Robots … in the image of Man

1. Robots …in the image of Man Art, Technolgy and the Body H.J. Sommer III Professor of Mechanical Engineering The Pennsylvania State University www.me.psu.edu/sommer

2. in the image of Man

3. Robot – the word • robota – Czech for forced labor • “Rossum’s Universal Robots”play, Karel Kapek, 1921

4. Metropolis, 1926

5. Metropolis, 1926

6. C3P0 versus Arnold

7. BattleBots, 2000

8. Robot – a definition • Robotic Industries Association • reprogrammable manipulator

9. The first real robot, 1961 • Machine tool + Computer • Unimate 2000 • Engelberger and Devol • Handle hot castings

10. The first real robot, 1961

11. The first real robot, 1961

12. Robot motion • Cartesian • Cylindrical • Spherical • Anthropomorphic

13. Robot power • Pneumatic • Hydraulic • Electrical

14. Early robot applications • Machine loading • Welding • Painting • Assembly

15. PUMAProgrammable Universal Manipulator for Assembly

16. Robots - today

17. Robots - today

18. Robots - today

19. New robot applications • Semiconductor • Surgery • Mobility • Remote sensing

20. Robots - tomorrow

21. Shortfalls – robots versus human • Sentience • Sensors • Dexterity • Power • Mobility

22. Advantages – robots versus human • Precision • Reparability • Hazardous environments • Stasis

23. Perception versus measurement • Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle • Our organo-receptors contaminateperception • Art • Emotions • Drugs

24. For a breath I tarry … Therefore, Solcom’s strangest creation was given dominion over half the Earth, and they called him Frost.  For ten thousand years Frost sat at the North Pole of the Earth, aware of every snowflake that fell. Frost knew temperature but he did not know cold. novelette, Roger Zelazny, 1967 in "The Last Defender of Camelot", 1995

25. The players • Frost – controller of the Northern Hemisphere, first and greatest of Solcom’s creations • Beta – controller of the Southern Hemisphere • Solcom – machine placed by Man in permanent orbit and invested with the power to rebuild the world • Divcom – alternate rebuilder activated when Solcom sustained minor damage from a stray atomic missile • Mordel – a minion of Divcom • Ore-Crusher – an excavator that killed the last Man in His bomb shelter, doomed to wander the Earth telling the tale of woe while carrying the bones • Man – extinct

26. The dilemma • Frost is so efficient that he takes up a hobby – to know the nature of Man • Frost only knows measurement - not perception • Solcom and Divcom wager if Frost can learn the nature of Man • Mordel tempts Frost with knowledge about Man in defiance of Solcom and Beta • Frost constructs mechanical analogs of human sensory equipment but he still only knows measurement

27. The question • Frost clones the body of a Man and transfers his matrix of awareness into the body for five minutes. • Has Frost become a man? • Frost declares that he has failed. • Which machine can answer this question?

28. The answer • Perhaps our machines may help us better know ourselves

29. in the image of Man