Robotics and Artificial Intelligence

We've been awed by the depiction of robots with intelligence equaling humans

in science fiction movies, and in novels which talk about the exciting future of

robots and androids after the turn of the century. Robots that would be doing

tasks ranging from daily household chores to complex jobs like flying a

spacecraft and having the ability to take decisive actions in critical

circumstances. Now, when we are 8 years past the turn of century, such science

fiction robots with artificial intelligence (AI) are yet to become a reality.

This doesn't mean that work and research aren't taking place in field of

robotics and AI. Research work and technological advancements are happening in

these domains at a steady pace and future of such intelligent robots working at

par with humans is not distant. In this article, we'll discuss some new concepts

and research work taking place in robotics and AI.

Robotics meets AI



Robotics, started in 1950s as a result of an automation project, has made

tremendous technological advancements. It has become a part of our life, and we

have become technologically addicted to its use. Today, in many industries

robotics have replaced human workers, where they are used for heavy forklift

duties and warehouse housekeeping. Robotic machines have spared humans from jobs

that were both repetitive and hazardous. A classic example of robotics being

used in an industry widely would be of automobile industry, where jobs like

welding to final paint of the finished product is done with robotic machines and

with minimal human help. Even fields like medicine, military, etc, are no

strangers to Robotics. In recent times, we've seen robotic arms being used

during surgeries where precision is a must. In military, robots are used for

clearing minefields; fire-fighting departments use robotic vehicles to venture

into parts which are out of human reach. These machines are mostly mechanical,

doing tasks that were either continuous or repetitive, or involving precision,

or were hazardous for humans to perform.

Robots are now evolving from industry machines to take form of humans or even

animals. With use of techniques from AI, robots like ASIMO which are of human

form, are being programmed to perform tasks like ascending and descending

stairs; a task that requires maintaining balance with center of gravity. AI,

when defined in simple terms, is a science of engineering intelligent machines

that will possess traits to exhibit power for reasoning, knowledge, planning,

learning, communication, perception, and the ability to move and manipulate

objects. This sort of power to reason and to decide is mostly done unconsciously

by a human mind, but for a machine to decide for a path or to do a task, it will

have to be programmed for a set of rules and models. Following such set of rules

and determining the best possible result can best be exampled for various chess

moves.

IBM's Deep Blue computer was the first AI-based machine to defeat a human in chess and that too the then reigning world champion Gary Kasparov.

Conventional robotics is largely based on having robots that carry out

complex calculations, for instance measuring the geometry of an object and its

trajectory when it's in motion. A human child, who is unaware of the

fundamentals of the geometry, can still figure out how to catch a ball mainly

because the child can learn from experience and observation. The same process of

self-learning from experience and observation can't be expected from robots as

they follow pre-defined rule-based evaluation process. Making a robot follow a

decision-making process like climbing branches of a tree would be based on

approach of AI where a rule-based system supplies the knowledge and scene

representations. And based on knowledge and determining the scenes, the robot

will be able to determine and make a decision which branches to hold on to climb

the tree.

There are many approaches and methodologies in AI that are being implemented

into robotics so that a robot can exhibit intelligence to recognize, learn,

adapt, and decide to react and function on its own for situational tasks. The

ability to learn from trial and error and with experience will make a robot to

make more independent decisions rather than a decision based on pre-defined set

of rules. Across the globe there is some exciting research taking place to make

AI as capable as a human mind.

Artificial Neural Networks



Now biologically inspired artificial neural networks (ANNs) based robots are

being developed that will not be relying on preset rules, but on continuous

processing of signals and non-linear optimization process to reach a response to

act autonomously. Neural Network is basically an information-processing

architecture that is designed to determine and track relationships among various

data sets autonomously. It's a system constructed along the same principles as a

human brain that performs mathematical and analogical calculations between one

domain or layer to another using algorithmic techniques. What sets ANNs apart

from classical AI methods is that a neural network includes a 'self-learning'

mechanism that allows the ANN-based systems to analyze almost huge amount of

data, do test on them and determine relationships among the data, and then use

the findings of the analysis with its preset rules and formula to make a

prediction about the event. Additionally, the ANN-based system compares its

prediction to actual results to learn over time, much like a human brain does,

by adjusting the preset formula to reduce discrepancies between the predicted

and the actual results. A system or a robot having ANN-based intelligence will

be able to produce more accurate results and predictions over time, as it will

be learning from its mistakes and will be avoiding them in future by adjusting

the formula and rules. This ability of ANNs brings the much-desired learning

capability into a robot to make its own decisions by discovering relationships

and correlating them. The advantage of using ANNs with classical AI in robotics

leads to performance of tasks that humans usually do sub-consciously, for

instance locomotion or cognitive tasks. Such intelligence systems can be of

great value not only in robotics but also in real life scenarios. For instance,

making market trend predictions in financial analysis, or working as an

auto-pilot mechanism in an aircraft thereby increasing safety.

Robot 'Kismet' recognizing or reacting to human gestures, based on its emotional intelligence program.

Emotional intelligence



In the movie 'I,Robot', the robot Sonny was depicted to feel emotions though

it was just a machine having AI. Researchers have been working at the

possibilities where even robots will be able to react to emotions and also show

emotions. For this purpose, a non-symbolic emotion model was developed that

takes the form of a recurrent artificial neural network where emotions both

depend on and influence the perception of the state of the world. This

emotion-based model was integrated to a self-learning AI architecture to

determine influence from perceptions and to evaluate the decisions based on

that. The research work showed that the artificial emotions are useful when

incorporated into classical AI to have behavior-based systems or robots that

will be able to play a part of the society giving an impression of empathy and

serving humans by helping sick and elderly at hospitals or people who are

house-bound and help them as domestic helpers who would be in tune to their

owners emotions. Emotional intelligence has been achieved to a certain degree in

form of smile, frown, and reactions to tones. Based on voice pitch an emotion

reading system will decipher if it's harsh, frustration or a simple voice

command. Sony's AIBO is one such AI based robot that has been introduced as

robotic pets; these pets can learn from human stimuli and also react to such

stimuli like they portray happiness when being played with, whereas they whimper

when put in seclusion. This is done by the cognitive intelligence where the

human facial recognition and voice commands can be interpreted by emotional

intelligence system to trigger stimulus in the robot, AIBO.

NanoRobots



Nanorobots, robots of microscopic scale of about nanometers, are based on
hypothetical nanotechnology engineering to build machines that are microscopic

in size. Building robots that would be so small that many of them could be lined

across the width of a human hair is a big challenge to achieve. Already we have

seen that microprocessor chips are being manufactured in microscopic sizes, and

so we can expect that a robot having such a chip can do predefined tasks. The

challenge is to build a machine of such scale that wraps around the chips. On an

own, a single nanorobot will not be able to function much, but in numbers they

can work together to do a task that requires high precision and is of complex

nature. The usage of such tiny robots, nanorobots, can be aplenty and mainly in

field of medicine. Where nanorobots will be injected into the blood system of a

human to treat at the cellular level, for instance a tumor can be dissolved.

Same way, during surgeries, nanorobots can be injected into the blood stream

where they will form a blockage at the arteries so as to prevent excessive blood

loss. Though there hasn't been any nanorobot manufactured yet, but in coming

years we can see this technological barrier will also be overcome.