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"How old are you?" she wanted to know.

"Thirty-two," I said.

"Then you don't remember a world without robots. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons. Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven't worked with them, so you don't know them. They're a cleaner better breed than we are."

-from I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Robot, which is derived from a Czech word meaning "menial labor," got its modern meaning from a 1920 play, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), by Czech playwright Karel Capek (1890-1938). The robots in Capek's play develop emotions and overthrow their human masters. A sinister "power struggle" with robots has long been a popular theme in science fiction --- for a change of pace, try Isaac Asimov's "I Robot" stories in which he consciously strove to depict robots as a benefit to society.

Today, robots are used in many ways, from lawn mowing to auto manufacturing. Scientists see practical uses for robots in performing socially undesirable, hazardous or even "impossible" tasks --- trash collection, toxic waste clean-up, desert and space exploration, and more. AI researchers are also interested in robots as a way to understand human (and not just human) intelligence in its primary function -- interacting with the real world.

Good Places to Start

Robot Pals. Scientific American Frontiers (April 13, 2005). Alan Alda [host]: "The problem with most robots is that they tend to be, well, robotic. They know nothing they aren't programmed to know, and can do nothing they aren't programmed to do. But for many applications where robots could be useful, they need to be more like humans, able to respond as a cooperative partner rather than a mindless machine. In this program, we'll meet some robots that are learning to figure out for themselves what their human companions have in mind."

FAQ - Keeping pace with robots. By Jonathan Skillings, with Michael Kanellos contributing. CNET News.com (October 5, 2005). "FAQ The robots are among us, but they're not exactly the stuff of science fiction. At least, not yet. Every week seems to bring a new report of a robot taking up a human task: cleaning floors, riding camels, babysitting the kids, firing machine guns. ... To help set the record straight on where we stand now, here's a rundown of what robots are up to these days. What exactly is a robot? ... What's the difference between a robot and an android? ... Can a computer be considered a robot? It has silicon-based intelligence of a sort, and performs specific tasks. ... What have they done for us lately? ... Who's leading the charge to get robots into real-world settings? ... Where will Robot Valley sprout? ... When will there be a robot for every household? ... Is one robot better than another? ... Can robots reproduce? ... How smart are they? ... Is it ethical to send a robot to do a human's dirty work? ... When will robots become like human beings?"

Robots: An Exhibition of U.S. Automatons from the Leading Edge of Research Highlighting the WTEC [World Technology Evaluation Center] International Study of Robotics. Presented by NSF, the National Science Foundation (September 2005). Resources within the exhibit site to complement the WTEC study include:

  • Exhibit Descriptions:
    • Learning and Attention with a Humanoid Robot Head
    • Learning to Walk in 20 Minutes
    • Molecule Self-Configuring Robots
    • Self-Assembling Robotics
    • Systems for Surgical Assistance
    • Solar-Powered Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (SAUV)
    • RHex/RiSE
    • COOL Aide: Robotics Assistance for the Elderly
    • COTS-M Scout Robot
    • Aerial Robots
    • Mars Exploration Rover
  • The Robotics Research collection with resources such as:
    • Robotics: A Special Report (November 22, 2004):
      • Overview: Quest for Intelligence
      • Helping Hands
      • Robots & Biology
      • Putting the Team in Teamwork
      • Sense and Sensor Abilities
      • Robots at Work and at Play
      • Where No Human Can Go
    • Researcher Founds a Robot Soccer Dynasty. - Since receiving her doctorate in 1992, Manuela Veloso's research interests in artificial intelligence have focused on duplicating the success with which humans plan, learn and execute tasks. Founding a robot soccer dynasty was purely coincidental. By David Hart. NSF Discovery (March 24, 2004).
    • Shoebox-sized Robots Deployed in Rescue Effort at Ground Zero - Graduate students and the experimental robots they helped to develop were among the early responders who joined the search and rescue efforts shortly after the Sept. 11 collapse of the World Trade Center towers. By Peter West. NSF Discovery (March 24, 2004).

Invasion of the Robots - From medicine to military, machines finally arrive. By Michael Kanellos. CNET News.com (March 10, 2004). "The robots are coming. And when they get here, they will take out the trash. Mobile, intelligent robots that can perform tasks usually reserved for humans are starting to creep into mainstream society and could become a multibillion-dollar market in a few years."

Thesketch of a robot Robotics Research Group at the University of Texas at Austin has "put together a small educational section which will enable you to explore the world of robotics." Among the topics covered are:

Robots! A website from The University of Birmingham. "Explore our site to find all about the real robots that we build - sporty robots, clever robots, smiley robots, and ... ooo, those pesky robots! Ask your questions about robots to our expert - Professor Robotnik! Read about robo-pets and robo-footballers! Build your own robots!"

  • Among the questions that have been asked of the Prof are :"How can I build a robot that has a human personality?" and "What is a robot?"
  • Be sure to see their richly illustrated History of Robotics.

The Future: AI. One of the chapters from Tom Harris' How Robots Work, available from the Howstuffworks web site. "Just as physical robotic design is a handy tool for understanding animal and human anatomy, AI research is useful for understanding how natural intelligence works. For some roboticists, this insight is the ultimate goal of designing robots. Others envision a world where we live side by side with intelligent machines and use a variety of lesser robots for manual labor, health care and communication. A number of robotics experts predict that robotic evolution will ultimately turn us into cyborgs -- humans integrated with machines. Conceivably, people in the future could load their minds into a sturdy robot and live for thousands of years! In any case, robots will certainly play a larger role in our daily lives in the future."

