Robot

For other uses, see robot (disambiguation).

File:Asimohonda.jpg

ASIMO, a humanoid robot manufactured by Honda.

Robot is a mechanical or virtual, artificial agent. A robot is usually an electromechanical 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 often shortened to bots.

While there is still discussion about which machines qualify as robots, a typical robot will have several, though not necessarily all of the following properties:

• Is not 'natural' / has been artificially created.
• Can sense its environment.
• Can manipulate things in its environment.
• Has some degree of intelligence, or ability to make choices based on the environment, or automatic control / preprogrammed sequence.
• Is programmable.
• Can move with one or more axes of rotation or translation.
• Can make dexterous coordinated movements.
• Appears to have intent or agency (reification, anthropomorphisation or Pathetic fallacy).

Defining characteristics

The last property (above), the appearance of agency, is important when people are considering whether to call a machine a robot. In general, the more a machine has the appearance of agency, the more it is considered a robot.

File:Knight Rider Supercar KITT.jpg

KITT is mentally anthropomorphic

Mental agency
For robotic engineers, the physical appearance of a machine is less important than the way its actions are controlled. The more the control system seems to have agency of its own, the more likely the machine is to be called a robot. An important feature of agency is the ability to make choices. So the more a machine could feasibly choose to do something different, the more agency it has. For example:

• a clockwork car is never considered a robot
• a radio-controlled car is almost never considered a robot (though is sometimes known as a telerobot).
• a car with an onboard computer, like Bigtrak, which could drive in a programmable sequence might be called a robot.
• a self-controlled car, like the entries to the DARPA Grand Challenge, which could sense its environment, and make driving decisions based on this information would quite likely be called robot.
• a sentient car, like the fictional KITT, which can take decisions, navigate freely and converse fluently with a human, is usually considered a robot.

Asimo is physically anthropomorphic

Physical agency
However, for many people, if a machine looks anthropomorphic or zoomorphic (e.g. Asimo and Aibo), especially if it is limb-like (e.g. a simple robot arm), or has limbs, or can move around, it would be called a robot.

For example, even if the following examples used the same control architecture:

• an automatic piano is rarely called a robot
• a CNC milling machine is very occasionally called a robot.
• a factory automation arm is usually called a robot.
• a zoomorphic mechanical toy, like Roboraptor, is usually called a robot.
• a humanoid, like ASIMO, is almost always called a robot.

Interestingly, while a 3-axis CNC milling machine may have a very similar or identical control system to a robot arm, it is the arm which is almost always called a robot, while the CNC machine is usually just a machine. Having a limb can make all the difference. However, simply being anthropomorphic is not sufficient for something to be called a robot. A robot must do something, whether it is useful work or not. So, for example, a rubber dog chew, shaped like Asimo, would not be considered a robot.

Other definitions of robot

There is no one definition of robot which satisfies everyone, and many people have written their own. For example, International standard ISO 8373 defines a "robot" as:

An automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose, manipulator programmable in three or more axes, which may be either fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications.

Joseph Engelberger, a pioneer in industrial robotics, once remarked:

I can't define a robot, but I know one when I see one.

The Cambridge Online Dictionary defines "robot" as:

A machine used to perform jobs automatically, which is controlled by a computer

History

Pre-history

The idea of artificial people dates at least as far back as the ancient legends of Cadmus, who sowed dragon teeth that turned into soldiers, and the myth of Pygmalion, whose statue of Galatea came to life. In Greek mythology, the deformed god of metalwork (Vulcan or Hephaestus) created mechanical servants, ranging from intelligent, golden handmaidens to more utilitarian three-legged tables that could move about under their own power. Medieval Persian alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan, inventor of many basic processes still used in chemistry today, included recipes for creating artificial snakes, scorpions, and humans in his coded Book of Stones. Jewish legend tells of the Golem, a clay creature animated by Kabbalistic magic. Similarly, in the Younger Edda, Norse mythology tells of a clay giant, Mökkurkálfi or Mistcalf, constructed to aid the troll Hrungnir in a duel with Thor, the God of Thunder.

