Mobiles Robots - Past Present and Future
Xiaoqi Chen, YangQuan Chen, J. Geoffrey Chase · InTech eBooks · 2009
Since their introduction in factories in 1961, robots have evolved to achieve more and more elaborate tasks.The industrial robots now account for a 5 billion dollars market.Positioned along the assembly line, a robotic manipulator can perform tedious and repetitive tasks such as welding, painting, moving or cutting with immense speed and incredible accuracy.As an example, their use in the automotive industry has drastically cut the time it takes to assemble a vehicle.Since the introduction of the first industrial robot UNIMATE online in a General Motors automobile factory in New Jersey in 1961, robots have gained stronger and stronger foothold in the industry.Several milestones are worth noting since then: 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 its six joints gave it the flexibility of a human arm.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 intelligence.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 Stanford 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.It is no surprising that in face of diverse configurations, functions, applications, and autonomy there is no agreeable universal definition of "Robot".The well-known definition of Robot from the Robot Institute of America (RIA) is that a robot is "A reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks".