Word: robotics
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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Webster's definition of a robot begins by describing it as "a machine in the form of a human being that performs the mechanical functions of a human being." Today's robotmakers, however, are devoting very little thought to creating anything that looks or acts human. It is perfectly possible to design a robot that walks on artificial legs or speaks fluent English, but it is much cheaper and more efficient to keep the robot standing in one place and to speak to it in the soothing language of algorithms. Says David Nitzan of SRI International...
...robot's basic function is not to look or behave like a human being but to do a human's work, and for that it needs mainly a guiding brain (the computer) and an arm with claws for fingers. The computer is simply plugged into an electric outlet; cables run from the computer along the robot's arm and transmit instructions in the form of electric impulses to the claw; for heavy work, robots use hydraulic pressure. The Robot Institute of America, an industrial trade group, therefore offers a contemporary, if somewhat prolix, definition of a robot...
...fact that the robot's instructions can be changed is critically important to its industrial use. A standard assembly line must produce a large amount (about 1,000 units a day in the auto industry) to operate economically, and it takes months to alter or renovate its component machines; a robot can be reprogrammed for a new task in a few minutes. Furthermore, at least 60% of U.S. manufacturing is done in batches too small for assembly lines. Robots can do many of those jobs, and it is estimated that they can reduce costs in small-lot manufacturing...
General Motors has developed a system called Consight that enables a robot equipped with an electronic camera to look at scattered parts on a conveyor, pick them up and transfer them in a specific sequence to another work area. It thus makes rudimentary judgments on which parts to pick up, but it is still too slow for an industrial assembly line. At a well-attended robot exhibition last month in Dearborn, Mich., one of the star attractions was a similar vision system developed by a brand-new company, Machine Intelligence Corp. of Mountain View, Calif. This firm was founded...
...step further into a technique called "gray-imaging." Similar to Rosen's system but more elaborate, the Lockheed method uses a camera image that contains 100,000 different dots, each graded from 0 for pure white to 255 for pure black. The different shades of gray give the robot a much clearer three-dimensional view of what it is confronting...