Austin Tate Professor of Knowledge-Based Systems at the University of Edinburgh Director of the Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI) Coordinator for the Virtual University of Edinburgh (Vue) Academic member of Edinburgh Centre for Robotics Senior Visiting Research Scientist, Institute of Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) a leading US research establishment in Florida Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Austin has worked on artificial intelligence and robots for over 45 years specialising in planning, collaborative systems and human/machine interaction, especially for search and rescue and space. http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~bat/ http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~ai/resources/2019-03-29-NMS-Robots/ -------------------- Robots and Artificial Inteligence is in the news and media almost every day. So the Robots Exhibition here at the National Museum of Scoptland is a very timely event to inform and get people of all ages talking about robots, their capabilities and their potential impact. We are fortunate to be sitting here within 100 metres of where some of the earlest ground breaking work on machine intelligence and robots took place 50 years ago. And its wonderful that amongst the NMS permanent collection there are examples of the earliest research and industrial robots. The collection here includes Freddy II from the early 1970s created in Edinburgh and was at the time one of the most intelligent hand/eye assembly robots in the world. Now, 50 years later, there is a growing body of work here in Scotland on robots for research, industrial robots, healthcare and companion robots, marine robots for surface and underwater operations, work on autonomous cars, search and rescue and space operations. The exhibition here covers a lot of ground from early mechanical devices that mimick human behaviour (even unheathy behavioiur like smoking!), through industrial robots and assistants, through to the latest intelligent adaptive mobile robots. ---------------------------------------- Robots have some basic capabilities: Sensors - Processing - Effectors They require some form of "power source". sensors: vision, audio, radar,lidar, sonar, touch, smell effectors: legs, wheels, tracks, push bars, ploughs, arms, hands and fingers Not all will be the typical Science Fiction or Film and TV depiction of human-like "androids". Maria from Metropolis, Robbie from Forbidden Planet, C3PO from Star Wars They may have various "form factors" depending on their area of application. Biped (Nao, Asimo), quadruped (Animal), with wheels or tracks (Wall-E). There can be soft form robots whose shape can be compliant to the environment, snake like robots, flying insect like robots, exoskeletons and prosthetics to assist humans, and even remote spacecraft and planetary rovers. As you go round the exhibition, perhaps you could explore the extent to which each of the exhibits have to offer in each of these aspects. --------------------------- Robots may be more or less "autonomous" and more or less "intelligent". Robots /= Artificial Intelligence Processing Lower level "reactive" behaviours - becoming very effective due to rapid advanced in machine learning and large scale data technologies. Higher level cognitive tasks such as sense making, planning and decision making... often in cooperative situations with humans. -------------------- Simulators Those involved in programming robots and in Robot Education often make use of simulators and their are modular educational robotics kits suitable for both schools level and univertsity robotics classes. Even advanced robots often come with simulator faclitis to allow for development and testing before programs are deloyed on the real robots. Webots http://cyberbotics.com Lego Mindstorms Robot Operating System http://ros.org