HISTORY OF ROBOTICS

Our fascination with robots began more than 100 years ago. Looking back, it’s easy to get confused about what is and is not a robot. Robotics’ history is tied to so many other technological advances that today seem so trivial we don’t even think of them as robots. How did a remote controlled boat lead to autonomous metal puppies?
Slaves of Steel
The first person to use the word robot wasn’t a scientist, but a playwright. Czechoslovakian writer Karel Capek fi rst used the word robot in his satirical play, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Taken from the Czech word for forced labor, the word was used to describe electronic servants who turn on their masters when given emotions. This was only the beginning of the badmouthing robots would receive for the next couple of decades. Many people feared that machines would resent their role as slaves or use their steely strength to overthrow humanity.
Wartime Inventions
World War II was a catalyst in the development of two important robot components i.e., artifi cial sensing and autonomous control. Radar was essential for tracking the enemy. The U.S. military also created autocontrol systems for mine detectors that would sit in front of a tank as it crossed enemy lines. If a mine was detected, the control system would automatically stop the tank before it reached the mine. The Germans developed guided robotic bombs that were capable of correcting their trajectory.
Calculators and Computers
Mathematician Charles Babbage dreamed up the idea for an “Analytical Engine” in the 1830s, but he was never able to build his device. It would take another 100 years before John Atanassoff would build the world’s fi rst digital computer. In 1946 the University of Pennsylvania completed the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator), a massive machine made up of thousands of vacuum tubes. But these devices could only handle numbers. The UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) would be the fi rst device to deal with letters.
A Robot in Every Pot
For robotics, the ’40s and ’50s were full of over-the-top ideas. The invention of the transistor in 1948 increased the rate of electronic growth and the possibilities seemed endless. Ten years later, the creation of silicon microchips reinforced that growth. The Westinghouse robot Elecktro showed how far science and imagination could go. The seven-foot robot could smoke and play the piano. Ads from the era suggested that every household would soon have a robot.


Industrial-strength Arms
As the demand for cars grew, manufacturers looked for new ways to increase the effi ciency of the assembly line through telecherics. This new fi eld focused on robots that mimicked the operator’s movements from a distance. In 1961 General Motors installed the applied telecherics system on their assembly line. The one-armed robot unloaded die casts, cooled components, and delivered them to a trim press. In 1978 the PUMA (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly) was introduced and quickly became the standard for commercial telecherics.

Early Personal Robots
With the rise of the personal computer came the personal robot craze of the early ’80s. The popularity of Star Wars didn’t hurt either. The fi rst personal robots looked like R2D2. The RB5X and the HERO 1 robots were both designed as education tools for learning about computers. The HERO 1 featured light, sound, and sonar sensors, a rotating head and, for its time, a powerful microprocessor.
But the robots had a lighter side, too. In demo mode, HERO 1 would sing. The RB5X even attempted to vacuum, but had problems with obstacles.

Arms in Space
Once earthlings traveled to space, they wanted to build things there. One of NASA’s essential construction tools is the Canadarm. First deployed in 1981 aboard the Columbia, the Canadarm has gone on to deploy and repair satellites, telescopes, and shuttles. Jet Propulsions Laboratories (JPL) in California has been working on several other devices for space construction since the late eighties. The Ranger Neutral Buoyancy Vehicle’s many manipulators are tested in a large pool of water to simulate outer space.

Surgical Tools
While robots haven’t replaced doctors, they are performing many surgical tasks. In 1985 Dr. Yik San Kwoh invented the robot software interface used in the fi rst robot-aided surgery, a stereotactic procedure. The surgery involves a small probe that travels into the skull. A CT scanner is used to give a 3D picture of the brain, so that the robot can plot the best path to the tumor. The PUMA robots are commonly used to learn the difference between healthy and diseased tissue, using tofu for practice.

The Honda Humanoid
The team who created the Honda Humanoid robot took a lesson from our own bodies to build this two-legged robot. When they began in 1986, the idea was to create an intelligent robot that could get around in a human world, complete with stairs, carpeting, and other tough terrain. Getting a single robot mobile in a variety of environments had always been a challenge. But by studying feet and legs, the Honda team created a robot capable of climbing stairs, kicking a ball, pushing a cart, or tightening a screw.

Hazardous Duties
As scientifi c knowledge grew so did the level of questioning. And, as with space exploration, fi nding the answers could be dangerous. In 1994 the CMU Field Robotics Center sent Dante II, a tethered walking robot to explore Mt. Spurr in Alaska. Dante II aids in the dangerous recovery of volcanic gases and samples. These robotic arms with wheels (a.k.a. mobile applied telecherics) saved countless lives defusing bombs and investigating nuclear accident sites. The range of selfcontrol, or autonomy, on these robots varies.

Solar-powered Insects
Some robots mimic humans, while others resemble lower life forms. Mark Tilden’s BEAM robots look and act like big bugs. The name BEAM is an acronym for Tilden’s philosophy: biology, electronics, aesthetics, and mechanics. Tilden builds simple robots out of discrete components and shies away from the integrated circuits most other robots use for intelligence. Started in the early 1990s, the idea was to create inexpensive, solar-powered robots ideal for dangerous missions such as landmine detection.

A Range of Rovers
By the 1990s NASA was looking for something to regain the public’s enthusiasm for the space program. The answer was rovers. The fi rst of these small, semiautonomous robot platforms to be launched into space was the Sojourner, sent to Mars in 1996. Its mission involved testing soil composition, wind speed, and water vapor quantities. The problem was that it could only travel short distances. NASA went back to work. In 2004, twin robot rovers caught the public’s imagination again, sending back amazing images in journeys of kilometers, not meters.

Entertaining Pets
In the late ’90s there was a return to consumer-oriented robots. The proliferation of the Internet also allowed a wider audience to get excited about robotics, controlling small rovers via the Web or buying kits online. One of the real robotic wonders of the late ’90s was AIBO the robotic dog, made by Sony Corp. Using his sensor array, AIBO can autonomously navigate a room and play ball. Even with a price tag of over $2,000, it took less than four days for AIBO to sell out online. Other “pet robots” followed AIBO, but the challenge of keeping the pet smart and the price low remains.

INTRODUCTION TO ROBOTICS


Recently there has been a lot of discussion about futuristic wars between humans and robots, robots taking over the world and enslaving humans. Movies like The Terminator, Star Wars, etc., have propogated these ideas faster than anything else. These movies are beautiful works of fi ction and present us with an interesting point of view to speculate. However, the truth is much different but equally as interesting as the fi ction. If you look around yourself you will see several machines and gizmos within your surroundings. When you use a simple pair of spectacles, do you become nonliving? When an elderly person uses a hearing aid or a physically challenged person uses an artifi cial leg or arm do they become half machine? Yes, they do. Now we are rapidly moving toward an era where we will have chips embedded
inside our bodies. Chips will communicate with our biological sensors and will help us in performing several activities more effi ciently. An artifi cial retina is almost at the fi nal stages of its development. Now we are thinking in terms of nanobots helping us to strengthen our immune systems. Now we are already on the verge of becoming half machine. Chips will be implanted inside our bodies imparting telescopic and microscopic abilities in our eyes. Cell phones will be permanently placed inside the ear. We will communicate with different devices not through a control panel or keyboard; rather these devices will receive commands from the brain directly. The next level of development will be the part of the brain being replaced by chips, which will impart more capability to the brain. You may ask, do we need all these? The answer is that the biological evolution has already become obsolete. It is unable to keep pace with the rate at which humans are growing. Many of our primary intuitions, such as mating behavior, are still millions of years old. Evolution happens only after millions of years. But humans have built the entire civilization in only 10,000 years. And now the rate of growth has become exponential. Now we need to replace our brain’s decision-making software with faster/better ones. So, where are we heading? Yes, we are slowly becoming robots. Robots are not our competitors on this planet. They are our successors. Robots are the next level in evolution; rather we can call it robolution. We will begin our journey with a brief history of robotics.

Agricultural Credit Improvement Act of 1992


Bill to assist beginning farmer to acquire his or her own farm. This act required the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm Service Agency (FSA) to target a percentage of its direct and guaranteed farm operating and farm ownership loans to beginning farmers and ranchers. In 1992, the average age of farmers had increased to 52 years of age. Twice as many farmers were 60 or older as were under the age of 35. The increased cost of farming since the 1970s and the farm crisis of the 1980s had washed many younger farmers out of the business.
To get the loans, the beginning farmer had to draw up a detailed 10-year plan of action for his or her farm. Once the USDA Farm Service Agency approved the plan, new farmers became eligible for direct, subsidized, operational loans from the FMHA for 10 years and federal loan guarantees for the next 5 years. After 15 years, these farmers became ineligible for the program. The federal government took up liability for 80 to 90 percent of these loans if they were defaulted on.
Another minor change in the law allowed banks, rather than the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA), to decide which farmers met eligibility requirements for this program. Members of Congress believed that this would get money to the farmer faster. The bill also called for special efforts to make loans more available to those who are “socially disadvantaged,” including women.

