Robots and the Future – Part 2

Robotics researchers have been pushing the envelope for the last 30 years since the inception of “artificial intelligence”.  The basics of artificial intelligence programming is the modeling of human expertise and mimicking human behavior in a variety of circumstances.

One aspect of artificial intelligence gave rise to expert systems.  Complex systems like diesel locomotives are very difficult to repair because of the large number of parts operating together.  Human experience accumulated after years of working with diesel locomotives needed to be captured in order to prevent each generation from having to apprentice workers over long periods of time in order to learn how to troubleshoot these systems. So programmers in the early days of AI were employed to learn and program the diagnostic procedures developed by skilled workmen over many years.

These programs were very successful.  But in no way do they replace human intelligence and insight.  This is simply an example of subtlety in programming a specific area of human experience.  Speech recognition continues to be a challenge after decades of effort, limited to transcription applications and simple material handling instructions.

Another area that came up was large scale logistical mapping, another Expert System.  What is the most economical way to use airplanes to transport people around the US?  When you think of a large air carrier and the number of airplanes, flights, destinations and how they might be mapped together to get the best use out of the airplanes, it is a problem that is too large and complex for a single human to work with.  Enter the expert system programmer.

But in none of these cases can a computer program exceed the boundaries of it’s programming.  Can the autonomous Jeep get from it’s starting point to it’s destination?  Yes.  With many man-years of programming and a vast array of computing power, proper deployment of sensors and actuators, and a lot of stored energy.

Can the autonomous Jeep perform any other task?  No.  Regardless of the sophistication, the machine cannot exceed the boundaries of it’s programming.

Can we teach machines to learn?  So far, only in the most crude and rudimentary way.  But the course of the learning is again bounded by the programming.

And again, I will defer discussion of true intelligence or consciousness.

But what robotics can do to expand it’s usefulness is to mimic simple human tasking where it is cost effective and where the robot can “outproduce” or exceed the precision of a human.  Robotic welding, for example, has reached the point where a basic robot welding cell is less than $50,000.  So the cost of entry, the learning curve and complexity of implementing a welding robot cell in a small production facility is very reasonable.

Will robots be used in “human service” applications?  Sure.  ”Robot, vacuum my living room”  No sweat.  We can already do that with a Roomba only it doesn’t have voice recognition yet.  We have robots that can mow the grass in the front yard and avoid shrubs and trees.  Very cool.

Will we have robot servants like C3PO in Star Wars?  Hopefully more intelligent, C3PO was kind of dumb.  Simple tasks like serving a drink at a bar? Yes, that’s been done too, although it doesn’t have philosophical conversations with customers.

Will robots be able to provide basic care in hospitals and for the elderly?  Anything is possible. It will come down to how far we can push the envelope of programming, safety and return on cost.  Certainly we get robots to get a cold beer from the fridge.  But if the fridge is empty can it run out to the store and get us a six pack?

Not anytime soon.

Iranian Robot Walks, Stands On One Leg

Researchers at Tehran University, in Iran, unveiled last month an adult-sized humanoid robot called Surena 2.

The initial press reports in Iran’s official news media didn’t include many details, saying only it could “walk like a human being but at a slower pace” and perform some other tasks, and there were questions about the robot’s real capabilities.

IEEE Spectrum obtained more information about Surena, as well as images and videos showing that the robot can indeed walk — and even stand on one leg.

Aghil Yousefi-Koma, a professor of engineering at the University of Tehran who lead the Surena project, tells me that the goal is to explore “both theoretical and experimental aspects of bipedal locomotion.”

The humanoid relies on gyroscopes and accelerometers to remain in balance and move its legs, still very slowly, but Yousefi-Koma says his team is developing a “feedback control system that provides dynamic balance, yielding a much more human-like motion.”

