AI and Real Robots

Introduction. Many artificial intelligence (AI) experts are predicting that by the middle of this century, intelligent machines will be all around us. Right now these machines like robots, already touch our lives. Automobiles, electronic devices, and aircraft are assembled and tested with the help of different kinds of robotic machines. If computers saved the world from information explosion, intelligent machines so made, that computers have affordable cost for students and many people. Practically all machines around us are rapidly becoming "intelligent" with help of the intelligent applications. Heavy industry, transportation, agriculture, the military enforcement, and even entertainments are just areas more recently benefiting from computer systems and intelligent machines. AI and robotic industry revenue is now measured by billions of dollars. With the vast advancements in technology , we are now closer to a solution to that complex problem of creating a humanized robot than we ever have been. It is difficult to predict when this will happened but it is very likely to happen this century.

What is a robot? Czech dramatist Karel Capek invented the term "robot" in 1917 to describe the mechanical people in his science fiction drama R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). His intelligent machines, intended as servants for their human creators, end up taking over the world and destroying humanity.

The prototypes of today's robots was created during the Victoria era - the Steam Man (1865), Electric Man (1885), Automatic Man (1890-1900), and even robot-soldier Boilerplate (1893). ( See: http://www.bigredhair.com/robots).

Robots are of great interest to AI researchers - they offer many ways for computers to interact with the real world. In general, the robot is a general-purpose machine with an embedded computer device capable of emulating certain human-like characteristics such as judgment, reasoning, learning, vision, etc. Robots range from small, miniature machines, to large constructions , usually with a numerical control system, that gives them some degree of autonomous control. Robots ,which may be mobile or stationary, have been incorporated into a wide range of industries.

Intelligent Industrial Robots

Although industrial robots have been successfully used in various manufacturing applications, in the beginning they were more like automated machines, working primarily at jobs that were repetitive, dirty, dangerous, or particularly difficult.

Generally, a traditional industrial robot is limited in its sensory capabilities (vision and tactile), flexibility, adaptability, learning and creativity.

Intelligent Industrial Robots (IIR) have been used for welding, material handling, assembly, spray coating, painting, and inspection, among other jobs. Intelligent robots have embedded controllers with artificial intelligence programs that can solve the problems of adapting, reasoning, and responding to changes in the robot’s environment. Machine vision, and other recognition systems for IIR, helps the robot to make choices based on the environment, and to manipulate or interact with the things in it.

IIR enable the reduction of manufacturing costs, improvement in product quality, and an increase in workforce productivity. The major categories of industrial robots, by mechanical structure, are:

• Cartesian/Gantry Robot

• Cylindrical Robot

• Spherical/Polar Robot

• SCARA Robot

• Parallel Robot

Cartesian robots work from an overhead grid. Also known as gantry robots, this type of robot provides an accurate, quick solution for material handling applications. Its work envelope is rectangular. The Cartesian robot’s overhead grid can be the size of an entire room, but it does free up floor space.

A cylindrical robot is a robot whose axes form a cylindrical coordinate system, as opposed to a spherical/polar robot whose axes form a polar coordinate system.

The SCARA (Selective Compliant Assembly/Articulated Robot Arm) robot provides a circular work envelope. This broad movement range allows for added flexibility. SCARA robots have a small footprint, and can be built on a smaller scale.

A parallel robot has a closed-loop mechanism, in which the mobile platform is connected to the base by at least two serial kinematic chains (legs).

Functionally, industrial robots are distinguished as technological robots, transport-and-service robots, and universal robots.

These robots are complex engineering systems, which consist of a control system, information system, mechanical system, and auxiliary devices. Control systems involve integration of different functionalities, such as manipulation, navigation, video and audio recognition, reasoning, planning, and so on. Such functional components are often distributed over several processors. The robot can be controlled by radio. Information systems, with the help of sensors, gather and process information about the environment, the manipulation of objects, and robot itself. Intelligent robots must have advanced man-machine or machine-machine interfaces.

The major advantage of industrial robots is that they can be programmed to suit industry-specific requirements. Due to their persistent accuracy and reliability, they have become an indispensable part of modern manufacturing.

