~270BC an ancient Greek engineer named Ctesibus made organs and water clocks with movable figures.
1818 - Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" which was about a frightening artificial lifeform created by Dr. Frankenstein.
1921 - The term "robot" was first used in a play called "R.U.R." or "Rossum's Universal Robots" by the Czech writer Karel Capek. The plot was simple: man makes robot then robot kills man!
1941 - Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov first used the word "robotics" to describe the technology of robots and predicted the rise of a powerful robot industry.
1942 - Asimov wrote "Runaround", a story about robots which contained the "Three Laws of Robotics":
A robot may not injure a human, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey the orders it by human beings except where such orders would conflic with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict withe the First or Second Law.
1948 - "Cybernetics", an influence on artificial intelligence research was published by Norbert Wiener
1956 - George Devol and Joseph Engelberger formed the world's first robot company.
1959 - Computer-assisted manufacturingg was demonstrated at the Servomechanisms Lab at MIT.
1961 - The first industrial robot was online in a General Motors automobile factory in New Jersey. It was called UNIMATE.
1963 - The first artificial robotic arm to be controlled by a computer was designed. The Rancho Arm was designed as a tool for the handicapped and it's six joints gave it the flexibility of a human arm.
1965 - DENDRAL was the first expert system or program designed to execute the accumulated knowledge of subject experts.
1968 - The octopus-like Tentacle Arm was developed by Marvin Minsky.
1969 - The Stanford Arm was the first electrically powered, computer-controlled robot arm.
1970 - Shakey was introduced as the first mobile robot controlled by artificial intellence. It was produced by SRI International.
1974 - A robotic arm (the Silver Arm) that performed small-parts assembly using feedback from touch and pressure sensors was designed.
1979 - The Standford Cart crossed a chair-filled room without human assistance. The cart had a tv camera mounted on a rail which took pictures from multiple angles and relayed them to a computer. The computer analyzed the distance between the cart and the obstacles.
DARPA’s Robotic Challenge took place in Florida 2013, pitting some of the world’s most advanced humanoid robots against each other in a series of complex tasks, and rather fortuitously for a famously acquisitive Silicon Valley company, the winning robot was fielded by a company called Schaft — a Japanese company that was recently acquired by Google as part of its rather sudden segue into robotics. Google now officially, and probably not unintentionally, has its hands on the best humanoid robot in all the land.
The Schaft robot, made by Shaft Inc of Japan — which is now one of Google’s primary robotics research labs — is one of around 10 robots that were entered into DARPA’s Robotic Challenge (DRC). Over the weekend, the robots competed in eight different tasks to gauge the current state of semi-autonomous bipedal robots, and, of course, to find out who’s the best. (The winner has a strong chance of winning prize money and securing lucrative future contracts from DARPA and the Department of Defense.) The Schaft team won in four out of eight tasks — terrain, ladder, debris, and hose — and accrued a total score of 27 points. Second-place IHMC Robotics, which used Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot, came in second with two task wins and 20 points.
Rounding out the rest of the DRC results, Tartan Rescue (Carnegie Mellon + NREC) came in third with its CHIMP robot, picking up 18 points, and MIT came in fourth with an Atlas. NASA’s Valkyrie sadly scored zero points. A full break down of the contest and the results can be found on the DRC Trials website. Some cool videos from the event can be found on DARPA’s YouTube channel.
Schaft is a squat (1.48 meters, 4’11″), gangly-limbed robot that is primarily notable for its use of a capacitor to drive “high-voltage liquid cooled motors,” rather than a battery and normal servos. Capacitors have a lot of power (they can discharge very quickly), but cannot store much energy (they run dry after a few seconds). By using a capacitor, Schaft has much stronger and faster muscles. (Historically, despite how they’re depicted in movies likeTerminator, standalone robots are rarely fast or strong. Batteries, due to their low specific power, struggle to produce a lot of speed and torque.)