The Humanoid Race - Machines are getting more and more like the rest of us. A piece-by-piece guide to the globe's most advanced bots. By Robert Capps. Wired Magazine (July 2004; Issue 12.07). "With each advance in computing speed, battery capacity, camera and motor miniaturization, and software capability, the world grows closer to the ultimate goal of robotics: a walking, talking, feeling android worthy of our cinematic inspirations. Consider the progress of just the past 15 years. There are now robots that can get around on two legs, participate in simple conversations, and manipulate objects in rudimentary ways. ... And while there are a number of extremely complex problems to solve before we can make something as advanced as Sonny, the star of I, Robot, we're getting there, one piece at a time. To find out where the state of the art lies, Wired surveyed the projects that might one day add up to an android just like the rest of us. "

Robotics FAQs. Field Robotics Center, Carnegie Mellon University. Maintained by Kevin Dowling. A great place to find answers to frequently asked questions.

Robotics - Industry Statistics. Check out our fascinating collection.

Thinking Machines, part of Discovery Channel Canada's AI mini-site. Resources include:

  • Robots that reason, learn and crave improvement. By Tamar Simon (June 22, 2001). "In order to create robots capable of complicated tasks, like spacecraft that can pilot themselves, higher-level representational thinking is required. ... [Brian] William's approach is to give a robot 'models' - common sense principles that explain how the robot and the outside world work. The robot must then reason from these models to achieve its goals."
  • Self sustaining robots a taste of things to come. By Tamar Simon (June 22, 2001). "So you've developed a fantastic, artificially intelligent robot to do all kinds of stuff you don't want to do: walk your dog, grocery shop, undertake reconnaissance and search and destroy missions into enemy territory. Trouble is, within half an hour of leaving the house - or military base - it runs out of juice. ... But researchers at the University of South Florida may have the answer to this dilemma: gastrobots - robots that can digest food. Led by mechanical engineering professor Stuart Wilkinson, the USF team has created a prototype known as 'Gastronome' (a.k.a. 'Chew Chew') that can process food using a Microbial Fuel Cell located in its centre wagon. It's a piece of biotechnology that converts food into electricity without combustion using biocatalysts like living microorganisms or enzymes."

Robots/ Mechanical Life. NPR Talk of the Nation: Science Friday With Ira Flatow (August 30, 2002). "This week, an automated convenience store opened in Washington. This robo-mart dispenses snacks, toiletries, and even DVDs. From housekeeping to the battlefield to your neighborhood convenience store, researchers are creating robots to live with us and work for us. In this hour, we'll look at how robots may change our lives. Plus, early attempts to create mechanical life." Guests: Rodney Brooks & Gaby Wood. You can listen to the radio broadcast by clicking here.

Robot Systems. "Robots are comprised of several systems working together as a whole. The type of job the robot does dictates what system elements it needs. The general categories of robot systems are: Controller, Body, Mobility, Power, Sensors, Tools." A clearly written text combined with lots of photos and links to actual projects make this page from ROVer Ranch, part of the NASA JSC Learning Technologies Project, a great place to start!

The Big Picture - A Short History of Robotics and Thinking Machines. Part of the teaching guide for the Scientific American Frontiers in the classroom series: ROBOTS ALIVE!

Ethics for the Robot Age - Should bots carry weapons? Should they win patents? Questions we must answer as automation advances. View by Jordan Pollack. Wired Magazine (January 2005; Issue 13.01). "My definition of a robot is any device controlled by software that can work 24/7 and put people out of work. The machines are not intelligent. ... In case you missed them, today's most popular robots are ATMs and computer printers. While our hopes for and fears of robots may be overblown, there is plenty to worry about as automation progresses. The future will have many more robots, and they'll most certainly be much more advanced. This raises important ethical questions that we must begin to confront. 1. Should robots be humanoid? ... 2. Should humans become robots? ... 4. Should robots eat? ... 6. Should robots carry weapons? ..."

Timelines:

  • Timeline: Real robots - "Robots are not new. They have been around for centuries in various forms. Here's a brief overview of the development of both robots and computers." From BBC News.
  • Robots and Artificial Intelligence Timeline. From The Computer Museum History Center. An exciting tour which begins in 1948 . . . and in 1961, you'll meet UNIMATE!

Robots - They're beginning to walk, talk, and, yes, think like people. Is the age of the robo sapien just around the corner? By Irene M. Kunii and Otis Port. Business Week Online (March 19, 2001):

Q & A from BBC's 16+ SOS Teacher: "Question - i have to research developments in robotics and artificial intelligence. use of robots as air stewards, cleaners and maintenance 'staff', engineers, making internal and external repairs to the spacecraft. i also wanted your opinion on sophisticated robots... at what point would we consider that the robot has life? and what rights would it have?" Answer - This answer is posted on behalf of MK . It has long been the dream of scientists to create robots that act intelligently. ..."

"The Robot Hall of Fame recognizes excellence in robotics technology worldwide and honors the fictional and real robots that have inspired scientific accomplishments. It was created by Carnegie Mellon University in April 2003 to call attention to the increasing contributions of robots to human endeavors."

Trivia Quiz: Who first used the term "robotics" in print ... and when?

Readings OnlineAI Magazine cover: Robocup

RoboCup. AI Magazine 21:1 (Spring 2000). Among the many articles you'll find in this exciting issue are Overview of RoboCup-98 (Minoru Asada, Manuela M. Veloso, Milind Tambe, Itsuki Noda, Hiroaki Kitano, and Gerhard K. Kraetzschmar), AAAI-98 Robot Exhibition (Karen Zita Haigh and Tucker Balch), and Using Robot Competitions to Promote Intellectual Development (Robin R. Murphy).

  • Additional articles in AI Magazine about RoboCup and other competitions can be found here.

Georgia Tech's Ronald Arkin (September 12, 2005)."Technology Research News Editor Eric Smalley carried out an email conversation with Georgia Institute of Technology professor Ronald C. Arkin in August of 2005 that covered the economics of labor, making robots as reliable as cars, getting robots to trust people, biorobotics, finding the boundaries of intimate relationships with robots, how much to let robots manipulate people, giving robots a conscience, robots as humane soldiers and The Butlerian Jihad. ... "

Robot science puts on a friendly face. By Edward C. Baig. USA Today (April 30, 2003). "[I]n labs around the globe, researchers are devising a slacker's paradise in which loyal servants and other brainy machines tackle mundane chores, freeing us up for more fulfilling activities."

Io, Ganymede, and Callisto: A Multiagent Robot Trash-Collecting Team. By Tucker Balch, Gary Boone, Thomas Collins, et al. (1995). AI Magazine 16 (2): 39-51. The Georgia Institute of Technology won the Office Cleanup event at the 1994 AAAI Robot Competition with a multirobot cooperating team. This article describes the design and implementation of these reactive trash-collecting robots, including details of multiagent cooperation, color vision for the detection of perceptual object classes, temporal sequencing of behaviors for task completion, and a language for specifying motor schema-based robot behaviors.

AI think, therefore I am. Virtual agents feature Computerised characters that look, sound, move and seemingly think like real people are emerging from the realms of science fiction into everyday life. Superguide by David Braue. apcmag.com (December 16, 2003). "'We have agents embedded in trucks, excavators and individuals [robots] in order to mine the right material at the right time,' says Hugh Durrant-Whyte, research director at CEAS [Centre of Excellence in Autonomous Systems]. 'We do not approach it at all from a human point of view -- robots are really physical embodiments of agents. They won’t discuss Plato with you, but they can work 24 hours a day and have cooperation and negotiation strategies [to interact with each other].'"

Medicine & Machines - Robot makes history as surgical technology evolves. By David Cho. Palm Beach Daily News & Cox News Service (August 21, 2005). "Penelope is a robot, a machine that recently made medical history by becoming the first to act as an independent surgical aide during an operation. During a June procedure at New York-Presbyterian Hospital to remove a benign tumor from a patient's forearm, Penelope responded to voice commands from a surgeon, handing over clamps, forceps and other instruments with her magnetized mechanical arm. Watching with digital cameras, the robot retrieved the instruments when the surgeon placed them down. Inside her computer brain, artificial intelligence software kept track of the implements to ensure none were misplaced and made predictions about what tool the surgeon would ask for next. 'Penelope is just the first step,' said Dr. Michael Treat, a surgeon, physicist and lifelong robotics fan who founded the company that developed Penelope. ... The robot, named for the resourceful wife of Odysseus in Homer's epic poems, weighs about 60 pounds and has a lightweight arm made of carbon fiber mounted on a stainless steel frame."

The gentle rise of the machines. Robotics - The science-fiction dream that robots would one day become a part of everyday life was absurd. Or was it? The Economist Technology Quarterly (March 11, 2004). "Since 1939, when Westinghouse Electric introduced Electro, a mechanical man, at the World's Fair in New York, robot fans have imagined a world filled with tireless robotic helpers, always on hand to wash dishes, do the laundry and handle the drudgery of everyday tasks. So far, however, such robots have proliferated in science fiction, but have proved rather more elusive in the real world. But optimists are now arguing that the success of the Roomba and of toys such as Aibo, Sony's robot dog, combined with the plunging cost of computer power, could mean that the long-awaited mass market for robots is finally within reach."

The Man Who Mistook His Girlfriend for a Robot - When David Hanson set out to build a robotic head, he saw no reason not to make it look just like a human. Then he stumbled into [Mori's] Uncanny Valley. By Dan Ferber. Popular Science (September 2003).

The Courage to Doubt: How to Build Android Robots as a Theologian. Anne Foerst's talk presented at Harvard Divinity School, November 27, 1995.

  • Also see: Do Androids Dream? M.I.T. Is Working on It. Claudia Dreifus interviews "Dr. Anne Foerst, 34, a researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the director of M.I.T.'s God and Computers project."

The robot that thinks like you... Scientists built a robot that thinks like we do and set it loose to explore the world. New Scientist discovers what happened next By Douglas Fox. New Scientist (November 5, 2005; subscription req'd.; Issue 2524). "The infant I am watching wander around its rather spartan playpen in the Neurosciences Institute (NSI) in La Jolla, California, is a more limited creature. It is a trashcan-shaped robot called Darwin VII, and it has just 20,000 brain cells. Despite this, it has managed to master the abilities of a 18-month-old baby -- a pretty impressive feat for a machine. ... Darwin VII is the fourth in a series of robots that Jeff Krichmar and his colleagues at NSI have created in a quest to better understand how our own brains work. ... The idea of an artificial neural network that could perform computations was proposed as long ago as 1943, by Warren McCullough and Walter Pitts at the University of Illinois. ... [I]n the past few years, neuroscientists and AI researchers have started collaborating more closely, and their labours are beginning to bear fruit. Their conclusions challenge two decades of research into artificial neural networks."

How Robots Work. By Tom Harris. HowStuffWorks. "Artificial intelligence (AI) is arguably the most exciting field in robotics. It's certainly the most controversial: Everybody agrees that a robot can work in an assembly line, but there's no consensus on whether a robot can ever be intelligent. Like the term 'robot' itself, artificial intelligence is hard to define. Ultimate AI would be a recreation of the human thought process -- a man-made machine with our intellectual abilities. This would include the ability to learn just about anything, the ability to reason, the ability to use language and the ability to formulate original ideas. Roboticists are nowhere near achieving this level of artificial intelligence, but they have had made a lot of progress with more limited AI. Today's AI machines can replicate some specific elements of intellectual ability."

What We Can Learn from Robots. By Gregory T. Huang. Technology Review (January 2005). "On a crisp october day last year, Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute kicked off its 25th-anniversary celebration.... On the third day, it was Mitsuo Kawato’s turn to speak. The lights went down, and the director of the ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, made his way to the stage to the beat of rock music. ... [T] here is a difference between him and other attendees. Kawato loves robots not because they are cool, but because he believes they can teach him how the human brain works. 'Only when we try to reproduce brain functions in artificial machines can we understand the information processing of the brain,' he says. It’s what he calls 'understanding the brain by creating the brain.' By programming a robot to reach out and grasp an object, for instance, Kawato hopes to learn the patterns in which electrical signals flow among neurons in the brain to control a human arm. ... 'This is very different from the usual justification for building humanoid robots --- that they are economically useful or will help take care of the elderly,' says Christopher Atkeson, a robotics expert at Carnegie Mellon."