Intelligent industrial robot can determine what action to make based on information acquired through its own sensors and recognizing abilities. On the other hand it is a new class robot that can be low cost and simple enough to be configurable by technicians instead of highly skilled engineers.

IIR integrated with CAD/CAE/CIM systems. Various software packages, such as RobotWorks, developed by Compucraft, Ltd., have been created for industrial robot programming.

Fanuc, Ltd., which develops and support also robotization technologies, has developed electronically and mechanically integrated robots, including state-of-the-art intelligent robots. Each of the company’s factories is robotized. The Fanuc, Ltd. factory can produce up to 3,000 robots per month.

Genesis Systems Group, LLC is the largest provider of robotic arc welding systems in North America, with over 1,600 robotic welding system installations.

To demonstrate the intelligence of its industrial robots, industrial equipment manufacturer, Yaskawa Electric Corporation, forces the MOTOMAN robot out of its comfort zone on the factory floor. First, the robot developed the ability to sort mail, and after that, it learned to play taiko drums. On July 21, 2007, a team of four MOTOMAN machines — two dual-armed MOTOMAN-DIA10 robots, and two MOTOMAN-HP3 welding robots — gave a special taiko performance at the 400-year-old Kokura Gion Daiko Festival in Kitakyushu, which is famous for its traditional drumming competition. Organizers invited the robots to spice up the special opening ceremony for the competition’s 60th anniversary. These robots, the first ever to play taiko drums at the ancient festival, were paraded through the crowd of spectators on a float while they performed. Yaskawa Electric Corporation worked with festival organizers for four months to teach the robots the proper rhythm, technique and choreography for the performance, which was seen as a success.

Motoman, Inc., located in North America, has developed arc welding robots, assembly robots, material cutting robots, clean room robots, and even RoboBar with Robot Bartender.

Since the first industrial machine-tending robot was introduced in North America in the 1960’s, the American robotics industry has grown to more than 175,000 robots operating in 2008. The estimated number of industrial robots installed worldwide, according to World Robotics 2008, is about one million —50 percent in Asia and Australia, 35 percent in Europe, and 17 percent in North America.

Rescue Robots

Clearly, it is most desirable to use robots for life-endangering rescues, and for the investigation of hazardous and dangerous environments. In 1986, several tele-operated mobile robots worked at the Chernobyl nuclear power station after the explosion. The highest level of radiation was found on the roof of the half-destroyed Unit 4 reactor building, due to the wreckage of the reactor casing, fuel rods, and other components. To reduce the level of radiation, it was necessary to bring these highly-radioactive elements to ground level. for later removal from the power station. People could only work in such conditions for a few seconds, so to execute such a plan, the decision was made to use robots for this task. There were several second generation, Russian and foreign-made tele-operated robots in at the time, including the “Мобот-ЧХВ”, and the robot based on the chassis of the lunar rover, Lunochod.

Much later, in the summer of 1999, the American tele-operated mobile robot, the “Pioneer”, was scheduled for deployment to perform a structural analysis of the Chernobyl Unit 4 reactor building. Its major components were:

• a mapper — for creating photorealistic 3-D models of the building interior

• a coreborer — for cutting and retrieving samples of structural materials

• a suite of radiation and other environmental sensors

In July of 1994, an eight-legged, tethered robot, named “Dante II”, descended into the active crater of Mt. Spurr, an Alaskan volcano located 90 miles west of Anchorage. Dante II displayed the ability to walk on rough terrain in a harsh environment. It received instructions from remote operators, located in Anchorage, Washington D.C., and the NASA Ames Research Center near San Francisco, about where to go next, and reached its commanded goals autonomously.

Robots for Space Investigations

Today, many important devices exist for space investigation and exploration. There are two groups of devices. The first is the Remotely Operated Vehicle, including the FIDO, Rocky 8, Pluto, and the Autonomous Helicopter Testbed, and the other is the Remote Manipulator System, which includes the RAMS Arms and Modular Manipulators.

The man-made satellites that orbit Earth are mostly robots. Satellites come in many shapes and sizes, and have many uses, including communications, earth remote sensing, weather, global positioning, and scientific research.

