Robotics: Present & Beyond

Md. Hasnaeen Rizvi Rahman

Overview Robotics - the science and

technology of robots, their design, manufacture, and application.

Requires a working knowledge of electronics, mechanics and software accompanied by a large working knowledge of many subjects.

Asimo by Honda

History

"Robot" coined by science fiction author Karel Čapek, a Nobel Prize nominee, in his 1920 theater play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)

Robota meaning "self labor" or "hard work" in Czech

“Robotics” was first used in print by Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction short story "Liar!", published in May 1941.

He was unaware that he was coining the term for a new field.

Asimov

Capek

History continued In the Iliad, the god Hephaestus made talking handmaidens out of gold.

Archytas of Tarentum is credited with creating a mechanical Pigeon in 400 BC.

Al-Jazari (1136-1206), an Arab Muslim inventor, designed and constructed a number of automatic machines, including kitchen appliances, musical automata powered by water, and the first programmable humanoid robot in 1206.

Al-Jazari Inventions

History continued One of the first recorded designs

of a humanoid robot was made by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) in around 1495.

The first truly modern robot, digitally operated, programmable, and teachable, was invented by George Devol in 1954 and was ultimately called the Unimate.

Leonardo’s RobotDevol

The Ultimate

Definition A robot is a mechanical or virtual, artificial agent.

It is usually a system, which, by its appearance or movements, conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own.

The word robot can refer to both physical robots and virtual software agents, but the latter are usually referred to as bots to differentiate.

A typical robot will have several, though not necessarily all of the following properties:

is not 'natural' i.e. artificially created

can sense its environment, and manipulate or interact with things in it

has some ability to make choices based on the environment, often using automatic control or a preprogrammed sequence

is programmable

moves with one or more axes of rotation or translation

Definition continued The structure of a robot

is usually mostly mechanical. can be called a kinematic chain (like the

skeleton of the human body). the chain is formed of links (its bones),

actuators (its muscles). 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 (resemble human arm).

Some robots, such as the Stewart platform, use closed parallel kinematic chains.

Structures that mimic the mechanical structure of humans, various animals and insects, are comparatively rare, but is an active area of research (e.g. biomechanics).

Components of robots - Actuation The actuators are the 'muscles' of a

robot. the parts which convert stored energy

into movement. By far the most popular actuators are

electric motors.

Popular forms of actuators are: Motors Stepper motors Ultrasonic motors Air muscles Electroactive polymers Elastic nanotubes

Components of robots - Manipulation This is the process of manipulating objects in

the external environment pick up, modify, destroy or otherwise have an

effect.

‘Hands' of a robot are often referred to as end effectors.

The arm is referred to as a manipulator.

Some manipulation technologies: Grippers Vacuum grippers Magnetic grippers General purpose effectors: fully humanoid

hands, with as many as 20 degrees of freedom and hundreds of tactile sensor

Gripper

Components of robots - Locomotion Rolling Robots

Usually have four wheels Possibly, complex wheeled

robots, with only one or two wheels.

Track Robot: Another type of rolling robot is one that has tracks like tanks, e.g. NASA's Urban Robot, Urbie

Two-wheeled balancing: Segway, dynamic balancing algorithm, NASA's Robonaut

Ballbot by Carnegie Mellon University that balances on a ball instead of legs or wheels

Components of robots - Locomotion Walking Robots

difficult and dynamic problem to solve

two legged robots already available

none as robust as human can walk well on flat floors, and

can occasionally walk up stairs none can walk over rocky, uneven

terrain Algorithms used - ZMP Technique,

Hopping, Dynamic Balancing, Passive Dynamics, etc.

Other methods of locomotion Flying – normal autopilot based

aeroplanes, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), cruise missiles, etc.

Snaking Skating Swimming

Components of robots - Human interaction Speech recognition – difficult

task for a computer, mostly because of the great variability of speech.

Gestures – e.g. human hand gestures

Facial expression – a robot like Kismet can produce a range of facial expressions, allowing it to have meaningful social exchanges with humans.

Personality – Aibo, Pleo, etc.

Kismet

Pleo

Contemporary uses Robots are used in industrial,

military, exploration, home making, and academic and research applications.

Jobs which require increased productivity, accuracy, and endurance.

Car production, Packaging, Electronics, Automated Guided Vehicles, etc.

Contemporary uses Dirty, dangerous, dull or inaccessible tasks

Robots in the home Telerobots Military robots

Home cleaner

Surgeon

Military robots

Contemporary uses Unconventional robots

Nanorobots Soft robots Reconfigurable robots – robots which can alter their physical form to suit a particular

task, consisting of a small number of cube shaped units, which can move relative to their neighbours.

Swarm robots Evolutionary robots Virtual reality

Modular robots

Nano robot car

Swarm robots

Contemporary uses

The Mobile Servicing System or Canadarm2 is a robotic system and associated equipment on the International Space Station that plays a key role in station assembly and maintenance: moving equipment and supplies around the station, supporting astronauts working in space, and servicing instruments and other payloads attached to the space station.

Robotics simulators Used to create embedded applications for a robot

without depending "physically" on the actual robot these applications can be transferred on the real robot (or

rebuilt) without modifications Based on lower level middleware like Physics engine (ODE,

PhysX) and graphics rendering engine (OGRE)

The Microsoft Robotics Studio is a Windows-based environment for robot control and simulation. aimed at academic, hobbyist, and commercial developers handles a wide variety of robot hardware

Robotics simulators Features include:

a visual programming tool, Microsoft Visual Programming Language, for creating and debugging robot applications

web-based and windows-based interfaces

3D simulation (including hardware acceleration)

a lightweight services-oriented runtime

easy access to a robot's sensors and actuators via a .NET-based concurrent library implementation

support for a number of languages including C# and Visual Basic .NET, JScript, and IronPython

Location technologies including GPS

Speech technologies including text to speech and speech recognition

Vision technologies including color tracking, line tracking, and simplified face and hand gesture detection

Dangers and fears Current robots don’t pose any threat

or danger to society.

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

they could develop a conscience and a motivation to take over or destroy the human race

Robots could be dangerous if programmed to kill programmed to be so smart that they

make their own software build their own hardware to upgrade

themselves change their own source code

Robot Fatalities - The first human to be killed by a robot was Robert Williams who died at a casting plant in Flat Rock, MI (January 25, 1979).

Terminator II – Rise of the Machines

Samsung machine gun robot

Literature Three Laws of Robotics

a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov in his 1942 short story "Runaround“.

First law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second law: A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Two more laws introduced later by other writers.

Fourth law: A robot must establish its identity as a robot in all cases.

Fifth law: A robot must know it is a robot.

Roboticists sometimes see the these laws as a future ideal.

Future of robotics Robots may soon be

everywhere, in homes and at work.

They could change the way humans live.

If true, many philosophical, social, and political questions will have to be answered.

Some people may become Cyborgs, with some parts half biological and half artificial.

Future of robotics Timeline

2013-2014 — agricultural robots (e.g. AgRobots).

2013-2017 — robots that care for the elderly

2017 — medical robots performing low-invasive surgery

2017-2019 — household robots with full use.

??? — Nanorobots

Legal rights for robots? According to research

commissioned by the UK Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre, robots could one day demand the same citizen's rights as humans.

The rise of robots could put a strain on resources and the environment.

Robotics in 2020 and beyond Home, factories, agriculture, building &

construction, undersea, space, mining, hospitals and streets; for repair, construction, maintenance, security, entertainment, companionship, care.

Only our imagination is the limit.

Robot civilization is coming. Stay tuned.

Copotronic

Thank you