Talk:Robot/Archive 2

Pictures

Industrial robots are so prevailant that I think we need a picture of a auto manufacturing welder or somthing like it. Could someone put one up I don't know how. Thanks

Vandalism

I just restored two large sections of this article which were removed by vandalism (I assume). Looking through the history of this article, there seems to be a lot of vandalism. Is this a pretty typical level for Wikipedia articles or is someone targeting this article in particular for some reason?

--Srainwater 15:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

This is getting plain silly. I'm no countervandalism expert but I've nominated this page for semi-protection. -Zepheriah 01:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Only two days after protection was removed, the page was vandalised again! Robots attract nutters online too! Rocketmagnet 18:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

There is again some vandalism in the form of the usage of foul language (masturbater) in the introduction part. I dont know how to remove this. Could someone please help?

I can't see it... Rocketmagnet 10:36, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Possible conflict of interest

I edit the site robots.net, a general purpose robot news site. I was doing some editing in the external links section here and noticed robots.net was listed there incorrectly. I moved it from hobby to general under external links but was curious if I should have avoided editing it since I am associated with the site. Are there any rules of etiquette about this sort of thing?

--Srainwater 15:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Needs some work

I think this page needs some work...I think the science and the fiction should be separated out, and there is plenty of information to populate both pages with cross-references if needed. This is the cutting edge of technology now...making computers more useful then just internet browsing and microsoft office and adding more extensions into the real world. I think it would be great to shed light on all those developments here. --Steve S 26 Jul 2005

I think that Sci-Fi is very important in he field of robotics and need not be seperated form the rest of it, with out the Sci-Fi the inovations would not have been made and there would be no robots no mobile phones, no computers. as long as it is clear what is Sci-fi and what is not (though the gap gets smaller every day) it should be left as it is.

--jon_hill987

I agree that science fiction is integral to any discussion of robotics. The very meaning of the words robot (Karel Čapek) and robotics (Issac Asimov) originated in science fiction. True robots (that is, autonomous, intelligent humanoid-like machines) still exist only in science fiction but are clearly the goal of many researchers. It's not necessary to include an excessive amount of science fiction references but I don't think the article can be comprehensive or even accurate without some.

--Srainwater 15:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Archytas of Tarentum

Browsing the Internet, I found a reference to a machine built around 350 BC by Archytas of Tarentum. It was created to study flight, and apparently it also flew 200 meters (once, then it could not be used any more). I think it might be worth to mention it in the "History" section. The sites are here and here. Note that on the second site they say that the machine was built in 425 BC, but Archytas should have been 3 years old at that time... --Haiax 15:27, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Robots made out of alternative materials

What kind of materials will robots be made from in the future? Robots made of metal can very expensive, and not all of them needs to be good protected. Maybe plastic robots, equipped with strong plastic muscles and built of conducting plastic, able to lead electricity, and with chips made of plastic in their computerbrain?

What about robots built of microscopic nano components? More like synthetic organisms than conventional robots, built of "cells" made of small nanomachines instead of organic cells.

Or organic robots, with ganglion based and programmable wetware in their head instead of the hardware of today. Organic robots grown from DNA in tanks, almost like in vitro meat, and coming to life fully grown and ready for their tasks.

Either way, sooner or later science fiction use to become reality, and robotics definitly have a future.

Deleted sections

Removed from article this summary of a Star Trek Voyager episode, which while entertaining, is a minor insight into robotics:

In another take on the issue, the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Prototype" depicted a group of robots known as Automated Personnel Units, which had developed their own society and seemed quite amicable. However, it was discovered that there were two types of units, originally created by design, as B'Elanna Torres learned. --LeFlyman 20:54, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Added bits about the da Vinci surgical robot

da Vinci surgical robot is a robot developed by a company called Intuitive, to my suprise its been in use for several years and I may be misrepresenting the facts, but its been used in about 30 surgeries according to the book cited below. I just thought it was strange that I could not find any mention of this on the robot page.

I could have, but didn't, add referenced to Daniel Ichbiah's book which I have no affiliation with, just am so impressed by the book. Some one could add a reference to that book, I highly recommend it.. I am affiliated with David Kilman who's primary interest is in the creation on robotic aided surgery. As a prerequisite to the integration of disparate medical technologies, he spearheaded development of a CORBA based framework that allows for the peer-to-peer distribution of healthcare records in a ID-less infastructure and relies on bioinformatics to correlate identifying traits to patient records (this is one way to push the RFID/barcoded concepts of identity without using RFID's) a technology called PIDS/COAS. An open source version of this technology can be found here: OpenEMed. I'm going to pass this book onto David once I get finished with it. - Kiernan

No categories or significant links?

