Robots, history and future

Robots are invading the earth. They were industrial, they become toys, and are willing to do chores as they are indefatigable. They will replace the men to go where man can not go: maintenance of nuclear power plants, seabed, risk areas, space ...

History

The word robot appeared for the first time in the theater play by Karel Capek, RUR (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1920. The word robotics is a neologism in the book Runaround by Isaac Asimov in 1942.

The word has several meanings. This may be an autonomous machine that could replace humans. Robot industrial or food processor, washing machine is one.
But the word robot in the imaginary has another sense, designating an autonomous humanoid machine, capable of interacting with the environment.

The history of animated machines, having a human form or not goes back to antiquity.
Greek mythology refers already artificial beings made of metal and manufactured by the god of hell, Hades.

Automata first appeared in the East, before to make the admiration of European courts.

Subsequently, different stages of technological development and information technology and robotics are inseparable, they are involved in the genesis of robotics today. The Jacquard loom with punch cards allows programming then making interchangeable machines.
With the Boolean algebra, logic and calculations can do automated reasoning. Progress in the field of sensors, artificial intelligence to process the data received, and servo motors complement the panel of components needed.

More in the History or robotics.

All the names for robots

• Actroid
  Humanoid robot designed to mimic the appearance of the human and replace it for a dedicated task.
• Android.
  Robot in human form.
• Automaton.
  Machine devolved to perform a task by following a program, without interaction with the environment. The presence of a program makes the difference with a stand alone machine.
• BEAM.
  Biologics Electronics Aesthetics Mecanica. Mechanical electronic mimicking biological beings.
  This is the version of Mark Tilden of a bioloid.
• Bioloid.
  Machine which is given the form of a living creature (a contraction of the words biologics and droid).
• Chabot
  Virtual interlocutor.
• Cyborg.
  Contraction of Cybernetics Organism. Creature part human and part mechanical.
• Droid.
  Fictional mechanical being with intelligence but not necessarily with a human form. The word droid appears in the movie Star Wars with models RD-D2 and C-3PO. Is a registered trade name by Lucasfilm Ltd.. He was echoed by other fictions and is also the name of a mobile phone from Motorola. In the novel version of the film, the word is witten 'droid.
• Drone.
  Autonomous aircraft robot or remotely piloted, for the overflight of an area or to drop bombs.
• Fembot.
  Shortcut to female robot, is a synonym for gynoid.
• Gynoid.
  Humanoid robot imitating a woman, as opposed to android.
• Humanoid.
  Which has human form.
• Robotdoc.
  Medical robot.

Robot and cinema

The main achievements of men showing artificial cyborgs are:

• 1927 Metropolis (Fritz Lang).
• 1977 Star Wars (George Lucas).
• 1982 Blade Runner (Ridley Scott).
• 1984 Terminator (James Cameron).
• 1987 Robocop (Paul Verhoeven).
• 2001 AI (Steven Spielberg).
• 2004 I Robot (Alex Proyas).

Designing a modern robot

Robots today are purely mechanical, consisting of articulated rigid parts by servo-motors.
As the number of servo motors is high (and therefore the number of degrees of freedom) more gestures are precise and high capacities.

Components of a robot:

• Metal frame and plastic.
• Servo-motors for movement.
• Vision sensors.
• Sensors for touch.
• Battery.
• Circuits and possibly programmable unit.
• Possible link with a computer.

See Anatomy of an android.

Programming robots

There are several tools and programming languages for robots.

Microsoft developed in 2004, the Robotics Developer Studio with the Visual Programming language that can interface with toys as industrial robots. ROS is an open source IDE for programming any sort of robots.

The Urbi language operates on atoms of behavior that are pieced together to form actions aim. It can interface with ROS.

Risbee wants to provide a simpler interface with icons representatives of elementary actions and objects.

See Robots programming.

Statistics

Robots in various forms are commercially successful

• Aibo, the robotic dog from Sony has sold 150,000 copies. However, Sony has abandoned the field.
• Robosapien form Mark Tilden, the robot toy stretch has already sold millions of copies.
• Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner and similar has been sold to 10 million units in 2014.

See also

• Robots reviewed.
• Actroid female robot DER. Another android.