Robotics

On June 21, 2004, in Uncategorized
NASA has built and is testing an intelligent robot assistant to accompany
astronauts as they walk on Mars. NASA is also developing engineer robots that can work
cooperatively to build structures in space. Such robots could benefit from an
evolutionary algorithm applied to neural networks, which has resulted in robots
that learned to play a simple
game
essentially unaided.

It is comforting to learn that people are waking up to the ethical implications of developments in
robotics. Roboticists are also starting to pay serious attention to gender issues in developing humanoid
robots. Sexism in the home might be reduced by the arrival of a life-sized
robot, of sorts, to do the ironing.
At the opposite end of the scale is a nanoscale DNA robot that walks on two legs.

More robots:

  • Underwater robots are beginning to
    monitor the US drinking water supply for pollution and to provide early warning
    of biochemical attack by terrorists. 

     

  • A new robot is capable of withstanding VHP sterilization,
    meaning that the manual process can be automated, with resulting increases in
    drug manufacturing productivity. 

     

  • Singapore’s “Biopsy Urobot
    cuts the margin of error of taking prostate biopsies. 
“R2D2” Intelligent Robot Helper

NASA is testing “personal agent” software enabling communications between an
an astronaut and the robot assistant that will be tagging along on walks on Mars
or the Moon. The robot, called Boudreaux, has already set records,
covering a distance of about a mile navigating on its own in an extreme desert
environment, and running for almost six and three-quarters hours.

The personal agent software, running in the astronaut’s backpack computer,
can literally speak with the astronaut, and relay the astronaut’s spoken
instructions to Boudreaux to follow, take photographs, or carry samples.
Mission control on Earth will monitor everything via email. The systems will
include a global positioning system device and biosensors to monitor the
astronaut’s vital signs. If anything goes wrong, or might go wrong,
Boudreaux can warn the astronaut, render help, or summon help.

Reference: NASA (2004). “Computer ‘mobile
agents’ and robot tested by NASA
.” NASA-AMES news release via Spaceflight
Now, May 3.

Robot Cooperation

The cushion of air generated by an air-hockey table simulates, at least in
two dimensions, the frictionless environment of space. NASA is using such tables
to develop engineer robots that will build space stations and solar arrays in
the future, eliminating the risk and high cost of using human astronaut
engineers. The robots are being given intelligence enough to coordinate their
own activities and work as a team.

The puck-shaped R&D robots with videocam eyes move through “space” with
four onboard fans, remote-controlled by a wireless transmitter which will be
eliminated (except perhaps as a backup/override control) when autonomous sensing
and control mechanisms have been perfected.

In experiments, the robots have mastered linking long girders with connectors
at each end into flexible chains. The next step is to build triangles, which
would form the basis of larger frameworks such as trusses.

Reference: Ball, Philip (2004). “Puckish robots pull
together: Air hockey helps joint techniques for work in space
.” Nature, May
28.

Evolutionary Robotics

North Carolina State University and the University of Utah researchers
randomly generated a large population of neural networks, then organized
individual neural networks into teams that played tournaments of games against
one another, writes Kimberly Patch in Technology Research News. After
each tournament, the losing networks were deleted from the population, and the
winning neural networks were duplicated, altered slightly, and returned to the
population. Successive generations of networks evolved to become better at
navigation, discriminating among objects, and tending the goal. After evolving
well enough to play the game competently, the networks were transferred into
real robots “brains” (onboard computers).

While human-designed brains are still more efficient than evolved brains for
most of the simple tasks autonomous robots perform, the evolutionary method
could be used to add a layer of fine control to the human-designed components,
enabling robots to adapt to situations unforeseen by the human designers. The
method could be in real-world use in rudimentary form within three to six
years.

Reference: Patch, Kimberly (2004). “Evolution
trains robot teams
.” Technology Research News, May 19/26.

Robot Ethics

The First International Symposium on Roboethics, held in Italy in January, is
reviewed by Bruce Sterling in Wired. Discussion coalesced around four
issues: The use of robotic weapons (who is to be held morally accountable for an
unmanned war crime?), brain augmentation (would it be ethical to turn a human
into a robot, as we have already done with a rat?), physical augmentation (who
— or what — will be ultimately in control at the interface between an
autonomous robot caregiver and an elderly or disabled patient?), and social
reactions (will robots share our values, and what if they don’t?).

The take-home message, says Sterling, was that “it’s not about robots, but
about us.”

Reference: Sterling, Bruce (2004). “Robots
and the Rest of Us
.” Wired, Issue 12.05, May.

Sexist Droids?

