IntroductionSince you are taking this course as an elective, you are apparently interested in robotics.  Therefore, the first question we should address is, "Why are you interested in robotics?"  Specifically, what do you hope to get out of this course? Much of the lure of robotics has its origins in robot lore.  From the highly introspective and philosophical works of Isaac Asimov in the I Robot series to the use of robots as comic sidekicks in Star Wars, robots have been a popular element of science fiction for years.

Robots in Fiction

Literature, legend and myth contain many references to man-made artificial beings.  Ancient Jewish Kabbalistic literature describes the creation by man of artificial beings called Golems. In one version of the myth, a Golem comes to life when the word "truth" is inscribed on its forehead, or a paper scroll containing magic words is placed in its mouth.  In these stories a Golem is usually created to demonstrate the mastery of its creator in the Kabbalistic arts.  Occasionally the literature describes Golems that were created to accomplish a specific task in order to help people.

An essay on the Jewish Golem as it appeared in the Summer '96 issue of the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, by David M. Honigsberg is available online at http://www.sff.net/people/d.honigsberg/ravasman.htp.  The use of the term in J.R.R. Tolkein's Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy is discussed at http://www.cv81pl.freeserve.co.uk/tolkien.htm. The Golem is frequently used as a metaphor for science and technology in general.  As is science, the Golem is

typically portrayed neither as good nor evil but built with the intent of helping humanity, usually producing unintended consequences.

The term ROBOT was first used in a play called  Rossum's Universal Robots (R.U.R.) by the Czech writer Karel Capek.  An excerpt from this play, translated into English is available at http://www.natur.cuni.cz/~vpetr/Capek.htm.  You can find other references on Karel Capek at a website authored by Dominik Zunt http://capek.misto.cz/english/index.html.  The plot of the play is similar to the Terminator series in which well meaning but short-sighted businessmen create the robots who later attempt to destroy humanity.  

We do not have to look to the 1980's to find an example of creative theft.   Capek's play was almost certainly the "inspiration" for Fritz Lang's Metropolis a movie that premiered in 1927. Although the main plot of the movie is the class struggle between the elite citizens of Metropolis and the enslaved workers of the Underground City, an amoral female robot named Futura plays a major role in the story.  This robot was originally built by Rotwang to replace his lost love, Hel, but she is modified to mimic the story's heroine Maria in an attempt to deceive the workers in their rebellion.  The film in its original form no longer exists due to the editing efforts of a number of well-meaning censors.  

Poster from Paramount Release Futura

Futura and Rotwang

The dualistic nature of robots, equally capable of good or evil, is a well worn theme in science fiction. This was an element of many early science fiction movies of the 1950's. In The Day the Earth Stood Still, the alien robot Gort follows the orders of his master, Klaatu, without hesitation. When Klaatu's life is threatened the robot must be summoned to help him and to prevent Gort from attacking Earth.  Listed below are excerpts from Klaatu's departure speech to the people of Earth,

"I am leaving soon. And you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now this does not mean giving up any freedom. Except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet. But if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of your's will be reduced to a burned out cinder. Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you..."

[http://www.dreamerwww.com/tdtess.htm]

The idea that a robot could be programmed to make it incapable of harming humans was first postulated by Isaac Asimov in the I Robot series of short stories written in the 1940's. According to Asimov all robots should be created with these three laws of robotics embedded into their design. The Three Laws of Robotics

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Later versions of the Laws of Robotics have included a Zeroth Law which states A robot may not threaten humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to be threatened.

The addition of the Zeroth Law permits a robot, in certain special circumstances, to kill a human, thus breaking the First Law.  The inclusion of this higher level law raises a new set of issues concerning how the special circumstances are to be determined, and who can determine them. Asimov's laws were borrowed in the story line of the movie The Forbidden Planet, [1956]. In this movie, the robot servant Robby is unable to move when ordered to kill a human as a demonstration of this programming feature. 

More recent science fiction books and movies have ignored the Laws of Robotics altogether.  In the Terminator series, robots are portrayed as both assassins and protectors.  In the Star Wars series, robots have taken the place of sidekicks and ethnic stereotypes to provide politically neutral comic relief.  Robots have become a somewhat mundane but expected element of futuristic science fiction.  A recent notable exception is Bicentennial Man, (based on a short story by Isaac Asimov) in which a robot eventually gives up immortality in a quest to become human.  Unfortunately movies based on such philosophical story lines are rarely as successful as the typical "shoot first and sort out the bodies later", action-

adventure.  

In the 1950's we anticipated that humanoid robots would be common by the 21st Century.  However, it has turned out to be easier to create a artificial world around a real person than it is to create an artificial person that can operate in the real world.  Until fully animated computer generated imagery began to appear in the 1980's, every bi-pedal humanoid robot in films had been played by a person in a robot suit.  Probably the most technically advanced (teleoperated) robot in a film to date was Johnny 5 in the movie Short Circuit. 

An obvious but often overlooked reason why actors are used to portray robots is cost.  We have the technical capability to construct bipedal robots but it is much cheaper to put a person in a metallic suit and tell them to walk funny.