Concepts akin to today's robot can be found as long ago as 450 BC when the Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum postulated a mechanical bird he called "The Pigeon" which was propelled by steam. Heron of Alexandria (10AD-70AD) made numerous innovations in the field of automata, including one that (allegedly) could speak.

In ancient China, a curious account on automata is found in the Lie Zi text, written in the 3rd century BC. Within it there is a description of a much earlier encounter between King Mu of Zhou (1023-957 BC) and a mechanical engineer known as Yan Shi, an 'artificer'. The latter proudly presented the king with a life-size, human-shaped figure of his mechanical 'handiwork' (Wade-Giles spelling):

The king stared at the figure in astonishment. It walked with rapid strides, moving its head up and down, so that anyone would have taken it for a live human being. The artificer touched its chin, and it began singing, perfectly in tune. He touched its hand, and it began posturing, keeping perfect time...As the performance was drawing to an end, the robot winked its eye and made advances to the ladies in attendance, whereupon the king became incensed and would have had Yen Shih [Yan Shi] executed on the spot had not the latter, in mortal fear, instantly taken the robot to pieces to let him see what it really was. And, indeed, it turned out to be only a construction of leather, wood, glue and lacquer, variously coloured white, black, red and blue. Examining it closely, the king found all the internal organs complete—liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines; and over these again, muscles, bones and limbs with their joints, skin, teeth and hair, all of them artificial...The king tried the effect of taking away the heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak; he took away the liver and the eyes could no longer see; he took away the kidneys and the legs lost their power of locomotion. The king was delighted.

Yet another early robot was the clepsydra, made in 250 B.C. by Ctesibius of Alexandria, a Greek physicist and inventor.

Al-Jazari (1136-1206), an Arab inventor during the Artuqid dynasty, designed and constructed automatic machines such as kitchen appliances and musical automats powered by water (See one of his works). Al-Jazari also invented the first programmable humanoid robot in 1206. Al-Jazari's robot was a boat with four automatic musicians that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties.

One of the first recorded designs of a humanoid robot was made by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) in around 1495. Da Vinci's notebooks, rediscovered in the 1950s, contain detailed drawings of a mechanical knight able to sit up, wave its arms and move its head and jaw. The design is likely to be based on his anatomical research recorded in the Vitruvian Man. It is not known whether he attempted to build the robot (see: Leonardo's robot).

File:EarlyRobot.jpg

An early Japanese robot

The word robot was introduced by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) premiered in 1920 (see also Robots in literature for details of the play; its robots were biological in nature, corresponding to the modern term android). However, Čapek named his brother Josef Čapek, a painter and a writer, as the true inventor of the word.</ref> The word is derived from the noun robota, meaning "forced labour, corvée, drudgery" in the Czech language and being the general root for work in other Slavic languages. (See Karel Čapek#Etymology of robot for more details).

An early automaton was created 1738 by Jacques de Vaucanson, who created a mechanical duck that was able to eat and digest grain, flap its wings, and excrete.

Modern developments

Many consider the first robot in the modern sense to be a teleoperated boat, similar to a modern ROV, devised by Nikola Tesla and demonstrated at an 1898 exhibition in Madison Square Garden. Based on his patents U.S. patent 613,809, U.S. patent 723,188 and U.S. patent 725,605 for "teleautomation", Tesla hoped to develop the "wireless torpedo" into an automated weapon system for the US Navy. (Cheney 1989) Tesla also proposed but did not build remotely operated war planes and ground vehicles. He also predicted these remote controlled machines were merely precursors of "machines possessed of their own intelligence" (Cheney 1989). See also the PBS website article (with photos): Tesla - Master of Lightning: Race of Robots

In the 1930s, Westinghouse Electric Corporation made a humanoid robot known as Elektro, exhibited at the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs. The first electronic autonomous robots were created by William Grey Walter at Bristol University, England in 1948.

One of the first "modern" robots was named Elsie, or the Bristol Tortoise. It was developed by William Grey Walter in 1948. This robot could sense light and contact with external objects, and use these stimuli to navigate.

