A person spends a significant part of his time doing such monotonous and monotonous household work as cleaning the room or working in the garden. Some people get real pleasure from this kind of activity, but for most, putting their living space in proper order is a routine, boring and not very pleasant task. Since the 50s and 60s of the last century, when the concept of a “robotic assistant” was just beginning to emerge, society was already dreaming of shifting part of its daily responsibilities to a soulless mechanized device, not subject to fatigue, stress and ready to do the dirtiest work. We are talking about robot servants and automated assistants, the prototypes of which appeared more than half a century ago.
The first mobile robot that analyzes commands and its actions
In 1966, engineers at the Center for Artificial Intelligence at Stanford University set out to create a robot endowed with the ability to independently navigate and move indoors without creating emergency situations. The project included the development of a design on a wheeled chassis with the possibility of self-learning, as well as a holistic analysis of the tasks assigned to the machine.
The device, called Shakey, was equipped with a set of sensors and a television camera to determine the current location and dimensions of objects surrounding the robot. In 1972, the Shakey project came to completion, embodying the advanced achievements of the engineers of the time in a single design. The mobile device demonstrated its capabilities in a special test pavilion consisting of several rooms connected by corridors. The robot followed the scientists' commands, pushing various objects, closing and opening doors, interacting with switches and various objects.
The promise of the Shakey algorithm prompted scientists to further work in this direction and the creation of a number of more advanced automated mechanisms, as well as the introduction of the ability of this type of device to identify and respond to voice commands.
.png)
Cordless and autonomous lawn mowing
In 1969, MowBot Inc. introduced the world to a robotic lawn mower that operates from a built-in battery without the need to connect to home network. The battery charge was enough to cut grass on an area of 650 m2. And although the $795 device was very far from modern programmable “smart” devices that can be controlled even from a smartphone, the idea of getting rid of wires turned out to be very interesting and received logical development.
Full-size robot Arok: both walks the dog and takes out the trash
What “home of the future” can do without robotic servants? A similar thought came to inventor Ben Skora, who presented his vision of futuristic, considering the 70s of the last century, homes with remote-controlled lamps and other technical innovations. Not without “smart” service personnel, whose place was taken by a two-meter robot Arok with a frankly creepy face.
The tasks of the mechanized giant included taking out garbage, serving drinks and even walking your four-legged pet. Of course, having an operator to manipulate the device was a must. So the staff of servants in the “house of the future” included an additional vacancy to supervise the robot assistant.
Omnibot, a popular gaming robot in Japan: background
Readers of 3DNews are very familiar with a device called Omnibot. But much less is known about its progenitor, which became one of the most compact robots of its time - Omnibot 2000. The unusual device was released in 1984, and it represented, as it does today, a super-technological and advanced autonomous model on the market of the most unusual toys of that time.
Omnibot 2000 had the ability to be remotely controlled, but the developers also provided for completely independent movement of their brainchild along a predetermined route. All the data necessary for the programmed movement was recorded on a tape, and the robot could be used as a waiter to deliver food and drinks at a large party.
SynPet Newton: domesticated version of the “star” R2D2
If you liked the cute and sounds-making robot R2D2 from George Lucas' Star Wars saga, then you will be interested to know that between the late 80s and early 90s there was a commercial version of it for sale. analogue - SynPet Newton. Of course, this robot with a height of approximately 86 cm cannot be called an exact copy the legendary R2D2, but the similarities in design, as they say, are “obvious.”
SynPet Newton could move freely around the apartment and could boast voice control and helped with household chores. A 16-bit microprocessor chip was responsible for its performance, as well as a wide range of sensors for fully autonomous movement in accordance with the selected mode. At the same time, SynPet Newton could communicate with residents using a special voice synthesizer, and also provide communication between its owner and the outside world using the built-in cordless phone and a modem.
True, only the wealthiest Americans could afford SynPet Newton, because the price of the “smart car” was a fabulous $8,000.
The crown of evolution of humanoid robots from Honda engineers
Perhaps the most famous humanoid robot today is a device from Honda called ASIMO. It took the Japanese company's engineers about ten years to eventually bring the prototype parameters to the current limit in the form of a combination high speed movement, extraordinary dexterity and advanced interaction with people.
ASIMO is able to greet guests with a friendly handshake and serve drinks no worse than a real waiter would do.
iRobot Roomba: responsible for the cleanliness of your home
Robot vacuum cleaners have not yet become a common gadget in homes ordinary users due to their high cost. However, some models still had commercial success and took root in the apartments of their owners, as did one of the first home mechanized cleaners, iRobot Roomba. The main task of the device, which appeared on the market 12 years ago, is high-quality, and most importantly, completely autonomous cleaning of the most difficult types of floor coverings.