Despite being the runaway winner, if you watch the video above, it’s clear that robots are still very slow, sometimes taking more than a minute to plan their next move. This is partly due to the slowness of the on-board motors, but also because the robots are still primarily being operated by human controllers. The next step for Schaft, and for any other humanoid robot that wants a piece of the lucrative humanoid robot market, is to increase autonomy. The idea is that you should be able to tell one of these robots to do something — clear that debris, drive that ambulance to the hospital, go and fight on the front line — and then just leave it to carry out those actions. Such autonomy requires a lot more than just fancy motors and dexterous robotic limbs, though — we’re talking about highly advanced computer vision, problem solving, and other advanced applications of computer science that we can’t yet squeeze onto a robot.
Google, of course, is probably rubbing its hands together and cursing the fact that it publicly stated it wouldn’t take on any further military contracts. The grand final for the DRC is next year, and the winner — other than netting a $2 million cash prize — would almost certainly score a large contract from the US government, which initially wants to procure robots for disaster response, and eventually war. We still have no idea what Google plans to do with its newly acquired robotics department, and realistically it’ll probably be a long while before Google tells us — if it even knows the answer itself.
The mad inventor from the James Bond movies, Q, is real. Only
there are lots of him, and they have a lot more money at their disposal.
In the real world, they're called DARPA -- the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency.
Never heard of them? You should have -- they're responsible for some of the best technology (the Internet) and the worst (Agent Orange)
produced in the last 50 years. Their job is to dream up the craziest
shit possible and make it real. And, since they're exempt from several government hiring and spending laws, they're not shy about thinking outside the box. Way, way outside.
Some of what they're working on right now includes ...
#5. Creepy Robot Hummingbirds and Space Planes
If you want a plane to get to where the bad guys are without being
noticed, you have several options: You can make it fly really, really
high and really, really fast (as is typical with spy planes), or you can
get creative. DARPA has utterly insane plans to do both.
First we have FALCON, or Force Application and Launch from Continental
United States (we hope they pay their acronym guys really well). The
FALCON program is mainly focused on the X-41 CAV -- an alien-looking,
cone-shaped "near-space" plane that can go 13,000 miles per hour (which is 20 times the speed of sound).
Via Disinfo.com This is either a 3-D model of it or an official DARPA bicycle seat.
If you don't understand what 20 times the speed of sound gets you,
how about this: It can go anywhere in the world, and photograph or kill
anyone, in an hour or so.
But DARPA is also capable of thinking small -- the kind of small that
is somehow creepier than a magical instant-death murdership.
Via DARPA "An estimated 80 percent of conversations go unrecorded. DARPA can fix that."
That's why they're also looking into something they call micro air vehicles, like the Shrike, which basically looks exactly like a kid's RC copter and is built primarily for spying and reconnaissance. So, really, it is an RC copter, with an iPhone taped to it.
And if that sounds unimpressive, don't worry -- they're also developing the much smaller and much creepier NAV -- the Nano Air Vehicle. One day you might find one hanging around your neighbor's bird feeder.
Yes, we're talking about a tiny robot hummingbird that can spy on
terrorists (and maybe you). The whole thing is less than 6 inches tall
and lighter than an ounce, and as demonstrated by the image on the
project's page, it will fool absolutely everyone ever.
Via DARPA "I AM A NORMAL EARTH HUMMINGBIRD. PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH."
This is part of DARPA's ongoing effort to create ...
#4. A System to See Everything, All the Time
Sure, we have spy satellites. But they're still limited -- you have
to wait for them to pass over the area you want to photograph, for
instance, and your targets might be doing their business indoors. No, if
you want to see your enemy in real time, you need to get sci-fi on that
shit.
So let's start off with their giant supervillain space blimp.
ISIS (Integrated Sensor Is Structure) is essentially an inflatable surveillance outpost.
It hangs out in the upper atmosphere and has the ability to take
high-res battlefield photos, even at night. And they will be able to get
one up anywhere, any time -- it can be deployed within a matter of
hours. Also, it's totally self-sustained, thanks to a solar energy and
hydrogen fuel cell combo, and it doesn't require any kind of input from
the ground. It can pretty much cruise around forever.