The first truly modern robot, digitally operated, programmable, and teachable, was invented by George Devol and was called the Unimate. It is worth noting that not a single patent was cited against his original robotics patent (U.S. patent 2,988,237). The first Unimate was personally sold by Devol to General Motors in 1960 and installed in 1961 in a plant in Trenton, New Jersey to lift hot pieces of metal from a die-casting machine and stack them.

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

A better known case is that of 37 year-old Kenji Urada, a Japanese factory worker, in 1981. Urada was performing routine maintenance on the robot, but neglected to shut it down properly, and was accidentally pushed into a grinding machine.

Timeline

Date	Significance	Robot Name	Inventor
1206	First humanoid robot	mechanical boat with four automatic musicians	Al-Jazari
~1495	One of the first recorded designs of a humanoid robot	mechanical knight	Leonardo da Vinci
1738	Early automaton, a mechanical duck that was able to eat grain, flap its wings, and excrete.	Jacques de Vaucanson
1898	First teleoperated machine, demonstrated at an exhibition in Madison Square Garden.	a boat similar to a modern ROV	Nikola Tesla
1920	Word robot coined.		Karel Čapek
1930s	Early humanoid robot. It was exhibited at the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs	Elektro	Westinghouse Electric Corporation
1942	The word robotics appears in the science fiction short story Runaround.		Isaac Asimov
1948	Simple robots which exhibit biological like behaviours.	Elsie and Elmer	William Grey Walter
1956	First robot company is founded by George Devol and Joseph Engelberger based on Devol's patents; first commercial robot.	Unimate	George Devol
1956	Phrase artificial intelligence is coined at a conference in Dartmouth, Massachusetts.		Marvin Minsky and John McCarthy
1975	Programmable Universal Manipulation Arm (a Unimation product)	Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly	Victor Scheinman
1981	Kenji Urada, a Japanese factory worker, is killed by a robot.

Contemporary uses

Main articles: Industrial robot and Domestic robot

Robots today have many missions, purposes, and motivations for their creation. They can be placed into roughly two categories based on the type of job they do:

• Jobs which a robot can do better than a human. Here, robots can increase productivity, accuracy, and endurance.
• Jobs which a human could do better than a robot, but it is desirable to remove the human for some reason. Here, robots free us from dirty, dangerous and dull tasks.

Increased productivity, accuracy, and endurance

File:Industrial Robotics in car production.jpg

Industrial robots doing vehicle under body assembly

Jobs which require speed, accuracy, reliability, and endurance can be performed far better by a robot than by a human. As as result, many jobs in factories, which were traditionally performed by people, are now robotized. This has lead to cheaper mass-produced goods, including automobiles and electronic goods. Robots have now been working in factories for more than fifty years, ever since the Unimate robot was installed to automatically remove hot metal from a die casting machine. Since then, factory automation, in the form of large stationary manipulators, has become the largest market for robots. The number of installed robots has grown faster and faster, and today there are more than 800,000 worldwide (42% in Japan, 40% in the European Union and 18% in the USA).

Pick and Place robot, Contact Systems C5 Series

Some examples of factory robots include:

• Car production: is now the primary example of factory automation, where, over the last three decades, automobile factories have become dominated by robots. A typical factory contains hundreds of industrial robots working on fully automated production lines (one robot for every ten human workers), assembling, welding and spray painting car bodies. On an automated production line a vehicle chassis is taken along a conveyor to be welded, glued, and painted by a sequence of robot stations.
• Packaging: Industrial robots are also used extensively for palletising and packaging of manufactured goods, for example taking drink cartons from the end of a conveyor belt and placing them rapidly into boxes, and loading and unloading of machining centers in factories.
• Electronics: Mass produced printed circuit boards (PCBs) are almost exclusively manufactured by pick and place robots, typically with "SCARA" manipulators, which remove tiny electronic components from strips or trays, and place them on to PCBs with great accuracy. Such robots can place several components per second (tens of thousands per hour), far out-performing a human in terms of speed, accuracy, and reliability.
• Automated Guided Vehicles: Large mobile robots, following markers or wires in the floor, or using vision or lasers, are used to transport goods around large facilities, such as warehouses, container ports, or hospitals.