Humanoid robot Reem: both a loader and an information center
Have you often had to move around a station or airport building with bulky and heavy luggage, and at the same time try to find out the information necessary to board a flight? It seems that this problem in Spain, where the company PAL Robotics was based, prompted a team of four engineers to develop the Reem-A robot carrier.
Previously, the developers already had experience in constructing humanoid machines that take on the role of maintenance personnel. This made it possible in 2012 to introduce a commercial model of Reem with a telecontrol function, which is not only capable of carrying loads, but also acting as an information and reference kiosk.
Subsequently, the device was upgraded to the REEM-C version - both legs were returned to it, as was provided for in modifications with the index “A” and “B”.
Your personal robotic bartender for $2700
Setting aside procedures that require moving through space, lifting loads and complex mechanical manipulations, what could a small, stationary robotic device be useful for? Of course for making a variety of cocktails. The Monsieur robot has become an example of a skillful automated bartender that will not only prepare your favorite drink, but will also happily greet its owner upon returning home. For this purpose, the designers provided a function for determining your stay in the apartment using an application for mobile device, providing synchronization with Monsieur and apparatus control via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
The system is capable of not only fulfilling orders for cocktails remotely from a smartphone or tablet, but also offering you double portions of drinks if you are late at work and have had a very busy day.
The main feature of the 23 kg box with touch display has become the number of cocktails that he can prepare for guests at your party. The device includes 12 thematic variations - “non-alcoholic party”, “sports bar”, “Irish pub” and others, each of which has about 25 recipes for various drinks.
The implementation of the robotic bartender project became possible thanks to the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform, on which the Monsieur startup collected donations totaling $140 thousand.
Startup JIBO: if you are lonely and have no one to talk to
The JIBO robot, which was loved by visitors to the Indiegogo site, which brought the creators of the device over $2 million, will become a personal, sympathetic interlocutor, a polite, submissive and encouraging listener, regardless of your current emotional state.
The so-called social behavior model characteristic of JIBO, combined with advanced hardware and software components, will allow the device to find an individual approach when communicating with each family member. The device is able to independently identify the interlocutor, as well as capture his mood in order to choose the most appropriate behavior algorithm in the current situation.
JIBO, having wireless access on the Network, by voice request will find recipes for various dishes for the upcoming dinner, inform you about a new letter on your email, will help with shopping, and also make an appropriate joke, entertain with a funny story and brighten up a gloomy evening with a good musical composition.
Almost anyone can get an unusual robotic friend, because the price for JIBO is only $500.
Robots on guard
An excellent way to use robotic devices is to perform security functions. And it’s true: thermal imagers, motion sensors, laser rangefinders, all kinds of cameras and “smart” systems, in theory, are capable of detecting an intruder much earlier, suspecting something is wrong and reporting a threat or an existing intrusion into a protected area than even an experienced person would do.
And if the brainchild of specialists from Knightscope is intended for passive observation and sending an alarm signal to the control panel, then, for example, the PatrolBot Mark II security robot is ready to independently counteract the intruder. To do this, its wheeled platform is equipped with a 100 dB horn and a water gun, with which the operator can literally ruin the reputation and clothes of the offender.
In this module you will learn:
How are robots used in industry?
how robots help explore the sky, earth and water;
in what area are robots more effective than humans;
how a robot can help doctors and nurses;
what robots surround us in everyday life;
can robots be entirely virtual?
In this video, course mentor Nikolai Pak explains which robots are common in industry, why they are popular in science, what tasks robots take on in medicine, and how they simplify our everyday lives. In the following parts of the module we will discuss each of these areas in detail.
When you watch the video, pay attention:
Which plant does Nikolay give as an example of robotic production?
What is the name of the robot surgeon?
Robot workers
Loaders, sorters and assemblers
Robots do not get tired of monotonous tasks, they can lift bulky loads and work quickly, they do not need weekends or lunch breaks. It is not surprising that a variety of industries (from everyday goods to aircraft and spacecraft) are “hiring” robots with open arms. Below we have collected the most typical examples of robots in production.
The manipulator is the same robotic “hands” that we see in photographs and videos from modern factories and factories. They are equipped with a variety of sensors so that they can process and connect parts, control the quality of products, package them, etc.
Sorting robots help free people from hard and monotonous work that requires great concentration. Their sensors are ready 24/7 to analyze the type of parts and elements lying on the conveyor and distribute them to different compartments. For example, today sorting robots often sort construction waste, because some of it can be reused or recycled.
Robotic forklifts free people from having to move anything from papers to bulky goods. For example, in the Sberbank archives, the necessary boxes of documents are found and moved by special robotic stacking cranes. And online trading giants Amazon and Alibaba are making full use of warehouse robots, which take on 70% of routine work and are very independent (for example, they will be able to navigate the warehouse if the layout changes).
From specific tasks to an entire construction site
Robots are valuable in construction in the same way as they are in industry: they take on physically demanding, dangerous and monotonous tasks. In addition, they are not afraid of bad weather: the pace of their work will not drop due to cold weather or rain.
The construction robot is an excellent example of the fact that robots are capable of performing monotonous tasks many times faster than humans. Thus, a robot builder from Fastbrick Robotics works 20 times faster than a conventional bricklayer and can build the foundation of a private brick house in two days. With it, builders will be able to erect 150 brick buildings a year - they will be left with communications and finishing work.
A cable-laying robot crawls through channels already dug for pipes and pulls a telephone or optical cable. This means that you don’t need to dig anything separately to lay the cable; you can use ready-made pipes. Moreover, breakdowns are also easier to detect: such robots can examine pipelines using a camera and lighting.
The Brokk robot excavator from Sweden can perform a lot of tasks at a construction site: digging, loading and carrying objects, dismantling structures made of reinforced concrete, brick and metal, removing layers of plaster from walls, drilling holes, etc.
In 2019, in Amsterdam they plan to install a bridge made entirely of steel using the 3D printing method, right in the air. Two robots begin to build a bridge on different banks and move forward along the already constructed part, meeting in the middle of the completed bridge. Robotic systems will print all the bridge parts right on site, without having to be transported. They will also build their own kind of scaffolding, or rather, structures that will support their own weight.
Robot explorers
Research robots are indispensable when studying locations and phenomena that are dangerous to humans, as well as where greater accuracy or physical strength is required. They can climb where people are not allowed to go: deep underwater, into the crater of a volcano, or, conversely, to the level of organs and even individual cells of a living organism.
On Earth
Boat. Robotic boats explore and study rivers, lakes and seas. They are especially useful in extreme conditions - for example, in the ice of the Far North. They can work independently, or they can follow operator commands through remote control. If control is carried out via radio waves, the operator may be quite far from the robot. Even on the other side of a medium sized city.
Bathyscaphe / glider. Bathyscaphe robots and robotic gliders with different principles of movement provide us with invaluable assistance in exploring the depths of the sea. It’s too early to send a person there: for long dives, the apparatus needs to be large and expensive. And is this really necessary if you can make a robot of any shape from materials resistant to low temperatures, equip it with manipulators, sensors, equip it with a camera and explore the depths without endangering humans?
Station. Robotic underwater and bottom stations conduct long-term monitoring of the ecology and geology of the depths and help monitor environmental, geological, ice and other conditions at depths inaccessible to humans and in unsuitable conditions. For example, a deep-sea expedition to the Mariana Trench from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) discovered many new species thanks to a robot with a remote-controlled camera. Depending on the purpose and battery, such stations can operate from several weeks to several years.
Volcano. There are other places on the planet that humans cannot climb (for example, volcanoes and geysers). Constructed from materials resistant to high temperatures and toxic gases, the robot is capable of conducting research even during peak seismic activity. NASA has already developed two such robots: one moves on wheels, and the second imitates the movements of a worm and, due to this, can move along steep ice cliffs.
In space
Curiosity is a third-generation Mars rover that was launched by NASA in 2011, essentially an autonomous chemical laboratory that explores the soil and atmosphere of Mars.
Robotic assistants have already appeared on the ISS, and soon robots will perform the simplest routine duties of astronauts: for example, troubleshooting solar panels when the automation that changes their position fails, or installing space station units. The Russian segment of the ISS is already repairing the ERA space manipulator. Or maybe astronauts will be replaced by electronic colleagues in the future - already robotic astronauts are being developed. And there is no need to train anyone, and there is no danger for people.
Satellites orbiting the Earth provide us with communications, weather monitoring, and navigation. There are already hundreds of them, and they are so important that back in 2016, one of the Pentagon departments began to develop a project for a separate satellite for satellite repair - a kind of ambulance at an altitude of 36 thousand kilometers. These devices have their own function, ways to receive information about outside world, algorithms of actions and equipment with which they perform these actions, which means they are considered robots.
Robot assistants in small things
Lawn mowers, suitcases and nannies
In the first module, we talked about how many robots already simplify human daily life: a robot vacuum cleaner, voice assistants and even washing machines upon closer examination they turned out to be robots. In this part, let's look at what other tasks can be automated.
The robot cleaner is not as compact and cute as its distant relative the robot vacuum cleaner, but it can work in bad weather and cope with more serious enemies: road dust, leaves, snow and ice. Depending on the tasks, it is equipped with wheels or tracks.
A robotic lawn mower looks like a small cart on wheels or tracks, with an electric or diesel engine. Just like a robot vacuum cleaner, a lawnmower walks around the property, completes a task, and returns to base. The boundaries of the site are indicated by a cable slightly dug into the ground, and infrared sensors help to return to the base.
A robot has also been invented to fight insects. Chinese engineers have developed a miniature tank that detects mosquitoes with detectors and then “shoots” them with a laser gun.
Cleaning a pool is not a very exciting task, which means there is room for automation here too. The first type of cleaning robots floats on the surface and collects garbage. The second one can crawl along the walls and bottom exactly like snails in an aquarium - and clean it of dirt in the same way.
The robot suitcase can hold from 15 to 30 kg of things and can follow the owner, or rather, the beacon in his pocket. Lost, he will give beep, and sensors help it not to collide with people and not fall. He won’t be able to climb the stairs after you yet, but for moving around the airport, this is what you need.
There will soon be no need for a personal assistant either. As the robot assistant develops, it will learn to maintain a daily routine, search for information, monitor the weather and traffic jams, and help with household chores. They already know how to do a lot of this - for example, the Zenbo robot from ASUS replaces a diary and controls “ smart home", is able to answer questions, take photos and videos.
The robot nanny will help parents look after their child: the camera will show what the baby is doing, and the microphone will help you hear if he is crying. You can communicate with your child through the speakers, and the remote control system will help you move the robot around the house. You can ask the robo-nanny to show the children pictures and cartoons (of course, those that the parent indicates).
Robots - medical assistants
Instead of a scalpel, a nurse and a donor
In medicine, such qualities of robots as accuracy, the ability to work tirelessly and lack of emotions come to the fore. The introduction of robots into medicine should solve 2 problems at once. Firstly, a person will no longer have to do routine work, for example, issuing medical cards to patients. Secondly, robots will help doctors perform high-precision operations that were previously impossible. The robot does not get upset, does not make mistakes and is always ready to work.
Robot nurse. Robots can care for patients, work at the reception desk, monitor compliance with prescribed treatment (for example, as part of automated system for dispensing prescribed medications from the pharmacy), picking up in the treatment room and bringing the necessary medications to patients. One of these robots, created to care for children and elderly patients, is called Robear - it was introduced in Japan back in 2015.
Robot surgeon. A robot surgeon today is a help in complex operations that require fine and long work. Thus, the Da Vinci robot has been developed: a set of cameras and manipulators that works under the guidance of a surgical operator. By establishing remote control, engineers will ensure that the doctor and patient will not have to meet in person, even for an operation, since the surgeon will perform all manipulations remotely. The Versius robotic surgeon helps doctors perform the most modern type of surgery, when the entire manipulation occurs through a tiny incision. This method causes less pain to the patient and leaves fewer scars, but requires precision and a whole range of technologies.
Organ printer. This is a kind of 3D printer, only the patient’s own cells are used as the material for “printing”. In this way, some internal organs, skin, body parts (ears and noses), bones and cartilage have already been created and successfully transplanted. Very soon, the search for an organ donor will become a thing of the past - there are already known cases of successful printing of blood vessels, heart valves, and skin grown in the laboratory.
Diagnostic robot. Robots are already actively helping doctors make decisions: the doctor enters data, the system helps make a diagnosis or prescribe a medicine. The next step is supercomputers equipped with artificial intelligence. Thus, the IBM Watson oncologist robot uses data from 600 thousand documents and scientific works to analyze all information about the patient in a few minutes and offer diagnostic options. It is important that such robots in no way replace a doctor; they only help him analyze information and offer solutions. For example, the robot does not interpret an X-ray, but only shows that people with similar images have a certain diagnosis, and then the doctor makes the conclusions.
Exoskeleton. The device is not science fiction, but a way to recover from injury or surgery. The ExoAtlet exoskeleton is a rigid frame with motors and software. He helps the patient stand upright and move as if he were walking on his own. Special sensors read body movements and amplify them with motors, so that a person walks as if on his own, but spends much less effort.
Robot programs
We have already said that robots can look like anything. It's time to find out that they may not look like anything at all. The main thing is that they perform their function according to a given algorithm, and the result of their work is noticeable outside the virtual world.
Robot Vera
Alexander Uraksin and his colleagues developed the robot Vera, which takes on routine tasks recruiters. Listen to Alexander's story about how Vera helps Rostelecom hire new employees. What tasks does the robot perform?
Automation by robots
One of the special cases of software robots, that is, robots that do not have a body, is the automation of business processes using robots or artificial intelligence. This technology is called “robot process automation” (from the English Robotic process automation - RPA). The bottom line is that the program first monitors the user's actions, and then automates them and begins to perform them independently.
One example of such automation is the Vera robot, you are already familiar with it.
One of the Chinese insurance companies has automated the process of processing claims for insurance compensation. Before automation, this was manual work: scanning applications, archiving papers, entering data from applications into accounting systems for analysis by the relevant departments. As a result, each application took an average of 11 minutes, and such applications were received from 70 to 125 per day. When the process was automated, all that remained was to scan the documents. After this, the image recognition system began to “itself” enter data into the system and into the archive in accordance with all company rules and legislation. The entire process of processing applications began to take about one and a half minutes.
One of the pharmaceutical holdings used RPA to analyze customer complaints. The system automatically accepts, verifies and processes customer complaints. Using a complex algorithm, the robot approves or rejects the application, and then moves on to the next one. The company receives about 5,000 requests per month and required 45 operators to process it manually. The implementation, configuration and testing of the robot took a month and a half, but after that the same volume of applications can be processed by one operator.
“Robotologist” attended a robotics lesson and overheard what the students of the “Robot and I” club dreamed about.
Little roboticists already at the age of 7 know 3 types of levers (can you remember?) and during the lesson they assemble ready-made robots. The boys make sure that batteries are disposed of exclusively in a special box and not in a general trash bin. They, like adults, address the teacher only by name, but as “you”.
They also know that when they grow up, they will build robots to help humanity. Young engineers dream of conquering space, defeating enemies and troublemakers. Well, win in robot competitions. “Robotologist” attended a class on robotics and wrote down answers to the question about what kind of robots the kids dream of creating.
Dima Tatarinov, 8 years old
“I don’t know what kind of robot I want to make yet. But he will definitely help humanity. For example, doing calculations for scientists and flying to distant planets. When he arrives on a new planet, he will put a Russian flag there.”
Misha Fedorov, 10 years old
“I want to create a radio-controlled robot. The remote will have a screen that will show where the robot is going and what actions it is doing. This robot will issue fines for illegal parking. The robot itself will have a printer that prints fine receipts. He will be fast because he needs to manage to hand out fines before the offender leaves.”
Artem Soloviev, 8 years old
“It will be a tank that drives without a driver. No one will control it at all; I will create such a system so that the tank itself knows what to do. He will transmit the picture to the headquarters and if anything happens, you can take control on the remote control. It can also be hit by a projectile and disrupt the self-control sensor. He can shoot himself, he will have a barrel for large shells, for bombs and two machine guns. Then you can make the same plane. In general, I want to become a military man and create something to make our army stronger.”
Maxim Khotuntsev, 10 years old
“Well, I wouldn’t say that it will be exactly a robot. I would like to create a costume. He will have acid things on his sleeves, and flying things on his legs (like Tony Stark). There will be two masks on the helmet, the inner one will be scary, with glowing eyes. It will be possible to spray a toxin from it, which will make enemies feel like something strange is happening around them. He will have a sword and a flamethrower, just in case. And scorpion poison. The suit will be armored, but light. It will be called “Black Adam”, there is such a pirate.
And he will also have a thing that will slow down time. If he flies back and forth at high speed, then most likely a time portal will form in this place and, probably, I will be able to see the future. More likely."
Timofey Kuznetsov, 10 years old
“My robot will help explore black holes. People are afraid to fly there; no one knows what is there. And the robot can be sent to study some black hole. He, like a person, will think for himself, he will have artificial intelligence. I would like to develop artificial intelligence for it myself.”
Serezha Oruzheinikov, 9 years old
“I dream of building a robot that can constantly protect me from bad boys. Or it will not be a robot, but a robotic suit. He will be able to do everything, even turn into a car and run on batteries. That’s why it will be called “Defender”.
Sasha Fedorov, 8 years old
“I want to invent a robot football player for our competitions. He himself will be approximately 50 cm and will be able to kick the ball to a height of 1 meter. Maybe I can put together a few more of these, a whole team. These robots will play football until they run out of power. I think I can make such robots in 10 or 12 years.”
Arseny Rodkin, 7 years old
“My robot will help scientists so that the future comes sooner. He will create new technologies himself.
And at school I drew a pen that writes on its own, a flying backpack and a notebook that itself writes down notes for the teacher!”
Styopa Yeshukov, 11 years old
“What kind of robot do I want to invent? It depends on what topic. For our competitions (competitions based on the “Robot and I” club - editor’s note) in football - one, for the battle of robots - another. For battle, I want to build a large robot that will ride on tracks. But not on plastic ones, because the plastic will slip. He will have spikes on different sides: he will drive up, stick them into the enemy and knock out his parts. There will also be a mechanism on top that will lift other models, something like a crane.
In football competitions, control is more important, because victory does not depend much on the model itself.
And for racing I want to build a fast and well-handling model. I will put the gearbox on speed, on the rear wheels, and make the front wheels low. It will still need to be improved.”
Agriculture is transforming at an unprecedented pace. Roboticists strive to automate farm processes and year after year create machines for harvesting fruits and vegetables. A farm in New Zealand plans to launch a robot that will pick ripe apples from trees. This once again tells us that in the future machines will help us grow crops.
Your apples will soon be picked only by robots
Anna SamoydyukThe robot, developed by Abundant Robotics, navigates rows between apple trees using lidar, or light radar, and searches for fruit using machine vision.
“The robot recognizes apples in real time. If the fruit is ripe, computer system tells the machine to rip it off,” explains Dan Steere, CEO of Abundant. Of course, she won't completely rip it off; rather, it will be swallowed - the hand uses a vacuum tube, with the help of which it “sucks” the fruit from the tree. The apple then goes onto a conveyor belt and from there falls into a bucket. The robot can do this around the clock.
There are many logical and technical reasons why such a robot did not appear sooner. When it comes to the evolution of agricultural automation, it's more likely to be a machete than a pair of scissors. Harvesters are widely used on farms to harvest wheat or cotton. Apple trees are trees, and you can't just drive a tractor over them to pick the fruit. “Neither the tree nor the fruit can be damaged. It requires a much more complex process,” explains Steer.
Automation of apple picking is mostly based on sensations - the robot not only identifies the fruits, but also analyzes their ripeness. After consulting with the farmer, the operator can configure the system so that the robot focuses on a specific color that will symbolize the ripeness of the apple.
You might think that the end of human farming is near. Before we start sounding the alarm about robots taking our jobs, it’s worth remembering that automation is nothing new, especially in agriculture. Think about what happened to wheat. Before the advent of combine harvesters, thousands of workers worked entire fields by hand. So, it's no surprise that apples and other crops will soon see automation too.
Thanks to the robot, people will have free time, and they will not have to do physically hard work. Instead, they can either control the robot as it moves around the garden or pick up fruits it misses. This invention is very important for agriculture because the industry is experiencing a huge shortage of human hands. Automation is simply necessary in order to feed all of humanity.
What's also interesting is that we can now adapt crops to machines. You see, apple trees in New Zealand are not like those growing in your country house. While regular trees are voluminous and round, apple trees in New Zealand are flat. They look more like grapevines. This form of trees has many advantages: in addition to the fact that it is easier for humans and robots to reach the fruits, more sunlight falls on the apples. Thus, we must adapt not only the machines to the crop, but also the crop to the machines.
Yes, to some extent, agricultural robots will learn to adapt to any environment. But we definitely won’t be able to create one universal machine for harvesting fruits - the harvest is simply very diverse. In addition, robots will someday have abilities that are not available to humans - for example, super speed. Ultimately, they will help us ensure reliable system food production on a changing planet.
It is much easier to be a man than to create a man. Take, for example, the act of playing catch with a friend as a child. If this activity is broken down into separate biological functions, the game ceases to be simple. You need sensors, transmitters and effectors. You need to calculate how hard to hit the ball so that it closes the distance between you and your companion. You need to consider sun glare, wind speed, and anything else that could cause distractions. You need to determine how the ball spins and how you need to receive it. And there is room for extraneous scenarios: what if the ball flies over your head? Will it fly over the fence? Will he break a neighbor's window?
These questions demonstrate some of the most pressing challenges in robotics, and also lay the foundation for our countdown. Here is a list of the ten most difficult things to teach robots. We must conquer these ten if we are ever to realize the promises made by Bradbury, Dick, Asimov, Clark and other science fiction writers who envisioned imaginary worlds where machines behaved like people.
Moving from point A to point B seemed simple to us since childhood. We humans do this every day, every hour. For a robot, however, navigating - especially through a single environment that is constantly changing, or through an environment that it has not seen before - is a daunting task. First, the robot must be able to perceive its environment and also understand all incoming data.
Roboticists solve the first problem by arming their machines with an array of sensors, scanners, cameras and other high-tech tools that help robots assess their surroundings. Laser scanners are becoming increasingly popular, although they cannot be used in aquatic environments due to the severe distortion of light in water. Sonar technology appears to be a viable alternative for underwater robots, but it is much less accurate in land-based environments. In addition, a technical vision system consisting of a set of integrated stereoscopic cameras helps the robot “see” its landscape.
Collecting environmental data is only half the battle. The bigger challenge will be to process this data and use it to make decisions. Many developers control their robots using a predefined map or composing one on the fly. In robotics, this is known as SLAM - a method of simultaneous navigation and mapping. Mapping here refers to how the robot converts the information received by the sensors into a specific form. Navigation refers to how the robot positions itself relative to the map. In practice, these two processes must occur simultaneously, in a “chicken and egg” fashion, which is only feasible when using powerful computers and advanced algorithms that calculate position based on probabilities.
Demonstrate dexterity
Robots have been assembling packaging and parts in factories and warehouses for many years. But in such situations, as a rule, they do not meet people and almost always work with objects of the same shape in a relatively free environment. The life of such a robot in a factory is boring and ordinary. If a robot wants to work at home or in a hospital, it will need to have an advanced sense of touch, the ability to detect nearby people, and impeccable taste in choosing actions.
These skills are extremely difficult to teach to a robot. Typically, scientists don't teach robots to touch at all, programming them to fail if they come into contact with another object. However, over the past five years or so, significant advances have been made in combining compliant robots and artificial skin. Compliance refers to the level of flexibility of a robot. Flexible machines are more pliable, rigid ones less so.
In 2013, researchers at Georgia Tech created a robotic arm with spring-loaded joints that allow the arm to bend and interact with objects, much like a human hand. They then covered the whole thing with a “skin” that could sense pressure or touch. Some robot skins contain hexagonal chips, each equipped with an infrared sensor that detects any approach closer than a centimeter. Others feature electronic fingerprints, a ridged, rough surface that improves grip and facilitates signal processing.
Combine these high-tech arms with an advanced vision system and you get a robot that can give you a gentle massage or sort through a folder of documents, choosing from a huge collection.
Keep the conversation going
Alan Turing, one of the founders of computer science, made a bold prediction in 1950: one day machines will be able to speak so freely that you will not be able to tell them apart from people. Alas, so far robots (and even Siri) have not lived up to Turing's expectations. That's because speech recognition is significantly different from natural language processing - what our brains do to extract meaning from words and sentences during conversation.
Initially, scientists thought that replicating this would be as simple as plugging grammar rules into a machine's memory. But the attempt to program grammatical examples for each individual language simply failed. Even determining the meanings of individual words turned out to be very difficult (after all, there is such a thing as homonyms - a door key and a treble clef, for example). Humans have learned to determine the meaning of these words in context, drawing on their mental abilities developed over many years of evolution, but breaking them down again into strict rules that can be put into code has proven simply impossible.
As a result, many robots today process language based on statistics. Scientists feed them huge texts, known as corpora, and then let computers break the long texts into chunks to figure out which words often go together and in what order. This allows the robot to “learn” a language based on statistical analysis.
Learn new things
Let's imagine that someone who has never played golf decides to learn how to swing a club. He can read a book about it and then try it, or he can watch a famous golfer practice and then try it himself. In any case, you can master the basics simply and quickly.
Roboticists face certain challenges when trying to build an autonomous machine that can learn new skills. One approach, as with golf, is to break down the activity into precise steps and then program them into the robot's brain. This requires that each aspect of the activity needs to be separated, described and coded, which is not always easy to do. There are certain aspects of swinging a golf club that are difficult to describe in words. For example, the interaction between the wrist and elbow. These subtle details are easier to show than to describe.
In recent years, scientists have made some progress in teaching robots to imitate a human operator. They call this imitation learning or learning by demonstration (LfD technique). How do they do it? The machines are equipped with arrays of wide-angle and zoom cameras. This equipment allows the robot to “see” the teacher performing certain active processes. Learning algorithms process this data to create a mathematical feature map that integrates visual input and desired actions. Of course, LfD robots must be able to ignore certain aspects of their teacher's behavior - like an itchy or runny nose - and cope with similar problems that arise from differences in the anatomy of the robot and humans.
Deceive
The curious art of deception developed among animals in order to outperform competitors and avoid being eaten by predators. In practice, deception as an art of survival can be a very, very effective self-preservation mechanism.
For robots, learning to deceive people or other robots can be incredibly difficult (and perhaps good for you and me). Deception requires imagination - the ability to form ideas or images of external objects not associated with feelings - and a machine, as a rule, does not have it. They are strong at directly processing data from sensors, cameras and scanners, but cannot form concepts that go beyond sensory data.
On the other hand, robots of the future may be better at deception. Georgia Tech scientists were able to transfer some squirrel tricking skills to robots in the lab. First, they studied the cunning rodents, which protect their food caches by luring competitors into old and unused storage areas. Then we coded this behavior in simple rules and loaded their robots into their brains. Machines were able to use these algorithms to determine when deception might be useful in a particular situation. Consequently, they could deceive their companion by luring him to another place where there is nothing valuable.
Anticipate human actions
In The Jetsons, Rosie the robot maid was able to hold a conversation, cook, clean, and help George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy. To understand the quality of Rosie's work, just remember one of the opening episodes: Mr. Spacely, George's boss, comes to the Jetson house for dinner. After the meal, he takes out a cigar and places it in his mouth, and Rosie rushes forward with a lighter. This simple action represents complex human behavior - the ability to predict what will happen next based on what just happened.
