Automaton

Over at our neighbor blog Risk Factor, Bob Charette has an interesting post on robots and ethics and the views of Ronald Arkin [photo, right], of Georgia Tech, and Noel Sharkey, of the University of Sheffield:

Government Computer News had a nice little story on the ethics of robot warriors a short time ago. It talked about the work of Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mobile Robot Laboratory professor Ronald Arkin and his attempts to define algorithms to define ethical behavior in machines that can follow norms like the Geneva Convention.

[...]

In an AFP news story, Dr. Arkin is quoted last month as saying, "Robotics systems may have the potential to out-perform humans from a perspective of the laws of war and the rules of engagement," since with robots "there are no emotions that can cloud judgment, such as anger."

Arkin's work has direct relevance to another robot story in this week's London Telegraph and the aforementioned AFP story about University of Sheffield's Department of Computer Science professor Noel Sharkey's belief that the major powers are "sleepwalking" into an international robot arms race, and predicted "that it is only a matter of time before robots become a standard terrorist weapon, replacing suicide bombers."

As my blog colleague Mikell noted before, How can we make sure ethics and technology develop at the same pace?

Photo of Ronald Arkin by Gary Meek

As we said last week, we were so glad our correspondent Sally Adee wasn't destroyed by Crusher, because she made it back to IEEE Spectrum's office and put together a full video report on the field trials she attended at Fort Bliss, Texas. The Crusher creators didn't fire its gun, but they demonstrated its might by obliterating some cars -- monster truck style.

Give them a handful of servo motors and teach them the basics of inverse kinematics and these kids can have fun for three weeks! The video is from a robotics workshop organized by a group of MIT students -- whose ultimate goal is one day take their creations to the popular Robo-One competition in Japan.

I enjoyed this Forbes article that asks if robotics is going to be the next tech bubble:

Robots will be a very big thing, and soon. What holds them back is what stunts most technology: a walled-garden approach to their systems. Robots currently do what the designers want them to do and that's it. Gadgets and gimmicks and concept robots from huge corporations all presage the moment that open-architecture robots will catapult robotics out of its niche. [...]

There is actually no technical barrier to start this wave. All that is required is the right marketing idea at the right moment. There have already been a series of near misses, from the Tandy Armatron years ago to Lego Mindstorms--a Lego set that combined electric motors and sensors with programmable Lego bricks.

They compare robotics to the computing industry: computers of course started out as large, highly specialized tools that weren't accessible to the average consumer, then the PC arrived and sparked an entire industry as users got their hands on them and developed the useful applications that make computers essential to today's lifestyle. So will this happen to robots?

Compare this to the computing industry analogy that was brought up last year at an MIT Museum event: the idea that just as we don't think of our ovens and cars as computers, they are; and just as we may not think of the kitchens and cars of the future as robots, they will be.

So is "open architecture" the answer, as the article suggests? Should I go ahead and establish the OLPC (One LEGOMindstorm Per Child) program to see what the budding robot geeks can do? Maybe more specialized component platforms -- Microsoft's Robotics Studio, for example -- will be the key, just as so many Web 2.0 services depend on AJAX. Who are the killer apps going to come from?

Given what I last wrote about, this article from Network World is well timed: a startup called Willow Garage out in California is working on an open-source personal robot. From the article:

One of its immediate goals is to build 10 robots and make them available to university researchers as a common platform that can be tinkered with and improved. Willow Garage will also supply "an open-source code base integrated from the best open-source robotics software available"

Cousins reminisced about the time when a teenager might spend all day tinkering with his car. Stricter automobile-safety rules have made that practice a bit risky, but anyone with enough expertise will be encouraged to build on the Willow Garage robotic platform and find new uses for it, just as software developers constantly find new uses for the personal computer.

"We don’t know what the killer applications will be," Cousins said.

This sounds exactly like what the Forbes article was talking about: a personal robot that will enable hackers to find the new uses and abilities that will define the next decades of robotics. This is a more directed approach than other "hacker" robots like the iRobot Create or the LEGO Mindstorm, which are more about education and learning than they are new applications.

Willow Garage looks like an interesting company even beyond this program -- in addition to this personal robot, they're working on autonomous cars and surface craft. That's a pretty broad range of research, but there are enough similarities between the technologies that if they've got the right team of experts, I think some really cool stuff will come out of this.

Image from willowgarage.com/

Remember those strange dragonflies seen in New York City that some witnesses said looked suspiciously ... robotic? Well, we still don't know what those were.

But if you're into flying microrobots, you can't miss this month's Spectrum cover article, Fly, Robot Fly, written by one of the leading experts in the field, Robert Wood at the Harvard Microrobotics Lab:

There is no more rewarding moment for roboticists than when they first see their creations begin to twitch with a glimmer of life. For me, that moment of paternal pride came a year ago this month, when my artificial fly first flexed its wings and flew.

