Robotics

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-v
  ideos.t
• Japanese robots
• http//www.ecst.csuchico.edu/renner/Teaching/Robo
  tics/videos.html
• http//www.plyojump.com/qrio.html
• Miscellaneous robots
• http//www.roboticsonline.com/public/articles/arti
  cles.cfm?cat298

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)
What is a robot?
Definition
Alternate definition
A robot is a one-armed, blind idiot with limited
memory and which cannot speak, see, or hear.
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
How do robots move?

• 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

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