Surena 2, which weighs in at 45 kilograms and is 1.45 meter high, has a total of 22 degrees of freedom: each leg has 6 DOF, each arm 4 DOF, and the head 2 DOF. An operator uses a remote control to make the robot walk and move its arms and head. The robot can also bow. Watch:

Surena doesn’t have the agile arms of Hubo, the powerful legs of Petman, or the charisma of Asimo — but hey, this is only the robot’s second-generation, built by a team of 20 engineers and students in less than two years. A first version of the robot, much simpler, with only 8 DOF, was demonstrated in late 2008.

Yousefi-Koma, who is director of both the Center for Advanced Vehicles (CAV) and the Advanced Dynamic and Control Systems Laboratory (ADCSL) at the University of Tehran, says another goal of the project is to “to demonstrate to students and to the public the excitement of a career in engineering.”

Next the researchers plan to develop speech and vision capabilities and improve the robot’s mobility and dexterity. They also plan to give Surena “a higher level of machine intelligence,” he says, “suitable for various industrial, medical, and household applications.”

The robot was unveiled by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 3rd in Tehran as part of the country’s celebration of “Industry and Mine Day.” The robot is a joint project between the Center for Advanced Vehicles and the R&D Society of Iranian Industries and Mines.

Robots and the Future

In the field of Robotics, where is the line between between remote control, software control and autonomous control?  (No, I’m not going after the consciousness thing, it’s way too complicated)

Part of the problem may have to do with our use of the word “intelligence”.  We talk about the increasing “intelligence” of processors and particularly about the cost of “intelligent” control dropping to the point where it is suddenly economical to put a microcontroller together with a motor in order to achieve new levels of performance in either energy management or some other critical parameter.  Which opens new performance capability in robot design.

Increasingly, industrial robotics involve the use of vision systems to acquire information about the location and orientation of parts so that the robot system can interface smoothly to the “real world”.  If any of you have been to an industrial trade show and witnessed the Delta Robots making cookies, it is a very impressive sight to behold.  Incredible throughput and accuracy.  And that’s what it’s all about in industry. Higher productivity, improved product quality.

But where is the line between remote control and automatic control?  A remote manipulator for working in the nuclear industry, which was the big application that drove early robots, is a remote servo loop operating a series of servo motors and controls and powering mechanical systems, in order to do work that is dangerous to humans from a safe distance.  The DaVinci medical robot is a phenomenally improved version of the same thing.  A remote controlled robot, guided by direct haptic inputs from a surgeon, and with very sophistical tactile feedbacks, whose end effectors operate a variety of surgical instruments and actually increase the precision and speed with which doctors may perform certain procedures.

Is this a robot? Sure!

When we watch welding and painting robots making cars, we are watching decades of technology development in action.  There has been significant effort to improve the actuator hardware, and probably many man-years of software development to improve our description of the task and its safety and performance constraints in order to create not only reliable, but increasingly efficient machines to do the tasks that humans cannot compete with for productivity.  These are very sophisticated automatic applications, but certainly not autonomous.  The boundaries of the application and the programming for it are very finite.  Again, its about repetition, speed and accuracy.

And, yes, we call these robots, too.

But increasingly, there is discussion about the next frontier of robotics.  Where are the next big apps coming from?  Most of the big robotic companies in Japan and Europe are talking about personal service robots.  You can let your imagination run wild here.  Anything is possible. Certainly the service robot for NASA is interesting because it, again, follows the concept of doing tasks where it is difficult for humans to operate.

Is a Jeep that can be programmed to find a path and drive from one place to another autonomously a robot?  Yes, but we may be pushing the boundaries here just a bit.  These applications fall into the realm of Artificial Intelligence.  The programming and software languages for which were just being described for the first time about 30 years ago.  And at this point we are forced into the debate about what is intelligence.  In addition, are these systems which are capable of “learning” and what is learning exactly?  And more importantly, as all good science fiction movie watchers will ask, can a machine exceed it’s programming?  (See?  I didn’t even start on consciousness yet)

These are all serious considerations for the Future of Robotics which I will pick up further next week.