Making humanoid robots distinctively male or female, and giving them the
ability to simulate emotional responses in their interaction with us, may be
important, suggests Simson Garfinkel in Technology Research News, given
that we “constantly try to layer emotions, desires, and other human qualities
onto our machines.” MIT’s Cynthia Breazeal, who created “Kismet,” one of the
first robots to simulate emotion, is now working on the more sophisticated
“Leonardo,” whose 70 motors controlling the movements of its ears, eyes, face,
neck, and arms give it “more emotional expressiveness than any robot or puppet
that has ever been built,” says Garfinkel. “Leonardo can literally shrug its
shoulders with apathy or disapprovingly shake its head back and forth — or even
curl its ears like Yoda” (whoever that is!)

Of course, if we want really smart robots, we will have to make them female.

Reference: Garfinkel, Simson (2004). “Robot
Gender.” Technology Research News, May 5.

Robot to Do the Ironing

Siemens has developed a robot, of sorts, to iron clothes. It can do a shirt
in about eight seconds. The damp shirt is pulled over the 5-foot-8 robot, whose
balloon silk skin then inflates with hot air, pressing the shirt. The
Dressman is already on sale in Europe for about US$1,700.

Reference: Unknown (2004). “Germans
invent robot to do ironing
.” UPI via Washington Times, May 28.

Walking Nanorobot

New York University researchers have made a biped robot out of DNA. Its
10-nanometer-long legs walk along a DNA-based track. Each leg is made from a
double helix strand of DNA and the two legs are connected at the top with a
“springy” DNA strand. Each “foot” is an extension of one of the two strands of
the helix that “sticks” to a matching base on the DNA track. The left and right
feet have different base sequences so they will “step” at different places on
the track, and thus “walk” when a free piece of DNA is introduced to release
each foot in turn.

Getting the walker to carry a load, such as a metal atom, is the team’s next
challenge, writes Jenny Hogan in New Scientist.

Reference: Hogan, Jenny (2004). “DNA
robot takes its first steps
.” New Scientist, May 6.

Robot Water Testers

The beginnings of what may become a national network of underwater robots to
monitor US rivers and lakes for pollution will be in place along 25 miles of the
Seneca River and five connected lakes, including three municipal drinking water
sources, in New York by summer 2005. The “RUSS” (Remote Underwater Sampling
Station) robots each consist of an underwater sensor package tethered to a
floating platform containing a computer, solar panels, and GPS device. The
sensors move up and down in the water, collecting data every 10 minutes on
temperature, oxygen, turbidity, light, and salt content. The next generation of
sensors will also detect phosphorous, iron, nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, and
other substances. The data are transmitted via cellular call to Syracuse
University researchers.

The system is good not only for environmental research but also for early
warning of a terrorist biochemical attack on the nation’s drinking water.

Reference: Kates, William (2004). “Robots To
Keep Drinking Water Safe
.” Associated Press via CBSnews.com, May 12.

Aseptic Robots

ATS Automation Tooling Systems has prototyped an aseptic robot for the
pharmaceutical and biotech industries. It could be FDA-approved by the end of
this year.

Critical aseptic processes in drug manufacturing must undergo frequent
sterilization, usually with aggressive chemicals such as vaporous hydrogen
peroxide (VHP) or high temperature VHP and steam. Many aseptic processes in
isolated pharmaceutical production environments are entirely manual, requiring
the use of glove ports. Manual processes in such environments are notorious for
their low productivity, difficult worker ergonomics, and degradation of the
ultra-clean isolator environment through leaks in gloves or glove port seals.
The new robot is capable of withstanding VHP sterilization, meaning that the
manual processes can be automated, with resulting increases in drug
manufacturing productivity.

Reference: Unknown (2004). “New robot tackles
aseptic process environments
.” News-Medical, April 30.

Prostate Robot

Researchers in Singapore have built the “Biopsy Urobot,” a robot to perform
prostate biopsies. It can position needles more accurately than a doctor, to
collect multiple tissue samples from areas of the prostate where cancerous
growths are likely to be. Computers decide upon precise placement of the
needles, which is difficult for doctors to do manually since they have only
blurry ultrasound images to guide them. “On a good day,” one surgeon told Lee
Hui Chieh of the Straits Times, “the doctor might be able to hit 90 per
cent of all the spots, but if he hasn’t slept the night before, the results
could be affected.”

The robot unerringly deliver the needle to within 1.5 mm of each intended
target spot. Its builders are considering adapting it to implant radioactive
seeds accurately within the prostate to cure a cancer.

It will be least another two to four years before the Biopsy Urobot is
available commercially.

Reference: Lee Hui Chieh (2004). “S’pore
team invents prostate biopsy robot
.” Straits Times, May 19.

 

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