The document discusses various topics related to robotics including favorite robots like Robby from Forbidden Planet and Robocop, good robotics videos on swimming fish robots and robot wars, definitions of a robot, what tasks robots are good and bad at compared to humans, what subsystems make up a robot like action, sensors, control and power supply, different types of robot movement including joints, degrees of freedom, mobility options, common robot sensors and their uses, and open vs closed loop control systems.

1. Robotics

2. What is your favorite robot?
Robby – Forbidden Planet
Robocop
Tobor

3. Find some good robotics videos.
 Swimming fish:
 http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~jliua/videogal.htm
 Robot wars:
 http://robogames.net/videos.php
 http://www.metalmunchingmaniacs.com/combat-robot-
videos.t
 Japanese robots:
 http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~renner/Teaching/Roboti
cs/videos.html
 http://www.plyojump.com/qrio.html
 Miscellaneous robots:
 http://www.roboticsonline.com/public/articles/articles.cf
m?cat=298

4. “A robot is a reprogrammable, multifunctional
manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools,
or specialized devices through variable programmed
motions for the performance of a variety of tasks.”
(Robot Institute of America)
Definition:
Alternate definition:
“A robot is a one-armed, blind idiot with limited
memory and which cannot speak, see, or hear.”
What is a robot?

5. What are robots good at?
 What is hard for humans is easy for robots.
 Repetitive tasks.
 Continuous operation.
 Do complicated calculations.
 Refer to huge data bases.
 What is easy for a human is hard for robots.
 Reasoning.
 Adapting to new situations.
 Flexible to changing requirements.
 Integrating multiple sensors.
 Resolving conflicting data.
 Synthesizing unrelated information.
 Creativity.

6. What tasks would you give
robots?
 Dangerous
 Space exploration
 chemical spill cleanup
 disarming bombs
 disaster cleanup
 Boring and/or repetitive
 Welding car frames
 part pick and place
 manufacturing parts.
 High precision or high speed
 Electronics testing
 Surgery
 precision machining.

7. What does building robots
teach us about humans?
 How do our sensors work?
 eyes
 brain
 How do we integrate sensors?
 How does our muscular-skeletal
system work?
 How do we grab and hold an
object?
 How does our brain process
information?
 What is nature of intelligence?
 How do we make decisions?

8. What subsystems make up a
robot?
 Action
 Stationary base
 Mobile
 Sensors
 Control
 Power supply
Robert Stengel, Princeton Univ.

9. Action – do some function.
 Actuators
 pneumatic
 hydraulic
 electric solenoid
 Motors
 Analog (continuous)
 Stepping (discrete increments)
 Gears, belts, screws, levers
 Manipulations

10. Three types of robot actions.
 Pick and place
 Moves items between points.
 Continuous path control
 Moves along a programmable
path
 Sensory
 Employs sensors for feedback

11.  Simple joints (2D)
 Prismatic — sliding along one axis
• square cylinder in square tube
 Revolute — rotating about one axis
 Compound joints (3D)
 ball and socket = 3 revolute joints
 round cylinder in tube = 1 prismatic, 1 revolute
 Degrees of freedom = Number of independent
motions
 3 degrees of freedom: 2 translation, 1 rotation
 6 degrees of freedom: 3 translation, 3 rotation
How do robots move?

12. Mobility
 Legs
 Wheels
 Tracks
 Crawls
 Role

13. What sensors might robots
have?
 Optical
 Laser / radar
 3D
 Color spectrum
 Pressure
 Temperature
 Chemical
 Motion & Accelerometer
 Acoustic
 Ultrasonic

14. What use are sensors?
 Uses sensors for feedback
 Closed-loop robots use sensors in
conjunction with actuators to gain
higher accuracy – servo motors.
 Uses include mobile robotics,
telepresence, search and rescue,
pick and place with machine vision.

15. Control - the Brain
 Open loop, i.e., no feedback,
deterministic
 Instructions
 Rules
 Closed loop, i.e., feedback
 Learn
 Adapt