In space, robots are also being used for unmanned missions to various planets, comets and asteroids. The twin Voyager spacecraft, launched in 1977 to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, have made many discoveries, including a possible ocean of liquid water on one of Jupiter’s moons. Two of NASA’s space robots, “Spirit”, which landed on Mars on January 4, 2004, and “Opportunity”, which landed on Mars on January 25, 2004, both collected information obtained directly from the Martian surface.

Laboratory Robots

Laboratory robots are used for many repetitive tasks in chemistry, biology and clinical chemistry labs.

AAI Canada, Inc. produces intelligent mobile robots, vision and processor boards, and a robotic arm designed to meet the needs of AI researchers around the world.

Sea Robots

Many different companies design, build and operate sea robots or deep sea robots. The mission of these robots is to search for ships, aircraft or other type of wreckage, research the ocean floor, and to support deep-ocean oil and gas drilling operations.

The Remus 100 (Remote Environmental Measuring Units), developed by Hydroid, Inc., is a compact, lightweight, autonomous underwater vehicle, designed for operation in coastal environments up to 100 meters in depth. The REMUS 100 can be configured to include a wide variety of standard and customer-specified sensors and system options.

The vehicle was used by the U.S. Navy for mine clearing in Iraq. The Hydroids, Inc. family of products also includes the Remus 600, for operations up to 3000 meters in depth, and the Remus 6000, for operations in up to 6000 meters of water.

The iRobot Seaglider, developed by the iRobot Corporation, is a deep-diving Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) designed for missions lasting many months and covering thousands of miles. The Seaglider measures the temperature, salinity and other quantities in the ocean, sending back data using global satellite telemetry.

Developed by MIT’s Sea Grant Program, the Odyssey IV autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was designed to explore as deep as 20,000 feet below the ocean’s surface. This deep-diving robot receives it orders from the surface, while its antenna is still visible to researchers. In underwater situations, it autonomously follows the given plan, while traveling at speeds up to three knots .

According to CBC News , the Canadian government plans to use AUV’s to help map the eastern Arctic seabed. Beginning in the spring of 2010, the robotic vehicles will be used for mapping research that could extend Canada’s sovereignty in the Arctic.

Robotic Warfare

During the 1999 war in Kosovo, the United States, Germany, France and England simultaneously began utilizing unmanned machines of different types.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

During the Afghanistan campaign, the U.S. military relied on its Predator and Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) for reconnaissance and identification of targets. Unmanned aircraft are less expensive than manned planes, while also avoiding the risk of losing pilots on dangerous missions. Predator drones, the military’s “unmanned eyes in the sky”, also started carrying armor-piercing Hellfire missiles.

Micro Aerial Vehicles (MAV’s) are sometimes as tiny as bumblebees, and are capable of flying undetected into buildings to photograph, record, and even attack insurgents and terrorists. U.S. military engineers are trying to design flying robots disguised as insects, which one day could spy on enemies and conduct dangerous missions without risking lives.

Developed by Honeywell, Inc, the MAV system is a 13-inch autonomous surveillance aircraft, which provides an innovative platform for a wide range of upcoming applications.

Unmanned Ground Vehicles

Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGV’s) have already flooded the battlefield. There are at least 6,000 robots in use by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The military robot, PackBot, designed and developed by iRobot, Inc, were used in Afghanistan by the U.S. Army, and later in Iraq to remove roadside bombs. One of its missions was to search the tunnels under the Baghdad airport, remotely looking for enemy soldiers thought to be hiding in buildings, and remotely examining equipment left on an airfield that was potentially booby-trapped.

The iRobot, Warrior 700, is a powerful and rugged robot that carries a 150-pound (68 kg) payload, travels over rough terrain, and climbs stairs while performing a variety of critical missions, including bomb disposal, route clearance, perimeter patrol, surveillance and reconnaissance.

iRobot has also developed a next-generation SUGV (Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle), a portable reconnaissance and tactical robot with the ability enter areas that are either inaccessible or too dangerous for soldiers. SUGV provides real-time intelligence and complete awareness, while keeping troops out of harm’s way.

Many other military robots have been developed, including the gun machines from QineticQ Group PLC, and Lockheed Martin, among others.

Gunfire Robotic Weapons

Foster-Miller, a wholly-owned subsidiary of QineticQ , has created the Armed Talon Robot, mainly to mitigate the risk of serious injury or death to ground combat forces, especially those in urban warfare environments. In his article , author David Crane wrote, “Robots can’t be killed. So, why use human war fighters, when you can conduct reconnaissance operations and kill the enemy with remote-controlled, (unmanned) mobile robotic weapons platforms/systems? Basically, why put a human in harm’s way, when you can put a robot on it?”

Robot-Snake

Perhaps inspired by the search and rescue innovations of Dr. Gavin Miller , the Israeli military is now using its newest battlefield weapon, the robot-snake. With a camera and microphone in its head, the robot-snake not only performs surveillance activities, but also carries a bomb to blow up militants, or a building.

Medical Robots

Medical robots are being designed for the health care field with a completely different set of goals and expectations, including such areas as diagnosis, surgery, nursing, and so on.

Robotic surgery is the use of robots to perform surgery. The main potential advantages of robotic surgery are precision and miniaturization. Another advantage is three-dimensional magnification.

On January 17, 2002, surgeons at Detroit’s Children’s Hospital of Michigan performed the nation’s first-ever advanced computer-assisted, robot-enhanced surgical procedure.

The da Vinci Surgical System, developed by Intuitive Surgical, Inc., is a sophisticated robotic assistance platform designed to expand the surgeon’s capabilities. This system is now available in many hospitals worldwide, and offers a minimally-invasive alternative to major surgery. The da Vinci

System enables surgeons to perform procedures as complex as open-heart surgery through incisions that are only one to two centimeters in size.
For the patient, benefits may include:

• Significantly less pain

• Less blood loss

• Less scarring

• Shorter recovery time

• A faster return to normal daily activities

• A better clinical outcome

The da Vinci System is most commonly used for prostatectomies and cardiac valve replacement operations, but can be used for any abdominal or thoracic operation.

The CUREXO Technology Corporation, manufactures and markets a surgical robotic system for orthopedic surgery. This system includes two components — ORTHODOC and the ROBODOC Surgical Assistant.

The first is a computer workstation equipped with software for 3-D preoperative surgical planning. The ORTHODOC converts a CT scan of the patient’s joint into a 3-dimensional image, which can be manipulated by the surgeon to view bone and joint characteristics. This enables the surgeon to use the ORTHODOC tool in a simulated surgery, using CT scanned images of the patient’s anatomy.

The preoperative plan created on ORTHODOC is electronically transferred to the ROBODOC Surgical Assistant. This surgical robot can precisely perform the preoperative plan. Using controlled, gentle pressure, the ROBODOC can, for example, mill the bone with sub-millimeter accuracy, as specified in the preoperative plan.

Medical diagnosis robots, used to scan the inside of the human body (based on non-invasive ultrasound, nuclear, CT and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging technologies) have revolutionized the field of medicine .

Service Robots

According to data supplied by the United Nations , the world population as of July, 2009, is 6.8 billion. It is projected to stand at 9 billion by 2045. Globally, the number of persons aged 60 and older will increase from 743 million in 2009 (11% of the entire population) to 2 billion by 2050 (about 22% of the entire population).

In the more developed regions of the world, the proportion of older persons is higher, representing approximately 21 percent in 2009. By 2050, the proportion of older persons in these more developed regions is likely to reach 33 percent, more than double the expected proportion of children (15 percent).

Therefore, in a relatively short period of time, many human societies will have dire need of “aiding systems”, to assist in the self-support of elderly people, and alleviate the burden of elder care. Countries such as America, Japan , and various European countries are facing the challenge of an aging society, and this is why many companies are researching and creating inexpensive and convenient service robots designed to support the elderly. Helping elderly people to live longer, independent lives is a worthwhile goal for many developers and governments in these countries.

Service robots are used in education, therapy, rehabilitation and supporting the elderly. Assistive robotics involves critical safety and ethical issues, especially when robots assume the role of aiding vulnerable people, or people with special needs.

