An introduction to Robotics
Lecture 1: A field guide to common robots
W.S.Harwin
January 2016
Index Next Lecture Pre Lecture Additional materialLectures
- Lecture 0: Can a robot think like a human?
- Lecture 1: A field guide to common robots
- Lecture 2: Robot anatomy
- Lecture 3: Robot kinematics and control
- Lecture 4: Brains, behaviours, and stuff
- Lecture 5: Cooperating and social robots and more
MOOC
- Future Learn Begin Robotics
- 4 week course concurrent with these lectures
- Exam question will be based on these lectures
Definitions
The word robot originates from the Czech word ROBOTA, meaning 'serf' or 'slave'. Karel Capek drama - Rossum's Universal Robots. (R.U.R.) 1921.
Definitions
- A robot is a re-programmable multi-functional manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools or specialised devices, through variable programmed motions for the purpose of a variety of tasks.
Robot Institute of America - A program that automatically searches the world wide web for files
Datatronics.net - Your plastic pal who is fun to be with!
Douglas Adams (in the Hitch hikers guide to the Galaxy) - I can't define a robot, but I know one when I see one.
Joseph Engelberger - Robots remember everything, and think of nothing new. ... They'd make fine university professors.
Karel Capek
Perhaps a robot should ...
- look like a human or animal?
- operate like a person or an animal?
- be able to adapt to the world?
- be under the full command of a human?
- obey Isaac Asimov's Laws of robotics
- learn?
- be self aware?
- be able to build copies of itself? (reproduce?)
- be conscious?
History (early)
| Talos mythical golden robot built by Hephaistos was fabled to roam the island of Crete |
| 222BC Ktesibios/Tesibuis. Water clocks and regulators. |
| 10-70 Heron of Alexandria. Self opening temple doors, theatrical robots |
| 1200 al-Jazari. Named after region in Iraq. Boat full of musical automata for drinks party! |
| 1515 Leonardo da Vinci's Lion (Codex Atlanticus) |
| 1739 Vaucanson's Duck |
| 1770's Jaquet-Droz 'scribe'. Clockwork automa capable of writing, drawing and playing music. |
| 1770 The Turk ( von Kempelen) - Certainly a good example of telemanipulation! |
| 1817 Frankenstein - Mary Shelly influenced by Jaquet-Droz automata! |
| 1864 US patent with the word "Android" |
History (recent)
| 1920 R.U.R published |
| 1927 Metropolis (Fitts Lang) |
| 1929 Gakutensoku Japan's first robot |
| 1937 Electro/Elektro - Westinghouse (later appears in 'sex kittens go to college' 1960) |
| 1940's Mechanically coupled 'master-slave' manipulators. (Goertz) |
| 1949 Grey Walter's robots (Elmer and Elsie) |
| 1952 Astro boy |
| 1954 First patent - George C. Devol, Jr. |
| 1960 General Electric Handyman/Hardyman. (Mosher) |
| 1966 Shakey |
| 1969 General Electric Walking truck. |
| 1959 Unimation Inc. introduce first industrial robot. |
| 1969 Stanford Arm- Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. |
| 1980's NASA Canada arm |
| 1996 First Mars mobile robot |
| 2004 Second Mars rover (Spirit survives to March 2010, Opportunity still going) |
| 2005 DARPA Grand challenge |
| 2008 MOD Grand challenge |
| 2012 DARPA robotics challenge/Curiosity rover lands on Mars |
| 2016 Rubics cube solved in 0.9 seconds |
| 2016 Jibo, first social robot for the home, due to be released |
| 20xx First cyborg, first robot to give evidence in court, first robot to be confused for a human. |
Vaucanson's Duck
The scribe (1770)
Grey Walter 1949
M. Specularis
Walking truck Handyman/Hardyman
Metropolis (Robot version of Maria)
Pettit Mal (Simon Penny)
Show Pettit Mal video
Human -- robot interactions
Begin Robotics, websites and books
- Notes on http://www.reading.ac.uk/~shshawin/LN
- Check out the MOOC
- Robot UK wars
Book list at http://www.reading.ac.uk/~shshawin/LN/intro_robotics_bib.html
| Much material on youtube use search terms from the lecture notes, e.g. "Big Dog", "Google car" etc |