pkenny@ADS.COM (Patrick Kenny) (08/29/90)
We need to get some more activity into this group, so I am posting a question to all. Where do you see the next breakthrough in robotics coming from and how will the acceptance of robots affect our culture. Since robots could well be 'better' than people, will we ever live in peace with them, will we give them rights, and will we let them control or rule over us. Will they someday be the world police force designed to keep us in order and at peace. -pk
azure@portia.Stanford.EDU (Lai Heng Chua) (08/29/90)
Robots that are better than people are still a long ways off. I think wek one area important to the future of robots would be research on creation of robust adaptive robots. Don't need need them in all situations but there are many situations where such robots would be needed. How about using some othe robots for environmental work? Too expensive?
hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) (08/30/90)
In article <J?=%^5|@ads.com> pkenny@ADS.COM (Patrick Kenny) writes: }Where do you see the next breakthrough in robotics coming from }and how will the acceptance of robots affect our culture. The technology is advancing so fast it's hard to decide what's a breakthrough. Six degree of freedom arms are now common. A year ago they were like hen's teeth and outrageously expensive if you could find one. Force sensing is now commonplace. Machine vision and pattern recognition have made enormous strides and some truly amazing technology is available off the shelf. That's the place I'd look for major advances. }Since robots could well be 'better' than people, will we ever }live in peace with them, will we give them rights, and will we let }them control or rule over us. Will they someday be the world police }force designed to keep us in order and at peace. Anything on this order is so far in the future it's really outside the scope of this group. (The charter calls for discussion of real world robots and state of the art technology. Positronic brains and R2D2 fall well outside those restrictions). I'll note that robot security guards do exist, but no reasonable person would compare them to human intelligence. They mostly carry cameras with some pattern recognition capability and enough smarts to sound an alarm if they find something unexpected. i.e.: They're glorified burglar alarms. For now, I think building a robot that can make up a bed (any arbitrary bed in any room of a house, starting with a bare mattress and folded sheets in the linen closet) should at least get a Nobel prize nomination. (Think about it. It's an extremely complex task). On the other hand, practical robot vacuum cleaners are starting to appear, at least for commercial applications. Building one cheap, smart, simple and reliable enough to use in an average private home would be a breakthrough on the order of the introduction of the personal computer. -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp(+)TTI Illegitimis non 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 450-9111, x2483 Carborundum Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe
boehlke@sunrise.stanford.edu (Dan Boehlke) (08/30/90)
I see the next breakthrough in robotics being the introduction of very high accuracy manipulators-- say an order of magnitude (or more) better than any systems of the 80's. There are plenty of potential products that simply cannot be assembled today anywhere outside of a laboratory. Ultra-precision manipulators will be "enabling" technology. They will make it possible to produce consumer products that are impossible to manufacture on a mass-production basis today. Once the technology exists, new products will be developed which exploit it. Electronic minaturization will go far beyond where it is today, quality will get better, and cost will go down.
loucks@intvax.UUCP (Cliff Loucks) (08/30/90)
From article <19496@ttidca.TTI.COM>, by hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath): > In article <J?=%^5|@ads.com> pkenny@ADS.COM (Patrick Kenny) writes: > > }Where do you see the next breakthrough in robotics coming from > }and how will the acceptance of robots affect our culture. > > The technology is advancing so fast it's hard to decide what's a > breakthrough. Six degree of freedom arms are now common. A year ago they > were like hen's teeth and outrageously expensive if you could find one. Sorry, but the PUMA 600 (as it was called then) was available 10 years ago. > Force sensing is now commonplace. Force sensing is one thing; force servoing is quite another. There's been research in force servoing for over a decade now, but there's still no industrial robot that offers force servoing as an option. [So we at Sandia spend a lot of time figuring out how to get hooks into the commercial robot's controllers so we can servo tool contact forces.] Unimation has long offered their "alter" interface which requires an additional processor between the force sensor and the Unimation controller to close the force loop around the position loop inside the controller [that's a mouthful, eh?]. But thru-the-arm tool contact force servoing at their 28 ms update rate means you can't move very fast when the tool is in contact. Adept now offers their Force Sensing Module which gives the ability to sense, record, and reacte to contact forces; but not to servo them. This gives the ability to do "guarded moves" which is certainly useful. They had a DARPA funded project to do thru-the-arm force servoing and developed that capability in their Force Control System (which we have at Sandia as a beta-test site). But even at a 250 Hz force servo rate around a 500 Hz inner position loop, there is still too much bandwidth limitation to perform tasks like deburring that humans can do relatively easily. Adept is no longer working on the FCS since they surveyed industry to see who wanted force servoing and most responses were negative. [I think this is due to the fact that thru-the-arm servoing does still have limitations and industry knows it. Why do active sensing and control for an insertion task when a RCC on a good arm can do it passively?] > -- > The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Cliff -- A society is not civilized until it domesticates the icecube. Cliff Loucks <=> loucks@intvax.UUCP Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, New Mexico