I'm surprised nobody has put a category on this or has any links to significant robots that exist. Oberiko 21:40, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

I added Category:Robotics. --Harriv 18:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Unemployment

I think that the edit by Paranoid to the Future Prospects section changes the expected outcome in a policitally charged way. It seems to me that the original text assumed that robots would avoid any need for a Marx-like overthrowing of the ruling class, but Paranoid's version seems to imply that humans will have to overthrow the robots, or alternatively to overthrow the current ruling class in order to be granted a share of the fruits of the robots' labour. I may or may not agree with these, but it sure sounds NPOV to me.

Perhaps the whole reference to Marx should just be deleted. I'm in favour of leaving some statement to the effect that the upheaval caused by widespread use of robots could, without great care, result in widening the gap between rich and poor. This obviously needs to be stated with more delicacy than I've used here. --Mike Van Emmerik 21:38, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

rudy

Literary Reference

I believe Robot means "free work". Maybe that's russian, I can't remember. --Cyberman 06:15, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

• Because Russian and Czech share a Slavic linguistic heritage, the word is found in both. In Russian, "robota" just means "work"; a "robotnik" is a worker. --LeFlyman 19:12, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the whole discussion on the origins of the word "robot" in literature needs to be cleaned up. The first two paragraphs seem pretty repetitive, and none of it is written very clearly. Also, the second paragraphs says, "Since they are just machines, the robots are badly treated by humans." However, the third paragraph then says "robots were organic artificial humans." These two sentences seem contradictory as written.

'Kash 02:28, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Help on Robotics section -- "singularity"

I copyedited some problems i saw as i scanned thru, but it needs more attn. And i don't understand the reference to "singularity" -- is that a Mathematical_singularity in the calculations? Thx, hope this helps, "alyosha" 06:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

My first guess when I saw your question was that it must refer to the technological "singularity" proposed by Vernor Vinge, a disaster scenario that is to AI what the grey goo disaster is to nanotech. However, after actually reading the article, it appear the reference is to a navigational singularity, also known as the concave vs. convex maneuvering problem. Basically a singularity is a navigational trap that exists due to crappy navigation software in the robot. The word is erroneously linked to a Wikipedia disambiguation page which contains no references to this usage of the term.--Srainwater 04:29, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I believe he may be refering to a kinematic singularity. This is a problem that multi-jointed robots (typically polar coordinate robots) suffer from. Moving through a singularity at a finite speed requires one of the joints of the robot to rotate infinitely quickly. It is best to avoid moving the robot near the singularity. It is a fundamental fact of the kinematics of the robot, and is not a property of its navigation software. Rocketmagnet 00:15, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Time to split this article?

It is a complete mess and needs to be split into smaller articles such as:

• "History of robotics"
• "Applications of robots"
• "Robot competitions"
• "List of notable robots"
• "Robotics research areas"

and so on...

With a quick little few-line summary on the "Robot" page for each sub-section. A 16kb article is far too long and complicated, and is hard to understand and read.

--Phanton 16:04, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, but I suggest that "history of robotics" and "applications" remain in the main article. --Mike Van Emmerik 20:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

robot "playing" the trumpet

Thx for the reference. I made the compromise change to "s around the word -playing-, because whatever this thing does, it cant do what humans do with a trumpet, and to call it "playing the trumpet" would dramatically mislead newcomers to the topic (who don't know enough about the state of the field to put their own "s around -playing-). Not good for an encyclopedia.

Re the reference [1]:

1] This is a Toyota advertisement / public relations event, not a research report.

2] The description is unclear re to what extent this is in development vs done.

3] The robots without musical ability are featured in films with sound, but not the trumpet ones, because "*Music is unavailable in accordance with copyright protection." How convenient. Guess there were no tunes they could think of in the public domain?

4] The only indication that the thing can maybe "play" is, "Toyota developed artificial lips that move with the same finesse as human lips, which, together with robots` hands, enables the robots to play trumpets like humans do.", which cannot possibly be true re "same finesse as human lips" and "like humans do". So the whole statement is suspect for self-interested exaggeration.

Thus this is not a credible reference for straightforward attribution of trumpet playing ability. PS: for me this issue points up the general need for pro-high-tech wikipedians (incl me) to guard against the biases of our own enthusiasm, esp in sharing info with beginners. Thx again, and hope my compromise helps, "alyosha" (talk) 06:21, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Well said, and I agree. In fact, I was a little shocked that I basically accepted the publicity blurb verbatim without critical consideration. Thanks for your input. (Even so, I think it's still a very impressive robot, even if it's more show than utility.) --Mike Van Emmerik 11:12, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to bring up another interesting point. Some time ago, I wanted to find videos of this robot to really hear what it sounds like, because I was quite amazed that Toyota made a trumpet playing robot. I found the videos, but there was no sound. A blurb said that there could be no sound due to copyright issues. This just seems suspicious to me. Here is the link I found: http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/special/robot/ -- BAxelrod 17:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Robotics Portal

I came across a very austere Robotics Portal that I am trying to spruce up when I get the chance. Any help or ideas would be great, because I have no prior experience with portals. -Markymarkmagic 11:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

It does look like it needs work. I'll lend my hand, although I also have no portal experience. -- BAxelrod 16:56, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

David Hanson

You should mention the work of David Hanson (Hanson Robotics), http://www.hansonrobotics.com/... Maybe in the Social robot section or humanoid. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.35.128.69 (talk • contribs) 14:05, 20 January 2006.

