Robot, history and future
Robots are invading the earth. They were industrial, they become toys, and are willing to do chores as they are indefatigable. They will replace the men to go where man can not go: maintenance of nuclear power plants, seabed, risk areas, space ...
First, we have to see clearly the different terms used to describe robots or what's approach, see the glossary of robotics.
History
The word robot appeared for the first time in the theater play by Karel Capek, RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1920. The word robotics is a neologism in the book Runaround by Isaac Asimov in 1942.
However, the history of animated machines, having a human form or not goes back to antiquity.
Greek mythology refers already artificial beings made of metal and manufactured by the god of hell, Hades.
Automata first appeared in the East, before to make the admiration of European courts.
Subsequently, different stages of technological development and information technology and robotics are inseparable, they are involved in the genesis of robotics today. The Jacquard loom with punch cards allows programming then making interchangeable machines.
With the Boolean algebra, logic and calculations can do automated reasoning. Progress in the field of sensors, artificial intelligence to process the data received, and servo motors complement the panel of components needed.
More in the History or robotics.
Robot and cinema
The main achievements of men showing artificial cyborgs are:
- 1927 Metropolis (Fritz Lang).
- 1977 Star Wars (George Lucas).
- 1982 Blade Runner (Ridley Scott).
- 1984 Terminator (James Cameron).
- 1987 Robocop (Paul Verhoeven).
- 2001 AI (Steven Spielberg).
- 2004 I Robot (Alex Proyas).
Designing a modern robot
Robots today are purely mechanical, consisting of articulated rigid parts by servo-motors.
As the number of servo motors is high (and therefore the number of degrees of freedom) more gestures are precise and high capacities.
Components of a robot:
- Metal frame and plastic.
- Servo-motors for movement.
- Vision sensors.
- Sensors for touch.
- Battery.
- Circuits and possibly programmable unit.
- Possible link with a computer.
Programming robots
There are several tools and programming languages for robots.
Microsoft developed in 2004, the Robotics Developer Studio with the Visual Programming language that can interface with toys as industrial robots. ROS is an open source IDE for programming any sort of robots.
The Urbi language operates on atoms of behavior that are pieced together to form actions aim. It can interface with ROS.
Risbee wants to provide a simpler interface with icons representatives of elementary actions and objects.
See Robots programming.
Statistics
Robots in various forms are commercially successful
- Aibo, the robotic dog from Sony has sold 150,000 copies. However, Sony has abandoned the field.
- Robosapien form Mark Tilden, the robot toy stretch has already sold millions of copies.
- The Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner has sold over four million copies in 2010.
Video of an android
More vidéos
- Actroid female robot DER. Another android.
See also