Giant Robotic Arm Simulates Driving a Ferrari

The hot-pink industrial arm whips you around while you sit in the driver’s seat


This image shows the robotic arm Ferrari simulator without a steering wheel attached. The simulator includes a force-feedback steering wheel and pedals.

Paolo Robuffo Giordano and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, must really enjoy their jobs. Their CyberMotion Simulator is intended to realistically replicate the experience of driving a Ferrari without actually having to buy one.

Players sit in a cabin on a robot arm about 7 feet off the ground and drive a Ferrari F2007 car around a projected track. The robot arm, a type usually found in amusement parks, whips the driver around to simulate the Ferrari’s motion, according to IEEE Spectrum. You can hear the robot whine as the driver tries to turn at high speed.

The researchers wanted to use a robotic arm as a motion simulator with the goal of understanding how humans experience the sensation of motion. They figured an F1 racing game would be a good way to do it, IEEE Spectrum reports.They presented a paper on their design at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation this spring.

ieee.org

Pendulum-Tail Robot Climbs Vertical Walls In Seconds

Wielding two claws, a motor and a tail that swings like a grandfather clock’s pendulum, a small robot named ROCR (“rocker”) scrambles up a carpeted, 8-foot wall in just over 15 seconds – the first such robot designed to climb efficiently and move like human rock climbers or apes swinging through trees.

“While this robot eventually can be used for inspection, maintenance and surveillance, probably the greatest short-term potential is as a teaching tool or as a really cool toy,” says robot developer William Provancher, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah.

His study on development of the ROCR Oscillating Climbing Robot is set for online publication this month by Transactions on Mechatronics, a journal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Provancher and his colleagues wrote that most climbing robots “are intended for maintenance or inspection in environments such as the exteriors of buildings, bridges or dams, storage tanks, nuclear facilities or reconnaissance within buildings.”

But until now, most climbing robots were designed not with efficiency in mind, only with a more basic goal: not falling off the wall they are climbing.

“While prior climbing robots have focused on issues such as speed, adhering to the wall, and deciding how and where to move, ROCR is the first to focus on climbing efficiently,” Provancher says.

One previous climbing robot has ascended about four times faster than ROCR, which can climb at 6.2 inches per second, but ROCR achieved 20 percent efficiency in climbing tests, “which is relatively impressive given that a car’s engine is approximately 25 percent efficient,” Provancher says.

The robot’s efficiency is defined as the ratio of work performed in the act of climbing to the electrical energy consumed by the robot, he says.

Provancher’s development, testing and study of the self-contained robot was co-authored by Mark Fehlberg, a University of Utah doctoral student in mechanical engineering, and Samuel Jensen-Segal, a former Utah master’s degree student now working as an engineer for a New Hampshire company.

The National Science Foundation and University of Utah funded the research.

ROCR is a Swinger that Claws Its Way to the Top

Other researchers have studied a variety of ways for climbing robots to stick to walls, including dry adhesives, microspines, so-called “dactyl” spines or large claws like ROCR’s, suction cups, magnets, and even a mix of dry adhesive and claws to mimic wall-climbing geckos.

Now that various methods have been tried and proven for robots to climb a variety of wall surfaces, “if you are going to have a robot with versatility and mission-life, efficiency rises to the top of the list of things to focus on,” Provancher says.

Nevertheless, “there’s a lot more work to be done” before climbing robots are in common use, he adds.

Some previous climbing robots have been large, with two to eight legs. ROCR, in contrast, is small and lightweight: only 12.2 inches wide, 18 inches long from top to bottom and weighing only 1.2 pounds.

The motor that drives the robot’s tail and a curved, girder-like stabilizer bar attach to the robot’s upper body. The upper body also has two small, steel, hook-like claws to sink into a carpeted wall as the robot climbs. Without the stabilizer, ROCR’s claws tended to move away from the wall as it climbed and it fell.

The motor drives a gear at the top of the tail, causing the tail to swing back and forth, which propels the robot upward. A battery is at the end of the tail and provides the mass that is necessary to swing the robot upward.

