Citation
Andrew, A.M. (2003), "Beyond Webcams: An Introduction to Online Robots", Kybernetes, Vol. 32 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2003.06732cae.006
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Beyond Webcams: An Introduction to Online Robots
Beyond Webcams: An Introduction to Online Robots
Ken Goldberg and Roland Siegwart (Editors)MIT PressCambridge, Mass.2002ISBN 0-262-07225-4xxi + 331 pp.hardback, £30.95
As the editors recall in their Introduction, remote-controlled robots were first imagined in science fiction, then were put into practice in the 1940s for the remote handling of radioactive material. Since then they have come to be used to explore the depths of the ocean and surfaces of planets, as well as to defuse bombs and clean up hazardous waste. In these applications the robots were usually accessible only to specialists, but now there is the possibility of having robots freely accessible through the Internet. The book contains detailed descriptions of 18 such systems.
A distinction is made between remote-controlled robots (telerobots) and simpler devices for remote operation, though it may be difficult to say just where the line should be drawn. A degree of autonomy and hence intelligence built into the robot can allow effective operation despite transmission delays and limited bandwidth of the two-way communication channels linking the robot to its controller. Transmission delays are inevitable in planetary exploration, and the Internet brings the added complication that delays are variable and unpredictable. One of the schemes described in the book is said to operate satisfactorily at times of the day when Internet traffic is light but to be unworkable at other times.
The situation can also be helped incorporating “intelligence” or sophistication at the controlling end of the link. A facility allowing prediction can help to give effective control despite transmission delays. It can also be useful to have the controller operate on a simulation of the robot environment rather than having all information about the environment continuously signalled back. The operator's viewpoint can also be adjusted automatically. These measures not only overcome limitations imposed by the links between controller and robot but also those due to the operator's own processing capacity. It is, of course, expected that as the Internet develops the problems will become less because transmission delays will reduce and bandwidths will increase.
Towards the end of the Introduction by the editors, it is mentioned that as their work went to press there was an announcement that an American company had marketed an off-the-shelf online robot along with all necessary software. The Web site www.irobot.com is quoted, and it gives the information that the company is called the iRobot Corporation and has as its cofounder and chairman Rodney A. Brooks who is also director of the MIT AI Laboratory. A recent book (Brooks, 2002) is associated with the project.
The 18 chapters following the Introduction all describe particular implementations, and are grouped into four Parts according to the aspect that they mainly illustrate. The four papers in the Part 1 are concerned mainly with problems of manipulation. The first of them describes an underwater robot that was used in exploring the Titanic, and the next refers to two robots that are essentially toys, but nevertheless are instructive as demonstrations, one of them being the robot-tended garden described in an earlier publication (Goldberg, 2000). In another chapter, a true domestic robot is described that can be instructed remotely to do such things as loading laundry, and checking that doors are locked.
The five papers in Part 2 describe applications where robot mobility is a feature. One is about Xavier, a mobile robot that has been in operation at Carnegie Mellon University since 1995, and accepts commands to visit classrooms and offices to deliver messages and jokes. Its link to the Internet is by radio. Another chapter describes the use of helium balloons driven by fans and fully equipped with cameras and microphones so as to constitute Personal Roving Presences that can visit laboratories or listen-in on conferences.
In Part 3 the focus is on issues related to control and time-delay, including concrete proposals for a new architecture and detailed mathematical techniques. Plans for control of a vehicle on Mars are discussed, as well as a device that allows a realistic human handshake to be transmitted despite variable delays. Part 4 then reviews some other novel applications including a scheme whereby a user produces a painting remotely, with the painting then delivered by post, and means of remotely examining a solid object in a museum. The final paper is particularly intriguing as it is about a proposal for remote control of micromanipulation of protein crystals as part of a procedure that requires microgravity and has been carried out in the space station. Remote control would obviate the need for a member of the space station crew to acquire the necessary skill and to have this extra demand on his time in orbit. Remote access to scientific equipment could be useful in various other circumstances.
The book is the first to cover the important topic of online robotics and deals with it admirably. In places mathematical treatment is needed, especially in Chapter 11 in Part Three where a means of achieving stability despite variable time delay is explained, but on the whole the presentation is clear and readable.
Alex M. Andrew
References
Brooks, R.A. (2002), Flesh and Machines: How Robots will Change Us, Pantheon Books, New York.
Goldberg, K. (Ed.) (2000), The Robot in the Garden: Telerobotics and Telepistmology in the Age of the Internet, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (reviewed in Kybernetes Vol. 30, pp. 218-20, 2001).