Technology
History of Robotics
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Introduction to Robotics
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1. History of Robotics
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A robot is an automatically guided machine which is able to
do tasks on its own, almost always due to electronicallyprogrammed instructions. Another common characteristic is
that by its appearance or movements, a robot often conveys
a sense that it has intent or agency of its own.
Courtesy of Wikipedia
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350 BC
The first known robot was created around 400-350 BC by the
mathematician Archita and was a steam powered pigeon.
Archita, who coincidently is known as the “father of mechanical engineering”,
constructed his bird out of wood and used steam to power the movements of the
robot.
This bird was then suspended from a pivot bar and at one point the bird managed to fly
as much as 200 meters before it ran out of steam. This is not only the first known
robot, but was also one of the first recorded scientifically done studies of how birds fly.
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322 BC
The Greek philosopher Aristotle
wrote:
“If every tool, when ordered, or even
of its own accord, could do the work
that befits it... then there would be no
need either of apprentices for the
master workers or of slaves for the
lords.”
The first recorded reference to robots!
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200BC
The Greek inventor and physicist Ctesibus of
Alexandria designs water clocks that have
movable figures on them.
Water clocks are a big breakthrough for
timepieces. Up until then the Greeks used hour
glasses that had to be turned over after all the
sand ran through. Ctesibus' invention changed
this because it measured time as a result of the
force of water falling through it at a constant
rate.
In general, the Greeks were fascinated with
automata of all kinds often using them in
theatre productions and religious ceremonies.
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62AD
Heron from Alexandria was a Mathematician,
Physicist and Engineer who lived in 10-70 AD.
Known as Michanikos, the Machine Man,
Heron invented the world's first steam engine,
developed some sophisticated surveying
tools, and crafted handy gizmos like a selftrimming oil lamp.
Heron's clever inventions were particularly
notable for their incorporation of the sorts of
self-regulating feedback control system.
Like today's toilets, his "inexhaustible goblet"
regulated its own level with a floating
mechanism. But what really excited Heron
were novelties: pneumatic gadgets, automata,
and magic theaters, one of which rolled itself
before the audience on its own power,
cranked through a miniature threedimensional performance, and then made its
own exit.
Click on the picture above to see a
YouTube clip of Hero’s Engine shown
above in operation.
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1495
Leonardo Da Vinci designs a
mechanical device that looks like an
armoured knight. The mechanisms
inside "Leonardo's robot" are
designed to make the knight move as
if there was a real person inside.
Inventors in medieval times often
built machines like "Leonardo's
robot" to amuse royalty.
Click on the picture above to see a YouTube clip
of more of Leonardo’s machines.
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1738
Jacques de Vaucanson begins building
automata in Grenoble, France. He built three
in all. His first was the flute player that
could play twelve songs. This was closely
followed by his second automaton that
played a flute and a drum or tambourine,
but by far his third was the most famous of
them all.
The duck was an example of Vaucanson's
attempt at what he called "moving
anatomy", or modeling human or animal
anatomy with mechanics." The duck moved,
quacked, flapped it's wings and even ate
and digested food.
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1774
Pierre Jaquet-Droz was a Swiss watchmaker of
the late 18th century. He lived in Paris, London,
and Geneva, where he designed and built
animated dolls, or automata, to help his firm sell
watches and mechanical birds.
Constructed between 1768 and 1774 by Pierre
Jaquet-Droz, his son Henri-Louis, and Jean
Frederic Leschot were The Writer (made of 6000
pieces), The Musician (2500 pieces) and The
Draughtsman (2000 pieces).
His astonishing mechanisms fascinated the world's most important people: the kings
and emperors of Europe, China, India and Japan.
Some consider these devices to be the oldest examples of the computer. The Writer has
an input device to set tabs that form a programmable memory, 40 cams that represents
the read only program, and a quill pen for output. The work of Pierre Jaquet-Droz
predates that of Charles Babbage by decades.
