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Robotics And Automation Essay, Research Paper

Robotics and Automation A good way to define Robotics is a field in which robots, orautomated machines, are devised and created to perform a varietyof tasks. These tasks can range from industrial-strength cleaningservices, to patrolling a nuclear power plant. There are manyaspects involved in creating a robot. A great deal of physics,engineering, electronics, as well as general construction techniquesmust be known before attempting to build a robot. Robots cancome in two different types: there is the drone type which iscontrolled by humans, and there is the artificially intelligent type,which runs from its own programming. There is a great amount of physics involved in robotics. Forexample, physics is heavily involved when trying to create a robotto walk on the moon. A robot has to be specially designed to beable to function in that kind of environment. Physics helps peoplefigure out what allowances need to be made for such things as thedifference in gravity, the fact that space is a vacuum, the fact thatthe robot might fall over without any humans around to pick itback up, how the robot is going to generate power, as well as howthe robot is going to be constructed so it can maneuver freely inthat environment. Also, little things such as where the legs andarms should go, and how the weight should be distributed alsoneed to be figured out, with physics. Another field which goes hand in hand with robotics is thefield of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence (or AI) dealswith making computers think, and make decisions on their own. When coupled with robotics, an artificially intelligent robot put onthe moon would be able to walk around, and collect informationwhich it feels is important for us humans to have. Another example would be an artificially intelligent enforcer robot , which could roam about, detect intruders, make adecision as to how dangerous they are, and take care of thesituation. However, most of this is a long way off, asdemonstrated by what is known as the Turning Test. In 1950, Alan Turning made up a test to determine machineintelligence. The Turning Test goes like this: a humaninterrogator is in one room, and a computer and another human arein another. Each room has a terminal in it, through which theinterrogator will converse with both the computer and the otherhuman, one at a time. If the interrogator cannot tell which one heis talking to, then the computer is considered intelligent. In 1991,Hugh Loebner created the Loebner Prize. This contest allowedpeople to enter their intelligent programs, which woulddemonstrate their intelligence through conversations. The Loebnerprize would give $100,000 to the winner, however to this day noone has won it. As mentioned before, moon-walking nuclear power plantroaming, and the enforcer robot are all practical applications ofrobotics. However, there really are no boundaries to what robotswill be able to do. One example of a robot which exists now is theDante II, a tethered walking robot, which explored the Mt. Spurrvolcano in July 1994. Dante II is able to descend down sheercrater walls in a rappelling-like manner, and his purpose is togather and analyze high temperature gasses from the crater floor. In general, the purpose of the Dante II program is to demonstrateRobotic exploration of extreme terrains and environments. Another project whose goal is to explore terrain is theAutonomous Helicopter Project. However, unlike the walkingDante II, this robot is a vision-guided robot helicopter which canautonomously carry out (certain) missions in any weatherconditions and using only on-board intelligence and computerpower. These missions include automatically taking off, flying toa designated area while avoiding obstacles, searching and locatingobjects of interest, visually lock on to objects and pursue them,sending back images to a ground station, and safely returninghome and landing. This robot is in the conceptual stage however,but the projects implications are tremendous. The creator of thisproject, the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon, have veryinteresting ideas as to how this robot can be used: search andrescue, surveillance, law enforcement, inspection, aerial mapping,and even cinematography. Today, we have robots which do a variety of things for us. This includes space exploration, nuclear plant patrolling and wastedetection, as well as cleaning, and mining robots. The future ofrobotics looks very bright, with self-navigating vehicles(autonomous cars), replacement limbs, as well as artificial visionand hearing systems. As it was seen in the movies Six MillionDollar Man and the Bionic Woman these bionic replacementsmight actually become reality. You may wonder why the general direction of robotics hasalways been known to an extent, when there are so manyindependent research projects going on, each focusing on differentthings. The answer to this question can be found easily bywatching movies. For about 70 years, movie directors havepredicted where the field of robotics was headed. The generalthing that happens is that in the movies, robots are shown doing acertain tasks, and then later one someone actually develops a robotto do that task. In the 1927 movie, Metropolis , a robot was designed to domanual labor. Today, we have industrial robots, building our cars,painting our chairs, and cutting our fabrics. In the movie Forbidden Planet (1956), Robbie the Robot is used as a personalworkman and servant. We don t have these yet, but as mentionedbefore, we have the robots in the nuclear power plants, as well ascleaning robots, which acts as the same thing. In the third movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Hal was a robot in charge of aspaceship. Today, we have those space exploration robots. In thefourth movie, Logan s Run (1976) , there is a computercontrolling an entire city and all of its functions. As mentionednumerous times before, we have nuclear power plant

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