It began when I took a stick-thin winged robot, not much larger than a fingertip, and anchored it between two taut wires, rather like a miniature space shuttle tethered to a launchpad. Next I switched on the external power supply. Within milliseconds the carbon-fiber wings, 15 millimeters long, began to whip forward and back 120 times per second, flapping and twisting just like an actual insect's wings. The fly shot straight upward on the track laid out by the wires. As far as I know, this was the first flight of an insect-size robot.

Read Wood's full account of his work and see additional photos of this great little flying robot at Spectrum's web site.

Photos: Dan Saelinger and Randi Silberman for IEEE Spectrum

Boston Dynamics has just released a brand new video of their DARPA-funded Big Dog robot. Big Dog, the older brother of the Little Dog robot we covered a while back, is meant to be a "pack mule" for soldiers some day. Behind Big Dog is some pretty cool force-controlled technology. With its quadruped gait it can regain balance if it's kicked, handle rough terrain like rocks, and climb inclines up to 35 deg.

In this new video, in addition to some footage from previous videos, you can see it handling slippery ice, slopes in deep snow, and demoing its new walking gait. About halfway through is the ice part -- this thing is better than I am at regaining balance. There's also a demo of it carrying a 340 lb load, much heavier than it has managed in the past. And I LOVE the hopping/jumping at the end.

One warning, you might want to turn off your sound, since as awesome as this guy is, the gas engine is very loud and very annoying.

Thanks, Gui!

IEEE Spectrum correspondent Saswato Das visited Sir Arthur C. Clarke in January. Clarke was in the hospital with severe back pain, but even in those conditions the visionary author kindly agreed to meet Das [in the photo below with Clarke].

Here, our correspondent's reports on that unique encounter:

The Audio Interview "Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Final Interview":
http://spectrum.ieee.org/radio?date=18.03.08&segStart=1

The Complete Audio Transcript "Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Final Interview":
http://spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/6076

Last Thoughts from Sir Arthur C. Clarke:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/6075

Sir Arthur C. Clarke's Treasure-Diving Days:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar08/6077

The world's robot population has reached 4.49 million, and that number should nearly double by 2010 to 8.37 million. That's one automaton for every person in Austria, whatever that means! But we've written about that already: we put together these numbers based on data from the latest edition of World Robotics, a survey by the International Federation of Robotics released late last year.

Now we're looking again at this number-filled report and highlighting some of its best stuff. We want to know: What kinds of robots are out there? Where are they toiling around? And how fast are the silicon-brained things multiplying?

First, a recap: The World Robotics study divides robots in two main categories: industrial robots and service robots. The first category includes welding systems, assembly manipulators, silicon-wafer handlers—you know, that kind of heavy, expensive, several-degrees-of-freedom stuff. The second category is divided in two subcategories: professional service robots (things like bomb-disposal bots, surgical systems, milking robots) and personal service robots (vacuum cleaners, lawn mowers, all sorts of robot hobby kits and toys).

Below you'll find 10 statistics about the world's robotics market we thought you'd want to know. (All data from the World Robotics study except the world robot population figures -- see note [1] at the end.) The stats after the jump.

The Global Robotics Institute at the Florida Hospital has just hosted the Third Annual World Robotic Urology Symposium, which brought together 600 healthcare professionals, including world leaders in robotic surgery, from around the globe. The field of robotic surgery is slowly building followers among surgeons, who swear by its accuracy and precision. In addition, robotic surgery promises reduced costs, mostly due to shorter anesthesia, less blood loss, smaller wounds and, ultimately, shorter hospital stays. And then there's always the possibility of remote robot surgery, promising to save lives in remote communities, war zones, and disaster-stricken areas - or simply allowing you to be operated by the top surgeon of your choice, without the need to fly around the globe.

This year's conference program included 10 live surgeries beamed in from around the country. The not-so-faint-hearted can follow future live internet broadcasts online - the next live robot surgery webcast is scheduled for tomorrow, March 26th, 12.00pm PST.

In spite of its youth, robotic surgery has already made itself a bad name with some patients: Germany's RoboDoc debacle has resulted in over 100 lawsuits of patients suffering muscular and nerve tissue damage after undergoing robot-assisted hip-replacement surgery. Nevertheless, Germany has just re-invested 13 Mio Euro in the orthoMIT program to develop robotic surgical strategies.

For further reading, make sure to check out a previous post on underwater robot surgery as well as the 2006 IEEE Spectrum article Doc at a distance.

Image: The Da Vinci Surgical Robot

After our Big Dog scoop last week, we now learn that footage of a deeply flawed predecessor model, Big Dog Beta, has recently surfaced. Disturbing. :)

The video is by the same troupe (they call themselves Pantless Knights) that made the YouTube hit "Mac or PC Rap Music Video."