert. The unclaimed 2004 prize was $1,000,000. The farthest any participant got was only 7.4 miles. However, the 2005 prize of $2,000,000 was claimed by Stanford University. In this race, four vehicles successfully completed the race. This is a testament to how fast robotic vision and navigation are improving.

The Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition (IGVC) is a competition for autonomous ground vehicles that must traverse outdoor obstacle courses without any human interaction. This international competition sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), is a student design competition at the university level and has held annual competitions since 1992.

The two AAAI Grand Challenges focus on Human Robot Interaction, with one being a robot attending and delivering a conference talk, the other being operator-interaction challenges in rescue robotics.

The Centennial Challenges are NASA prize contests for non-government funded technological achievements, including robotics, by US citizens.

In Micromouse competitions, small robots try to solve a maze in the fastest time.

The popularity of the TV shows Robot Wars Robotica and Battlebots, of college level robot-sumo wrestling competitions, the success of "smart bombs" and UCAVs in armed conflicts, grass-eating "gastrobots" in Florida, and the creation of a slug-eating robot in England, suggest that the fear of an artificial life form doing harm, or competing with natural wild life, is not an illusion. The worldwide Green Parties in 2002 were asking for public input on extending their existing policies against such competition, as part of more general biosafety and biosecurity concerns. It appears that, like Aldous Huxley's concerns about human cloning, questions Karel Čapek raised eighty years earlier in science fiction have become real debates.

The Mobile Autonomous Systems Laboratory (http://maslab.csail.mit.edu) is one of the few college-level vision-based autonomous robotics competition in the world. Conducted by and for MIT undergraduates, this competition requires multithreaded applications of image processing, robotic movements, and target ball deposition. The robots are run with debian linux and run on an independent OrcBoard platform that facilitates sensor-hardware additions and recognition.

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References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Craig, J.J. (2005). Introduction to Robotics. Pearson Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ.
• Tsai, L.-W. (1999). Robot Analysis. Wiley. New York.

See also

Classes of robots

For classes and types of robots see Category:Robots.

Research areas associated with robotics

• Behavior based robotics and Subsumption architecture
• Developmental robotics
• Epigenetic robotics
• Evolutionary robotics
• Cognitive robotics
• Robot control
• Automated planning and scheduling
• Mechatronics
• Neural networks
• Cybernetics
• Artificial consciousness
• Telerobotics / Telepresence
• Nanotechnology and MEMS
• Swarm robotics
• Robot software
• NASA

Additional robot topics

• Android
• Carbon chauvinism (see: Alternative biochemistry)
• Clanking replicators
• Disabled robotics: Artificial powered exoskeleton
• Gynoid
• Microbotics
• Rapid prototyping
• Robotic mapping
• Utility fog

External links

Wikibooks has more about this subject:

Robotics

Periodicals

IEEE Transactions on

• Robotics and Automation
• Automation Science and Engineering
• Control Systems Technology
• Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence

Journals

• International Journal of Robotics Research
• International Journal of Robotics and Automation
• Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems
• Robotica
• Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Magazines

• Robotics & Automation Magazine

Media coverage and articles

• Everything you wanted to know about robots — Provided by New Scientist.
• Robot navigation and vision system – BetterHumans, 9 January 2003
• Robotic Nation by Marshall Brain
• The Legal Rights of Robots by Robert A. Freitas
• Artificial chromosomes in robots February 2005

General information and non-profit organizations

• IEEE Robotics and Automation Society
• Robot Tutorials for Beginners
• Player/Stage Project A very popular Free Software robot interface and simulation system, used for robotics research and teaching worldwide.
• Idaho National Laboratory Robotics
• EURON: the European Robotics Research Network which currently assembles over 150 robotics research institutes and robotics companies in Europe.
• ALA – The Association for Laboratory Automation
• LRIG – The Laboratory Robotics Interest Group
• SeattleRobotics.org – The Seattle Robotics Society, one of the oldest and largest hobby robotics groups in the world.
• International Federation of Robotics
• GoRobotics.net Robotics resource website - robot news, projects, books, and club listings.
• Eurobot, an international amateur robotics contest
• robots.net – Hobbyist and professional robotics site with news, robot gallery, project descriptions, and articles
• Open Automaton Project at sourceforge.net
• The Robot Hall of Fame
• The OrionWiki – Specifically aimed at technical content; also: downloads and personal spaces for robot builders/hobbyists
• AmorphicRobotWorks(ARW) – A group working to create robotic performances and installations
• www.robot.org.uk – A guide for robot builders with lists of reviewed books, magazines, approved parts suppliers, etc.
• Robotics and Automation research lab at UC Berkeley
• Robodock – A theater festival in The Netherlands heavily inspired by robotica.
• Robots Forum Discussion forum for Robot builders
• Cal Poly Robotics Club – Site includes project descriptions, tutorials, and development tools.
• A brief history of robotics
• Lucy the Orangutan, based on principles of the nervous system
• Endtas robotics community website
• Compilation video of some amazing robots Compilation video (30min) of some amazing robots as qrio, asimo, HRP2, Partner robot, HAL,...
• HobbyRobotics.org provides reviews and links to information for hobby roboticists.
• www.robotlab.de artistic exhibition projects with industrial robots
• Robotics India Robotics India - A Large and active community of roboteers from India.Site includes tutorials, articles, event coverage and a host of other resources.

Commercial Websites

• PlusJack – John Deere six-legged Forest Harvester
• Probotics America – Friendly childlike police, fire and entertainment robots
• RoboRealm – Free Robotic Vision Software
• trueforce.com – Technical information on robotics, with a list of suppliers
• The Robofolio – An excellent portal for robot hobbyists.
• Robot Information Central – Link directory at a commercial site
• Robot Universe – Link directory at a commercial site
• Industrial Automation Robots – RobotWorx is a turnkey integrator of new and refurbished robotic systems with emphasis on industrial automation and other robot applications.
• BGA architecture and robotic software
• Fractal Robots Information on Fractal Robots
• Hubo, a low cost humanoid robot launched in Korea
• qfix - robot kits for education and hobby
• Robot Stock News - Blog about iRobot Corp.

Some links may not work.

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