And while that's fairly practical, another project called Combat
Zones That See (CTS) is just as creepy as it sounds. Remember in The Dark Knight when Batman
used Gotham's cellphones to try to track the Joker, and Morgan Freeman
got really pissed off at him? Imagine something like that, only using every camera in an entire city instead of just cellphones. That's CTS.
Basically, it uses municipal and other outdoor video and a
computerized logic routine to track objects from camera to camera. CTS
is intended to be able to primarily track vehicles in war zones, but
that hasn't stopped privacy hounds on the Internet from pointing out
that it could easily be used to track American citizens right here. Kind of makes you want to never leave the house.
Oh, wait, they've got something for that, too. First is HIBR, or Harnessing Infrastructure for Building Reconnaissance. Basically, DARPA wants to be able to map the insides of buildings, using RF signals like a kind of sonar (wait, wasn't that also in The Dark Knight? What the fuck?). And yes, there's even speculation that the technology could be used for real-time tracking of people inside the building, with an early prototype that can see through up to a foot of concrete.
If that makes you want to retreat to your underground bunker in Montana, well, don't bother. DARPA is also working on GATE, or Gravity Anomaly for Tunnel Exposure, which can detect tunnels and underground bunkers. It's a sensor attached to low-flying aircraft that detects subtle changes in gravity and makes maps of the world underneath our own.
"Shit, I forgot to bring health potions."
#3. Lava Missiles
Once more, in case all of this sounds like paranoid pie-in-the-sky
bullshit from some agency trying to justify their funding, let us ask
you this: Did you ever play the Modern Warfare games? And did
you use the Javelin, that bazooka thing that lets you point at an enemy,
then launch a smart missile that will chase his ass down no matter
where he goes?
Congratulations, you have used DARPA technology
-- the Javelin was created in a partnership between DARPA and Texas
Instruments. Here's a video of a real one blowing a Russian tank right
the fuck up:
But that's what we have now. For the future, DARPA has once more
decided to turn that shit up a notch. And because they use the exact
same naming conventions as a comic book supervillain organization, they
call the prototype weapon MAHEM -- Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition. It is a freaking molten metal-filled missile fired out of an electromagnetic launcher.
DARPA Science is doing its best to turn every weapon you doodled in notebooks as a kid into a reality.
Basically, they launch the missile into the air and deploy the
liquid-hot metal when it's at high velocity, then have the metal cool
into a giant spear sharpened by aerodynamic forces. It's called a
"self-forging penetrator" (which is a boner joke just waiting to
happen). Essentially, it's like catapulting a T-1000 at someone.
Is Google building an army of robots? Well,
Google has just completed acquisition of its eighth robotics company in
the last six months.
Google has
confirmed completing acquisition of Boston Dynamics, a company that is
known for developing super-fast robots for the US Army. The latest
acquisition is considered to be Google's major push into the field of
robotics. Prior to Boston Dynamics, Google has taken over seven robotics
firms in the last six months.
According to reports, Google's Any Rubin
is leading the company's secretive robotics division. So far, the
price and size of the project haven't been revealed. Google's other
robotics companies include Autofuss and Bot & Dolly, Schaft,
Industrial Perception, Meka, Redwood Robotics, and Holomni.
In a statement posted on the Google
Plus, Chief Executive Larry Page recently said: “I am excited about Andy
Rubin's next project. His last big bet, Android, started off as a
crazy idea that ended up putting a supercomputer in hundreds of millions
of pockets. It is still very early days for this, but I can't wait to
see the progress."
Boston Dynamics was founded in 1992 by
Marc Raibert, an former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. The company hasn't launched robots commercially, but works
with US Army, Navy, Marine Corps and the Defense Department's Advanced
Research Projects Agency.
Boston Dynamics has developed quite a
few robots such as LS3, Atlas, Petman, Cheetah and BigDog. Videos of its
walking robots have created a lot of excitement on the web. The BigDog
robot is known for its impressive agility. It can climb hills, travels
through snow, skitters precariously on ice. WildCat, a four-legged
robot, shows off running a car park at high speed.
