Robotics: a very short introduction

Robotics: A Very Short Introduction

Published by Oxford University Press

Additional materials, especially robot images, links and videos:

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Chapter 1 What is a robot?

e-puck educational mobile robot

e-puck
  The e-puck online resource: www.e-puck.org
  YouTube videos of swarming e-pucks:
    4 e-puck robots programmed to follow each other
    10 e-puck robots swarming toward a beacon

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Replica of Grey Walter’s 

robot tortoise

Grey Walter robot tortoise: Machina Speculatrix
  The Grey Walter online archive with
  Images of Walter's famous experiments
  BBC newsreel (~1949) of Walter demonstrating Elsie and Elmer
  Images of replicas of the Grey Walter robot tortoise
  Exploration and High Adventure: the legacy of Grey Walter, a paper by Owen Holland (2003)

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Chapter 2 What robots do now

Fig 7. LEGO Mindstorms NXT 

‘central nervous system’

Lego NXT Nervous System

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Chapter 3 Biological robots

Solarbot

Solarbot

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Shakey
  Wikipedia article describing Shakey

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Toto

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Slugbot

Slugbot
  Slugbot web pages: towards true robot autonomy

Closeup of Slugbot gripper

Slugbot gripper slug catcher

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EcoBot II

EcoBot II
  EcoBot II Web pages

Fig 9. EcoBot III: a robot with 

an artificial digestive system

Ecobot III
  EcoBot project overview web pages
  EcoBot III Web pages

Fig 9 (inset). Microbial Fuel Cell

EcoBot III Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC)

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Fig 10. Scratchbot, 

a robot with artificial whiskers

Scratchbot
  Scratchbot Web pages
  YouTube video of Scratchbot
  BIOTACT Project web pages

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Chapter 4 Humanoid and android robots

Fig 11. BERT II torso 

fitted with the BRL digital head

BERT
  Cooperative Human Robot Interaction Systems project website

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Fig 12. Kismet, 

an expressive robot head 

for research in social 

human–robot interaction

Kismet
  Kismet project web pages

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Fig 13. Jules, 

an expressive 

android robot head

Jules, pleased to see you
  Hanson Robotics
  Jules says goodbye - YouTube video

Jules, laughing

Jules, alarmed

Jules: upset

Jules, disgusted

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Fig 15. Paro, a robot baby seal

Paro

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Fig 16. Cronos, an anthropomimetic 

humanoid robot

Cronos
  YouTube ECCEROBOT video
  ECCEROBOT project website

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Chapter 5 Robot swarms, evolution and symbiosis

Kiva systems robots

Kiva systems warehouse robots

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsMdN7HMuA

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Swarm-bot pulling a child

Swarmbot project

  project web site
  Swarm-bot child pulling video

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJOubyiITsE

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Fig 17 (left). Swarmanoid -

three Foot-bots and a Hand-bot

Swarmanoid footbots and handbot
  project web site

  Swarmanoid video – fetching book off bookshelf:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2nn1X9Xlps

Fig 17 (right). Swarmanoid - 

the Eye-bot

Swarmanoid eyebot

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Fig 18. The four-stage process 

of evolutionary robotics

Evolutionary Robotics

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Fig 19 (top).
In the Golem project,
a robot is evolved in simulation

GOLEM Project
  project web site

Fig 19 (bottom).
In the Golem project, the final
best evolved individual is fabricated

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Fig 20. Alice robot (A) and its 

artificial neural network controller (B)

Alice robot

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Fig 21 (top). Visualization of 

a Symbrion organism

SYMBRION/REPLICATOR project
  project web pages

Fig 21 (bottom). Symbrion 

Backbone and Active wheel 

robots in the process of 

autonomous self-assembly

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Fig 22. Simulated Nao 
humanoid robots playing 
3-a-side football in the 
simulator Webots

Webots robot simulator

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Chapter 6 Robotic futures

Bin48 being interviewed
by Amy Harmon

Bina48
  New York Times interview:

  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/05/science/05robotside.html

  Video of NYT interview