In America, elderly people in nursing homes cannot receive round-the-clock attention from staff nurses. These facilities are expensive, costing anywhere from $75,000 to $140,000 per year for a private room, and it is not always easy or convenient for family members to physically visit their relatives there. According to data provided by New York Life, the average cost of nursing home care rises 6% per year . Given this situation, use of service robots that currently cost about $10,000 to $20,000, can be the best solution, especially considering that prices are decreasing each year, just as computer systems do.

GeckoSystems International Corporation provides Mobile Service Robots (MSR) to families that need assistance with their children, elderly, or other family members.

The new CareBot MSR behaves like a family caregiver, watching over elderly people and kids, patrolling the home, and running errands, for 8 to 14 hours continuously before needing a recharge. The robot can hold a conversation, play games, go where it is commanded, provide reminders, make phone calls, recognize special situations, and even alert emergency services if the need arises. Its advanced, integrated artificial intelligence technology enables it to figure out how to move around obstacles, even among people moving about in its environment.

The GeckoSystems proprietary architecture can be extended to create a SuperSentinel mobile service robot.

The robot, Twendy-One, named as the 21st century edition of a previous robot, Wendy, was made at Waseda University in Japan. It has soft hands and fingers that gently grip and support humans as they sit up and stand. It may also greet its patient with a robotic “good morning” or “bon appétit”.

When asked, Twendy-One can pick up a loaf of bread without crushing it, put toast on a plate, and fetch ketchup from a refrigerator. Although Twendy-One is an experimental robot, it is possible that a commercially-viable robot that can help the elderly and work in offices will appear by the year 2015.

Household Robots

Robotic applications for the home, such as an independent robotic vacuum cleaner or other appliance, are now available on the market. Existing robots can clean floors, pools and gutters without a problem. Some examples of robots such as these are:

• iRobot Roomba – the first automatic vacuum cleaner available in the U.S., with more than 2 million units sold worldwide; iRobot’s acclaimed line of home robots (visit www.iRobot.com) also includes the iRobot Scooba, a floor-washing robot, the iRobot Dirt Dog, a shop-sweeping robot, the iRobot Verro, a pool-cleaning robot, and the iRobot Looj, a gutter-cleaning robot

• The Robomov, developed by Friendly Robotics, Inc. (www.friendlyrobotics.com), can cut the grass by itself on almost any terrain. It works in almost any lawn or garden environment, having sensors that prevent it from crossing the lawn perimeter. This eliminates the need to collect and remove the clippings, and saves up to 25% on irrigation and fertilization costs.

Some robotic lawn mowers may detect the speed at which grass grows in order to maintain a perfectly cut lawn. Some vacuum cleaning robots have dirt detectors, that sense how much dirt is being picked up, and use this information to remain working longer in areas with more dirt.
The Jouhou System Koudaku Laboratory, at the University of Tokyo, has created several assistive humanoid robots with different functions:

• Daily Assistive Humanoid HRP-2JSK

• Outdoor Assistive Humanoid HRP-2W

• Omni-directional Mobile Humanoid HRP-2V

Since 2006, the University of Tokyo, together with several corporations and the Government, have been participating in the project entitled “IRT Foundation to support Man and Aging Society”, with the goal of producing major robotic innovations in the next ten to twenty years , .

Within the limits of this project, the Home Assistance Robot (AR) has been created. This robot has 3 key functions, which:

• recognize the environment by combining data from its laser rangefinder and stereo camera

• create motions based on a 3-D geometric model

• visually determine whether its task was successful or not, and if not, allow it to try again

Robotic Toys and Kits

Several types of robotic toys for both children and adults are now available. StoreforKnowledge suggests a vast array of toy robots, including Capsela Robot Kits, Solar Powered Robot Kits, Infrared & Sound Tracking Robot Kits, among others.

WowWee Group, Ltd. is a leading developer and distributor of innovative hi-tech consumer robotic and entertainment products. WowWee distributes robotic toys, such as Robosapien, Tri-Bot, and Femisapien.

Karl’s Electronics, Inc. sells robot kits and accessories from OWI, Solarbotics, Gaakan Mechamo, and others.

