Robots have been in the news recently, thanks to the Mars Rovers, and will continue to be in the news all summer, thanks to Will Smith’s new movie, I, Robot, suggested by the classic collection of science fiction stories by Isaac Asimov.
Robots have been used in factories for decades, but increasingly they’re moving beyond the factory walls. Last weekend, for instance, 15 robotic vehicles competed for a $1 million in what was supposed to be a 230-kilometre race from near Los Angeles to just outside Las Vegas, organized by the U.S. government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Alas, none of the robots made it further than about 11 kilometres. The pre-race favorite, a modified Humvee called Sandstorm, set a new record for distance and speed for an autonomous vehicle, but was undone when, while trying to avoid a mountain to its right, it failed to spot a sheer drop to the left. It probably would have plunged over a cliff if its underbelly hadn’t gotten stuck. Recognizing “negative” obstacles, such as steep slopes and holes, is more of a challenge to robot vision than recognizing “positive” obstacles, such as mountains and rocks–although some of the other entries, which included a truck, a motorcycle, dune buggies and a hybrid electric car, ran into walls or wrapped themselves in wire fences, so even positive obstacles can still pose a challenge, too, it seems!
In 18 months the race will be repeated, with the prize upped to $2 million; what was learned in this race will undoubtedly produce better results next time.
So will we someday see a robot in every garage? Probably; but then, you’ll probably be seeing robots everywhere.
The global demand for robots reportedly jumped 26 percent in the first half of 2003 from a year earlier. The leader in robotics is Japan, home of the popular robot dog AIBO–but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. For example, recently trials were carried out in Japan of furry talking robots designed to be companions to elderly people living alone, capable of raising the alarm if their owners need help. The people taking part in the trials are reported to have thought of them more like pets than machines.
There are already robots that vacuum your house, and Sanyo’s Banryu robot acts as a guard dog (although it looks more like a streamlined dinosaur). It automatically contacts the householder if it detects any problem and can be commanded by cellphone to walk and act menacingly and transmit pictures of what’s happening inside the home.
Japanese engineers are also developing nurse robots designed to monitor patients’ vital signs and even take care of a patient’s paperwork. Daihen Corp. is working on robotic “patient transfer equipment” that could safely lift and move patients suffering from conditions such as bone fractures or cerebral hemorrhages. And Waseda University last year unveiled the world’s first two-legged walking robot capable of carrying an adult human being.
But what about the classic science-fictional humanoid robot? Honda has one: Ashimo is currently used to entertain people in showrooms, but its descendants could replace humans in dangerous workplaces. Sony’s QRIO is the first running robot, capable of jogging at up to 14 meters a minute (less than a kilometre an hour, but but you’ve got to start somewhere). And just last week Toyota unveiled a humanoid robot that can play the trumpet.
Toyota’s president, Fujio Cho, says developing artificial lips flexible enough to play a trumpet was a major engineering challenge, and that’s really what most of these advanced robotic projects are all about right now: challenging engineers to find ways of doing things that may have other applications. Flexible lips probably won’t find their way onto Toyota’s cars and trucks, but other innovations created for robots might, such as advanced motion sensors and collision-avoidance sensors and computers.
The science-fictional dream of the completely autonomous, moving-and-thinking-for-itself robot is still in the future, but researchers are pursuing it: according to one unconfirmed report, Sony plans to install some of the top researchers in the field in a new laboratory later this year, to study the latest theories of brain science and apply them to robot development. Their hope is to create a robot that can learn by itself and react to changes in its environment with voluntary and intelligent movements.
The science fictional robot may still be a long way off–but it’s getting closer.
And if you just can’t wait for the real thing, there’s always Will Smith’s movie…or better yet, Isaac Asimov’s stories.