Tasks such as these suit robots perfectly because the tasks can be accurately defined and must be performed the same every time. Very little feedback or intelligence is required, and the robots may need only the most basic of exteroceptors (to sense things in their environment) if any at all.

File:Versatras150.jpg

VersaTrax150 pipe inspection robot reaches inaccessible places

Dirty, dangerous, dull or inaccessible tasks

There are many jobs which a human could perform better than a robot but for one reason or another the human either does not want to do it or cannot be present to do the job. The job may be too boring to bother with, for example domestic cleaning; or be too dangerous, for example exploring inside a volcano. These jobs are known as the "dull, dirty, and dangerous" jobs. Other jobs are physically inaccessable. For example, exploring another planet, cleaning the inside of a long pipe or performing laparoscopic surgery.

The Roomba domestic vacuum cleaner robot does a menial job

• Robots in the home: As their price falls, and their performance and computational ability rises, making them both affordable and sufficiently autonomous, robots are increasingly being seen in the home where they are taking on simple but unwanted jobs, such as vacuum cleaning, floor cleaning and lawn mowing. While they have been on the market for several years, 2006 saw an explosion in the number of domestic robots sold. Currently, more domestic robots have been sold than any other single type of robot. They tend to be relatively autonomous, usually only requiring a command to begin their job. They then proceed to go about their business in their own way. At such, they display a good deal of agency, and are considered true robots.

• Telerobots: When a human cannot be present on site to perform a job because it is dangerous, far away, or inaccessable, teleoperated robots, or telerobots are used. Rather than following a predetermined sequence of movements a telerobot is controlled from a distance by a human operator. The robot may be in another room or another country, or may be on a very different scale to the operator. A laparoscopic surgery robot such as da Vinci allows the surgeon to work inside a human patient on a relatively small scale compared to open surgery, significantly shortening recovery time. An interesting use of a telerobot is by the author Margaret Atwood, who has recently started using a robot pen (the LongPen]) to sign books remotely. This saves the financial cost and physical inconvenience of traveling to book signings around the world. Such telerobots may be little more advanced than radio controlled cars. Some people do not consider them to be true robots because they show little or no agency of their own.

File:RQ-9 Predator.jpg

The Predator, a teleoperated plane, keeps pilots out of danger

• Military robots: Teleoperated robot aircraft, like this Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (right), are increasingly being used by the military. These robots can be controlled from anywhere in the world allowing an army to search terrain, and even fire on targets, without endangering those in control. Currently, these robots are all teleoperated, but others are being developed which can make decisions automatically; choosing where to fly or selecting and engaging enemy targets. Hundreds of robots such as the iRobot, Packbot and the Foster-Miller TALON are being used for in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S. military to defuse roadside bombs or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in an activity known as Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD).

• Elder Care: The population is aging in many countries, especially Japan, meaning that there are increasing numbers of elderly people to care for but relatively fewer young people to care for them. Humans make the best carers, but where they are unavailable, robots are gradually being introduced.

Current developments

File:Shadow Hand Bulb.jpg

Shadow Hand, an advanced robot hand system, holding a lightbulb. Touch sensors in the fingertips allow it to apply gentle pressure.

The development of a robot with a natural human or animal gait is incredibly difficult and requires a large amount of computational power. 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 (e. g. Aibo), such as hexapods [2], 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.

Robotic surgery is a growing field and regulatory approval has been granted for the use of robots in minimally invasive procedures. Robots are being used 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. More recently, robots can be used autonomously in surgery.

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.

Serving robot at the "Ubiquitous Dream" exhibition in Seoul, Korea on June 24 2005.

Energetically autonomous robots is a field of study under the category of biologically inspired robotics, which aims to develop artificial agents that can remain self-sustainable in natural environments with minimum human intervention. This field of research spreads further into the fields of alternative energy sources and waste management, as it integrates the microbial fuel cell technology with robotics, and allows for waste or food waste to be the 'fuel'. This class of robots is at the very early stages of development, however with great impact in applications such as the aforementioned unpleasant or dangerous for humans environments. Two examples of energetically autonomous robots that exist today are EcoBots I and II.

Internet bots, also known as web robots, are automated internet applications controlled by software agents. The word "bot" in the term is a reference to the "robotic", mundane, repetitive tasks that the applications perform. ". Tactile sensors and artificial skin are close to providing robots with a human-like sense of touch.[3][4] The South Korean government has set a goal of having a robot in every South Korean home by 2015-2020 [5]. Robot news gives current news in robotic developments and Talking Robots Podcast contains interviews with robotics professionals.

Dangers and fears

Although current robots are not believed to have developed to the stage where they pose any threat or danger to society [6], 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. (See The Terminator, The Matrix, I, Robot)

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 have worked in this area is Isaac Asimov who 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. Manuel De Landa has theorized that humans are at a critical and significant juncture where humans have allowed robots, "smart missiles," and autonomous bombs equipped with artificial perception to make decisions about killing us. He believes this represents an important and dangerous trend where humans are transferring more of our cognitive structures into our machines. 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. Some people suggest that developing a robot with a conscience may be helpful in this regard.

Literature

Main article: Robots in literature

See also: List of fictional robots and androids

Robots have frequently appeared as characters in works of literature; the word robot comesfrom Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), premiered in 1920. Isaac Asimov wrote many volumes of science fiction focusing on robots in numerous forms and guises, contributing greatly to reducing the Frankenstein complex, which dominated early works of fiction involving robots. His three laws of robotics have become particularly well known for codifying a simple set of behaviors for robots to remain at the service of their human creators.

Numerous words for different types of robots are now used in literature. Robot has come to mean mechanical humans, while android is a generic term for artificial humans. Cyborg or "bionic man" is used for a human form that is a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. Organic artificial humans have also been referred to as "constructs" (or "biological constructs").

Robotics

Robotics is the science and technology of robots, their design, manufacture, and application. Robotics requires a working knowledge of electronics, mechanics, and software. A person working in the field is a roboticist. The word robotics was first used in print by Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction short story "Runaround".

Although the appearance and capabilities of robots vary vastly, 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 a 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.

Robots and human-machine interfaces

Robotics has also application in the design of virtual reality interfaces. Specialized robots are in widespread use in the haptic research community. These robots, called "haptic interfaces" allow touch-enabled user interaction with real and virtual environments. Robotic forces allow simulating the mechanical properties of "virtual" objects, which users can experience through their sense of touch (see the MIT Technology review article "The Cutting Edge of Haptics").

Competitions

See also: Robot competition

File:Robocup Team Osaka's VisiON.jpg

Robot Plen practicing for Robocup

Botball is a LEGO-based competition between fully autonomous robots. There are two divisions. The first is for high-school and middle-school students, and the second (called "Beyond Botball") is for anyone who chooses to compete at the national tournament. Teams build, program, and blog about a robot for five weeks before they compete at the regional level. Winners are awarded scholarships to register for and travel to the national tournament. Botball is a project of the KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, based in Norman, Oklahoma.

The FIRST Robotics Competition is a multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem. These teams of mentors (corporate, teachers, or college students) and high school students collaborate in order to design and build a robot in six weeks. This robot is designed to play a game that is developed by FIRST and changes from year to year. FIRST, or For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an organization founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1992 as a way of getting high school students involved in and excited about engineering and technology.

The FIRST Vex Challenge (FVC) is a mid-level robotics competition targeted toward high-school aged students. It offers the traditional challenge of a FIRST competition but with a more accessible and affordable robotics kit. The ultimate goal of FVC is to reach more young people with a lower-cost, more accessible opportunity to discover the excitement and rewards of science, technology, and engineering.

FIRST Lego League (also known by its acronym FLL) is a robotics competition for elementary and middle school students (ages 9-14, 9-16 in Europe), arranged by FIRST. Each year the contest focuses on a different topic related to the sciences. Each challenge within the competition then revolves around that theme. The students then work out solutions to the various problems that they're given and meet for regional tournaments to share their knowledge and show off their ideas.