ulrich@grip.cis.upenn.edu (Nathan Ulrich) (08/30/90)
In article <1990Aug30.014817.8794@portia.Stanford.EDU> boehlke@sunrise.stanford.edu (Dan Boehlke) writes: >I see the next breakthrough in robotics being the >introduction of very high accuracy manipulators-- >say an order of magnitude (or more) better than >any systems of the 80's. There are plenty of potential >products that simply cannot be assembled today anywhere >outside of a laboratory. > >Ultra-precision manipulators will be "enabling" technology. >They will make it possible to produce consumer products that >are impossible to manufacture on a mass-production basis today. >Once the technology exists, new products will be developed >which exploit it. Electronic minaturization will go far beyond >where it is today, quality will get better, and cost will go down. I strongly disagree. If you want "ultra-precision" position control, then use hard automation or any of a variety of NC machines which are capable of accuracy better than a millionth of an inch (much better, in some cases). By my definition, these are not robots. Of course, from my point of view, 99% of "robots" used today are simply reconfigurable assembly machines, not real robots---they are never called upon to react to their environment in any significant way, which I would call the first prerequisite for a true robot. But then again, this is just a problem of definitions. I think that to really make robots versatile and useful outside of factory or hazardous applications, you need to enhance several things. First, their force-control capability has to be drastically expanded. The arm that Bill Townsend developed at MIT has demonstrated that this is within the capabilities of current technology--its transmissions are better than 96% efficient with zero backlash. Second, the ratio of system weight to system payload has to be increased. Again, this just requires intelligent design that is not tied to the requirements of industrial automation. Third, the sensing capability, especially tactile and vision, has to be improved. I think many of the limitations of robots stem from their mechanical design (that's what I do, so I'm biased), but there are clearly problems that can only be resolved from the AI community. If we want to bring robots out of their current narrow area of application, then they must have some of the abilities that humans possess. I don't believe that we should build anthropomorphic robots, but we can learn from the way biological systems solve problems. Planes don't fly by flapping their wings, but their wings and tails use principles found in birds. Humans have terrible position control capability (ever tried to put your finger in a precise point in space--you can't), but have remarkable force-control and sensory feedback abilities. I think we can learn from this. Of course, our incredible brains could just be compensating for lousy mechanics, but watch an ant or a spider sometime; they certainly don't have much in terms of high-level reasoning. Just my opinion. Nathan Ulrich "If it was easy, someone would have ulrich@grip.cis.upenn.edu done it already..." DoD #0080 - GT750 pilot
abg@stc06.ornl.gov (BANGS A L) (08/31/90)
In article <29011@netnews.upenn.edu> ulrich@grip.cis.upenn.edu (Nathan Ulrich) writes: >In article <1990Aug30.014817.8794@portia.Stanford.EDU> boehlke@sunrise.stanford.edu (Dan Boehlke) writes: >>I see the next breakthrough in robotics being the >>introduction of very high accuracy manipulators-- > >I strongly disagree. If you want "ultra-precision" position control, then >use hard automation or any of a variety of NC machines which are capable of >accuracy better than a millionth of an inch (much better, in some cases). My comment on high-precision manipulators is that you should not need them, at least in a "service" environment, if your sensors are sufficient. Service robotics--autonomous, mobile systems--is going to be the area with the most promise for robotics. Alex L. Bangs ---> bangsal@ornl.gov Of course, my opinions are Oak Ridge National Laboratory/CESAR my own darned business... Autonomous Systems Group
mark@infolog.se (Mark Plotnick) (09/02/90)
In article <1990Aug30.014817.8794@portia.Stanford.EDU> boehlke@sunrise.stanford.edu (Dan Boehlke) writes: >..................... >Ultra-precision manipulators will be "enabling" technology. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >They will make it possible to produce consumer products that >are impossible to manufacture on a mass-production basis today. >.............................. >............................. What is the state-of-the-art in robot manipulator technology today and how accesible is it? Mark Plotnick, mark@infolog.se Infologics AB Box 91 191 22 Sollentuna, Sweden
hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath) (09/06/90)
In article <3603@intvax.UUCP> loucks@intvax.UUCP (Cliff Loucks) writes: }From article <19496@ttidca.TTI.COM>, by hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath): }> In article <J?=%^5|@ads.com> pkenny@ADS.COM (Patrick Kenny) writes: }> ... Six degree of freedom arms are now common. A year ago they }> were like hen's teeth and outrageously expensive if you could find one. } }Sorry, but the PUMA 600 (as it was called then) was available 10 }years ago. How many others were available? At what cost? I now have my choice of 6 DF arms and can get a very good one for less than $30K in today's dollars, including a highly sophisticated controller. -- The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com) Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp(+)TTI Illegitimis non 3100 Ocean Park Blvd. (213) 450-9111, x2483 Carborundum Santa Monica, CA 90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe