CS36410/CS26410

Intelligent Robotics
Introduction
Myra Wilson
e-mail mxw@aber.ac.uk
Aberystwyth University

Commitment

CS36410

CS26410

16 lectures

10 lectures

6 hours practical (mjn)

(starting after Easter)

10 hours practical (mjn)

(starting next week)

Rest of time spent

background reading

Rest of time spent

background reading

Exam 100% of marks

(answer 3 from 5)

Assessment based on 3
practical programming
assignments

Course Content

Introduction - 2 lectures (all)

CS36410 Physical Robots - 2 lectures

CS36410 Sensors and Perception - 1 lecture

CS36410 Manipulation - 1 lecture

Robot Control Architectures - 8 lectures (all)

CS36410 AI in Robotics 2 lectures

What you need to do....

Attend lectures - slides are NOT enough. They

are only pointers to the taught subject
Do the practicals
Read the books - buy, borrow, loan. Many
robotics books in the library. Read around the
subject

Take notes from videos shown

Access the Web - lots of stuff out there

Recommended Books

Essential

Murphy, R.R. - Introduction to AI Robotics, MIT

Press. 2000. ISBN 0-262-13383-0

Consult

Bekey,George A. Autonomous Robots: from

Biological Inspiration to Implementation and
Control, MIT Press. 2005. ISBN 0-262-02578-7

Arkin, Ronald Behaviour-Based Robotics, MIT

Press. 1998. ISBN 0-262-01165-4

Siegwart, R. and Nourbakhsh,I.R. Introduction to

Autonomous Mobile Robots, MIT Press. 2004. ISBN
0-262-19502-X

Recommended books

Additional

Floreano,D, Mattiussi,C - Bio-Inspired Artificial

Intelligence, MIT Press. 2008. ISBN 978-0-262-06271-8

Brooks, R. - Cambrian Intelligence, MIT Press. 1999. ISBN

0-262-02468-3

McKerrow, P.J. Introduction to Robotics, Addison Wesley.

1991. ISBN 0-201-18240-8

Braitenberg, V. - Vehicles, MIT Press. 1994. ISBN 0-26202208-7

Nehmzow, U. - Mobile Robotics: A Practical Introduction,

Springer. 2000. ISBN 1-85233-173-9

Robot Definitions

OED

noun: a machine capable of carrying out a complex series

of actions automatically, especially one programmable by
a computer.

McKerrow Robotics is the discipline which involves:

the design, manufacture, control and programming of

robots
the use of robots to solve problems
the study of the control processes, sensors, and algorithms
used in humans, animals, and machines
the application of these control processes and algorithms to
the design of robots

Where did the word robot come from?

Robota - Czech meaning menial labour/work

Term robot coined in K. Chapek's play R.U.R.
Rossum's Universal Robots (1920)
Robotics - first used by Issac Asimov in his
novels

1st law: A robot may not injure a human being or, through
inaction, allow a human to be harmed.
2nd law: A robot must obey orders given by humans
except when that conflicts with the First Law.
3rd law: A robot must protect its own existence unless that
conflicts with the First or Second Laws.

What do we want?

How about?

What do we have?

What are we working on?

Why use a robot?

Human would be at significant risk (space

exploration, nuclear deactivation etc)
Economically better to have robots - where the
task is menial and repetitive, and accuracy is
needed (production lines, sheep shearing!)
Humanitarian use where there is great risk (search
and rescue in disaster zones)
Others?

Environmental Differences

COMPUTERS

ROBOTS

Input symbols are static

and well behaved

Sensory signals are noisy

and unreliable

Operations give
consistent results

An action can have

different responses

Environment is fixed and

repeatable

Objects may move about

independently

System only receives

intended inputs

Influences from external

agents can interfere

Perfect performance
assumed

Operating environment is
unreliable, dynamic and
incomplete

Intelligent Robotics

Arkin

Murphy

An intelligent robot is a machine able to extract

information from its environment and use knowledge
about its world to move safely in a meaningful and
purposive manner
an intelligent robot is a mechanical creature which
can function autonomously

So what does autonomous mean?

Levels of autonomy

Remote control

Teleoperation

Telepresence

Semi-autonomous control

Fully autonomous

Remote Control

Is this intelligent robotics?

Probably not

Teleoperation

Human operator controls a robot from a distance

Human cannot physically see the robot

Sensors acquire information about the

environment
Display technology allows the operator to see the
sensor data

Communication link available

Many internet sites available

When to use Teleoperation?

When tasks are unstructured and not repetitive

When workspace cannot be engineered for industrial

manipulator

Key portions of the task require dexterous

manipulation

Task requires object recognition, situational

awareness or other advanced perception

When display technology is rich enough

Availability of trained personnel is not an issue

Telepresence

Attempts to reduce cognitive fatigue and

simulator sickness

Uses virtual reality technology

Operator has complete sensory feedback

Very expensive in terms of equipment

Requires high bandwidth rates

One person at least per robot

Semi-autonomous

Continuous assistance

Delegate boring, repetitive control actions to the robot

(but still watch over it!)

Take over and perform hand-eye coordination tasks

Still requires high communication bandwidth

Control trading

Human initiates an action for the robot to complete

autonomously

Assumes robot is capable of autonomously

accomplishing a task robustly in unexpected situations

Autonomous

Nehmzow (2000)

Weak Autonomy robots which carry on-board

controllers and power supplies

Strong Autonomy requires the power of self government

ability to move in its environment to perform a number of tasks

able to adapt to changes in the environment

able to determine its course of action by its own reasoning

processes
ability to build internal representations of the world to plan and
learn from experience and change its behaviour accordingly

To achieve autonomy?

Artificial Intelligence

Knowledge Representation

Natural Language Processing

Learning

Planning and Problem Solving

Inference

Search

Vision

Robotics feeds into AI and vice versa