Robots R Us. By Sam Joseph. J@pan Inc. (February 2002). "Move Over Aibo. We've all seen entertainment robots like Sony's Aibo turning tricks, but what of the competition? Can any of the bots roam beyond the playroom and have broader implications for society in general?"

Robots get friendly - Robots are acting more like people. newspaper with link to news index Will our attachments eventually become too strong? By Gregory M. Lamb. The Christian Science Monitor (February 5, 2003). "Of course, computers and their physical manifestations, robots, are already deeply embedded in our lives. In some sense, ATM machines, self-service gas pumps, and TiVo video recorders serve as rudimentary robots. Now, scientists are pushing to make these machines more sophisticated and humanlike, both in appearance [see related story] and intelligence. ... Some experts worry that attachments may become too strong [see the other related story: If you kick a robotic dog, is it wrong?], subjecting people to manipulation by clever programmers or unnatural reliance on machines for companionship."

Thinkers contemplate machines' effect on soul. By Don Lattin, San Francisco Chronicle. June 9, 2000. "By observing both humanoid robots and the people interacting with them, researchers have seen how important body movement and facial expression are in the development of learning and intelligence.

Educational Robotics. International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 10, 1080-1089. P. Leroux, ed. (1999). Proceedings of the workshop at AIED 99.

Researchers smell success in developing 'robo-noses'. By Usha Lee McFarling. Knight Ridder Newspapers. Available from The Seattle Times. March 9, 1999. "With the help of a squadron of crawling robots and electrical engineer Rodney Goodman, Lewis is now taking the nose, literally, a few steps further. The new robots are learning to detect wind: When Goodman leans over and blows air at one of his creations, it obediently turns toward him. Once Goodman marries these wind-detecting robots to artificial noses, he says, they'll be able to crawl toward hidden objects and follow wafting scents by zigzagging back and forth like bloodhounds."

Domestic bliss through mechanical marvels? By Kevin Maney. USA Today (September 1, 2004). "Never mind the humanoid Automated Domestic Assistants walking rich people's pets in the movie I, Robot, or the accordion-armed Robot B9 in TV classic Lost in Space warning of danger on lonely planets. The real force driving the development of personal robots -- and what will eventually create demand for them in the marketplace -- is aging baby boomers. That's the secret among robotics researchers and budding robot companies. As the horde of boomers become old, they increasingly will be unable to care for themselves or their homes. They'll face a social and medical system straining to help them. But they'll be comfortable with technology. ... Robots that are likely to serve the elderly seem to fall into three broad categories. Though the categories don't officially have names, you could call them homebots, carebots and joybots. A look at those categories speaks volumes about what's going on in robotics -- and what's still beyond technology's reach. ... 'Whether or not you have to love your robot is another question,' Brooks says. 'I don't need my ATM to be cute.' Here is a great point of departure between U.S. and Japanese robotics research. U.S. labs and companies generally approach robots as tools. The Japanese approach them as beings. That explains a lot about robot projects coming out of Japan."

The Man-Machine and Artificial Intelligence. By Bruce Mazlish. From Constructions of the Mind: Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities - "A special issue edited by Stefano Franchi and Guven Guzeldere The Volume 4, issue 2 of the Stanford Humanities Review is devoted to the exploration of convergences and dissonances between Artificial Intelligence and the Humanities."

Rise of the Robots. By Hans Moravec. Scientific American. December 1999; pp.124-135. "By 2050 robot 'brains' based on computers that execute 100 trillion instructions per second will start rivaling human intelligence."

Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendant Mind. By Hans Moravec (1998). New York: Oxford University Press. An adventurous look at the future in which the author sees intelligent machines surpassing their human creators as the next evolutionary step. The author's web page includes an in-depth look at the book. You may also want to read the transcript of a November 1998 interview with Hans Moravec.

The Scientific Relevance of Robotics (Remarks at the Dedication of the CMU Robotics Institute). By Allen Newell. AI Magazine 2(1): 24-26, 34 (Winter 1980). "My first point, then, is to remind you that science doesn't fit any single mold. ... From where I stand, it is easy to see the science lurking in robotics. It lies in the welding of intelligence to energy. That is, it lies in intelligent perception and intelligent control of motion."

Human-Free Kick At Robocup 2002 - humanoids battle it out in soccer. By Dennis Normile. Scientific American Explore (September 23, 2002). "'The goal of RoboCup is to develop a team of robots that can beat the human World Cup champions by 2050,' says Hiroaki Kitano, a Sony artificial-intelligence specialist who is also president of the RoboCup Federation."

The Dream of Mechanical Life - Man and automata. By Hugh Ormsby-Lennon. The Weekly Standard (December 23, 2002 Volume 008, Issue 15). "A spate of new books [13 to be exact] addresses eighteenth-century automata, ventriloquists' dummies, and puppets--together with more recent avatars of chess computers, artificial intelligence, androids, robots, and cyborgs. Does 'computerization' challenge human identity as ominously as 'mechanization' previously seemed to? ... So, does artificial intelligence transcend Freudian nightmare now that it has come to suggest not itinerant showmen or tinkerers with clockwork but university scientists, computer moguls, and global corporations? Or does a scientist with an uncanny puppet always remain mad or charlatanical?"

Introducing robo-scientist - Could robots take over from graduate students in the lab? By Mark Peplow. Nature (January 15, 2004). "A robot scientist has been unveiled that can formulate theories, carry out experiments and interpret results - all more cheaply than its human counterparts. As far as artificial intelligence goes, the Robot Scientist - designed by Ross King of the University of Wales in Aberystwyth, UK, and his colleagues - isn't as smart as other computers, such as those that compete in international chess competitions. But combining the smarts of a computer with the agility of a robot wasn't trivial. ... Geneticist Stephen Oliver of the University of Manchester, UK, who helped to select the robot's research project, says there is potential for the robot to more than just drudgery. 'The next big step is to make our robot discover something completely new,' says Oliver, 'perhaps by applying it to drug discovery.'"

  • Also see: "Robot Scientist" Said to Equal Humans at Some Tasks. By John Roach. National Geographic News (January 14, 2004). "It looks nothing like C-3PO of Star Wars fame, but a team of British scientists have created a 'robot' that can formulate hypotheses, design experiments, and interpret results on par with the best of their human counterparts. ... The robot scientist, equipped with a wealth of information about biochemistry and sophisticated AI software, watches the yeast grow, generates a set of hypotheses concerning the function of the gene in question, and then plans an experiment that will eliminate as many of the hypotheses as quickly and cheaply as possible. The robot then conducts experiments by dispensing and mixing liquids using one machine and measures the growth of yeast with a second machine that feeds the results back into the system. It then evaluates the results against the set of hypotheses, generates new hypotheses, and the process starts again."

Emotionware. By Lynellen D.S. Perry (1996). ACM Crossroads Student Magazine. "The capability of displaying emotion seems to be a critical component of creating intelligent agents with whom humans can comfortably relate and communicate. The emotional aspect distinguishes a dead machine from an agent who is believable, alive, and trustworthy."

My Approach to Robotics. By Robin Popplestone, co-director of the Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics at UMass. "Robotics is about the development of autonomous agents capable of functioning within a complex world. ... An intelligent robot is one which has a representation of its world in a form which supports the derivation of plans which can be executed to bring about a desired goal state of the world."

Robotic Vision. Feature of the Week for August 31, 2000 in NATURE. Follow the links to the featured articles, the related articles, and the supplementary information for the articles (where you'll find some video clips).

Robotics. A stimulating and diverse collection of online articles from Red Herring Magazine (Issue 81, August 2000).

Robotics and Autonomous Systems. A journal published by Elsevier that provides abstracts and some full-text articles, keyword searchable. Technical and scholarly. "Now affiliated with the newly-founded Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS) Society."

Rescue Droids Stumble in an Urban Jungle. By Mark Sincell. Science Magazine. Volume 289 (August 11, 2000), Number 5481, p. 846. (Some viewers may incur a fee to view this article. The robot contest is also discussed in another article from AP.) "[F]our teams of engineers fielded mechanical contestants in the first annual urban ruin search-and-rescue competition--a simulated catastrophe created to test intelligent lifesaving robots that may one day lead rescuers to people trapped in the precarious rubble of collapsed buildings."

The human touch - Robots need skin like ours to provide sensory data essential for even basic tasks. By Laura Spinney. The Guardian (August 18, 2005). "It was a nice idea: robots that vacuum the living room, lower the baby into the bath - having first tested the water - and carry granny upstairs to bed. Today's robots are more likely to scald the baby and vacuum granny. But the domestic revolution came a step closer this week when Japanese researchers reported the development of an artificial skin that senses both pressure and temperature, and stretches like human skin. ... 'Skin-like sensitivity, or the capability to recognise tactile information, will be an essential feature of future generations of robots,' [Takao] Someya says. ... [Fumiya] Iida says Someya' s skin could make a big difference. ... With that level of sensory discrimination, he says, a robot could detect more variation in the objects it encounters, and perhaps begin to learn about relationships between objects, their functions and meaning. That knowledge would in turn affect how it interacts with its environment. ... 'The skin is crucial for the development of a consciousness of the boundary between the robot or the organism and its environment,' says Riccardo Manzotti...."
>>> Also see these related articles.

Robots and the Rest of Us. View by Bruce Sterling. Wired Magazine (May 2004; Issue 12.05). "Since when do machines need an ethical code? For 80 years, visionaries have imagined robots that look like us, work like us, perceive the world, judge it, and take action on their own. The robot butler is still as mystical as the flying car, but there's trouble rising in the garage. In Nobel's vaulted ballroom, experts uneasily point out that automatons are challenging humankind on four fronts. First, this is a time of war. ... The prospect of autonomous weapons naturally raises ethical questions. ... The second ominous frontier is brain augmentation, best embodied by the remote-controlled rat recently created at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn. ... Another troubling frontier is physical, as opposed to mental, augmentation. ... Frontier number four is social: human reaction to the troubling presence of the humanoid. ... If the [First International Symposium on Roboethics] offers a take-home message, it's not about robots, but about us."

HAL's Legacy: 2001's Computer as Dream and Reality. David G. Stork, editor. (1996). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Compares the book/movie computer celebrity with what has been achieved in AI.

Man and machine - Part 1: the quest for mechanical man. By Dheera Sujan. Radio Netherlands (November 26, 2004). "In her book Edison's Eve: A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life, Gaby Wood documents the long history of humanity's fascination with mechanical representations of itself. And she poses the question - what do we want from a machine that simulates us? 'Is it supposed to be as close as possible to a human being, or to improve on that, and become superhuman? In the quest for mechanical perfection, does perfection mean infallibility (as in the computer), or innocence (as in the child)?' These questions have been around since the Enlightenment and the dawn of the age of machines; now researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence are returning to them as they gain renewed relevance. ... At what pointpoint does a humanoid machine achieve personhood? Dr [Anne] Foerst's search for an answer to this question has led her through a philosophical maze that has forced her to examine her own ideas on what it means to be alive. ... Fear has always been part of the fascination we have for the idea of reproducing ourselves mechanically. According to Dr Foerst, however, that won't happen if we take responsibility for our creation. After all, Dr Frankenstein didn't create a monster; the creature (never dignified with a name) only became a monster when he was rejected by his creator and the rest of mankind." You can listen to the broadcast via a link on the page.

