Robot

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For other uses, see Robot (disambiguation).

A robot is a mechanical device that can perform physical tasks. A robot may act under the direct control of a human (eg. the robotic arm of the space shuttle) or autonomously under the control of a pre-programmed computer. Robots may be used to perform tasks that are too difficult for humans to do directly (e.g. the space shuttle arm) or may be used to automate repetitive tasks that can performed more cheaply by a robot than by them employment of a human (e.g. automobile production).

The word robot is also used to describe an intelligent mechanical device in the form of a human. This form of robot is common in science fiction stories. However, such robots are yet to become common-place in reality and much development is yet required in the field of artificial intelligence before they even begin to approach the robots of science fiction.

Definition

A humanoid robot manufactured by Toyota "playing" a trumpet

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.

History

The idea of artificial people dates at least as far back as the ancient legend of Cadmus, who sowed dragon teeth that turned into soldiers, and the myth of Pygmalion, whose statue of Galatea came to life. In classical mythology, the deformed god of metalwork (Vulcan or Hephaestus) created mechanical servants, ranging from intelligent, golden handmaidens to more utilitarian three-legged tables that could move about under their own power. Jewish legend tells of the Golem, a clay statue animated by Kabbalistic magic. Similarly, in the Younger Edda, Norse mythology tells of a clay giant, Mökkurkálfi or Mistcalf, constructed to aid the troll Hrungnir in a duel with Thor, the God of Thunder.

The word Robot was introduced by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. which was written in 1920 (See also Robots in literature for details of the play).

Concepts akin to today's robot can be found as long ago as 450B.C.E. when the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum postulated a mechanical bird he called "The Pigeon" which was propelled by steam. Al-Jazari (1136-1206) an Ortoqid (Artuk) Turkish inventor designed and constructed automatic machines such as water clocks, kitchen appliances and musical automats powered by water (See one of his works at [1]).

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

The first known functioning robot was created in 1738 by Jacques de Vaucanson, who made an android that played the flute, as well as a mechanical duck that reportedly ate and defecated.

Many consider the first robot in the modern sense to be a teleoperated boat, similar to a modern ROV, devised by Nikola Tesla and demonstrated at an 1898 exhibition in Madison Square Garden. Based on his patent 613,809 for "teleautomation", Tesla hoped to develop the "wireless torpedo" into an automated weapon system for the US Navy.

In the thirties, Westinghouse made a humanoid robot known as Elektro. It was exhibited at the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs while the first electronic autonomous robots were created by Grey Walter at Bristol University, England in 1948.

Contemporary uses of robots

File:Industrial Robotics in car production.jpg
KUKA Industrial Robots assembling a vehicle underbody

Robots are growing in complexity and their use in industry is becoming more widespread. The main use of robots has so far been in the automation of mass production industries, where the same, definable, tasks must be performed repeatedly in exactly the same fashion. Car production is the primary example of the employment of large and complex robots for producing products. Robots are used in that process for the painting, welding and assembly of the cars. Robots are good for such tasks because the tasks can be accurately defined and must be performed the same every time, with little need for feedback to control the exact process being performed. Industrial Robots can be manufactured in a wide range of sizes and so can handle much larger tasks than a human could.

Robots are also useful in environments which are unpleasant or dangerous for humans to work in, for example the cleaning of toxic waster, bomb disposal, work in space or underwater and in mining.

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are moveable robots that used in large facilities such as warehouses, hospitals [2] [3] and container ports, for the movement of goods, or even for safety and security patrols. Such vehicles follow markers or guides to navigate around the location and can be programmed to move between places to deliver goods or patrol a certain area.

Domestic robots are now available for performing simple tasks such as vacuum cleaning and grass cutting. By the end of 2004 over 1,000,000 vacuum cleaner units had been sold [4]. Examples of domestic robots are Sony's Aibo and irobot's Scooba and Roomba robots.

Humanoid robots are in development with the aim of being able to provide robotic functions in a form that may be more aesthetically pleasing to customers, thereby increasing the likelihood of them being accepted in society. These robots fall within a field known as social robots which aim to interact and provide companionship to people. Example of social robots are ludobot and Wakamaru.