Quality Entropy

This article used to be fairly tight, but has of late become cruftified as people want to add things, without improving the quality. It needs a major overhaul, as well as being brought up to standards of Verifiability by providing sources for the extensive claims put forth—LeFlyman 17:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

My removal of the link

82.19.220.59, I removed the link you added because I could find absolutely zero evidence for its notability. If you can prove me wrong, please do so. Alexa knows nothing about the website. Google shows not one single site linking to it or including its URL.

Thank you, and please don't take this as a personal affront. I'm not trying to get on your case, I just want Wikipedia to link only to notable websites. Cheers! --Ashenai 18:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Did you look at the website? It has alot of stuff on robots/aniamtronics. It may be a commercial site, but if you notice there is nothing for sale. This is because we work through recomendatin within the FX industry.

The reason google has not found the site name is simply because the web site has recently been updated and aquired a new domain name. It is still listed as www.microsys.ision.co.uk and www.micromagic-sys.com but these sites will be phased out soon. So it seemed better to add a link that would last? no?

I checked out the other two URLs, and while there are indeed links to them from other sites, they still seem to be pretty non-notable.

The issue is not whether the site is interesting (it is, sure), and the fact that it is commercial is not a problem at all. The only problem is that it is not notable. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and it is important that we document notability as opposed to creating it (via links to non-notable sites). --Ashenai 20:34, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I see.. this I understand, however upon checking out other links in the section, no offence but I fail to see what is notable about many of the links which remain.. for example: http://www.dimensionengineering.com/ ??

can you explain?

Simple: I haven't checked them yet. My time and energy is limited. If you find non-notable links and you feel like helping out, feel free to remove them. :) --Ashenai 21:10, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I would love to help by removing a few non-notable links, however, I'm not sure how exactly you class notable. As you removed my link from the "Audio-Animatronics" page, yet the link covered animatronics I have worked on over the last 12 years, from "Lost in Space", award winning pop video's through to the last two Harry Potter films. I have had material published in 5 books on SFX and robotics over the last two years. But this is not notable? But a site full of links is? (One of which is a link back to my site ;)) Incidently, in the 12 years of my careeer in animatronics nobody has EVER used the term Audio-Animatronic! it is very outdated.. It should simply be Animatronic / Animatronics (p.k.a. Audio-Aniamtronics.)

I didn't know about the alternate URLs for your site when I removed it from the Audio-Animatronics page. Since it's a much more specialized subject, the threshold for notability would be correspondingly lower, and I'd say your link could go back there. Feel free to put it back. (Edit: I've put it back myself, and I'll copy the relevant bits of this conversation over to its talk page.) "Robot" is a much wider topic, and I think it would be best to keep it free of "fringe" links like yours.

Please note, though, that I am not an expert on this subject; apparently, you are. If you've got information to add to either article, please do add it! Wikipedia is in sore need of actual experts.

It's also quite possible to move the Audio-Animatronics article to Animatronics. Do you think that would make more sense? --Ashenai 21:36, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The term Audio-Animatronics may still be used within the theme park industry.. but I would say Animatronic is much more widely used, certainly within the Film industry. However, the article is primarily on Disney's contribution to "Audio-Animatronics" which is a term they have used in the past (I'm not sure they use it now?). I guess ultimately there should be a separate article on Animatronics? and leave the Audio-Animatronics article as the Disney theme park article?

I did have some evidence once that the term Animatronic was used before Disney coined the term Audio-Animatronic. As far as I remmeber it was thought up by Jim Henson and friends.. But this is something I would need to research.

robotics section

I came upon this page while doing research for my master's thesis and have a few suggestions on improving the "robotics" section, which seems to be the technical part of this article. I'm quite new to wikipedia and am not sure how the editing process works, especially with a "task cleanup" force working on the article. So, to avoid messing up any ongoing cleanup process, I'll describe my suggestions here. If no one protests, then I'll edit that part of the article.

We should separate the definition of some basic fields of study from certain special features of robots and problems encountered when analyzing machines in these fields.

Basic terms: - Kinematics is the study of motion without regard to forces. It is concerned with position, velocity, and acceleration analysis.(Norton. Design of Machinery, among many others). This field can be divided into - Direct (or forward) kinematics: calculating end-effector pos., vel., and acc. from joint pos., vel., and acc. - Inverse kinematics: calculating joint values which correspond to given end-effector values.

- Dynamics is the study of forces on systems in motion. This field can be divided into - Direct dynamics: given actuator forces/torques, calculate resulting pos., vel. and acc. of robot - inverse dynamics: given external forces/torques and pos., vel., and acc. of all links, calulate forces/torques on actuators and bearings. (Tsai. Robot Analysis)

Special Features (as opposed to problems) in certain robots: - redundancy: more degrees of freedom than required are available in the robot, which means there can be many joint configurations with which the end-effector can attain a certain pose (position + orientation). This means more difficulty in control, but more flexibility in operation.

Problems in robot control - singularity avoidance - collision avoidance - path planning - vibration control etc.

Optimization criteria - Workspace maximization - accuracy - task completion time - energy conservation etc.

There's quite a lot of literature on the topic, and I can support all of what I mentioned above with references which I'm collecting for my thesis. As well as using terms as they are defined in literature, I think the "robotics" section should be structured so that it briefly names the basic problems robotics engineers deal with and links to other articles or book references for further reading. An example outline: 1) classification: types of robots and components 2) design: determining structure, sizing, components, etc.; optimization 3) analysis: calculating physical values for an existing robot 4) control: making the robot perform tasks (includes articifial intelligence, software, etc.)

The page linked to by "Classes of Robots" ist basically a list of examples, but not a list of the basic robot classes as presented in literature. These would be, for example "planar" (2d) vs. "spatial" (3d), "polar", "cartesian", "spherical", "Scara", and so on. I would present this basic classification in the "robotics" section and elaborate with a sentence or two where there is no article on a particular class of robot. I would change the title of "Classes of robots" to "Examples and Further Reading".

The list of links under "research areas associated with robotics" seems to be quite unstructured. It would be nice if the links were presented in logical slots in the above structure.

Ok, I'm waiting for comments! Lun xia2000 19:58, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Dive in and edit away - you sound like you're very knowledgeable on the subject and so should be able to greatly add to the article. Don't be shy! Kcordina 09:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok... did a major edit of the robotics section today! I hope it outlines some basic areas of robotics correctly without getting into too much detail. I'll add some references in the next few days. Lun xia2000 22:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Definition of robot

Point number one:

I think it would be worth mentioning that the term robot is used for two distinct meanings:

1. Specifically: A fully autonomous intelligent agent, operating in the real world. That is, it can perceive its environment, make an intelligent decision (unaided by humans e.g. remote control) with an agent program, and act on its environment by way of actuators.

(also note: the Wikipedia page on intelligent agents is not sufficient).

2. Broadly: Any mechanical device that either employs some form of computer control system, or mimics functions of human body parts.

'Robot' is often misappropriated by researchers and marketing companies in order to glamorise what are essentially just unmanned, remote-control (or wire-following/painted line following) vehicles, or other machines operating under non-intelligent procedural computer control programs.

Point number two:

The article states that bipedal robots are being created because navigational issuses have been 'solved' for wheeled robots. This is very far from the truth; most autonomous vehicles exhibit limited or no capacity for intelligent path-finding. Attempts by General Dynamics Robotics Systems for the US military, and various researchers working on lunar rovers (primarily Carnegie Mellon University) to inculcate into their navigation systems some sort of intelligent path-finding are ponderous efforts at best, despite enormous funding, and commonly side-step complex Artificial Intelligence methods in favour of simplified 'greedy' methods.

The primary motivation for the creation of bi-pedal robots is (according to Korean and Japanese scientists) to act as companions or servants for elderly or disabled people.

I agree with point number one and I think that it also should be noted that a machine under the control of a human is not really a robot, but that a fully pre-programmed machine is.Slartibartfast1992 22:17, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

confusion

in the first paragraph, the space shuttle arm is used as an example for both autonomous and heman-controlled robots. shouldn't one use a different example? Or, it could be used as an example of a robot being controlled both ways, and have a new example for automotons and human controlled devices seperately. 24.221.143.13 00:54, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I can't see where the shuttle arm is used for the autonomous case. The second reference to the shuttle arm is still a human-controlled example. Kcordina 09:16, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

confusion of definition of robot

I have always felt that a robot is not a robot if it is simply remote controled as the first paragraph says. If this was true, then wouldn't a remote controlled airplane be a robot? But it definitely becomes a robot if it becomes autonomous.

Webster's Dictionary says "a mechanism guided by automatic controls" http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/robot

And Wiktionary says "2) A machine that operates automatically, 3) A machine controlled by an fundamentally ingrained computer." http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/robot

Neither of which say anything about remote controlled.

CptanPanic 01:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

It's actually quite hard to distinguish the terms "machine" and "robot" in practice because their definitions overlap to a certain extent. Many machines today operate automatically and are controlled by a fundamentally ingrained computer, for example, modern washing machines :-). On the other hand, there are many robots which are so specialized that they cannot easily be reconfigured for other tasks, such as robots for minimal invasive surgery, which, by the way, are always remote-controlled by surgeons operating a master robot. It seems to me that a machine tends to be called robot if it has many degrees of freedom to perform complex coordinated "dextrous" motions, and if there is a substantial amount of automatic control involved (for example, between master and slave), even if the robot is ultimately remote-controlled. A remote controlled airplane could be a robot if it could react to the environment in an intelligent way, for example to cope with air turbulences, even if the basic trajectory were guided by a human. There are some robots, however, which really stretch the definition of 'robot',(e.g. Cartesian robot) Lun xia2000 20:29, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with CptanPanic. Robots are fully autonomous machines. Slartibartfast1992 22:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that it's possible to define robot well enough to satisfy any example you can think of. As far as I can tell, the definition most people use (including robotic engineers) is something that looks roboty, or behaves in a roboty way. Something that triggers, in our minds, the recognition of something animal (reification or anthropomorphisation). Do robots have to be fully automatic? Is Asimo a robot? Does it stop being a robot if you can steer it with a joystick? As far as I'm concerned, a 3-axis cartesian robot is just as much of a robot as a 3-jointed robot welder. It's fundamentally the same. But I agree with Lun, an excellent definition could include the words "coordinated dextrous motions". I'm not too keen on the ISO 8373 definition on the page, which rules out 2-axis robots and single-purpose robots. Anyway, I think that this section could still use some adjustment. Rocketmagnet 19:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

source needed for accident involving robot

I removed the following sentence from "Dangers and Fears" because an informative reference is missing:

"An incident occurred on 21 July 1984 when a man was crushed to death by an industrial robot. Accidents such as this show the potential risks of working with robots."

Please put it back in if a reference is available. Lun xia2000 11:52, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

historical development of robots

Just some suggestions to fill in some spaces in the "historical development" section...

• 1940s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory: master-slave robots
• 1950s Devol/Engelberger --> Unimate industrial robot
• 1960s Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (McCarthy et. al. 1968) -->manipulator with tactile sensors, computer vision
• 1960s MIT Lincoln Laboratory (Ernst 1962) --> same as above
• 1970s Cincinatti Milacron --> The Tomorrow Tool (heavy-duty industrial robot)
• 1970s Unimation --> PUMA robots
• 1980s GMF --> robots for automotive industry
• 1980s other companies: Adept, Bendix, General Electric, IBM, Intelledex, SARCOS, Westinghouse, Zebra Robotics
• 1990s shift to Japanese and European companies
• 1990s Japanese companies: Fanuc, Hitachi, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi, Seiko
• 1990s European companies: ASEA, Kuka
• 1990s more humanoid robot development: Honda
• 1990s extraterrestrial robots: Mars Pathfinder

source: Tsai. Robot Analysis. Wiley. 1999.

• 2000s surgical robots, rehabilitation robots, service robots, humanoid robots

(find sources)

I currently don't have time to fill in all this stuff, so I'll leave this rough outline from my research notes here for other editors' benefit. See also industrial robot Lun xia2000 12:21, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

Slovak and Czech expressions

I have changed the verb "robotovat" into the verb "robiť". This word, however, exists only in Slovak language. Word "robotovat" does not exist in neither of these two languages. The noun "robota" exists in both Slovak language and Czech language, but it means simply "work" and not (or not specifically) "corvée".

Actually, Robotovat does exist, however it is (most likely) a conjugation of the verb. I do not know the etymology of the word, however most standard dictionaries refer to the origin of the word robot as being from the Czech word "robota". -- Mkamensek ^(talk) -The LeftOverChef 20:49, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, "robota" is really Czech word as well as Slovak. "Robiť" and "robotnik" are Slovak only. (Czech equivalents are "dělat" and "dělník"). So, your dictionary is right. But corvée is unsense. Robotovat is not part of literary language. Even if it was used (it is rare and it is not part of official language), it would mean something like "use robots too much or talking about robots a lot". And "robotovat" is definitely not a conjugation of the verb, since suffix "ať","iť" in Slovak or "at","it" in Czech clearly expresses infinitive.

Learning

Hi, ready to explore with me?

Merge discussion

I think if the Japanese robotics article can be expanded to cover more of what Japan-specific things have occurred, or to discuss important contributions by Japan, then I think the article can stand on its own. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 19:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that Japanese Robotics article is entirely acurate. Japan may be the world leader in "industrial robots", but it is not the world leader in all robotics in general. Japanese companies may have invested a lot of time and resources into "humanoid" robotics and perhaps they developed the most advanced ones in certain aspects, however these robots are not in mass-production, nor are they even practically usable currently. They are more marketing tools than utility machines. And Japan is certainly not the world leader in Artificial Intelligence as the article says. I don't think you should merge these two articles. Some of the historical information can be included, but the "Japanese robotics" title doesn't deserve to exist as it's own category.

