ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATA

WHAT ARE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATON?

Robotics is an Interdisciplinary Branch of Science and Engineering. The thought arose when our ancestors started thinking of creating something that could help them in day-to-day life.

It involves the study of subjects such as Mathematics, Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics Engineering, Control Engineering, Computer-science Engineering, Software Engineering, and so on. Mechatronics is a wider aspect and Robotics is a part of Mechatronics.

An?Automaton is a relatively self-operating?machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as?Bell-striker?in mechanical clocks, are designed to give the illusion to the public observer that they are operating under their own power. Since long ago, the term automaton is commonly associated with automated puppets that resemble moving humans or animals, built to impress and to entertain people.

HISTORY OF HUMAN ROBOTICS (THE Artificer-Yen Shin)

The History of Robotics goes way back to the 3rd century B.C. in the Kingdom of the King Mu's Zhou Dynasty (1023-957 B.C). It was during that time when a famous personality known as 'The Artificer' (Yen Shin) presented a Life-Sized Human-Shaped Figure for the king's personal use.

The king stared at the figure in astonishment. It walked in a calm way moving its head up and down precisely so that everyone would think of it as a live human being. The artificer touched its chin, and it began singing, perfectly in tune. He touched its hand, and it began posturing, keeping perfect time. As the performance of drawing came to an end, the robot winked its eye and made advances towards the ladies in attendance, whereupon the king became enraged and would have had Yen Shin (Yan Shi) executed on the spot had not the latter, in mortal fear, instantly taken the robot to pieces to let him see what it was. And, indeed, it turned out to be only a construction of leather, wood, adhesive, and lacquer, variously colored white, black, red, and blue. Examining it closely, the king found all the internal organs were complete—liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach, and intestines; and over these again, muscles, bones, and limbs with their joints, skin, teeth, and hair, all of them artificial. The king tried the effect of taking away the heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak; he took away the liver and the eyes could no longer see; he took away the kidneys and the legs lost their power of locomotion. This was the First Depiction of the Robots in History according to the relics and texts found so far.

HISTORY OF DRONES AND FLIGHT MACHINES (Archytas of Tarentum)

One of the first devices to successfully employ the principles essential to rocket flight was a Flying pigeon made of wood and suspended from the end of a pivot bar on wires. The writings of?Aulus Gellius, Romans, tell the story of a Greek named?Archytas?who lived in the city of Tarentum(now in Southern Italy). Somewhere around the year 300-420 B.C., Archytas mystified and amused the citizens of Tarentum by flying a Model Pigeon. Escaping steam propelled the bird, which was suspended on wires. The pigeon used the same Action-Reaction principle as the Rocket, which was not stated as a scientific law until the 17th Century.

HISTORY OF PNEUMATICS AND HYDRAULICS (Ctesibius/Ktesibios/Tesibius)

To be known as the 'Father of Pneumatics'. Ctesibius was a Greek-Egyptian Inventor in the early 1st Century A.D. . His inventions were well known throughout the world. During his career as a barber, he invented a?Counterweight-Adjustable?Mirror. Another invention of his included the?Hydraulis, a Water Organ that is considered the precursor of the modern?Pipe Organ, which he and his wife Thais were highly reputed players. He improved the?Water-Clock?or Clepsydra, which for more than 1,800 years was the most Accurate Clock ever constructed by Christiaan Huygens until 1656.

HISTORY OF PNEUMATICS AND HYDRAULICS (Heron of Alexandria)

Heron was known as a Greek?Mathematician?and?Engineer (10 A.D. – 70 A.D.) who was active in his native city of?Alexandria,?Roman Egypt. He is often considered the greatest experimenter of antiquity?and his work is Representative of the?Hellenistic?Scientific Tradition.

Hero published a well-recognized description of a?steam-powered device?known as an?Aeolipile (sometimes called a "Hero Engine"). Among his most famous inventions was a?Wind-Wheel, constituting the earliest instance of?wind harnessing?on land. In his work?on Mechanics, he described?Pantographs.?Some of his ideas were derived from the works of?Ctesibius.

In mathematics, he is mostly remembered for?Heron's Formula, a way to calculate the area of a triangle using only the lengths of its sides.

Some of Heron's works were preserved including in manuscripts from the Eastern Roman Empire and to a lesser extent, in Latin or Arabic translations.

He was the first person to invent a Vending Machine System using water as a counterweight. When the coin was deposited, it fell upon a pan attached to a lever. The lever opened up a valve which let some water flow out. The pan continued to tilt with the weight of the coin until it fell off, at which point a counter-weight would snap the lever back up and turn off the valve. He was the person to toss the initial ideas of various instruments that we use day-to-day such as a Syringe, Thermometer, and many more.

HISTORY OF MECHANICS AND AUTOMATA (Ismail bn ar-Razaz Al-Jazari)

Ismail Al-Jazari known as the 'FATHER OF ANCIENT ROBOTICS' was a Mathematician, Inventor, Mechanical Engineer, Artist, and Scholar of the Artuqid Dynasty of Jazira (1136 A.D –1206 A.D)(now in Turkey). He is well known for his book known as "The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices", where he described 50 Mechanical devices, along with instructions on how to construct them.

He was the First person to Discuss the Concepts of Camshaft, Crank-slider Mechanism, Escapement Mechanism, Segmental Gears, and many more.

English technology historian?Donald Hill?writes:

We see for the first time in al-Jazari's work several concepts important for both design and construction: the?lamination?of timber to minimize warping, the?static balancing?of wheels, the use of wooden?templates?(a kind of pattern), the use of?paper models?to establish designs, the?calibration of orifices, the grinding of the seats and plugs of valves together with?emery?powder to obtain a watertight fit, and the?casting?of metals in closed?mold boxes?with?sand.