Autonomous Mental Development by Robots and Animals. By Juyang Weng, James McClelland, Alex Pentland, Olaf Sporns, Ida Stockman, Mriganka Sur, Esther Thelen. (2000). , Science, Vol. 291, No. 5504; pages 599 - 600, 26 January 2001). "How does one create an intelligent machine? This problem has proven difficult. Over the past several decades, scientists have taken one of three approaches: In the first, which is knowledge-based, an intelligent machine in a laboratory is directly programmed to perform a given task. In a second, learning-based approach, a computer is 'spoon-fed' human-edited sensory data while the machine is controlled by a task-specific learning program. Finally, by a 'genetic search,' robots have evolved through generations by the principle of survival of the fittest, mostly in a computer-simulated virtual world. Although notable, none of these is powerful enough to lead to machines having the complex, diverse, and highly integrated capabilities of an adult brain, such as vision, speech, and language. Nevertheless, these traditional approaches have served as the incubator for the birth and growth of a new direction for machine intelligence: autonomous mental development."

Evolutionary robotics. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. "Evolutionary Robotics (ER) is a methodology that uses evolutionary algorithms to develop controllers for autonomous robots. It allows to automatically create robot controllers from an initially random population by selecting according to a predefined fitness function. ... ER relates to work done in the domains of Robotics, Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation."

WTEC [World Technology Evaluation Center] Study on International Research and Development in Robotics. "The purpose of this study is to gather information on worldwide status and trends in robotics R&D; and disseminate it to government decision-makers and the research community. The study panelists will gather information on robotics R&D; abroad useful to the U.S. government in its own R&D; programs, and to critically analyze and compare the research in the United States with that being pursued in Japan, Korea, and Europe."

  • Proceedings of the U.S. review workshop held at the National Science Foundation on July 21-22, 2004: Review of U.S. Research in Robotics. The 6 research areas addressed are:
    • Network Robotics; Multi-Robot Systems; Sensor Networks, Environmental
    • Medical Robotics; Biological Applications; Bio/Pharmaceutical ; Assisitive/RehabilitativeB
    • Cognitive Human-Robot Interaction (CHRI); Physical HRI (PHRI); Humanoids; Entertainment; Personal/Service; Educational
    • Space; Field; Military Applications; Underwater; UAV
    • Actuators/Mechanisms; Bio/Nano/Mems; Industrial Applications
    • Perception (Sensing, Vision, Imaging); Control, Architecture, and Learning; Navigation/Mapping
  • Also see this exhibit from the National Science Foundation which complements the final report of September 16, 2005.

Related Web Sites

AI on the Web: Perception and Robotics. A resource companion to Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig's "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" with links to reference material, people, research groups, books, companies and much more.

ASIMO - Say Hello to ASIMO. From Honda Motor Company. A fascinating collection of information (including FAQs, movies & teaching resources) about this humanoid robot whose name stands for Advanced Step in Innovative MObility.

Kismet: A Sociable Humanoid Robot. Well-written text complemented by delightful images, not to mention several video clips, make this an excellent site for getting to know a robot, up-close and personal.

Shakey the Robot. From SRI's innovation timeline. "Shakey was the first mobile robot to reason about its actions. Developed by SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center from 1966 through 1972 (we were called the Stanford Research Institute at that time), Shakey has had a substantial legacy and influence on present-day artificial intelligence and robotics."

Vikia and the Social Robot Project. "The goal of the Social Robot Project is to overcome the human-robot social barrier. Towards this end, we are in the process of developing a robot which bears a personality, and which can behave according to social conventions. The idea is that communication and interaction with robots should be easy and enjoyable, both for unfamiliar users and trained professionals. We want robots to behave more like people, so that people do not have to behave like robots when they interact with them."

  • "At CMU [Carnegie Mellon University], Grace serves as VIKIA's sucessor as a platform for the social robots project."

Assembly Robotics Group, part of the Institute of Perception, Action, and Behaviour in the Division of Informatics, University of Edinburgh. Home of Freddy, the Famous Scottish Robot: "Freddy (mid1960s - 1981) was one of the first robots to be able to assemble wooden models using vision to identify and locate the parts -- given a jumbled heap of toy wooden car and boat pieces it could assemble both in about 16 hours using a parallel gripper and single camera (1973)."

Cogbotlab at Technischen Universitat Munchen. "Mission: to build robots that learn. Tools: recurrent networks, Bayesian methods, reinforcement learning, evolution, optimal search, others. Theory: optimal universal learners, universal Bayesian induction, Kolmogorov complexity, Gödel machines."

Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory at the University of the West of England (UWE), home of Ecobot II, A robot powered on a diet of flies: "Energy Autonomy: Towards a truly Autonomous Robot ... One important factor for robots is that of energetic autonomy. Robots will be required to extract energy from the environment. In many ways robots will face the same problems as animals. An earlier phase of our work centred around the use of slugs as a bio-fuel. This resulted in the construction of the 'SlugBot' - a robot which could identify and pick up slugs to be used in an anaerobic 'digester'. This phase is now finished. Please follow this link for more details on the SlugBot project. The main objective of our work is to build energetically autonomous robots. We believe that MFC technology is a good way forward, as the robot will incorporate in its behavioural repertoire actions that involve search and get hold of food and also remain inactive until energy is sufficient to do the next task. This will be a paradigm shift in the way action selection mechanisms have been designed so far."

NASA's Robotics Education Project has a special portal just for students of all ages with exciting projects, education & career information, a variety of challenges & competitions, a collection of FAQs about many topics, and the opportunity to ask Dr. Robot a technical question!

"Botball is a hands-on learning experience in robotics designed to engage students in learning the practical applications of science, technology, engineering and math." As explain on the About Botball page: "Presented in your region by KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, the Botball Educational Robotics Program integrates science, technology, engineering and math with robotics to keep your students on the forefront of technology. Any middle or high school aged student can participate in Botball as long as the team has an adult contact. The organization of the team is up to the team leader."

"FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) is a multinational non-profit organization, that aspires to transform culture, making science, math, engineering, and technology as cool for kids as sports are today."
  • "The FIRST LEGO League (FLL), considered the 'little league' of the FIRST Robotics Competition, is the result of a partnership between FIRST and the LEGO Group. FLL extends the FIRST concept of inspiring and celebrating science and technology to children aged 9 through 14, using real-world context and hands-on experimentation."
  • "The FIRST Robotics Competition is an exciting, multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. The program is a life-changing, career-molding experience—and a lot of fun. In 2005 the competition will reach close to 25,000 high-school-aged young people on close to 1,000 teams in 30 competitions. Our teams come from Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Israel, Mexico, the U.K., and almost every U.S. state."

RoboCup. "RoboCup is an international joint project to promote AI, robotics, and related field. It is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined. RoboCup chose to use soccer game as a central topic of research, aiming at innovations to be applied for socially significant problems and industries."

  • Also see: RoboCup-Rescue
  • Historical note: "The idea of robots playing soccer was first mentioned by Professor Alan Mackworth (University of British Columbia, Canada) in a paper entitled 'On Seeing Robots' presented at VI-92, 1992. and later published in a book Computer Vision: System, Theory, and Applications, pages 1-13, World Scientific Press, Singapore, 1993. A series of papers on the Dynamo robot soccer project was published by his group. Independently, a group of Japanese researchers organized a Workshop on Grand Challenges in Artificial Intelligence in October, 1992 in Tokyo, discussing possible grand challenge problems. This workshop led to a serious discussions of using the game of soccer for promoting science and technology." - from A Brief History of RoboCup
"RoboFesta - Europe is part of an international movement to promote interest throughout Europe in science and technology through many different kinds of robotics activities. These include many exciting robot competitions for children and adults, expositions, technical meetings, and widespread media cover. RoboFesta began in Japan in 1999, and is rapidly spreading throughout the world."
  • RoboFesta-UK
  • RoboFesta-France
  • additional countries and lots of resources can be found by way of links from any of the RoboFesta pages mentioned above

"RoboFlag is a new research platform developed by Cornell University. RoboFlag is a combination of Paintball and Capture the Flag, played with fully autonomous robots, in an adversarial environment. It extends and enhances the Robotic Soccer competition RoboCup by introducing a larger field, more players, local vision and obstacles. It incorporates distributed decision making and Human in the Loop capabilities."

Evolutionary Robotics - Co-evolution is just one of the fascinating projects you'll find at from DEMO's (Dynamical & Evolutionary Machine Organization) site. "Our work investigates both evolving controllers for robots and co-evolution. Ultimately, we aim for inexpensive robots that design themselves to address problems."

Robotics: sensing - thinking - acting. An online exhibit from The Tech Museum of Innovation. These are just some of the exciting resources that await you:

"Robots and Society - Robots have a evolving role in society today. The following list outlines some of the ways in which robotics and artificial intelligence has an impact on our lives." From The British Council. Other related pages in their web site include: Research in Robotics and UK Companies.

The Robotics Institute at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. Check out their collection of projects and find out who Pearl is . . . and what a HeartLander does.

The Flocking Robots Project at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Information Technology, University of Zurich. "Flocking adresses a variety of important topics in the field of multiagent simulation and collective robotics which include agent interaction, kin recognition, and finally the emergence of collective behavior." And their flocking applet is simply beautiful!

IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. "The committee was founded to account for a steadily growing international community of researchers and engineers who develop robot systems providing services of various kinds to human users. ... This committee hopes to bring together researchers and developers from various disciplines such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, artificial intelligence and cognitive science." Their site offers an impressive collection of links to research labs and companies doing work in the field of service robots.

Robotics Online from The Robotic Industries Association offers an assortment of very helpful resources including current news articles and Robotics Industry Statistics.

The International Federation of Robotics provides Robot Statistics as well as other useful information as does the The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE).

Robot Books.com "Our Job is to sort through the many robotics books available today, and select, review, recommend, and sell, just those few that we feel are the very best. In addition to books, you will also find a selection of robot toys, movies, educational toys, magazines, and robot kits, that you can't find anywhere else on the web."

"Sodarace [a joint venture between: soda and Queen Mary, University of London] is the online olympics pitting human creativity against machine learning in a competition to construct virtual racing robots. ... Sodarace is not just for fun. It is a shared competition for Artificial Intelligence researchers to test their learning algorithms while also being a play space in which to communicate the benefits of Artificial Intelligence research with a wide audience and promote a creative exploration of physics and engineering."

The Walking Machine Catalogue. Maintained by Karsten Berns. Be sure to check out the History section where you can read about such wonders as Georges Moore's Steam Man, a biped walking machine from the year 1893.

Related Pages e-news

More ReadingsAI Magazine cover: Robot Competitions Over the Years

Robot Competitions Over the Years: A Retrospective. AI Magazine 23:1 (Spring 2002).

Bonasso, Pete and Thomas Dean. 1997. Retrospective of the AAAI Robot Competitions. AI Magazine 18 (1): 11-23. "This article is the content of an invited talk given by the authors at the Thirteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-96). The piece begins with a short history of the competition, then discusses the technical challenges and the political and cultural issues associated with bringing it off every year. We also cover the science and engineering involved with the robot tasks and the educational and commercial aspects of the competition. We finish with a discussion of the community formed by the organizers, participants, and the conference attendees."

Britton, Peter. 1995. Undersea Explorers. Popular Science 246 (May 1995): 39-42.

Buhmann, Joachim, et. al. 1995. The Mobile Robot Rhino. AI Magazine 16 (2): 31-38. Rhino was the University of Bonn's entry in the 1994 AAAI Robot Competition. Rhino is a mobile robot designed for indoor navigation and manipulation tasks. The general scientific goal of the rhino project is development and analysis of autonomous and complex learning systems. This article describes major components of the rhino control software, sketches the basic philosophy of the rhino architecture and discusses lessons learned at the competition.

Canny, J. F. 1988. The Complexity of Robot Motion Planning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Clarke, Roger. 1994. Asimov's Laws for Robotics: Implications for Information Technology. Parts 1 and 2. Computer(December 1993 (pp. 53-61), and January 1994 (pp. 57-65)).

