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What Is A Robot?
By David Jemitus (at robotsincorporated.co.uk)
Commisioned by Robots Incorporated
There are many definitions of robot, but no clear agreement.
To me, a “true” Robot is a mechanical representation of a human (e.g. ASIMO a 3ft tall ‘person’) or animal (e.g. K9 the robot dog from Dr. Who) or part of a human or animal (doesn’t always need legs to be a Robot). There are also Robot insects.
Are the following, Robots ?
- Optimus Prime of Transformers – Yup
- Commander Data of “Star Trek The Next Generation” – No because he’s an android
- Robbie the Robot from “Forbidden Planet” – Of course, Robbie is the archetypal robot
- Johnny 5 from the film Short Circuit – Yup, he’s a Robot
- Animatronic Robots at Disneyworld – These are largely pre-programmed and don’t have any independent intelligence but it makes sense to call them robots if they look like robots.
The incomparable ASIMO from Honda
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Anything that is totally controlled by an outside agency e.g. radio controlled does not qualify as a Robot. Most robot toys are remote controlled or follow only simple actions – they don’t qualify as Robots in the true sense but makes sense to continue to call them robots.
So, what about R2D2 from Star Wars - most people would say he is a robot but isn’t even vaguely human or animal shaped. He is definitely a Robot so I’ll have to improve my definition of Robot to include R2
Hang On a Minute; Where Do Androids Fit Into This?
I would say an android is a sufficiently good simulation of a human as to make it difficult to tell the android apart from a human (at least from say 10 metres away)
e.g. the following androids from science fiction
Commander Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation |
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Rommie: |
Let’s Get Back to Robots
We’ll try a different way to define a Robot
A robot has these essential characteristics:
- Sensors. A Robot has to be able to sense its surroundings. This may be through light sensors, audio sensors, radar, sonar, touch and pressure sensors etc. These sensors allow the robot to be aware of its environment much the same as your senses allow you to be aware of your environment.
- Movement. A Robot needs to be able to move around its environment; whether walking on legs or rolling on wheels or otherwise. To count as a Robot either the whole robot moves or just parts of the robot move. Robots can usually interact with their environment e.g. vacuum the carpet, mow the lawn, paint the car on the production line etc.
- Power. A Robot needs an independent power supply. It may be solar powered, electrically powered, battery powered etc. but the way your Robot gets its energy will depend on what your Robot needs to do.
- Decision Making Capability (Intelligence). A Robot needs some kind of brain. This may be pre-programmed to control the robot in a specific manner e.g. a robot lawnmower or may have adaptive learning so the robot can interact more fully with its surroundings and learn new behaviours.
Defining characteristics
A Robot is typically artificially created, is built for a purpose and will have several or all of the following properties.
- It can sense its environment, and manipulate or interact with objects in it.
- It is programmable.
- It has some ability to make choices based on the environment, often using automatic control or a pre-programmed sequence.
- It moves with one or more axes of rotation or translation.
- It makes dexterous coordinated movements.
- It moves without direct human intervention.
- It appears to have intent or agency i.e. intelligence
The appearance of intelligence is important when people are considering whether to call a machine a robot, or just a machine.
Intelligence
For robotic engineers, the physical appearance of a machine is less important than the way its actions are controlled. The more the control system seems to have agency of its own, the more likely the machine is to be called a robot. An important feature of agency is the ability to make choices.
Conclusion
Today, there are millions of robots in use around the world, from robots making cars, to robot surgeons carrying out micro surgery on patients to robot entertainment and toys.
It is difficult to define a Robot but we generally know what is and what isn’t a robot. That will have to do for now.
For information on the history of robots, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot
See www.robotsincorporated.co.uk for your robot needs
