SPECIAL FEATURE Rise of the Robot Celebrity y
THE ROBOT CELEBRITY Not just on your TV any more
When the word “robot” is mentioned, most people conjure up images of bulky, flashing, tinfoil-covered machines from old sci-fi, like Lost in Space or Dr Who. Back then, little more than a man in a suit, metallic spray-paint and a ring- modulated audio track was enough to create a robotic superstar, but today’s world is filled with genuine robotic celebrities. Here, Robert Brown, marketing executive of robot battery manufacturer Accutronics, investigates.
W
hen looking for mechanical superstars, we should turn away from the sci-fi and instead look towards the
science. Since the turn of the millennium, robotics has come forward in leaps and bounds. All sorts of companies run cutting- edge robotics research, ranging from international industrial corporations like Honda, to smaller, highly focused teams such as those over at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) robotics spinoff, Boston Dynamics. One robotic celebrity that you have likely
heard of are Boston Dynamics’ quadrupedal robotic dogs. You may, in fact, be one of the eight million people who watched the video on YouTube. These bots can walk, hop, skip and jump entirely autonomously, as well as steady themselves using intricate gyroscopic balancing systems. BigDog was the first of these quadrupedal
robots to gain public attention. At three metres long and 76cm tall, these imposing, large-dog sized machines were originally imagined and designed to act as autonomous pack-mules for military operations. Quite unusually, as we will find, BigDogs were powered by a small, two-stroke go-kart engine. Alternatively, many teams have taken a
different approach and developed androids — robots that resemble humans. Honda’s ASIMO is possibly the most famous real- world example of an android, having taken its first public steps in October 2000. Unlike BigDog, ASIMO was originally powered by a nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) battery but this was replaced with a lithium-ion alternative in 2004 to increase the amount of time ASIMO can operate for before needing to be recharged.
Robots at work and home
Thanks to Lithium battery technology, robots are not just something we read about anymore but are becoming synonymous in our daily lives, both at home and in all manner of industrial
10 June 2020 | Automation
automationmagazine.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44