Current developments

The development of a robot with a natural human or animal gait is incredibly difficult and requires a large amount of computational power [5]. Now that background technologies of behavior, navigation and path planning have been solved using basic wheeled robots, roboticists are moving on to develop walking robots (eg. SIGMO, QRIO, Asimo & Hubo). This field of work is known as Passive dynamics.

Initial work has focused on multi-legged robots (eg. Aibo), such as hexapods [6], as they are statically stable and so are easier to work with, whereas a bipedal robot must be able to balance. The balancing problem is taken to an extreme by the Robotic unicycle. A problem with the development of robots with natural gaits is that human and animal bodies utilize a very large number of muscles in movement and replicating all of those mechanically is very difficult and expensive. This field of robot research has become known as Biomorphic robotics.

Progress is being made in the field of feedback and tactile sensor which allow a robot to sense their actions and adjust their behavior accordingly. This is vital to enable robots to perform complex physical tasks that require some active control in response to the situation.

File:Robot hand holding an egg.jpg
Robotic manipulators can be very precise, but only when a task can be fully described.

Medical robotics is a growing field and recently regulatory approval has been granted for the use of robots in minimally invasive procedures. Robots are being considered for use in performing highly delicate, accurate surgery, or to allow a surgeon who is located remotely from their patient to perform a procedure using a robot controlled remotely.

Experimental winged robots and other examples exploiting biomimicry are also in early development. So-called "nanomotors" and "smart wires" are expected to drastically simplify motive power, while in-flight stabilization seems likely to be improved by extremely small gyroscopes. 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. 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 [7], fears and concerns about robots have been repeatedly expressed in a wide range of books and films. The principle theme is that robots will exceed the intelligence and ability to act of humans, and thereby takeover 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 of robots may be the biggest danger, particularly where large industrial robots are concerned. The power and size of industrial robots means they are capable of inflicting severe injury if programmed incorrectly or used in an unsafe manner. One such incident occurred on 21 July 1984 when a man was crushed to death by an industrial worker. That incident was an accident, but shows the potential risks of working with robots.

Robots in literature

Main article at Robots in literature; see also List of fictional robots and androids

Robots have frequently appeared as characters in works of literature and the first use of the word "robot" in literature can be found in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), written in 1920. Isaac Asimov has written many volumes of science fiction focusing on robots in numerous forms and guises [8]. His three laws of robotics have become particularly well known for codifying a simple set of behaviors for robots to remain at the service of their human creators.

Numerous words for different types of robots are now used in literature. Robot has come to mean mechanical humans, while android is used for organic artificial humans and cyborg or "bionic man" for a human form that is a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. Organic artificial humans have also been referred to as "constructs" (or "biological constructs"). [citation needed]

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 the appearance and capabilities of robots vary vastly, 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 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 may allow much more freedom of movement than the hinge joints of the human skeleton). Additional components may include sensors to give information about the surroundings or the robot itself (eg the position of its joints) and motors to move the actuators.

The actions of a robot can be split into three distinct phases - perception, processing and action. The consideration of these phases and their interaction is considered in light of the three robotic paradigms. One of the most important aspects of robot construction is the study and planning of the robots motion. The study of movement is known as kinematics which deals with aspects of redundancy (different ways to perform the same movement), collision avoidance and singularity avoidance. In reality inverse kinematics is a truer description since the aim of the required movement is known and the positions of the robot's joints must be calculated to achieve that movement. The analysis of the required movement may reveal that there are none, one or many ways of the robot achieving that movement. Once the movement has been analyzed dynamics then come into play to determine the most efficient way of achieving the movement. The principle concerns of the efficiency will depend upon the robot in question, but may include energy conservation, time needed or space needed.

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 [9] and navigational exercises (eg. DARPA Grand Challenge) [10] [11]

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

Additional robot topics

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

External links

Wikibooks
Wikibooks has more about this subject:
Commons
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Media coverage and articles

General information and non-profit organizations

Commercial projects

bg:Робот cs:Robot da:Robot de:Roboter es:Robot eo:Roboto fa:ربات fr:Robot ko:로봇 hr:Robot io:Roboto id:Robot it:Robot he:רובוט nl:Robot ja:ロボット no:Robot pl:Robot pt:Robot ru:Робот sk:Robot fi:Robotti sv:Robot ta:இயந்திரவியல் th:หุ่นยนต์ tr:Robot uk:Робот zh:机器人

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