Citations

I noticed the request for citations regarding Tesla's contributions to robotics so I revised the paragraph a little and added a citation for one printed book, a link to a PBS online article with photos of the remotely operated vehicle, and links to the actual patent images in the USPTO database (only one patent was originally listed but I added the other two related ones). Is that good enough?

What is a "robot"

According to the definitions I see here, the thermostat on the wall is a "robot".

When does an ordinary automatic control system suddenly become a "robot" ?

From the Mifflin Dictionary: A "robot" is "a mechanical device that sometimes resembles a human and is capable of performing a variety of often complex human tasks on command or by being programmed in advance". So by that definition I would say an automatic control system can be called a "robot" if it is capable of performing complex tasks generally given to a human. Cole31337 04:31, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Japanese robotics merge into Robotics

Some time ago I suggested to merge Japanese robotics into Robotics. The tag was removed of Japanese robotics article with no discussion which I assume it means it is disputed. So, I will update it with a merge dispute tag. Japanese robotics is a WP:COTW, although up to the moment it hasn't had much improvements. I would suggest that if no improvements are done, then it could easily be merged into this article. Futher up, someone, no signature, says that it doesn't deserve to exist as an article. I would then think it could have a good section here. --Francisco Valverde 13:55, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Merge. --Quiddity 18:31, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest merging into Robotic technology. The page does not exist, but I think they should since, Robotics is about the general mechanic device while the above suggestion is an industry. Even if not that, due to existence of Industrial robot, I would suggestion creating a page History of Robotics and merging this article into their. - Tutmosis 22:18, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I think it's difficult to separate Robotic technology from Industrial robot. However History of robotics sounds like a possible future article. Shawnc 18:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I vote for a merge.Rudraksha 03:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the merge. --Srainwater 04:42, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

I suppose a merge for the time being would be best. michaelb ^{Talk to this user} 23:02, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest merging (into Robot since Robotics redirects there) since there are currently only a few sentences in Japanese robotics. Shawnc 18:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge as per Shawnc. Japanese robotics is too short. --unforgettableid | talk to me 09:17, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree with merge. Demerge later if a suitable quantity of material justifies it. --Mike Van Emmerik 23:06, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the statement above; merge, then demerge after enough material is added to warrant it. --Balso Snell 22:38, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with merge. Japanese robotics is an interesting topic in and of itself. The Japanese seem to have a different approach to robotics than the west. George100 22:09, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I suggest discarding the "Japanese" category and just merging the detailed info into the appropriate existing categories in the current Robot article (or industry related version if you guys decide this). I mean...is there an "American Microprocessors" section in "Microprocessor"? It doesn't seem right that there should be a "nationally oriented" section here as the presented info does not distinguish the nation's robotics to be exceptionally unique. Also, regarding this line..."Japanese engineers expect robots to be available for commercial household use by 2010." (as of 5/23). What about Roomba? and Scooba addition? Also, the "leader in robotics and AI" is a pretty strong statement. Consider the argument of what's considered more advanced "AI". Is it making a mechanical dog simulate and "emotional" response to its master playing with it? Or is it having an interplanetary explorer navigate arround Mars rocks. How do you rate a human-formed robot walking arround in a controled environment vs. an unmanned combat air vehicle that takes off and lands by itself? "Selective merging" is my vote.

Mild disagree The issue is, Japanese Robotics is too short, true, but also Robot is too long, at 34 MB. The Robot page as it is does not talk about the sorts of things Japanese Robotics does, and certainly would be over long if Japanese Robotics were expanded on the Robot page, and other nations with prominent robotics histories were added to this page, as would logically follow. Lotusduck 18:32, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

To tell you the truth, the more I read Japanese robotics, the more it looks like someone with a a lot of Japanese pride wrote that, who perhaps does not know much about the industry outside of Japan. Much of the material is already covered in Robot and we don't really need the "opinionated" statements that are there. We should only keep factual statements. I vote to just delete Japanese robotics as its contents don't add much value, are misleading, and are not entirely accurate. It is arguable whether early Japanese puppets (or any wind-up toy for contrast) can be considered "robots" so I don't think deleting that piece of historical anecdote matters. If someone really believes in it and wants to write a tid-bit on the puppets in Robot, it will evolve eventually. The rest of the text are just repeats, or false/unverifiable statements. Just delete Japanese robotics and close this matter.

It seems most of you agree with a merge. I would wait until Japanese robotics ends its COTW... (although, it seems that it is quite overdue. It should have ended last sunday!!!). If this article is misleading as suggested above then perhaps the merge would cleanse it. --Francisco Valverde 14:11, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I have, by my part, taken off the merge tag with Japanese robotics due to the great and fast expansion of this stub article. I have added a link in the additional robot topics sections. I cannot see a way of merging such a big article into robotics. If anyone wants to create a new section that will link it with a main article tag, please do. Robotics is already a very big article. --Francisco Valverde 17:10, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't look big to me. I only see a two small paragraphs of text. And some of it seems completely incoherent. (see the "characteristics of Japanese robots" section, for example - I'm not even sure it's written in English.) Much of it is just a list of random Japanese robots. I still don't think it makes sense to start sub-dividing topics like robotics by nation. Do we want to end up with a different robot page for every country? US Robotics, French Robotics, Easter Island Robotics, Antarctica Robotics... --Srainwater 23:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Big in quantity more than in quality... --Francisco Valverde 20:21, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

External Links

There's an awful lot of external links in this article. I'm rather concerned that a large number of them could potentially be self-vanity. Have they be recently cleaned up and checked through? Kevin_b_er 03:46, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm in agreement here. I'd prefer to see a much smaller External links section. Instead, why not move links that are actually relevant into the article as contextual links and reserve the external links section for a few well chosen, general purpose robotics portal sites. A handful of external links should really do it. We need a link to the ODP Robotics Category, which contains a relatively large and up to date set of links related to robotics; maybe we should also keep a couple of links to robot news sites like robots.net and gorobotics.net; and maybe links to a few print magazine like IEEE Robotics (research) and Servo or Robot (hobby).

--Srainwater 15:36, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I did some minor clean up to the external links section but it needs much more. Would anyone object to dropping the entire "commercial" section?

--Srainwater 16:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

MiC Robot Project

The MiC Robot Project, pronounced "mick", meaning Mobile interactive Computer is being developed as a cheap research platform for advancements in robotics by research hobbiests. The mobile robot will be upgradable and reconfigurable using Dave's Robotic Operating System (DROS) as the base software and designed to fit ATX style motherboards.

This project is rather new. The current default hardware design setup is almost complete, however the project will always be in hardware and software development since it is a robot for research purposes.

I added a link to this Project under the Hobby Robotics, however it was removed. Please make some comments if you feel this project should not exist within the Robot page. Keep in mind this project is new and will contain very useful information for the poor robotic hobbiest/researcher, which can be seen by the Parallel Port PWM/Encoder Linux Driver found within the website (only available since the 2.6.x Linux Kernel was released). Cole31337 22:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Asimo,humanoid ?!?

I'm contending this

-- The robot has arms, legs and a head and is thus humanoid in appearance. Why are you contending this? -- Mercury271 13:03, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

3 commandments

What about 3 commandments for robots. I think they are: 1) robot must not harm human(s) 2) robot must obey to human's orders as far as it's not against commandment no. 1 3) robot have right to defend itself as far as it's not against commandment no. 1 :)

bye!

The article already has reference to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. (SEWilco 04:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC))

Speculation removed

The entire section "future prospects" seemed quite speculative, so I removed it. If anyone thinks there's anything worth saving there, they can get it from the history, but I don't think so. -- Beland 06:04, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Please put it back.

First human killed by a robot

The article says "The first human to be killed by a robot was 37 year-old Kenji Urada, a Japanese factory worker, in 1981", but if I remember correctly the first was something like the 1940s or 1950s. It was an exhibition robot (simmilar to Elektro) that ran amok and killed it's creator (or someone working on it). When it was disassembled it was revealed to be radio controlled. I think the incident was unsolved. It may have been murder, radio interference or just a glitch. // Liftarn

Fighting robot?

Apart from Musa (robot built for Kendo), is there any other robots built for combat?

--Burai 14:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the Foster-Miller TALON and the MQ-1 Predator, both of which have been weaponised. -- Mercury271 07:17, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Current developments

In the current developments section is a link to a page for a robot called SIGMO. I've done some looking around and the only reference to this robot to be found on the web is Wikipedia articles and it's own website, which has very little information about the robot. I think this link and the article may have been posted by the builders themselves. Also I fell that there is no evidence that the SIGMO robot significantly contributes to the development of robotics, especially to warrant such a prominent listing.

Category: Robotics

I agree with user:Jkaplan that robotics is definately a topic in Computer Science. Does anyone have a legitimate objection to keeping the [[Category:Computer_science]] tag? We should discuss it here to avoid edit wars, I suppose. Robotics are studied in Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering. See Computer_science#Artificial_intelligence for one example. Maybe there's some category of applications of computer science that would work better if [[Category:Computer_science]] doesn't seem right to people. ~Kruck 14:38, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I removed the category because it just doesn't seem to fit, in my opinion. I like your point about applications of computer science and was trying to think of an appropriate category along those lines, but just couldn't come up with an existing one. Maybe the AI category is a bit better? And I won't oppose placing back in the CS cat if that is the best of the alternatives. JonHarder 00:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Good article candidacy

