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If you think robots are mainly
the stuff of space movies, think again. Right now, all over the world,
robots are on the move. They’re painting cars at Ford plants, assembling
Milano cookies for Pepperidge Farms, walking into live volcanoes, driving
trains in Paris, and defusing bombs in Northern Ireland. As they grow
tougher, nimbler, and smarter, today’s robots are doing more and
more things we can’t –or don’t want to–do.
Robots have been with us for
less than 50 years, but the idea of inanimate creations to do our bidding
is much, much older. The ancient Greek poet Homer described maidens of
gold, metallic helpers for the Hephaistos, the Greek god of the forge.
The golems of medieval Jewish legend were robot-like servants made of
clay, brought to life by a spoken charm. Leonardo da Vinci drew plans
for a mechanical man in 1495.
But real robots wouldn’t
become possible until the 1950’s and 60’s, with the invention
of transistors and integrated circuits. Compact, reliable electronics
and a growing computer industry added brains to the brawn of already
existing machines. In 1959, researchers demonstrated the possibility
of robotic manufacturing when they unveiled a computer-controlled milling
machine. Its first product: ashtrays.
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What is a
robot?
There’s
no precise definition, but by general agreement a robot is a programmable
machine that imitates the actions or appearance of an intelligent
creature–usually a human. To qualify as a robot, a machine
has to be able to do two things: 1) get information from its surroundings,
and 2) do something physical–such as move or manipulate objects.
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| The
RUR robot which appeared in an adaption of Karl Capek's Rossum's
Universal Robots. [Click for
a larger image.] |
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The
word robot comes from the Czech word robota, meaning drudgery
or slave-like labor. It was first used to describe fabricated workers
in a fictional 1920s play by Czech author Karel Capek called Rossum’s
Universal Robots. In
the story, a scientist invents robots to help people by performing
simple, repetitive tasks. However, once the robots are used to fight
wars, they turn on their human owners and take over the world.
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Public fascination with robotics
peaked in the early 1980’s, spurred in part by movies like Star
Wars, which featured robots C3-PO and R2-D2 as helpful sidekicks
to the their human masters. But interest sagged in a few short years
as people discovered that getting robots to do things that we think of
as easy–like
moving across a cluttered room–is surprisingly difficult.
Today, robots are enjoying
a resurgence. As computer processors are getting faster and cheaper,
robots can afford to get smarter. Meanwhile, researchers are working
on ways to help robots move and "think" more efficiently. Although most
robots in use today are designed for specific tasks, the goal is to someday
make universal robots, robots that are flexible enough to do just about
anything a human does–and more.
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