Miniature Robots

At present, nanorobots only exist within laboratory walls. Nanorobotics is a fast-evolving technology with the goal of creating machines or robots at the scale of a nanometer (10-9 meter). Today, it is reasonable to speak about the parts of robots made with the help of nanotechnology. This could be a molecular motor, molecular propeller, or molecular switch, and so on. Researchers hope to be able to create entire robots as small as bacteria, which could perform tasks on a tiny scale.

Micro-robots measuring between 5 and 15 micrometers long have been created at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich. They look like spirals with tiny heads, and screw through liquids like a miniature corkscrew.

Researchers at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology have created the world’s smallest autonomous robot, dubbed “ViRob”. Like a type of “submarine”, the miniature robot (1x4 mm) can travel through blood vessels, using tiny arms working on the inner walls. It can turn around, move, and carry devices like a miniature camera. The robot is powered by an external magnetic field, allowing it to be controlled for an unlimited amount of time during medical procedures. The robot was developed by Oded Salomon, a research engineer on the Mechanical Engineering faculty of the Kahn Medical Robotics Laboratory, along with Professors Moshe Shoham and Nir Schwalb, lecturers at the Ariel University Center.

Developed by ReconRobotics, Inc., a miniature reconnaissance robot, called the Recon Scout, assists in clearing rooms and locating suspects. The robot is designed for a broad range of military, police and security applications. It doesn’t require any specialized training to operate, and can be thrown through a window or other small opening to get critical visual information to save lives and reduce property damage.

Special Robots

The special robots being investigated for possible use in various unique situations are discussed below.

Robot Scientists Adam and Eve

Special teams from the University of Aberystwyth in Wales, the University of Manchester, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, and Imperial College in London, have created a robot that can formulate hypotheses, design experiments, and interpret results on a par with the best of their human counterparts. The Robot Scientist combines an AI-based system capable of formulating original theories, a robotic system that can automatically carry out experiments, and a reasoning engine to evaluate results. The system is capable of improving its performance by learning from its own experience. The robot, known as Eve, uses advanced artificial intelligence, combined with innovative data mining and knowledge discovery techniques, to analyze the results of pharmacological experiments it conducts by itself. At Aberystwyth University, Eve’s predecessor, a robot called Adam, discovered the role of twelve different genes in a yeast cell, without intervention from its makers.

The experiments designed by the robotic scientists were three times less expensive than those designed by human scientists. A test was conducted that compared the machine to a group of human scientists, and the results showed that the discoveries made by the machine were comparable to those made by the humans.

Self-Reconfigurable Robots

For space exploration, conventional robots and machines are not suitable. For this purpose, modular robots are a better fit, and, depending on the conditions and tasks required, can be configured to the most appropriate form. Such robots are known as transformers. The self-reconfigurable robot, SuperBot, funded by NASA, is a new type of robot that is modular, multifunctional, and easily reconfigurable. Its modules can be dynamically configured into different robots, to fit the user’s needs. For example, SuperBot can crawl, walk, roll, climb, carry, fetch, or survey. The modules can also create a manipulator, or a car running in lunar craters. Each module of SuperBot is a couple of blocks, equipped with a computer chip, electro-motors and a mechanism that moves the module like a caterpillar, flipping and attaching to other units. The Distributed Robotics Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), under the supervision of Professor Daniela Rus, has built modular systems of various kinds, including the Shady3D and Miche.

Agricultural Robots

During the last decade, several experimental examples of agricultural robots (agribots) were created in America, by the National Robotics Engineering Consortium (the windrover, Demeter), at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (the robot, Ag Ants), and at Iowa State University (the AgRover), among others. Under a NASA grant, Peter Ling of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, has created a robotic tomato harvester to feed astronauts. This robot was able to find and pick ripe tomatoes.

The agricultural robot developed by the Japanese robotics firm, Romobility Youto, LLC, is being put to work in the greenhouses at Utsunomiya of Tochigi Prefecture. The robot is equipped with a video camera that can identify a strawberry amongst the leaves, and also determine the ripeness of the strawberry. Then it reaches out and delicately snips the berry, placing it on a tray.

The Agricultural Robotics Portal presents information about many European projects and prototypes.

For various reasons, the agricultural industry is behind other industries in its use of robots. It is likely that the first reliable agribot will appear sometime in the next decade.

For more information see the book "Artificial intelligence Around Us".