I just marked this article "failed" as a good article candidate. There are no footnotes (not counting the single one that doesn't function) and very few references to printed works. The list of references seems to be quite random (Tesla, Man Out of Time??), rather than being a representative collection of the literature on the subject. The inline links to external URLs should be replaced with footnotes, and more of the citations should be to "hard" sources; i.e. books or peer-reviewed articles. The "History" section should come before the "Contemporary uses" section, and the History section should include a picture of something historic, rather than a picture of a contemporary toy. The information in the "Robots and Human-Machine interfaces" section is too short and should be incorporated into some other section. And to name the most obvious flaw last, there's a dead picture link. This isn't an article that any editor or editors have devoted concerted attention to. KarlBunker 16:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

External links cleanup

I just reviewed most of the "Journal" external links and found that in general they were not providing any direct information and require registration to access articles, etc. This is outside WP:EL guidelines and I'm going to remove this section. If there are worthwhile links that do conform to WP guidelines that I've removed, please place a note here and let's add them back. Thanks! Calltech 17:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Field Robotics and Value

I propose to modify the definition and the contemporary uses sections to include references to field robotics. Companies such as Caterpillar, John Deere, Toro, Case New Holland, and Komatsu are working hard to further automate their machines. In a nutshell, what the industrial robots and the AGVs are doing in the structured environments of factories; tractors, combines, mowers, excavators, etc will do in unstructured environments.

By the way, the portal of the Journal for Field Robotics has the right words (it can be modified to define Field Robotics):

The Journal of Field Robotics is a new journal that seeks to promote scholarly publications dealing with the fundamentals of robotics in unstructured and dynamic environments. Articles describing robotics research with applications to the environment, construction, forestry, agriculture, mining, subsea, intelligent highways, search and rescue, military, and space (orbital and planetary) are encouraged. Papers in sensing, sensors, mechanical design, computing architectures, communication, planning, learning, and control, applied to field applications are encouraged.

If not field robotics, would you be kind to suggest other category name?

Also, I think we should expand the 3 D's as the usual motivations for the use of robotics. Enhancing the productivity on worksites, farmsites, jobsites, sport fields, etc, is becoming a driver for investment in robotics technologies for equipment companies. This goes beyond of dull, dirty or dangerous--it is about productivity.

Afoessel 23:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• I agree about the three Ds. There are many other motivations for developing robots: Productivity, Entertainment, Research, or just doing things that humans can't do (because they aren't accurate enough, fast enough, or can't be trusted). Rocketmagnet 17:09, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Current Developments

File:Shadow Hand Bulb.jpg

I wonder if the image of the gripper holding an egg (Robot_hand_holding_an_egg.jpg) is a good illustration of 'current' development? This looks like quite an old robot to me, though I can't find the date of this image. Perhaps a more up-to-date image, like this would be better. Rocketmagnet 18:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, that image is not very significant of the current development, the one you show is better. Also, the image "A boy watches a robotic..." does not suit very well to the article. From my point of view, it has not much encyclopedic value, even more when there is a much better image below. I guess we could delete them both? Keta 22:04, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Definition of Robot

The ISO 8373 definition of robot is interesting, thanks to Nikola Smolenski. However, I think it is too tight, and excludes things I would consider to be a robot. Almost every word of the definition rules out some class of robots.

"An automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose, manipulator programmable in three or more axes, which may be either fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications."

• "reprogrammable" - A robot could have a fixed program on ROM, but still be everything we imagine a robot to be.
• "multipurpose" - One could easily make a single purpose robot (for ironing maybe).
• "manipulator" - Do Aibo, Asimo and Qiro qualify as manipulators?
• "three or more axes" - Seriously? A two axis robot just isn't a robot?
• "for use in industrial automation applications" - So a non-industrial robot just isn't a robot either?

I believe that any such clear cut definition just isn't going to satisfy everybody. The concept of a robot just isn't that well defined. May I suggest an alternative type of definition. This is a set of properties, of which a robot will typically have several. (this type of definition is often used medicine). This definition is this:

It is difficult to define a robot in such a way that is distinguishes accurately between robots and other machines. However, a robot will typically have several of the following properties:

• Has the ability to move with more than one axis of rotation or translation.
• Has the ability to make dexterous coordinated movements.
• Has some degree of automatic control / preprogrammed sequence.
• Is programmable or reprogrammable.
• Is multipurpose.
• Is not 'natural' / has been artificially created.
• Can manipulate things in its environment.
• Has some degree of intelligence, or ability to make choices based on the environment.
• By its appearance or movements, triggers in Humans a sense that it has intent or awareness (reification, anthropomorphisation or Pathetic fallacy).

Any opinions? Rocketmagnet 20:49, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Another suggestion (I quite like this one): "A mechanical or virtual artificial agent". Rocketmagnet 23:08, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ok, I went ahead and re-wrote the definition of robot. Rocketmagnet 21:51, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Semi-protected Status

This page keeps getting vandalised. Could we have the semi-protected status back? Rocketmagnet 13:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)