“ROCR alternatively grips the wall with one hand at a time and swings its tail, causing a center of gravity shift that raises its free hand, which then grips the climbing surface,” the study says. “The hands swap gripping duties and ROCR swings its tail in the opposite direction.”

ROCR is self-contained and autonomous, with a microcomputer, sensors and power electronics to execute desired tail motions to make it climb.

Provancher says that to achieve efficiency, ROCR mimics animals and machines.

“It pursues this goal of efficiency with a design that mimics efficient systems both in nature and manmade,” he says. “It mimics a gibbon swinging through the trees and a grandfather clock’s pendulum, both of which are extremely efficient.”

The study says: “The core innovations of ROCR – its energy-efficient climbing strategy and simple mechanical design – arise from observing mass shifting in human climbers and brachiative [swinging] motion in animals.”

Simulating and Testing a Climbing Robot

Before testing the robot itself, Provancher and colleagues used computer software to simulate ROCR’s climbing, using such simulation to evaluate the most efficient climbing strategies and fine-tune the robot’s physical features.

Then they conducted experiments, varying how fast and how far the robot’s tail swung, to determine how to get the robot to climb most efficiently up an 8-foot-tall piece of plywood covered with a short-nap carpet.

The robot operated fastest and most efficiently when it ran near resonance – near the robot’s natural frequency – similar to the way a grandfather clock’s pendulum swings at its natural frequency. With its tail swinging more slowly, it climbed but not as quickly or efficiently.

The researchers found it achieve the greatest efficiency – 20 percent – when the tail swung back and forth 120 degrees (or 60 degrees to each side of straight down), when the tail swung back and forth 1.125 times per seconds and when the claws were spaced 4.9 inches apart.

When the tail swung at two times per second, it was too fast and ROCR jumped off the wall, and was caught by a safety cord so it wasn’t damaged.

Provancher says the study is the first to set a benchmark for the efficiency of climbing robots against which future models may be compared. He says future work will include improving the robot’s design, integrating more complex mechanisms for gripping to walls of various sorts, such as brick and sandstone, and investigating more complex ways of controlling the robot – all aimed at improving efficiency.

“Higher climbing efficiencies will extend the battery life of a self-contained, autonomous robot and expand the variety of tasks the robot can perform,” he says.

Top-Secret Robotic Legs Helping The Paraplegic Walk Again

Bionic legs are a new top-secret invention that is helping a paralyzed man walk again. The demonstrated was unveiled in New Zealand, who can now stand up and walk across the room to shake hands with Prime Minister John Key. This new invention is being called “Rex”, which is short for “robotic exoskeleton.” The battery-powered robotic legs strap on around the legs and waist of the user to support their weight.

Using a joystick and a small keypad, Allen demonstrated how to operate the legs to stand, walk, and even go up and down steps. The Rex has to be custom fitted to each user, it took about three days for Allen to get the hang of it. However, now he is capable of strapping the device on himself, without any assistance.

The inventors of Rex are Richard Little and Robert Irving. They are two childhood friends originally from Scotland. Seven years ago after Irving was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the duo came up with the idea. Over the next few years, they refined Rex into a 38kg (84lb) device. All their work was top secret; even Allen, who agreed to be the Rex test pilot, kept his family in the dark about the project until the launch.

“It was all top secret and what we didn’t know, we didn’t need to know anyway. But seeing him here today, it’s just blown us away. It’s brought tears to our eyes really,” Allen’s father said in a statement. Allen has been in a wheelchair since injuring his spinal cord in a motorcycle accident five year ago. When he heard what Little and Irving were planning, he jumped on board. “They brought me in and I said ‘I want to be part of that.’ I couldn’t walk away — or roll away — from that,” he stated.

The investors in the venture capital company put up the $7.5 million which was needed to create the prototypes. The device is expected to be on the market worldwide by mid-2011. The cost of the custom made device will cost around $150,000 each. However, it is priceless for people who never thought they would walk again.

