1961
Categories: Household, Industrial – Tags: personal, telepresence
This robot, the Mobot Mark II, was developed in the early 1960s by Hughes Aircraft. It was built to work in hazardous materials sites considered too dangerous for people. But the Mobot was never put to work.
Mobot is an abbreviation of Mobile and Robot. The image is from a series of images made for Life Magazine in the early 1960s. The Mobot is portrayed as a personal helper assisting the woman in the images with dressing/undressing and painting her nails. The Mobot was teleoperated by an engineer and turned out not to be financially viable.
1951
Categories: Fiction, Film – Tags: alien, evil, movie
An alien (Klaatu) with his mighty robot (Gort) land their spacecraft on Cold War-era Earth just after the end of World War II. They bring an important message to the planet that Klaatu wishes to tell to representatives of all nations. However, communication turns out to be difficult, so, after learning something about the natives, Klaatu decides on an alternative approach. In the end Klaatu warns that if the people of Earth threaten to extend their violence into space, then the robots will destroy Earth, adding that “The decision rests with you.” He then enters the spaceship and departs.
2002
Categories: Household, Military, Performance Art – Tags: autonomous, helper, home, personal
The Roomba is an autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner made and sold by iRobot. Under normal operating conditions, it is able to navigate a living space and its obstacles while vacuuming the floor. The Roomba was introduced in 2002; as of January 2008, over 2.5 million units have been sold.
Various hardware interface devices are available to access the Roomba using the Roomba Open Interface and some projects are described on Roomba hacking sites. In response to this activity iRobot created the iRobot Create, which is a programmable robot of similar size and shape to the Roomba. [Wikipedia]
1956
Categories: Art, Science – Tags: animal, autonomous, hunt, light
Squee (named after “squirrel”) is an electronic robot squirrel. It contains four sense organs (two phototubes, two contact switches), three acting organs (a drive motor, a steering motor, and a motor which opens and closes the scoop or “hands”), and a small brain of half a dozen relays. It will hunt for a “nut”. The “nut” is a tennis ball designated by a member of the audience who steadily holds a flashlight above the ball, pointing the light at Squee. Then Squee approaches, picks up the “nut” in its “hands” (the scoop), stops paying attention to the steady light, sees in stead a light that goes on and off 120 times a second shining over its “nest”, takes the “nut” to its “nest”, there leaves the nuts, and then returns to hunting more “nuts”. [www.blinkenlights.com]
2006
Category: Art – Tags: Artificial life, Installation, robot
The Autotelematic Spider Bots 2006, is a new artificial life robotic installation. It consists of 10 spider-like sculptures that interact with the public in real-time and self-modify their behaviors, based on their interaction with the viewer, themselves, their environment and their food source.
The Auto telematic Spider Bots installation is an artificial life chimera; a robotic spider, eating and finding its food like an ant, seeing like a bat with the voice of an electronic twittering bird.
The spider bots see participants in the installation with long distance ultrasonic eyes at the end of a springy antennae-like neck. The ultrasonic eyes at the end of this antennae allow the robots to see out to a distance of 3-4 meters and allow human interaction.
The robots are constantly seeking human interaction by swinging their antennae back and forth and when they find people with these sensors and neck these values become seeds to different, behaviors, which manifest themselves immediately and over time as the series evolves.
2005
Categories: Dance, Household, Science – Tags: artificial man, autonomous, Dance, helper, movement, woman
Developed by scientists at Tohoku University, the Partner Ballroom Dance Robot (PBDR) is able to predict the steps of a human partner based on body movement and react accordingly on its three wheels.
The robot is 1.65 meter high and has a female face, wears a plastic ballgown and comes in pink and pastel blue. A male version is also being developed.
Although it can match the movements of a human partner’s upper body, Professor Kazuhiro Kosuge, who led the team behind PBDR, said it could not yet perform dance steps.
PBDR is a platform for human-robot coordination with physical interaction is thus also a step towards developing responsive robots that could provide care for the sick and elderly.
1985
Category: Toy – Tags: friendly, game, personal
R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) was an accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was released in July 1985 in Japan as the Famicom Robot and later that year as R.O.B. in North America. It had a short lifespan, with support for only two games which comprised the “Robot Series”; Gyromite and Stack-Up. R.O.B. was released with the intention of portraying the Nintendo Entertainment System as something novel in order to alleviate retail fears following a crash in the video game market in 1983. [Wikipedia]
1983
Categories: Artificial Intelligence, Educational – Tags: artificial man, commercial, helper, home, personal
The RB5X Intelligent Robot was the first mass-produced programmable robot that was made for home use, experimentation, and educational purposes. The RB5X is still being produced today.
Its inputs include eight bumper panels, a light sensor and a sound sensor. The robot can learn from experience:
“The RB5X Intelligent Robot is a sophisticated engineering effort whose microelectronics and machinery can be compared to the complex make-up of humans. Like a person, RB5X consists of a collection of subsystem “organs” that work together to make the robot function and become more than the sum of its parts, except that the comparatively crude organs consist of electronic and mechanical devices. Brain: RB5X brain is an on-board microprocessor, the INS8073 that works in conjunction with the robot’s software to permit the RB5X to learn from its sensory experiences. Using this self learning software, the RB5X progresses from simple, random responses to eventual prediction of future events in its environment, based on analysis of past prediction of future events in its environment, based on analysis of past experience.” – RB Robotics, manufacturer.
1989
Categories: Artificial Intelligence, Military, Science – Tags: animal, autonomous, cheap, heat, hunt, insect, small
Genghis was built at MIT in the mid-1980s to demonstrate the efficacy of using numerous small, light, mobile robots to reconnoitre the Martian surface. Genghis was famous for being made quickly and cheaply due to construction methods and was the prototype for the later autonomous “spider” robots Attila and Hannibal. Genghis weighs about 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), contains 6 pyroelectric sensors for detecting animal life, and employs 12 motors to power its 6 independently operating legs.
Its six sensors picked up on the heat of a living creature, such as a person or a dog, and triggered the stalking mode. It would scramble to its feet and follow its prey, moving around furniture and climbing over obstacles to keep the prey in sight.
Genghis is now located in the National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C.
1948
Category: Science – Tags: animal, autonomous, light, movement
Grey Walter’s most famous work was his construction of some of the first electronic autonomous robots. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behaviors – essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired.
His first robots, which he used to call Machina speculatrix and named Elmer and Elsie (ELectro MEchanical Robots, Light Sensitive), were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as tortoises due to their shape and slow rate of movement – and because they ‘taught’ about the secrets of organisation and life. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of responding to light, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power. [Wikipedia]