Science and Technology


Government spending during wartime has led to many breakthroughs in the fields of science and technology. In the post–Civil War period, medical professionals explored the cause of diseases and infections. By the 1900s army surgeons had discovered the cause of malaria and the public learned about germ theory.Wars also resulted in the development of penicillin and other antibiotic drugs. During World War I, Americans improved the airplane, and after World War II an entire aviation industry developed. During the cold war, the federal government funded the missile and space programs, which yielded such inventions as the computer chip and eventually the Internet.

Welfare


From the 1930s to the present, the federal government has increasingly used economic policy to deal with social and cultural issues. In the immediate post–World War II period, Americans experienced an unprecedented period of prosperity because of the accumulation of personal savings and the expansion of industry during the war. But by the 1960s, it was apparent that although most Americans’ standard of living had increased, African Americans and other groups had fallen deeper into poverty. President Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to correct the problem by using tax revenues to fund a new welfare state—the Great Society, which had programs ranging from Head Start to Medicaid that supported health, education, and community development. The Great Society redistributed the wealth but also created a group of people who became dependent on the federal government. After several decades, states including Wisconsin began to experiment with ways to eliminate this dependency on welfare. As of 2003, the number of people on the welfare rolls has dropped because similar efforts have also been undertaken at the federal level. This change in economic policy led to a drop in the number of births to unwed mothers and the number of abortions.

Economic Policy

Economic policy has shifted many times over the course of American history. During colonial times, the British colonies operated under a mercantilist system in which all trade benefited the mother country. After the American Revolution, the fledgling United States attempted to operate under the Articles of Confederation, but the economic restrictions it placed on the national government caused that system to fail. Delegates meeting at the Constitutional Convention agreed that the federal government must have the power to tax. A decision to tax only imports, not exports or direct income, proved to be decisive in the development of domestic industry. Congress passed revenue tariffs (taxes on imports) during the early years of the Republic; after the War of 1812, a shift to protective tariffs occurred. These tariffs continued to increase reaching their apex during the Civil War under the Morrill Tariff. After the Civil War, tariff rates remained high, ensuring the rise of big business that did not have to compete against foreign manufacturers. The extreme wealth accumulated by captains of industry such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller stood in sharp contrast to the poverty of many Americans, especially new immigrants who crowded into tenements in major cities in the North and East. Public awareness of this economic inequity resulted in a movement to replace the tariff as the primary source of tax revenue with a direct personal income tax. However, Congress lacked constitutional authority to institute such a tax unless the states passed a constitutional amendment to allow direct taxation. Republicans finally agreed to lower the tariff rates if the amendment passed, thinking that the states would fail to pass it. The plan failed, and ratification in 1913 of the Sixteenth Amendment opened the door for direct taxation—a shift that has influenced capital accumulation, investment, and personal savings ever since. that has influenced capital accumulation, investment, and personal savings ever since.
After reducing the tariff rates and increasing personal income tax rates, Congress once again increased import duties because of World War I. After that conflict, European countries that had been carved out of the old empires raised their tariff rates to protect their own industries. Consequently, trade slowed at the same time that the U.S. stock market collapsed under the burden of overvaluation of company worth and market overstimulation due to purchases on margin. Within nine months of the crash,Congress passed the Hawley- Smoot Tariff, which raised tariff rates to a record high.Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Board increased interest rates, contracting the money supply. The net effect was a prolonged depression that finally ended when the United States entered World War II.
The Great Depression and World War II mark a shift in U.S. economic policy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt followed the economic philosophy of John Maynard Keynes, who advocated deficit spending during periods of financial difficulty. Deficit spending would allow the federal government to initiate programs that politicians had traditionally shunned. For the first time, the federal government assumed the role of employer to thousands of the country’s unemployed workers. Programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration created jobs. Social Security was established to promote early retirement and so open up jobs to younger workers. In addition, the federal government funded projects such as the Rural Electrification Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority to improve the lives of Americans in rural or poverty-stricken areas.