Robots as Entertainment

The proliferation and popularity of TV programs in which robots engage in arena-style battles to the death in front of a screaming mob of spectators, is uncomfortably reminiscent of the blood sports of the latter days of the Roman

Empire.  Of course the viscera have been replaced with hydraulic oil and wiring harnesses, but the violence is real.  In most of these programs the robots are little more than remote control toys with an attitude.  

Battlebots Home Page Robot Wars RoboticaMore recently there have been signs of an improvement in the quality of robot competitions in which the robots are autonomous.  Competitions involving such tasks as maze solving, playing soccer, climbing ropes and even airborne search and recovery have been sponsored for several years and are beginning to be televised.  The current accomplishments in autonomous robotics may seem like a small step toward the goal set by The RoboCup Federation in Switzerland - "...to create a team of fully autonomous soccer bots that can beat the FIFA World Cup champions  by 2050", but as was noted by Anne Watzman of Carnegie Mellon, "The Wright brothers' first airplane was launched, and 50 years later man landed on the moon."    

RoboCup 2001 TechTV AAAI-2002 Robot Competition EuroBotOther Robot Competition Links

Robots in Industry

The first real industrial robots of the modern age were named Unimates and were developed by George Devol and Joe Engelberger around 1956.  Engelberger formed the company Unitronics and began marketing and selling practical task trainable robotic arms.  For the next thirty years the automotive industry lead the development of industrial robotics.  Again the motivating factor for this business decision was cost.  Just as it is cheaper to teach an actor to imitate a robot, it is cheaper to train a robot to replace a worker on the line in a manufacturing plant. The following are a few examples of notable achievements in industrial and military robotics. 1961 - "UNIMATE, the first  industrial robot, began work at General Motors. Obeying step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic drum, the 4,000-pound arm sequenced and stacked hot pieces of die-cast metal.  The brainchild of Joe Engelberger and George Devol, UNIMATE originally automated the manufacture of TV picture tubes."

[http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/topics/robots.page]    

Unimate

Rancho Arm

Tentacle Arm

1963 - Researchers designed the Rancho Arm at Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California as a tool for the handicapped. The Rancho Arm's six joints gave it the flexibility of a human arm. Acquired by Stanford University in 1963, it holds a place among the first artificial robotic arms to be controlled by a computer.

[http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/topics/robots.page]

1968 - Marvin Minsky developed the Tentacle Arm, which moved like an octopus. It had twelve joints designed to reach around obstacles. A PDP-6 computer controlled the arm, powered by hydraulic fluids. Mounted on a wall, it could lift the weight of a person.

[http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/topics/robots.page]

1970 - SRI International's Shakey became the first mobile robot controlled by artificial intelligence.  Equipped with sensing devices and driven by a problem-solving program called STRIPS, the robot found its way around the halls of SRI by applying information about its environment to a route. Shakey used a TV camera, laser range finder, and bump sensors to collect data, which it then transmitted to a DEC PDP-10 and PDP-15. The computer radioed back commands to Shakey -- who then moved at a speed of 2 meters per hour. [http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/topics/robots.page]

1979 -  In development since 1967, the Stanford Cart successfully crossed a chair-filled room without human intervention in 1979. Hans Moravec rebuilt the Stanford Cart in 1977, equipping it with stereo vision. A television camera,

mounted on a rail on the top of the cart, took pictures from several different angles and relayed them to a computer. The computer gauged the distance between the cart and obstacles in its path. [http://www.computerhistory.org/timeline/topics/robots.page]

1984 - Flakey reflected the dramatic improvements 14 years makes in the state-of-the-art. It was approximately 3 feet high and 2 feet in diameter. Like Shakey, it had 2 drive wheels with encoders, but their maximum velocity was 2 feet per second instead of inches. The robot had 12 sonar  range finders for obstacle avoidance and navigation in real spaces, not  just a laboratory like Shakey's. Again a video camera and laser provided range-finding  information over a small area in front of Flakey. And Flakey's computers included one of the then new personal workstations, giving it far more intelligence than its predecessor, in far less space.

Shakey Stanford Cart Flakey

  1996 - 2002 - About 6 years ago, Honda commenced the humanoid robot research and development program. Keys to the development of the robot included "intelligence" and "mobility." Honda began with the basic concept  that the robot "should coexist and cooperate with human beings, by doing what a person cannot do and by cultivating a new dimension in mobility to ultimately benefit society." This provided a guideline for developing a new type of robot that would be used in daily life, rather than a robot built for special operations. More  [http://www.honda.co.jp/robot/]

Robots in the Military

1982-1988 - The Airborne Remotely Operated Device (AROD) was a small ducted fan vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) air vehicle that could easily translate through the air and provide short range aerial surveillance. The AROD project was initiated at the Hawaii detachment of SSC San Diego as part of the

US Marine Corps Exploratory Development (6.2) Surveillance Program in the early 1980s, and was continued as part of the Ground Air Telerobotics Systems (GATERS) Advanced Technology Demonstration (6.3A) program through the later 1980s together with the ground-based Teloperated Vehicle (TOV).   [http://www.nosc.mil/robots]

AROD TOV

1985-1989 - The TeleOperated Vehicle (TOV) was developed for the US Marine Corps by SSC San Diego as part of the Ground Air Telerobotics Systems (GATERS) program (together with the AROD aerial vehicle), and continued under the Unmanned Ground Vehicle Joint Program Office (UGV/JPO) Ground-Launched Hellfire program (Metz, et al., 1992), during which time a hardened second-generation version of the vehicle was designed and built to support a major milestone demonstration in September 1989.  [http://www.nosc.mil/robots/land/tov/tov.html]

1983-1988 - The first anthropomorphic (human configured) manipulator developed at SSC San Diego was the Remote Presence Demonstration System, nicknamed "Greenman". It was assembled in 1983 using MB Associates arms and a SSC San Diego- developed torso and head. It had an exoskeleton master controller with kinematics equivalency and spatial correspondence of the torso, arms, and head. Its vision system consisted of two 525-line video cameras each having a 35 degree field of view and video camera eyepiece monitors mounted in an aviator's helmet. 

[http://www.nosc.mil/robots/telepres/greenman/greenman.html]  

Greenman TOPS/CVM Remote TOPS/CVM Operator

1988 -1991 - The Teleoperator/Telepresence System/Concept Verification Model (TOPS/CVM) is the latest step in the continual effort at SSC San Diego to develop advanced remotely operated undersea work systems. The thrust of this particular project was the development of highly dexterous, general purpose, telerobotic master/slave work systems that can mimic human manipulative performance without the associated operational limitations (i.e., depth, bottom time, temperature, and exposure to hazardous conditions). Key areas addressed by the TOPS/CVM project include: human-level dexterity, force reflective exoskeletal controllers, and stereoscopic vision.  [http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/telepres/tops/tops.html]  

MDARS

1997 - 2001 The Mobile Detection Assessment Response System (MDARS) - Interior uses robotic platforms to autonomously patrol and secure the interior of DoD warehouses. It's Intruder Detection and Assessment (IDAS) mission module employs microwave and passive infrared motion sensors and a controllable video zoom camera.  The IDAS system augments existing DoD Integrated Commercial IDS (ICIDS) installations.  The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) mission module tracks stored inventory and reports missing, moved, and found items.  

Gladiator MAV

2000 - 2002 - The Unmanned Ground Vehicles/Systems Joint Project Office (UGV/S JPO) has, as part of its charge, to act as the focal point for developing solutions to Army and Marine Corps requirements for unmanned robot programs.  One of their programs is the tactical unmanned ground vehicle (TUGV) called the Gladiator that is under development by the United States Marine Corps (USMC) Ground Combat Element (GCE).  This teleoperated, semi-autonomous and highly mobile platform has been designed for the detection, location and neutralization of threats while reducing risk of exposure to friendly troops.  Current and planned mission capabilities for the Gladiator include reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition (RSTA), direct fire, obstacle breaching, chemical/ biological weapon detection, obscurant delivery, engineering reconnaissance, communication relay and tactical deception.  The Gladiator TUGV system has a modular configuration that is capable of employing a variety of mission payload modules (MPMs).  The multiple-sensor, gimbaled viewing module provides day/night viewing with wide and narrow field of view FLIR sensors and two day cameras configured for wide-angle/zoom and narrow FOV operation.  This imagery is viewable on a hand-held operator control unit (OCU) that is attached to a mobile base unit (MBU) that enables RSTA and Gladiator control by a remote operator.

2001 - Present - The soldier supervised autonomous Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) conducts surveillance and scouting missions as part of the Military Operation in Urban Terrain (MOUT).

The Future of Robotics

We are at the beginning of a robot technological revolution similar to the personal computer revolution that began in the 1970's.  What is lacking is a really good application.  Some of you may find it difficult to understand the skeptical attitude that existed toward PCs before the creation of VisiCalc (the first spreadsheet application).

Personal computers were considered to be toys for geeks and were generally banned from the workplace.  Before the development of the Apple computer and long before IBM even considered getting into the desktop business, there was no dominant hardware standard.  The S-100 bus architecture was the basis for the Altair 8800 first distributed Microwave Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems in 1975. The motherboard was just a board with no active components.  It carried a power supply and a row of 100-pin card edge connectors into which cards containing the Memory, CPU, I/O and other functions were inserted to make a computer.   In the early 1970's industry, businesses and the military built, purchased and used large mainframe computers.  Similarly large, expensive robots are prevalent in commericial and military applications for manufacturing, logistics, transporation, surveillance and weapons delivery.  Personal Robots (PRs) are considered to be toys with little practical value.  Research and Development in PRs is limited to special interest groups, clubs and educational institutions. The PR revolution is waiting for a breakthrough application that will attract the attention of the average person.  This time the application will be implemented as a combination of software and hardware. It will fill an important and common need by simplifying (i.e. automating) the solution to a common problem.  Until that breakthrough application is devised, Personal Robotics will remain a solution in search of a problem.