The Urbie robot, equipped with infrared sensors, fits into spaces too small for rescue workers with bulky equipment was used in searching for survivors at the World Trade Center diaster.
Urbie can detect survivors in low light.Updated April 11th, 2009
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INTRODUCTION
Robotics is the science that deals with the construction, capabilities and application of robots.
The Urbie robot, equipped with infrared sensors, fits into spaces too small for rescue workers with bulky equipment was used in searching for survivors at the World Trade Center diaster.
Urbie can detect survivors in low light.
This lecture on focuses on:
WHAT IS A ROBOT?
Robots are electromechanical devices that may perform programmed tasks.They are designed to do tasks that are traditionally done by humans. The more advance robots are designed to react to stimuli and may display some level of artificial intelegence.
Robots are sometimes called steel-collar workers. Tens of thousands of these steel-collar workers have replaced humans on the assembly line of companies such as General Motors and General Electric. They perform such jobs as fitting light bulbs into the dashboards of new cars, spot welding and spray painting.
Robots are often used to perform tasks that are considered to be too dangerous for humans such as working in active volcanoes, deep sea and deep space exploration and working in radio active environments, and search and rescue work.
nb ... On the internet a robot is a program that automates Net tasks like collating search engine databases.
HISTORY
The word robot was coined by the Czechoslovakian dramatist Karel Capek in his 1921 play R.U.R. which stands for Rossum's Universal Robots - mechanical men devoid of human frailties. Capek took the name from the Czech word robota, which means "compulsory service" or "work".
Generations of Robots
There are two generations of robots. The fist generation possesses mechanical dexterity only and have no external sensory ability. The second generation possesses more humanlike capabilities, including crude vision and a sense of touch.
What is Robotics?
Robotics is the science that deals with the construction, capabilities and application of robots.
Rules of Robotics
The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov popularized the term robotics and stated that three laws were necessary:
The Turning Test
Alan Turing, the mathematician who pioneered computational theory, came up with a simple test to determine whether or not a computer could "think." The test involved asking the machine a series of questions; if it responded like a human being, you could call it a thinking machine.
Thinking machines aren't easy to come by. To anyone's knowledge, no machine has passed Turing's test, even though there has been a $100,000 prize offered for it during the last 10 years
The LOEBNER contest
In the Loebner contest, judges are presented with chat terminals to type into. Some of the terminals are manned by robots, some by people. The judges hold short conversations with the chatter, looking for unmistakable humanity on the other end. If they don't find it, they mark it down as a robot.
A program needs to fool half the judges to win the grand prize, but that has never been done. The robot that convinces the most judges is considered the winner -- for a prize of $2,000. The robot that convinces half the judges wins US$100,000
How Domestic Robots work
One domestic robot is the Lego Mindstorm. At the heart of the robotics system is the robotic command explorer. This unit is a little computer that acts as the brain of your robot. It has connectors along its surface in the form of Lego studs. These studs allow you to connect the input and output devices that you wish to use in your robot.
This robot comes with its own graphical programming language. Remember that robots do only what you instruct them to do so you must properly test your program which controls the robot as you should test all programs you write. An infrared transmitter is used to download the instructions to the robot. Once the program is downloaded, your robot no longer needs to communicate with your PC.
The first Telesurgery on a human was performed on September 7th, 2001. A surgical robot ZEUS located in Strasbourg, France performed the first gallbladder operation on a 68 year old woman. Surgeons in New York controlled the robot. The operation was successful and the patient was discharged 2 days later.
In 1999 the U.S. government delivered the PIONEER robot to the Ukrainian to help repair the protective "sarcophagus" around the plant.
Pioneer, rides on two caterpillar tracks and is equipped with three-dimensional vision, radiation detectors, a gripping arm, and a bore for taking samples. Pioneer is more than 3 feet tall.
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Chat with George
Look at the humanoid robot by Honda Asimo
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Industrial Robots
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