After Gutenberg

Note: The picture was taken during International Aerial Robotics Competition (IARC) held on July 22nd 2004. It was the 14th year that such a competition sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International has been held.

Robots are ideal for performing work that is precise, repetitive, or involves high risk to humans. The latter have sensors that guide their movement and the specialized work they perform. They may depend upon computer control systems and / or they can be guided by human remote control.

Sandia National Laboratories has the largest robotics research program in the United States, with more than 150 researchers involved in design and development of robots for tasks such as performing microsurgery, cleaning up toxic waste, and dismantling nuclear bombs.

Some examples of non-military environments where such droids could be put to use include:

• Toxic waste cleanup (e.g., During the Chernobyl disaster cleanup several Lunokhod explorer robots were converted to remote-controlled cleaning vehicles.)
• Deep sea recovery
• Exploration (e.g., the Mars rover)
• Mining
• Manipulation of biologically hazardous materials

Since these robots are mobile they differ from static manipulators used in hazardous environments or the type of industrial robot used in manufacturing. Also, the development of such robotic capabilities has security applications (military, law enforcement, etc.) and vice versa. For instance, the backdrop for the above picture is the U.S. Army Soldier Battle Lab?€™s McKenna Urban Operations Site, Fort Benning, Georgia.

Furthermore, since the intent is that these unmanned vehicles hopefully will be reusable, they differ somewhat from similar weapons technologies such as Cruise missiles, AUSS, etc., wherein the emphasis of the control systems is targeting. On the other hand, as levels are added to automatic pilot control systems such distinctions become blurred. For instance,

The U.S. Navy has developed a little robot plane for reconnaissance, intelligence, surveillance and target acquisition by small military units that they call the “Silver Fox” and that is capable of fully autonomous flight. The current model carries commercially available sensors. The goal is to give the Silver Fox, which is also known as the Smart Warfighter Array of Reconfigurable Modules (SWARM), 24-hour endurance a 1,500-mile range and a maximum altitude of 10,000-feet. The idea of 100 of these things filled with explosives flying 1000 miles and then closing on an enemy target like a swarm of mad bees is truly terrifying. — “Learn about Airborne Robots”

(Of course, if such flocks of unmanned aircraft form Bluetooth Linux clusters, then I guess it is okay.)

Note: Many of the links on this page are to topics at the Learn about Robots site.

Hm, I have been thinking that my robot photojournalist has to be ground based. Maybe not. Dr. Rich Cooper, a professional engineer with a PhD in robotics who has been working on robots for over twenty years, informs that a polymer R/C blimp can be transformed into a robot with the addition of sensors and computational hardware. “I think they are a great way to experiment with obstacle avoidance and machine-based decision making,” he writes. “You can go straight to the machine intelligence and skip the engineering of a mobility platform.” Add a PTZ digital camera to such a robotic airship and presto, you’ve got “Peeping Blimp”.