The automata of Jaquet-Droz are also considered to be some of the finest examples of
human mechanical problem solving. Three particularly complex, and still working and
functional dolls are housed at the art and history museum in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
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Click on the
picture to see a
YouTube clip of
more of the
Jaquet-Droz
Automota
“L’Ecrivain” (The Writer 1775) : a unique automaton and a true piece of art.
Its six-hundred-piece mechanism was extremely complex, much more intricate
than those of other automata. It could be set to write any text of up to forty
letters or symbols on a smooth piece of paper, as if on a typewriter.
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1801
Joseph Marie Jacquard, a silk-weaver,
invented an improved textile loom.
The Jacquard loom was the first machine to
use punched card. These punched cards
controlled the weaving, enabling an ordinary
workman to produce the most beautiful
patterns in a style previously accomplished
only with patience, skill, and hard work.
Click on the picture opposite to see a
YouTube clip of the loom in operation.
Jacquard’s work played an important role in the development of the earliest
programmable loom, which in turn played an important role in the development of
other programmable machines, such as computers.
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1822
Charles Babbage, (1791– 1871) was an
English mathematician, philosopher,
inventor, and mechanical engineer who
originated the concept of a programmable
computer.
In 1822 he demonstrates a prototype of his
"Difference Engine" to the Royal
Astronomical Society. He continued his
work by designing an even more ambitious
project “The Analytical Engine" that
reportedly was to use punch cards inspired
by Joseph Jacquard's invention. However,
during his lifetime he never produced a
functional version of either machine.
Despite this shortcoming he is often
heralded as the "Father of the Computer"
and his work lives on as the foundation for
the binary numbering system that is the
basis of modern computers.
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Click on the picture to
see a YouTube clip the
Babbage Difference
Engine No. 2 in operation.
In 1985 the London Science Museum launched a project to build a complete
Babbage Engine to original designs to explore the practical viability of
Babbage’s schemes. The Engine chosen was Babbage’s Difference Engine No. 2
designed between 1847 and 1849. The calculating section of the Engine, which
weighs 2.6 tonnes and consists of 4,000 separate parts, was completed and
working in November 1991, one month before the 200th anniversary of
Babbage's birth.
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1847
As the inventor of Boolean Algebra, the
basis of Boolean Logic and hence
modern digital computer logic, George
Boole is regarded in hindsight as a
founder of the field of computer science.
Boole once said ‘... no general method
for the solution of questions in the
theory of probabilities can be
established which does not explicitly
recognise ... those universal laws of
thought which are the basis of all
reasoning.’
Born in Lincolnshire, England he is
buried in Ballintemple, Co. Cork having
served as the first Professor of
Mathematics in Queens College Cork
from 1849.
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Click on the picture to see a YouTube clip on George Boole and his
impact on the world of electronics and computing.
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1898
Nikola Tesla, the legend of popular
culture, inventor of AC current,
grandfather of radio, radar and MRIs,
invented and tested the world's first
remote control weapon in 1898.
Today cruise missiles, unmanned air
vehicles (UAVs), remote-control
tracked vehicles and unmanned
underwater vehicles (UUVs) have
revolutionized the defense industry.
These robotic warriors are in daily use
in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places.
Today’s military gurus predict that
within a generation weaponized
robots will largely replace live pilots,
sailors and soldiers sent into harms'
way on the battlefields of tomorrow.
Few of the play station generation that
will control these vehicles from afar
know the name of the man who in
responsible for giving birth to the
automated warrior, Nikola Tesla
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In 1898, six years before the Wright brothers
flew, Tesla designed and built a pair of radio
controlled boats. The craft were constructed of
iron, powered by a electric battery of his own
design, and equipped with a radio-mechanical
receiver that accepted commands from a
wireless transmitter. The boats were equipped
with a large whip antenna, a modular space that
could carry a charge, diving rudders, a prop and
electric running lights that could all be remotely
controlled. Tesla demonstrated the vessels to a
shocked crowd in an indoor pool at Madison
Square Garden in New York City. The crowd was
amazed how Tesla, always a showman,
maneuvered his six-foot-long boat in patterns
through the water, and then stopped and started
the craft. He even had the forethought to equip
his boats with a crude logic gate which
prevented them from being taken over by
another transmitter other than his own. The craft
alarmed those in the crowd who saw it and who
claimed it to be everything from magic and
telepathy to being piloted by a trained monkey
hidden inside.
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Click on the picture to see a
very interesting YouTube clip
on the life and work of the
genius Nikola Tesla.
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1921
R.U.R., often subtitled Rossum's
Universal Robots is a science
fiction play in the Czech language
by Karel Čapek. It premiered in
1921 and is noted for introducing
the term "robot".
The play begins in a factory that
makes artificial people called
"robots." Unlike the modern usage
of the term, these creatures are
closer to the modern idea of
androids or even clones, as they
can be mistaken for humans and
can think for themselves. They
seem happy to work for humans,
although that changes and a hostile
robot rebellion leads to the
extinction of the human race.
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The word robot comes from the
word robota meaning literally serf
labor, and, figuratively, "drudgery"
or "hard work" in Czech, Slovak and
Polish.
While it is frequently thought that
Karel was the originator of the word,
he wrote a short letter in reference
to an article in the Oxford English
Dictionary etymology in which he
named his brother, painter and
writer Josef Čapek, as its actual
inventor.
Click on the picture to see YouTube
clip on the progression of the
humanoid robot since Capek
introduced the idea in 1921.
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1926
Fritz Lang's movie "Metropolis" is released.
"Maria" the female robot in the film is the
first robot to be projected on the silver
screen.
Click on the picture to see a YouTube
restored trailer for the original film.
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1936
Alan Mathison Turing was an English
mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and
computer scientist. He was highly influential in
the development of computer science,
providing a formalisation of the concept of the
algorithm and computation with the Turing
machine, which played a significant role in the
creation of the modern computer.
Turing machines, first described by him in
1936, are simple abstract computational
devices intended to help investigate the extent
and limitations of what can be computed.
Click on the picture to see a
short YouTube video on
Alan M Turing.
Note the reference to the
Apple logo.
Turing, writing before the invention of the
modern digital computer, was interested in the
question of what it means to be computable. A
task is computable if one can specify a
sequence of instructions which when followed
will result in the completion of the task. Such a
set of instructions is called an effective
procedure, or algorithm, for the task.
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1940
Issac Asimov produces a series of short stories about
robots starting with "A Strange Playfellow" (later
renamed "Robbie") for Super Science Stories
magazine. The story is about a robot and its
affection for a child that it is bound to protect. Over
the next 10 years he produces more stories about
robots that are eventually recompiled into the
volume "I, Robot" in 1950.
Asimov is generally credited with the popularization
of the term "Robotics" which was first mentioned in
his story "Runaround" in 1942. Issac Asimov's most
important contribution to the history of the robot is
the creation of his Three Laws of Robotics:
1.
2.
Click on the picture of the
1st edition cover above to
see a short YouTube video
on Asimov.
3.
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through
inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders given it by human
beings except where such orders would conflict
with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as
such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Law.
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1950
Alan Turing publishes Computing
Machinery and Intelligence in which he
proposes a test to determine whether or
not a machine has gained the power to
think for itself. It becomes known as the
"Turing Test".
Click on the picture above
to see a YouTube
discussion between Daniel
Dennett and Roger
Bingham on the merits of
the Turing Test
The Turing test is a test of a machine's
ability to exhibit intelligent behavior. A
human judge engages in a natural
language conversation with one human
and one machine, each of which tries to
appear human. All participants are
separated from one another. If the judge
cannot reliably tell the machine from the
human, the machine is said to have
passed the test. In order to test the
machine's intelligence rather than its
ability to render words into audio, the
conversation is limited to a text-only
channel such as a computer keyboard
and screen.
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1960
The first industrial arm robot - the
Unimate - is introduced. It is designed to
complete repetitive or dangerous tasks
on a General Motors assembly line.
Click on the picture above to see a
rare YouTube clip from 1960 of the
US Tonight Show hosted by Johnny
Carson.
Carson introduces Joseph
Engelberger who demonstrates the
Unimate which is programmed
using lead through technique.
Unimate was the first industrial robot,
which worked on a General Motors
assembly line in New Jersey, in 1961. It
was created by George Devol in the
1950s using his original patents. Devol,
together with Joseph Engelberger,
started Unimation the world's first robot
manufacturing company.
The machine undertook the job of
transporting die castings from an
assembly line and welding these parts
on auto bodies—a dangerous task for
workers, who might be poisoned by
exhaust gas or lose a limb if they were
not careful.
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1966
The Stanford Research Institute (later to
be known as SRI Technology) creates
Shakey the first mobile robot to know
and react to its own actions.
Shakey the Robot was the first generalpurpose mobile robot to be able to
reason about its own actions.
While other robots would have to be
instructed on each individual step of
completing a larger task, Shakey could
analyze the command and break it down
into basic chunks by itself.
Due to its nature, the project combined
research in robotics, computer vision,
and natural language processing.
Click on the picture of Shakey
above to see a YouTube clip
explaining its place in the robot hall
of fame.
Because of this, it was the first project
that melded logical reasoning and
physical action.
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1969
Victor Scheinman, a Mechanical Engineering
student working in the Stanford Artificial
Intelligence Lab (SAIL) creates the Stanford
Arm. The arm's design becomes a standard
and is still influencing the design of robot
arms today.
Click on the picture above
to see a YouTube clip
explaining the history of
computers and their role in
robotics.
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1977
Star Wars is released. George Lucas'
movie about a universe governed by the
force introduces watchers to R2-D2 and
C-3PO.
The movie creates the strongest image
of a human future with robots since the
1960's and inspires a generation of
researchers.
Click on the picture alongside to see a
YouTube clip featuring the original
trailer from the movie.
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1986
Honda begins a robot research program
thats starts with the premise that the
robot :
"should coexist and cooperate with
human beings, by doing what a person
cannot do and by cultivating a new
dimension in mobility to ultimately
benefit society."
Click on the picture of the
evolution of Honda’s most
advanced robot Asimov above
to access the Honda YouTube
channel.
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1989
A walking robot named
Genghis is unveiled by the
Mobile Robots Group at
MIT.
It becomes known for the
way it walks, popularly
referred to as the "Genghis
gait".
Click on the picture of Genghis above to see a
YouTube clip of its first steps.
Genghis was built at MIT to
demonstrate the efficacy of
using numerous small,
light, mobile robots to
explore the Martian
surface.
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1996
Honda debuts the P3, shown second from right above, the fruit of its decade long
effort to build a humanoid robot.
The P-series is a chronological progression of prototype humanoid robots as
developed by Honda. The research conducted allowed the eventual creation of
ASIMO, pictured last on the right above.
Click on the picture above to see a YouTube clip of the P3 in action.
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1997
The NASA Pathfinder Mission
lands on Mars. Its robotic
rover Sojourner, rolls down a
ramp and onto Martian soil in
early July. It broadcast data
from the Martian surface until
September.
Click on the picture above to see an animated
YouTube clip of the NASA Pathfinder Mission.
After a few days on the
Martian surface the NASA
controllers turned on
Sojourner's hazard avoidance
system and asked it to start
making some of its own
decisions. This hazard
avoidance system set the
rover apart from all other
machines that have explored
space. Sojourner made trips
between designated points
without the benefit of detailed
information to warn it of
obstacles along the way.
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1998
Tiger Electronics introduces
the Furby into the Christmas
toy market.
It quickly becomes "the toy" to
get for the season.
Using a variety of sensors this
"animatronic pet" can react to
its environment and
communicate using over 800
phrases in English and their
own language "Furbish".
Click on the picture above to see one of the
first Furby commercials.
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1998
LEGO releases their first Robotics
Invention SystemTM 1.0.
LEGO names the product line
MINDSTORMS after Seymour
Papert's seminal work ‘Mindstorms:
Children, Computers, and Powerful
Ideas’ published in 1980.
In this book Papert advocates
constructionism, or learning
through doing.