Out Of The Gait: Robot Sets Untethered ‘Walking’ Record

The loneliness of the long-distance robot: A Cornell University robot named Ranger walked 14.3 miles in about 11 hours, setting an unofficial world record at Cornell’s Barton Hall early on July 6. A human – armed with nothing more than a standard remote control for toys – steered the untethered robot. Ranger navigated 108.5 times around the indoor track in Cornell’s Barton Hall – about 212 meters per lap, and made about 70,000 steps before it had to stop and recharge its battery. The 14.3-mile record beats the former world record set by Boston Dynamics’ BigDog, which had claimed the record at 12.8 miles.

A group of engineering students, led by Andy Ruina, Cornell professor of theoretical and applied mechanics, announced the robotic record at the Dynamic Walking 2010 meeting on July 9, in Cambridge, Mass.  Ruina leads the Biorobotics and Locomotion Laboratory at Cornell. The National Science Foundation funds this research.

Previously, students in Ruina’s lab set a record for an untethered walking robot in April 2008, when Ranger strode about 5.6 miles around the Barton Hall. Boston Dynamics’ BigDog subsequently beat that record.

One goal for robotic research is to show off the machine’s energy efficiency. Unlike other walking robots that use motors to control every movement, the Ranger appears more relaxed and in a way emulates human walking, using gravity and momentum to help swing its legs forward.

Standing still, the robot looks a bit like a tall sawhorse and its gait suggests a human on crutches, alternately swinging forward two outside legs and then two inside ones. There are no knees, but its feet can flip up – and out of the way, while it swings its legs – so that the robot can finish its step.

Ruina says that this record not only advances robotics, but helps undergraduate students learn about the mechanics of walking. The information could be applied to rehabilitation, prosthetics for humans and improving athletic performance.

Cornell University
www.cornell.edu

MIT Develops Robotic Paper That Folds Itself Into Origami

Researchers at Harvard and MIT have reshaped the landscape of programmable matter by devising self-folding sheets that rely on the ancient art of origami.

Called programmable matter by folding, the team demonstrated how a single thin sheet composed of interconnected triangular sections could transform itself into a boat- or plane-shape—all without the help of skilled fingers.

Published in the online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) during the week of June 28, lead authors Robert Wood, associate professor of electrical engineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and Daniela Rus, a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at MIT and co-director of the CSAIL Center for Robotics, envision creating “smart” cups that could adjust based upon the amount of liquid needed or even a “Swiss army knife” that could form into tools ranging from wrenches to tripods.

“The process begins when we first create an algorithm for folding,” explains Wood. “Similar to a set of instructions in an origami book, we determine, based upon the desired end shapes, where to crease the sheet.”

The sheet, a thin composite of rigid tiles and elastomer joints, is studded with thin foil actuators (motorized switches) and flexible electronics. The demonstration material contains twenty-five total actuators, divided into five groupings. A shape is produced by triggering the proper actuator groups in sequence.

To initiate the on-demand folding, the team devised a series of stickers, thin materials that contain the circuitry able to prompt the actuators to make the folds. This can be done without a user having to access a computer, reducing “programming” to merely placing the stickers in the appropriate places. When the sheet receives the proper jolt of current, it begins to fold, staying in place thanks to magnetic closures.

“Smart sheets are Origami Robots that will make any shape on demand for their user,” says Rus. “A big achievement was discovering the theoretical foundations and universality of folding and fold planning, which provide the brain and the decision making system for the smart sheet.”

The fancy folding techniques were inspired in part by the work of co-author Erik Demaine, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and one of the world’s most recognized experts on computational origami.

While the Harvard and MIT engineers only demonstrated two simple shapes, the proof of concept holds promise. The long-term aim is to make programmable matter more robust and practical, leading to materials that can perform multiple tasks, such as an entire dining utensil set derived from one piece of foldable material.

