Robot

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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.

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.

Model of Leonardo da Vinci's robot with a display of its inner workings.

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. <<ADD CREDIT: Jacques_Vaucanson, 41947698 >>

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. <<ADD CREDIT LINE: credit|Elektro|41938283 >>

File:Roboraptor3.JPG
Roboraptor, a robotic dinosaur from wowee toys

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, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power. <<ADD CREDIT: Grey_Walter, 43469624 >>

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 now include special terminology for different types of robots. 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".

Contemporary uses of robots

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

Robots are growing number 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. 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 waste, bomb disposal, work in space or underwater and in mining. Hundreds of bomb disposal robots such as iRobot's Packbot are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. military to defuse roadside bombs, or improved explosive devices (IED's).

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are moveable robots that are used in large facilities such as warehouses[4], hospitals [5] and container ports, for the movement of goods[6], or even for safety and security patrols. Such vehicles follow wires, markers or laser-guidance to navigate around the location and can be programmed to move between places to deliver goods or patrol a certain area. Top manufacturers include Transbotics, FMC [htp://www.fmcsgvs.com], and Jervis B Webb [7].

Domestic robots are now available that perform simple tasks such as cooking, vacuum cleaning and grass cutting. By the end of 2004 over 1,000,000 vacuum cleaner units had been sold [8]. Examples of domestic robots are Vita Craft's RFIQ Automatic Cooking System, Sony's Aibo, the Scooba and Roomba robots from iRobot Corporation, and Electrolux's Automower.

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[9]. 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.

For education in schools and high schools and mechatronics training in companies robot kits are becoming more and more popular. On the schools side there exists kits from LEGO or Fischertechnik made of plastics components, on the more professional side there exists e.g. the qfix robot kit made of aluminium parts.

Current developments

To control a robot so that it has a natural human or animal gait is requires a large amount of computational power [10]. 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). One approach to walk control is Passive dynamics, where the robot's geometry is such that it will almost walk without active control.

Initial work has focused on multi-legged robots (eg. Aibo), such as hexapods [11], 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 sensors 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 (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 [12], 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.


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.

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 [13] and navigational exercises (eg. DARPA Grand Challenge) [14] [15]

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

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Periodicals

IEEE Transactions on

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

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