Google's new acquisition comes at a time
when other Internet companies such as Amazon have also been exploring
the field of robotics. Amazon recently created a lot of buzz with its
plans to deliver packages via drones within a mere 30 minutes.
The DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC) is a prize competition funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Held from 2012 to 2014, it aims to develop semi-autonomous ground
robots that can do "complex tasks in dangerous, degraded,
human-engineered environments."
The DRC was conceived of and is being managed by Dr. Gill Pratt, in
DARPA's Tactical Technology Office (TTO). The DRC follows the DARPA Grand Challenge and DARPA Urban Challenge.
It began in October 2012; it is to run for about 27 months with three
competitions, a Virtual Robotics Challenge (VRC) that took place in June
2013 and two live hardware challenges, the DRC Trials in December 2013,
and the DRC Finals in December 2014.
Besides spurring development of semi-autonomous robots, the DRC also
seeks to make robotic software and systems development more accessible
beyond the end of the program. To that end, the DRC has funded the
development of the Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) GAZEBO
simulator and the construction of six Boston Dynamics ATLAS robots that
are being given to the teams that performed best in the VRC
Challenge details of 2013:-
The Robotics Challenge will focus on disaster or emergency-response
scenarios. Although the requirements may change as the contest
progresses, the initial task requirements for robot entries is:
1. Drive a utility vehicle at the site.
2. Travel dismounted across rubble.
3. Remove debris blocking an entryway.
4. Open a door and enter a building.
5. Climb an industrial ladder and traverse an industrial walkway.
6. Use a tool to break through a concrete panel.
7. Locate and close a valve near a leaking pipe.
8. Connect a fire hose to a standpipe and turn on a valve.
The competition has been broken into multiple tracks. Tracks A and B
receive DARPA funding, while Tracks C and D will receive no DARPA
funding initially. Tracks B and C will go through the Virtual Robotics
Challenge (VRC), after which successful teams may receive funding for
subsequent stages. Applications for tracks A and B closed in May 2012.
The track C application window closed on 18 December 2012, though late
applications were still being considered as of January 2013, though participants may still download the DRC Simulator, an open source application created by the Open Source Robotics Foundation. Track D is open for registration through October 2013.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, or DARPA, has a reputation for working on some of the most
cutting-edge, futuristic projects — many that could easily be mistaken
for science fiction. The agency, which falls under the watch of the U.S.
Department of Defense, is responsible for developing new technologies
for the military.
From humanoid robots to flying armored cars, here are 10 of the coolest DARPA projects.
#10
WildCat and BigDog
As
their names suggest, WildCat and BigDog are four-legged, headless
robots designed to walk, run and carry heavy loads through potentially
dangerous terrain, much like deployed troops. DARPA awarded contracts to
Boston Dynamics to develop WildCat and BigDog for use by the military.
BigDog,
created in 2005, is 3 feet (0.91 meters) long, and stands 2.5 feet
(0.76 m) tall. The robot, which is roughly the size of a small mule, is
capable of hauling 400 pounds (181 kg) of cargo, and can navigate
difficult terrain and inclines up to 35 degrees.
WildCat,
however, is quicker and more agile. The robot can gallop up to 16 mph
(25 km/h) on flat surfaces, and is part of a DARPA mission to develop
robots that can assist human soldiers on a variety of ground missions.
Credit: DARPATo
reduce the amount of "collateral damage" in war, particularly during
battles fought in urban settings, DARPA is developing laser weapons that
are small and efficient enough to be used in combat. These experimental
laser weapons will be 10 times lighter than existing high-power laser
systems currently in use, DARPA officials have said.
The lasers,
developed for airplanes, may also be used for laser communications,
target designation and airborne self-protection, agency officials added.
#7
Falcon Project
Credit: DARPADARPA's
Falcon Project was announced in 2003 as a joint program with the U.S.
Air Force. The project aimed to develop a reusable, unmanned,
rapid-strike hypersonic vehicle.
A prototype Hypersonic
Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2) first flew in April 2010 and again in
August 2011. The ultra-fast, arrow-shaped drone flew at blistering
hypersonic speeds of Mach 20 (about 20 times the speed of sound), more
than 22 times faster than commercial jetliners. During the flight,
surface temperatures on the vehicle reached 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit
(1,930 degrees Celsius), which is hotter than a blast furnace capable of
melting steel.
During both test flights, operators lost contact
with the HTV-2 prototypes. In July 2013, DARPA confirmed it would not
conduct a third flight of the HTV-2, but research on the project will
continue until summer 2014 to gain better understanding of hypersonic
flight
#6
Transformer
Credit: DARPA
Imagine
a militarized version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This is the thrust of
DARPA's Transformer project, which aims to develop a flying armored
car. The four-person vehicle will be able to drive normally but also
take to the skies to avoid road obstructions or other threats on the
ground.
The vehicle is being designed to take off and land from
the vertical position, and will be able to fly up to 250 nautical miles
on a single tank of fuel. Eventually, these flying tanks may be used for
strikes, raids, counterinsurgency operations, reconnaissance, medical
evacuation and supply missions.
#5
Atlas
Credit: DARPADARPA's
Atlas project was revealed to the public on July 11, 2013. The bipedal
humanoid robot stands 6-feet tall (1.8 m), and is designed to assist
with a range of emergency services, including search and rescue
operations. The U.S. Department of Defense is not interested in using
the Atlas robot in combat situations, officials have said.
Atlas was developed by Boston Dynamics and was based on some of the company's earlier robot creations
#4
Navigation chip
Credit: DARPAAdvances
in GPS technology revolutionized tracking and navigation, but what
about areas where GPS is unavailable, or the signals are interrupted? To
help soldiers find their way around areas of GPS blackout, DARPA
researchers are developing a tiny navigation chip that is smaller than a
penny.
The so-called timing & inertial measurement unit
(TIMU) chip incorporates three gyroscopes, three accelerometers and a
highly accurate master clock into a single miniaturized system that can
provide precise information for navigation, including orientation,
acceleration and time.
DARPA officials have said the navigation
chips will not replace GPS, but rather are designed to work when GPS is
unavailable or doesn't work.
#3
X-37
Credit: BoeingThe
Boeing-built X-37 reusable space plane started as a NASA project in
1999, but was eventually transferred to DARPA in 2004 before the Air
Force took control of the project two years later.
The unmanned X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle, which resembles a miniaturized
version of the space shuttle, rides into orbit atop a rocket and returns
to Earth and lands as a space plane. The X-37 launched on its first
orbital mission in April 2010.
Previously, DARPA reported it was
developing the X-37 to rendezvous and refuel older satellites or perform
minor repairs in space using a robotic arm. Speculation mounted,
however, that the X-37 was being used by DARPA and the Air Force as a
vehicle for space-based weapons. In 2010, a high-ranking Air Force
official involved with the project dismissed the rumors, and stressed
that the X-37's main purpose is to test space technology.
#2
Brain-Machine interfaces
Credit: PNAS, 2013Imagine
if your brain could communicate with an external device, such as a
thought-controlled mechanical arm or a device to restore sight. DARPA
researchers are investigating potential communication pathways between
the human brain and machines to build, assist, augment or repair human
cognitive or sensory-motor functions.
Research on these so-called
brain-machine interfaces began in the 1970s, and work by DARPA
researchers is focused on neuroprosthetics that aim to restore damaged
sight, hearing and movement.
One of DARPA's brain-machine interface projects is Proto2, a
thought-controlled prosthetic arm. Proto2 consists of a dexterous hand
and fingers that can perform 25 joint motions.
#1
Microscale pumps
Credit: DARPADARPA-funded
researchers created the world's smallest vacuum pump system that can be
used for any electronics or sensors that require a vacuum. In 2008,
DARPA's Chip-Scale Vacuum Micro Pumps (CSVMP) program set out to develop
the smallest, most power-efficient pumps ever created.
The
vacuum pumps could be used to build tiny chemical sensors, such as
ultra-sensitive gas analyzers to detect chemical or biological attacks,
or to design new sensors or instruments for micro-drones. The penny-size
vacuum pumps were created by researchers at the University of Michigan,
MIT and Honeywell International.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technologies for use by the military. DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies which have had a major effect on the world, including computer networking, as well as NLS, which was both the first hypertext system, and an important precursor to the contemporary ubiquitous graphical user interface.
DARPA began as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) created in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower for the purpose of forming and executing research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science and able to reach far beyond immediate military requirements. The administration was responding to the Soviet launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957, and ARPA's mission was to ensure U.S. military technology be more sophisticated than that of the nation's potential enemies.
BigDog is feeling lucky. The New York Times is reporting that Boston Dynamics, the company famous for robots like BigDog, LS3, Petman, Atlas, and WildCat, has been entirely swallowed up by Google.
Early this month, news broke that Google had acquired seven robotics startups and
that Andy Rubin, the Google engineer who spearheaded the development of
Android, is leading this new robots effort at the company. Google was
said to be interested in using robots not for consumer applications but
rather in logistics, manufacturing, and related activities. Details,
however, were scarce, and Google's robotics plan remains a mystery.
The acquisition of Boston Dynamics
only makes things more nebulous. The previous robot companies bought by
Google were all startups; most were trying to create new robotics
technologies that could eventually find commercial applications. Boston
Dynamics, on the other hand, was founded nearly 20 years ago and has
focused on agile legged robots, relying mostly on military contracts.
One concern with acquisitions like these is that some of the companies
that Google has bought do really, really cool stuff. That's why Google
bought them, of course, but what's going to happen to the
aforementioned cool stuff? Is Bot & Dolly going to continue to make
awesome movies? Is Boston Dynamics going to continue to spend military
money on wildly awesome robots? Or, is everything just going to
disappear into some sort of R&D blender inside the Googleplex,
losing all of that individual creativity in the name of a "moonshot"
idea dreamed up by a few Google executives?
We're certainly in favor of Google's optimism about the future of
robotics, and we hope the company will be able to integrate its recent
acquisitions, with its different cultures and approaches, into a
coherent strategy that can bring robots closer to everyday life.
As for BigDog, the robot that became Boston Dynamics' first YouTube sensation (this blog was the first to post a video of the robot five years ago),
we're sure Google will find good uses for it. Which is to say we
totally expect to soon see Google engineers riding on the backs of
BigDogs everyone on the Google campus.
New York Times
has revealed more about Google's plans: according to the article, the
company is funding a major new robotics group, and that includes
acquiring a bunch of robotics startups, quite a few of which we're
familiar with.
A few months ago, we heard rumors that Google was planning something big
in robotics. We also heard that Andy Rubin, the engineer who
spearheaded the development of Android at Google, was leading this new
robotics effort at the company. Rubin, we were told, is personally
interested in robots, and now he wants Google to have a major role in
making robotics happen. Not just robotic cars, but actual robots. Today, an article in the
robotics group, and that includes acquiring a bunch of robotics startups, quite a few of which we're familiar with.
You'll definitely want to read the entire New York Times story,
where Rubin talks a little bit too vaguely about what Google is
actually planning on doing with these as-yet hypothetical robots that
they're apparently working on over there, but here's the bit about the
acquisitions: Mr. Rubin has secretly acquired an array of robotics and
artificial intelligence start-up companies in the United States and
Japan. Among the companies are Schaft, a small team of Japanese
roboticists who recently left Tokyo University to develop a humanoid
robot, and Industrial Perception, a start-up here that has developed
computer vision systems and robot arms for loading and unloading trucks.
Also acquired were Meka and Redwood Robotics, makers of humanoid robots
and robot arms in San Francisco, and Bot & Dolly, a maker of
robotic camera systems that were recently used to create special effects
in the movie “Gravity.” A related firm, Autofuss, which focuses on
advertising and design, and Holomni, a small design firm that makes
high-tech wheels, were acquired as well. The seven companies are capable of creating technologies needed to
build a mobile, dexterous robot. Mr. Rubin said he was pursuing
additional acquisitions
