Robots

Robot ?

• From a 1920’s Czech drama play by K. Čapek « R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots) »

• Robota means serf labor, corvée, hard work, or even slavery…

Robot ??

• According to Wikipedia : • « A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent

agent which can perform tasks on its own, or with guidance. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine which is guided by computer and electronic programming. »

(It is Pleo, a robot dinosaur. It has feelings)

What it’s for

• Doing (or helping to do) things that humans can’t or don’t want to do like :

• War (drones (UAV), demining…)• High-precision surgery• Manufacturing (cars)• Housekeeping…

Hi! I’m Roomba, a robot vacuum cleaner !

Also for research

• On learning• On behaviours…

Psikharpax, the rat robot, whose behaviour has been designed to resemble that of the rat

What it’s made of

• Basically :• Brain is : « computer core », that’s a

processor, memory…• Muscles are : motors• Skull is : mechanical parts (gearing, wheels…)• Perception is : sensors (cameras, bumpers…)• « External signalization/communication » if

necessary : lights, sounds…

For instance

• Pleo embeds :• 2_32-bits Microprocessors• 4 _8-bits Microprocessors• 14 motors• 100 cog wheels• Infrared camera• 2 microphones• 8 sensors in its skin• 4 in its feet• 1 (infrared) in its mouth• 1 incline sensor

• USB port• Infrared

emission/reception• 2 speakers

Energy ?

• Well, electricity of course :• Batteries• Solar panels• Water• Sugar• Plants• Dead flies !

Behaviour

• Asimov laws :• 1. Human > Robot• 2. Robot < Human• 3. Robot > Everything else

• In fact : the program in the « core computer »• With more or less AI

Example

• Moving inside an area (delimited by black lines)

• Cleaning up this area (clearing the can out !)

Game : more or less AI ?

Remember me ?I’m Roomba,

the vacuum cleaner !

Information robot(at a show)

Asimo climbing stairs

Expressing feelings (like Pleo)

The can-cleaner robot(hug me !)

Manufacturing a car

Game : more or less AI ?Strong AI vs. Weak AI !

Not that hardto clean a room !

Some knowledge, but no real thinking !

I shall not losemy balance !

Wow !Why should I be sad ?

Lot of thinking !

I know what I have to doNo thinking !

I do the same thingover and over again

No thinking

Again !

Shaking hands with a human

Handling a (proper) conversation

Wandering on my own(on Mars for example)

Recognizing myselfin a mirror

Again !

Shaking , not crushing !

Really, really hard !

What to do ?Where to go ?

What do I look like ?

AI : The Turing Test

• Determines if a machine can properly « think »• Two different rooms :– One with a human taking the test on a computer,

which is linked to– Two other computers in the other room, one with

another human on it, one all alone (with its AI)• The first human handles two conversations for

some time• At the end he must tell which one was with a

human, and which one with an AI

But is it really effective ?

• Just comparing to human behaviour,• IE. : is human intelligence really true intelligence ?• Does intelligence really involves talking properly ?

Hi, I’m NAO, an « Intelligent » robot !

Building a robot

• From scratch• With a kit

• Assemble mechanical and electronical parts

• Program it

• But before, lot of brainstorming !

That costs about 1$

• 4 wheels• 1 motor• some cog wheels • a solar cell• a frame

It’s not really a robot, though

That costs about 350$

Lego’s Mindstorms (Transformers !)

Ugobe’s Pleo(I am happy !)

That costs more than 1,000$

Sony’s Aibo (woof !)

That costs more than 12,000$

Aldebaran Robotics’s NAO

A robot’s brain

• (Micro)processor• Volatile memory (RAM)• Hard memory (flash, ROM…)• On an integrated circuit• Links to sensors/external devices

(it has its brain on its chest !)

Programming a robot

• Low-level languages (to manage efficiently manage hardware)

• Typically C language (RIP Dennis Ritchie btw.)• Or assembly language (even better !)

.globl _startBONJ: .ascii "Bonjour\n " ; Definition en memoire de la chaine a afficher.

; \n correspond au saut de ligne_start: mov $4 , %eax ; Mettre 4 dans le registre eax (appel système '''Write'')mov $1 , %ebx ; Mettre 1 dans le registre ebx (descripteur de fichier ''STDOUT'‘mov $BONJ , %ecx ; Mettre l'adresse memoire de la chaine dans le registre ecxmov $8 , %edx ; Mettre la taille de la chaine dans edxint $0x80 ; Interruption 0x80, executant un appel systeme sous Linux)

mov $1 , %eax ; Mettre 1 dans eax (appel systeme ''Exit'')mov $0 , %ebx ; Mettre 0 dans ebx (valeur de retour du programme)int $0x80 ; Interruption 0x80, executant un appel système sous Linux)

Arduino ?

• Easy-to-use and reasonably priced integrated circuit

• Essentials of what I called « computer core »• C-like programming (low-level functions

already implemented)

(Take that, China !)

Example

To program a made-from-a-kit robot, which already has some built-in low-level functions implemented, to do the line-following trick, you need less than 100 lines of code

To program a robot you made yourself however, you will need to think about and implement those functions, because you can’t just tell your robot : « Close your arms ».You need to tell it : run the left-arm and the right-arm motors for 3 seconds.But it doesn’t know what 3 seconds (in its language it’s rather 36M clock ticks)

Finally

• What do you think about it all ?• What kind of robot would you want to build ?• (what do you want it to do)• What hardware do you think we’ll need ?

• Do you have any question ?

I do like questions !

Thank you for your attention !

• This presentation has been created for private use (CRI Paris – 18/10/2011)

• Most of the images and videos were random- and shameless-ly stolen from the Internet

• On illustration purpose only !

• Download me @ http://mael-canu.com/robots !