Here you will find some information about robots that may be VERY USEFULL for you. Hope you enjoy. First image: vintage design of robots (you can find them on fnac, but they are expensive...)

Powerpoint

ROBOT APPLICATIONS

Contemporary uses

Robots can be placed into roughly two categories based on the type of job they do:

• Jobs which a robot can do better than a human. Here, robots can increase productivity, accuracy, and endurance.

• Jobs which a human could do better than a robot, but it is desirable to remove the human for some reason. Here, robots free us from dirty, dangerous and dull tasks.
  
  

Increased productivity, accuracy, and endurance

Jobs which require speed, accuracy, reliability or endurance can be performed far better by a robot than a human. Hence many jobs in factories which were traditionally performed by people are now robotized.

Factory robots:

• Car production: A typical factory contains hundreds of robots working on fully automated production lines - one robot for every ten human workers .
  
  
  

• Packaging: are used extensively for palletizing and packaging of manufactured good.
  
  
  

  

• Automat ed Guided Vehicles (AGVs): Mobile robots, following markers or wires in the floor, or using vision or lasers, are used to transport goods around large facilities, such as warehouses, container ports, or hospitals.
  
  
  
  

  

Dirty, dangerous, dull or inaccessible tasks

For example domestic cleaning; exploring inside a volcano. Other jobs are physically inaccessible: exploring another planet, laparoscopic surgery.

• Robots in the home: Robots are increasingly being seen in the home where they are taking on simple but unwanted jobs, such as vacuum cleaning, floor cl eaning and lawn mowing or protecting the house.
  
  
  

  
  
  

• Rescue robots:
  
  
  

  

• Telerobots: A telerobot is controlled from a distance by a human operator. A laparoscopic surgery robot allows the surgeon to work inside a h uman patient on a relatively small scale compared to open surgery. The author Margaret Atwood, who has recently started using a robot pen to sign books remotely.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• Military robots: Teleoperated robot aircraft are increasingly being used by the military. These robots can be controlled from anywhere in the world allowing an army to search terrain, and even fire on targets, without endangerin g those in control.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  
  
  

• Elder Care: Robots are increasingly being used to look after old people
  
  
  

  
  

• Space Robots: Robots that can not be used in the earth because of their weight, are being used in the space.
  
  
• The Sojourner: it's a 6 wheeled vehicle and al lows scintists to explore other planets' surface.
  

• Dextre:
  

Unconventional Robots

It is expected that these new types of robot will be able to solve real world problems when they are finally realized.

• Nanorobots: Is the still largely hypothetical technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the scale of a nanometer (10^-9 meters). They are used to build up macromolecules. Try to imitate cells.
  
  
  

  
  

• Reconfigurable Robots: Those robots can alter their physical form to suit a particular task . Real robots are nowhere sophisticated. Most of them consist of a small number of cube shaped units.
  
  
  

  
  

• Swarm robots: Inspired by colonies of insects. Scientist create very large swarms of tiny robots which together perform a useful task, such as finding something hidden, cleaning, or spying.
  
  
  

  

GAME
There are a lots of games, which emulate that your are a robots, so it is a good way to know how they feel! Here you can construct them! Go on, play and of course HAVE FUN!
ROBO CONSTRUCTION

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCE?

Is both the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science which aims to create it. Researchers hope machines will exhibit are reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. One example is the robots that can solve the famous rubic´s cube in seconds´ time.

And this is a computer that can make a tetris game in real time on its own:

WHO ARE THE MAIN CREATORS AND DEVELOPERS OF A.I.?

In the 20th century, a group of scientists began to investigate the building intelligent machines, based on recent discoveries in neurology, an understanding of control and stability called cybernetics, and above all, by the invention of the digital computer, a machine based on mathematical reasonment.

It was made a conference on the campus of Dartmouth College in the summer of 1956. Those who attended would become the leaders of AI research for many decades, especially John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon, who founded AI laboratories at MIT, CMU and Stanford.