Engelberger, J. F. 1989. Robotics in Service. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Engelberger, J. F. 1980. Robotics in Practice. New York: Amacom.

Fikes, R., P. Hart, and N. Nilsson. 1972. Learning and Executing Generalized Robot Plans. Artificial Intelligence 3: 1-4.

Goldsmith, Mike. Record entries for science prize. By Christine McGourty. BBC News (May 10, 2004). "The Aventis Prize is worth £10,000 to the winner and guarantees a sales rush. The prize, which includes a junior category, is managed by the UK's science academy, the Royal Society. ... The shortlisted books for the 2004 Junior Prize: ... Riotous Robots, by Mike Goldsmith (Scholastic Children's Books ) - In brief: From Frankenstein to nanobots, this is a comprehensive and entertaining guide to the history and future of robots. It explains the technical detail of how robots work in an accessible way. ..."
>>> Robots
-> back to headlines

Grepo, Stephanie V. 1996. Robot Ant-ics. Technology Review 99: 13-14.

Hinkle, David, David Kortenkamp, and David Miller 1996. The 1995 Robot Competition and Exhibition. AI Magazine 17 (1): 31-45.

Hook, Dave. Robot Dreams -Build Your Own R2D2. Library Journal (November 1, 2002). "Collection Development: Building a robot involves knowledge of several fields such as electronics, motors, wiring, computers, programming, control systems, power systems, power transmission, mechanics, and fabricating. In creating a robotics collection, librarians need to consider their users' skill levels in these areas. Beginning enthusiasts may want to know where to start and how to go about building their first robot. The more experienced hobbyists will be more interested in where to find parts or code for programming their controller. ... Most of the titles listed here are for beginners and assume little previous knowledge, although there are also a few manuals for the more advanced hobbyist."

Horn, B. K. P. 1986. Robot Vision. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

Jones, Joseph, Anita Flynn, and Bruce Seiger. 1999. Mobile Robots: Inspiration to Implementation. 2nd edition. Natick, MA: A. K. Peters.

Kanade, Takeo, Michael Reed, and Lee E. Weiss. 1994. New Technologies and Applications in Robotics. Communications of the ACM 37 (3): 58-76.

Konolige, Kurt. 1995. ERRATIC Competes with the Big Boys. AI Magazine 16 (2): 61-67. This article discusses the development of the robot ERRATIC, the second-place winner of the 1994 AAAI Robot Competition. The perceptual and control architecture is described, as well as the robot's performance during the competition.

Kortenkamp, David, R. Peter Bonasso, and Robin Murphy, editors. 1998. Artificial Intelligence and Mobile Robots: Case Studies of Successful Robot Systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. These case studies describe robots that have "left the lab" and been tested in the field. Includes descriptions of important algorithms and pseudo-code, and covers themes of navigation, mapping, vision, and architecture.

Lederman, Susan J. and Roberta L. Klatzky. 1994. The Intelligent Hand: An Experimental Approach to Human Object Recognition and Implications for Robotics and AI. AI Magazine 15 (1): 26-38. The scientific study of biological systems offers a complementary approach to more formal analytic methods favored by roboticists.

McDermott, Drew. 1992. Robot Planning. AI Magazine 13 (2): 55-79. "There are several strands of research in the field; I survey six: (1) attempts to avoid planning; (2) the design of flexible plan notations; (3) theories of time-constrained planning; (4) planning by projecting and repairing faulty plans; (5) motion planning; and (6) the learning of optimal behaviors from reinforcements."

Moran, Barbara, and Laura Van Dam. 1996. Robots on all Twos. Technology Review 99: 10-11.

Moravec, Hans. 1988. Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. A lively and accessible overview of the field of robotics from the director of the Mobile Robot Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. The book covers historical development as well as social issues.

Murphy, Robin R. 2000. Introduction to AI Robotics. A Bradford Book, The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-13383-0.

Nadis, Steven J. 1995. Fantastic Voyage. Omni 17 (January 1995): 9.

Nadis, Steven J., and Jerry Shine. 1996. Go Team, Go. Popular Science 248 (May 1996): 40.

Normile, Dennis. 1997. RoboCup Soccer Match is a Challenge for Silicon Rookies. Science 277 (September 26, 1997): 1933.

Nourbakhsh, Illah, Bob Powers, and Stan Birchfield. 1995. DERVISH: An Office Navigating Robot. AI Magazine 16 (2): 53-60. DERVISH won the Office Delivery event of the 1994 Robot Competition and Exhibition. Although the contest required DERVISH to navigate in an artificial office environment, the goal of the contest was to push the technology of robot navigation in real office buildings with minimal domain information. DERVISH navigates reliably using retractable assumptions that simplify the planning problem.

Pomerleau, D. 1993. Neural Network Perception for Mobile Robot Guidance. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Poole, David, Alan Mackworth, and Randy Goebels. 1998. Building Situated Robots. In Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach, 443-460. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Russell, Stuart, and Peter Norvig. 2002. Robotics. In Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (Second Edition).

Ryder, Graham. 1996. Humans and Robots in the Geological Exploration of Planets. Ad Astra 8 (Nov/Dec 1996): 20-1.

Spice, Byron 1997. Look, No Hands: CMU Automotive Robot is Now Able to Control a Car on the Highway. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 30, 1997: Science & Environment, A6+.

Stone, Brad. 1997. Actually, Chess is Easy. Newsweek 129 (May 5, 1997): 53. Discusses robot competitions in the fields of navigation, aviation, and soccer.

Suplee, Curt. 1997. Robot Revolution. National Geographic 192 (July 1997): 76-95.

Thomson, Alan J. 1995. Object-Oriented Blowfly: A Study in Computational Neuroethology. AI Applications 9 (2): 15-25.

Thrun, Sebastian. 1997. To Know or Not to Know: On the Utility of Models in Mobile Robots. AI Magazine 18 (1): 47-54.

Yoshikawa, T. 1990. Foundations of Robotics: Analysis and Control. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.