Competitions for talha robots are gaining popularity and competitions now exist catering for a wide variety of robot builders ranging from schools [7] to research institutions. Robots compete at a wide range of tasks including combat, fire-fighting [8], playing games [9], maze solving, performing tasks [10] and navigational exercises (eg. DARPA Grand Challenge) [11]

A contest for fire-fighting is the Trinity College Fire-Fighting Robot Contest. The competition in April 2007 was the 14th annual. There are many different divisions for all skill levels. Robots in the competition are encouraged to find new ways to navigate through the rooms, put out the candle and save the "child" from the building. Robots can be composed of any materials, but must fit within certain size restrictions.

Most recently, Duke University announced plans to host the Duke Annual Robo-Climb Competition ([12]) aimed to challenge students to create innovative wall-climbing robots that can autonomously ascend vertical surfaces.

Since 2004, DARPA Grand Challenge tests driverless cars in an obstacle course across the desert.

See also

Main list: List of basic robotics topics

For classes and types of robots see Category:Robots.

Research areas

Artificial consciousness Automated planning and scheduling Behavior based robotics and Subsumption architecture Cognitive robotics Cybernetics Navigation Localization Developmental robotics

Epigenetic robotics Evolutionary robotics Future of robotics Mechatronics Nanotechnology and MEMS NASA and robotics Neural networks

Robot control Robot baseball Robot soccer Robot software Social robots Swarm robotics Telerobotics / Telepresence

Additional topics

Android Android science Autonomous foraging Carbon chauvinism (see: Alternative biochemistry) Clanking replicator Cyborg Disabled robotics: Artificial powered exoskeleton Domestic robot Gerontotechnology Gynoid Hybrot

Japanese robotics List of fictional robots and androids Leonardo's robot Mecha Microbotics Nanorobotics Microsoft Robotics Studio Mindstorms Qfix robot kit Open robot Rapid prototyping

Robot kits Robot locomotion Robotic mapping Robotics suite Roombatics (see:Roomba) RooTooth Snake-arm robot Technocratic movement Uncanny Valley Utility fog Vex Vocoder

References

General references

• Cheney, Margaret [1989:123] (1981). Tesla, Man Out of Time. Dorset Press. New York. ISBN 0-88029-419-1
• Craig, J.J. (2005). Introduction to Robotics. Pearson Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ.
• Flanagan, J.R., Lederman, S.J. Neurobiology: Feeling bumps and holes (Portable Document Format), News and Views, Nature, 2001 Jul. 26;412(6845):389-91.
• Hayward V, Astley OR, Cruz-Hernandez M, Grant D, Robles-De-La-Torre G. Haptic interfaces and devices (Portable Document Format). Sensor Review 24(1), pp. 16-29 (2004).
• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 2. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
• Robles-De-La-Torre G. & Hayward V. Force Can Overcome Object Geometry In the perception of Shape Through Active Touch. Nature 412 (6845):445-8 (2001).
• Robles-De-La-Torre G. The Importance of the Sense of Touch in Virtual and Real Environments (Portable Document Format). IEEE Multimedia 13(3), Special issue on Haptic User Interfaces for Multimedia Systems, pp. 24-30 (2006).
• Sotheby's New York. The Tin Toy Robot Collection of Matt Wyse, (1996)
• Tsai, L.-W. (1999). Robot Analysis. Wiley. New York.
• DeLanda, Manuel. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines. 1991. Swerve. New York.
• Bruyninckx, Herman, De Schutter, Joris. Introduction to Intelligent Robotics

External links

Research societies

• IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) and its wiki.
• International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR)

• Robotics at Curlie
• http://robots.net – Daily news about robots, robotics, and AI
• A brief history of robotics
• A giant list of known robots
• NASA and robots
• NASA Robotics Division
• International Federation of Robotics
• Should we be worried by the rise of robots?
• Ten Best Robots Ten videos of robots.
• Podcast 'Talking Robots' - interviews with high-profile professionals in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence
• French collection of toy robot