“The Shape-Shifting Sheets demonstrate an end-to-end process that is a first step towards making everyday objects whose mechanical properties can be programmed,” concludes Wood.

www.seas.harvard.edu

Igus Develops A Simpler Robotic Bionic Joint

When it comes to robotic joints, engineers have had to put together complex custom configurations out of multiple components, which involved considerable development time with the mechanisms. This time requirement often reduced the amount of time artificial-intelligence programmers had with the system. So, two goals of robotics developers were to enable the programmers to be involved with the process earlier and develop a straightforward modular system. The realization of these goals is closer, thanks to a recently introduced innovative robot joint module system from igus. The company is currently looking for beta testers for this new product.

The robot unit, known as Robolink, was primarily designed for robot developers and laboratories that work with humanoid systems, as well as with lightweight engineering systems for handling and automation. The design was inspired by Dr. Rudolf Bannasch, Managing Director at the Berlin-based company EvoLogics, a high-tech company working in the field of bionics and humanoid robots. He provided both the motivation and developmental support behind this Robolink component.

It consists of a drive-and-control unit, joints in different lengths, and arms in different sizes, including a duct for additional control cables. The jointed arms are made from carbon fiber reinforced plastic and other lightweight materials. At the end of the jointed system is the option to connect to different types of tools.

The drive-and-control unit was purposely designed as a black box. Robot developers have the option to work with pneumatics, electro technology, or hydraulics.

The bionic core of the robot’s skeletal parts is the injection-molded plastic joints. They are controlled through cable pulls that transfer tensile forces, similar to the way tendons function in humans. The cable sheath is held and the inner cable moved. This way, the gripper, shovel, hook—or whichever tool the developer chooses—is moved and operated.

All data cables are routed safely through the jointed arms. The cable pulls are routed through from one joint to the next—just as joints are connected in humans. Only four cables are required for each plastic joint to rotate and swivel freely. These cables convey images, acoustics and forces, which are the artificial senses of humanoid robots.

The cables themselves are made from technical synthetic fibers. The fibers are extremely strong, hardly stretch at all, are resistant to chemicals, and are lubrication-free and wear resistant. When compared to steel, their lighter weight also makes them much more energy efficient.

Since the system is modular, it can be constructed with all kinds of humanoid robot configurations. This ranges from jointed arms, moving ‘digger’ arms, through to four-legged ‘creatures.’ The joints can be easily combined as required.

igus’ development objective was to keep the moving mass as low as possible, so that the actuators can be separated from functioning tools, such as grippers, hands, suction cups, and so on. Particular attention was given to enable quick assembly, as well as the use of tribo-optimized plastics to reduce lubrication needs and weight.

igus
www.igus.com

Six degrees of freedom and high precision

Parallel kinematics (PKM) precision positioning systems have many advantages over serial kinematics stages, such as lower inertia, improved dynamics, smaller package size and higher stiffness. Hexapods, a type of parallel kinematics positioning system, can move masses of 50, 200 or even 1000 kg with micron accuracy such as that required in medical applications. This particular Hexapod system, the M-810, is built with six, high-resolution electro-mechanical or piezoelectric actuators acting on a common platform. It is the familiar flight simulator design, but considerably more precise: in place of hydraulic cylinders, the Hexapods are driven by accurate, precision-controlled rotary or linear motors.

Different drive principles are used, depending on the application: Hexapods with NEXLINE® drives make a positioning system that is vacuum compatible and non-magnetic.

These Hexapod systems include a controller that lets you set a pivot point anywhere inside or outside the Hexapod working space. The freely definable pivot point stays with the platform, no matter how it moves. Moves are specified in Cartesian coordinates and the PC-based controller transforms them into the required motion-vectors for the individual actuator drives.

The miniature hexapod system delivers more than 10 lb of force and motion in all six degrees of freedom.  This 6-axis robot can be used for manufacturing and part placement that requires high precision for microscopy applications or laser and optical alignment. Its size is 10 cm in diameter and 11.8 cm in height. Minimum incremental motion is 0.2 microns (40 nm resolution). Travel ranges to 40 mm linear and 60° (rotation). Velocity is 10 mm/s.

PI (Physik Instrumente)

www.pi-usa.us

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