In the early 21th century, Artificial intelligence was adopted throughout the technology industry, providing the heavy lifting for logistics, data mining, medical diagnosis and many other areas.

This is a medical robot that is only 1 cm large.


Nowadays, of course, research and developement of A.I. continues with special interests.


A.I. PROBLEMS:

Appart from the technical problems, which are several, developement of A.I. bring lots of ethic and philosophical problems, which are very complicated for explaining. The philosofical problems are for example: CAN MACHINES THINK? , and this problem is a very complcated cuestion.



A.I. IN SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES AND BOOKS:


The A.I. has inpired lots of movies, because it inspire us both fear and surprise, like these:

• Star Wars, were lots of robots appeared, and were nearly the protagonists.

• i, robot





• A.I.





• blade runner




• ...

And lots of novels, for the same reason. The main creator of science fiction novels about robotics was Asimov, who created the 3 laws of robotics, very useful for scientists even today:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.







2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.





3. 
   A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

These are some of the novels that Asimov created:

• I, robot

• robot dreams




• Foundation and earth




• Second foundation

Entertainment robot

An entertainment robot is a robot that is not made for utilitarian use.
We can see then doing housewoeks, in industries, even if in Disneyland, which we call animatronix.

Toy robot

Mechanical and interactive, toys which perform various tasks and tricks on command.
The first commercial hit was modelled on the most popular pet: the dog; Teksta. The latest nowadays is Gupi a robothamster.
Evolution:
Primitive robot toy models only execute standardized pre-programmed routines.
The nowadays advanced technology allows for interaction with the user or other environmental stimules (e.g. sensor-detected obstacles).
This robots, such as robosapiens, are controled by a remote control, and they could perform many tricks (walk, jump, dance, etc.).
We can play here a game, which allows you to see how fast is robot's (in this case fish robot) evolution.

There is also a robofish, it's incredible that a mechanical object could work underwater:

Commercial show robots

• Marketing tool - to promote products and technology.

  

• Cinema - inanimate performer or even artificial actor in show, TV and movie production. They also can help with other special effects, to make them seem what cannot (yet), even be significantly more than a cast extra, such as the Starwars 'droids' R2-D2 and C-3P0.
  

Domestic robot

A domestic robot is a robot used for housework. There are 3 types:



Low: for home and entertainment.
Medium: for household chores.
High: autonomus.

Competitions

RoboGames

RoboGames (ROBOlympics) hosts over 70 different events and is modeled on the human Olympics. Robot soccer, sumo, combat, android wrestling, maze solving, fire-fighting, biped races, balancer races, and exoskeletons are a few of the events held. Teams compete from around the world, and it is open to anyone. It is also free for kids under 18 to compete.

Vehicle competitions

Air vehicles
This competition involves fully autonomous flying robots performing tasks that. The competition is open to universities and has had missions involving ground object capture and transfer, dangerous waste location and identification, disaster scene search and rescue, etc. In 2008 an $80,000 winner-take-all prize will be awarded, the prize depens from the type of robot.

Ground vehicles

However, the 2005 prize of $2,000,000 was claimed by Stabdford University. It is a competition for autonomous ground vehicles that must cross outdoor obstacle courses without any human interaction.

Underwater vehicles

The AUVSI and the U.S. Office of Naval Research have sponsored the International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition since 1997. This too is a collegiate competition.

RoboCup

It is a competitive organization dedicated to developing a team of fully autonomous humanoids robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team by the year 2050. There are many different leagues ranging from computer simulation, to full-size humanoids robots. The field where they play is special.

RoboCup Junior is a competition for primary and secondary school aged students. RoboCup Junior includes three competitions:

• Rescue: an obstacle course in which a robot must follow a line to retrieve an object, and bring it back to safety as fast as possible

• Dance: robots are designed to dance to music and are judged on criteria such as creativity and costumes.
• Soccer: two robots per team play autonomously in a game of soccer. We have here a game, to play football as a robot, click here.