Robotic Endeavors and Explorations: How far have we gone? and How much further can we take it ?

Artificial Intelligence Advancements

Advancements in robotics have allowed for humans to see beautifully captured images of our universe that we would normally be unable to view. One of our more famous robots that has traveled into space would be the Mars Exploration Rover. According to Nasa, Rover is basically a robotic geologist designed for exploring the surface of mars.

Of course there have been multiple Rover’s and multiple trips to the planet mars. According to Alex Wright author of Revving the Rover, 

“While the basic contours of each rover mission have stayed roughly the same since then the data gathering requirements have grown progressively more sophisticated with each mission.”

That is to say, that although Rovers general mission has been consistent throughout time up until today, we are continuing to learn newer and greater things with each trip to mars. Newer technology has allowed for Rover to increase its abilities and capabilities.

The goal set for exploration on Mars had originally been recording and dissecting rocks on the planet using just cameras and x-ray machines. As of today, we have changed our focus to search for water or at least signs of water on the planet since water is consider one to the key ingredients for life on earth. The space Rover has gone from 23 pounds of equipment to about 2000 pounds in the span of 17 years. Some of the issues brought up were related to the heaviness of the robot, and the radio frequency for communication. Gregory Goth, author of Software on Mars explains that,

“Communications bandwidth has not grown as fast as rover traverse range“

In other words, the amount of information the Rover records is much larger than the amount of information scientist on earth are able to process and receive. Although this may seem like a large issue today, as technology and robotics advance these issues should soon become insignificant.

With the advancements in these Robots brings about new capabilities and even greater future explorations; not just in space, but deep sea explorations as well. Todays robots are unable to explore deep seas due to their inability to face the extreme water pressures, and their inability to communicate back to scientist after a certain distance. But once they are, they would present people with the ability to see things humans would normally be unable to see with their current limitations as humans.

So how much further can robotic explorations go?

These robots can got as far as scientist and engineers develop them to go. The more advance and capable these robots become, the more information people will be able to receive from these robots. There are issues with however, the weight of these robot, and the current capabilities with our current technologies. Despite these issues, there will always be new ideas and discoveries that could help overcome them.

Below is an advertisement created by Nasa to illustrate the concept of a robot being sent to venus for future explorations. It presents to us a process in which the robot is launched over, lands, and explores the planet.

[1]G. Goth (2012, November 1) Communication of the ACM: Software on Mars. [Online]. Available: http://ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=83381625&site=eds-live

[2]A. Wright (2013, February 1)Communication of the ACM: Revving the Rover. [Online]. Available: http://ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=88139544&site=eds-live

The Advancements in Artificially Intelligent Robots: How Far Have We Gone? Should We Continue?

Advancing Artificial Intelligence

As of today, the artificially intelligent robots around us are either autonomous or adaptive machines. Machinery and robotics today are either able to only perform preprogrammed motions which require no human assistance or are able to perform responsively according to instructions provided by a human counter part. Some examples of these robots are Industrial factory robots that are only able to perform the same motion over and over with no required assistance, and unmanned remote control helicopters which are only able to move according to what their controller (controlled by a person) commands them to do but never independently.

Despite advancements in time, the overall goal on artificial intelligence has not changed. According the Josh Bongard from Communications Of The ACM, the goal of artificial intelligence has always been to reproduce the different traits of human intelligence in machery, robotics, and computers. Many roboticist researching under the field of artificial intelligence today are focusing primarily on adaptive behavior for robots. For example robots that are able to move and walk yet are not cognitive or able to think and process logic. A great description Bongard gives on artificial intelligence is the turning test:

“if a robot looks as if it is acting intelligently, then it is intelligent“

In other words, intelligence is not always biological. Intelligence is a combination of interactions between our thoughts, motions, and environment. Our actions and thoughts are how we ourselves as humans and different machines demonstrate our intelligence.

Scientist, researchers, and engineers are working towards and have been working at a new type of robots known as humanoids. These humanoids are built mimicking human features for example, they use cameras for eyes, microphones for ears, and circuit boards for brains. When perfected these robots are thought to be able to perform specific simple human tasks such as nursing companionship, dish washing, and cart pushing, or larger tasks such as deep sea under water and, outer space research.

The amount of coding it would take to get these robots functioning would be extensive and difficult. A solution to this would be imitation learning. Just as the name sounds, imitation learning is the process of learning by watching. Some flaws in this would be difficultly of bipedal motion, as well as the differences of the body structures between people and robots. In order for a robot to be bipedal (walk on two feet), it would require a large amount of sensors. A four footed robot would require about 50 sensors overall whereas a bipedal robot would use way more then 50 sensors to maintain its balance and walk.

So with all these difficulties, would continuing on the advancements of these robots be worth it?

If these robots are created then yes, the advancements in the studies of these robots would definitely be worth the trouble. The authors of The Challenges Ahead for Bio-Inspired ‘Soft’ Robotics bring up a powerful point when they say,

“We humans can do many things, but for most sensory-motor tasks, there are–or will be–machines that perform the task faster, cheaper, and more precisely.”

[1] J. Bongard (2013, August 1) Evolutionary Robotics. [Online]. Available: http://ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=89595599&site=eds-live

[2] R. Pfeifer (2012, November 1) The Challenges Ahead For Bio-Inspired ‘Soft’ Robotics.[Online]. Available: http://ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?di rect=true&db=buh&AN=83385658&site=eds-live