Like deception, anticipating human actions requires the robot to imagine a future state. He should be able to say: “If I see a person doing A, then I can guess from past experience that he is likely to do B.” In robotics, this point has been extremely difficult, but people are making some progress. A Cornell University team developed an autonomous robot that could respond based on how its companion interacted with objects in its environment. To do this, it uses a pair of 3D cameras to capture images of the surroundings. The algorithm then identifies key objects in the room and makes them stand out from the rest. Then using huge amount information obtained as a result of previous training, the robot develops a set of specific expectations of movements from the person and objects that it touches. The robot makes conclusions about what will happen next and acts accordingly.
The Cornell robots make mistakes sometimes, but they make good progress as camera technology improves.
Coordinate activities with other robots
a single large-scale machine - even an android, if you will - requires a serious investment of time, energy and money. Another approach involves deploying an army of simpler robots that can work together to achieve complex tasks.
A number of problems arise. A robot working in a team must be able to position itself well in relation to its comrades and be able to communicate effectively - with other machines and a human operator. To solve these problems, scientists turned to the world of insects, which use complex swarming behavior to find food and solve problems that benefit the entire colony. For example, while studying ants, scientists realized that individual individuals use pheromones to communicate with each other.
Robots could use the same "pheromone logic" but rely on light rather than chemicals to communicate. It works like this: a group of tiny robots are dispersed in a limited space. They first explore the area randomly until one comes across a light trail left by another bot. He knows that he needs to follow the trail, and he follows, leaving his own trail. As the tracks merge into one, more and more robots follow each other in single file.
Self-copy
The Lord said to Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” A robot that received such a command would feel embarrassed or disappointed. Why? Because he is unable to reproduce. It's one thing to build a robot, but it's another thing entirely to create a robot that can make copies of itself or regenerate lost or damaged components.
What is noteworthy is that robots may not take people as an example of a reproductive model. You may have noticed that we are not divided into two equal parts. Protozoa, however, do this all the time. Jellyfish's relatives, hydras, practice a form of asexual reproduction known as budding: a small ball detaches from the parent's body and then breaks off to become a new, genetically identical individual.
Scientists are working on robots that can perform the same simple cloning procedure. Many of these robots are built from repeating elements, usually cubes, which are made in the image of a single cube, and also contain a self-replicating program. The cubes have magnets on the surface so they can attach and detach from other cubes nearby. Each cube is divided into two parts diagonally, so each half can exist independently. The entire robot contains several cubes assembled into a certain shape.
Act on principle
When we interact with people every day, we make hundreds of decisions. In each of them, we weigh each of our choices, determining what is good and what is bad, fair and dishonest. If robots wanted to be like us, they would need to understand ethics.
But as with language, coding ethical behavior is extremely difficult, mainly because there is no single set of generally accepted ethical principles. IN different countries there are different rules of conduct and different systems laws. Even within individual cultures, regional differences can affect how people evaluate and measure their actions and the actions of others. Trying to write a global ethics that applies to all robots turns out to be almost impossible.
That is why scientists decided to create robots, limiting the scope of the ethical problem. For example, if a machine were to operate in a particular environment—a kitchen, say, or a patient's room—it would have far fewer rules of conduct and fewer laws to guide ethical decision-making. To achieve this goal, robotics engineers introduce ethical choices into the machine's learning algorithm. This choice is based on three flexible criteria: what good the action will lead to, what harm it will cause, and the degree of justice. Using this type of artificial intelligence, your future home robot will be able to accurately determine who in the family should do the dishes and who gets the TV remote control for the night.
Feel the emotions
“Here is my secret, it is very simple: only the heart is vigilant. You can’t see the most important things with your eyes.”
If this remark of the Fox from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “The Little Prince” is true, then robots will not see the most beautiful and best in this world. After all, they're great at sensing the world around them, but they can't translate sensory data into concrete emotions. They cannot see the smile of a loved one and feel joy, or register the angry grimace of a stranger and tremble in fear.
This, more than anything else on our list, is what separates man from machine. How to teach a robot to fall in love? How to program disappointment, disgust, surprise or pity? Is it even worth trying?
Some people think it's worth it. They believe that robots of the future will combine cognitive and emotional systems, which means they will work better, learn faster and interact more effectively with people. Believe it or not, prototypes of such robots already exist, and they can express a limited range of human emotions. Nao, a robot developed by European scientists, has the emotional qualities of a one-year-old child. He can express happiness, anger, fear and pride by accompanying his emotions with gestures. And this is just the beginning.