Click on the picture above to see a clip from a
special pre-release CD-ROM entitled "explore
invent master" which was released as a teaser
for the Lego Mindstorms series.
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2000
Honda debuts the 12th version, since
1986, of it’s humanoid robot - ASIMO.
The name is an acronym for "Advanced
Step in Innovative MObility“ rather than
a reference to Isaac Asimov.
The robot has 7 DOF (Degrees of
freedom) in each arm — two joints of 3
DOF, shoulder and wrist, giving "Six
degrees of freedom" and 1 DOF at the
elbow; 6 DOF in each leg — 3 DOF at
the crotch, 2 DOF at the ankle and 1
DOF at the knee; and 3 DOF in the neck
joint.
Click on the picture above to see a clip of
Asimo in action,
The hands have 2 DOF — 1 DOF in each
thumb and 1 in each finger.
This gives a total of 34 DOF in all joints
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2001
In August, the FDA clears the
CyberKnife to treat tumours
anywhere in the body.
The CyberKnife system is a method
of delivering radiotherapy, with the
intention of targeting treatment
more accurately than standard
radiotherapy.
Over 150 centres, featuring several
generations of equipment, offer
treatment around the world.
Click on the picture above to see a the
CyberKnife Patient Education Video
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2004
Jan 4th - The NASA robot rover Spirit
lands on Mars.
Jan 23rd - The second rover Opportunity safely lands on the
Meridium Planum on Mars.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover
Mission (MER) is an ongoing robotic
space mission involving the two rovers.
The mission's scientific objective was
to search for and characterise a wide
range of rocks and soils that hold clues
to past water activity on Mars.
Click on the picture above to see a short
video explaining the NASA Mars Exploration
Rover Mission.
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2007
Since 2006, awards have been given by
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade &
Industry for ‘Robot of the Year’.
The 2007 winner was the work-horse,
industrial robot from Fanuc Ltd. called
M-430iA.
This multi-axis, greaseless (and
therefore sanitary) robot is part of a
food and pharmaceutical handling
system.
This robot can work non-stop, 24 hours
a day, accurately picking up 120 items
per minute as they roll down a
conveyor belt.
Click on the picture above to see a short
video of the M-430iA in action.
It employs the rapidly developing
technology of Machine Vision to pick
the items regardless of their position on
the conveyor.
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2008
The 2008 winner was the Takara Tomy’s
Omnibot 17μ i-SOBOT.
The i-SOBOT is the world’s smallest
humanoid that’s aimed at a mass
market.
The Japanese government praised its
low price of around $350 and its
advanced technology.
Click on the picture above to see a short
video of the i-SOBOT in action.
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Click on the picture to see
a short video of the Japan
Robot Show 2009.
2009
The 2009 winner was the Omni Zero 1000 transformer robot.
The Omni Zero 1000 can walk and turn itself into a car and roll along the floor.
Originally made for Robot One, a robot competition held twice a year, the robot
can also transform itself into various shapes.
When in walking mode, the robot can open its head section to reveal a seat
and carry a human occupant or more often its creator Takeshi Maeda.
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Click on the picture to see a short video of the
2010 Robot Review.
2010
What does the future hold for robotics? The general trend for computers seems to be
faster processing speed, greater memory capacity and so on. One would assume that
the robots of the future would become closer and closer to the decision-making ability
of humans and also more independent.
Presently the most powerful computers can't match the mental ability of a low-grade
animal. It will be a long time until we're having conversations with androids and have
them do all our housework. Another difficult design aspect about androids is their
ability to walk around on two legs like humans. A robot with biped movement is much
more difficult to build then a robot with, say, wheels to move around with.
The reason for this is that walking takes so much balance. When you lift your leg to
take a step you instinctively shift your weight to the other side by just the right amount
and are constantly alternating your centre of gravity to compensate for the varying
degrees of leg support.
If you were to simply lift your leg with the rest of your body remaining perfectly still
you would likely fall down. Try a simple test by standing with one shoulder and one leg
against a wall. Now lift your outer leg and observe as you start to fall over !
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