The Crankshaft described by Al-Jazari transforms Continuous Rotary Motion into a Linear Reciprocating Motion. He invented a method for Controlling the Speed of rotation of the wheel using an Escapement Mechanism.

l-Jazari invented five machines for raising water,?as well as?Watermills?and?Water wheels?with?cams?on their?axle?used to operate?automata,?in the 12th and 13th centuries, and described them in 1206. It was in these water-raising machines that he introdced his most important ideas and components. The first known use of a?Crankshaft?in a?chain pump?was in one of Al-Jazari's?Saqiya?Machines. The concept of minimizing?intermittent working?is also first implied in one of Al-Jazari's?Saqiya?Chain Pumps, which was to maximize the efficiency of the saqiya chain pump.

Al-Jazari also constructed a Water-raising Saqiya Chain pump which was run by?Hydropower?rather than?manual labor, though the Chinese were also using hydropower for chain pumps before him. Citing the Byzantine?siphon?used for discharging?Greek fire?as an inspiration,?Al-Jazari went on to describe his version of?Suction?Pipes, Suction?Pump,?Double-Action?Pump and made early uses of valves and a?Crankshaft-Connecting rod?Mechanism, when he developed a?twin-cylinder?Reciprocating?Piston?suction pump. This pump is driven by a water wheel, which drives, through a system of gears, an oscillating slot-rod to which the rods of two pistons are attached. The pistons work in horizontally opposed cylinders, each provided with valve-operated suction and delivery pipes. The delivery pipes are joined above the center of the machine to form a single outlet into the irrigation system. This water-raising machine had a direct significance for the development of modern engineering. This pump is remarkable for three reasons:

• The first known use of a true suction pipe (which sucks fluids into a partial?vacuum) in a pump.
• The first application of the double-acting principle.
• The conversion of Rotary?to?Reciprocating Motion?via the crank-connecting rod mechanism.

Not only known as a Man of Science but also the Man of Creativity, One of al-Jazari's?Humanoid Automata?was a Waitress that could serve Water, Tea, or Drinks. The drink was stored in a tank with a reservoir from where the drink drips into a bucket and, after seven minutes, into a cup, after which the waitress appears out of an automatic door serving the drink. He invented a Hand Washing?Automaton?incorporating a flush mechanism now used in modern?flush toilets.

Al-Jazari's "Peacock Fountain" was a more sophisticated hand washing device featuring humanoid automata as servants which offer soap and?towels.

Mark E. Rosheim describes it as follows:

Pulling a plug on the peacock's tail releases water out of the beak; as the dirty water from the basin fills the hollow base a float rises and actuates a?linkage?which makes a servant figure appear from behind a door under the peacock and offer soap. When more water is used, a second float at a higher level trips and causes the appearance of a second servant figure – with a towel!

The basin of the "Peacock Fountain" formed the basin for performing?Wudu,?and it would have been operated by a servant, who would have pulled the plug and positioned the peacock's beak; allowing the mechanism to release the water into the basin in front of the user. However, whilst water-moving objects such as the peacock fountain had ritualistic usage, there is a suggestion that water-moving hydraulics were put to profane use.

Al-Jazari constructed a variety of?water clocks?and?candle clocks. These included a portable water-powered?scribe?clock, which was a meter high and half a meter wide, reconstructed successfully at the?Science Museum?in 1976.?Al-Jazari also invented monumental water-powered?astronomical clocks?which displayed moving models of the Sun, Moon, and stars.

HISTORY OF HUMANOID AUTOMATA (LEONARDO DA VINCI)

Leonardo's mechanical knight was a Humanoid?Automaton?designed and possibly constructed by?Leonardo da Vinci?around the year 1495

The design notes for the robot appear in sketchbooks that were rediscovered in the 1950s. Leonardo is said to have displayed the machine at a celebration hosted by?Ludovico Sforza?at the court of Milan in 1495. The Robot Knight could stand, sit, raise its visor and independently Manoeuvre its arms, and had an anatomically correct jaw. The entire robotic system was operated by a series of pulleys and cables. Since the discovery of the sketchbook, the robot has been built faithfully based on Leonardo's design and was found to be fully functional.

The robot is described as being clad in German-Italian?medieval?armor and can make several human-like motions. It is partially a result of Leonardo's anatomical research in the Canon of Proportions as described in the?Vitruvian Man.

HISTORY OF TOY MAKING AUTOMATA (JUANELO TURRIANO)

In 1565 Italo-Spanish clockmaker, Engineer, and Mathematician named?Juanelo Turriano?(1500 A.D - 1585 A.D) may have created an?automaton of a monk, made of wood and iron, 15 inches in height. This automaton, which still operates, was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution in 1977.

Mechanical Monk that had machinal feet built under its robes that imitated walking. The Robot's eyes, lips, and head all move in lifelike gestures. This marks the presence of the First Humanoid Toy ever created in history.

HISTORY OF ANIMAL ROBOTICS(JACQUES DE VAUCANSON)

Jacques de Vaucanson?(February 24, 1709 – November 21, 1782)?was a?French?inventor and Artist was known as the 'FATHER OF LATHE MACHINES', who built the First All-Metal?Lathe?which was very important to the Industrial Revolution. The Lathe is known as the mother of machine tools, as it was the first machine tool that led to the invention of other machine tools.?He was responsible for the creation of impressive and innovative?automata. He also was the first person to Design an?Automatic Loom.

He created two additional automata,?The Tambourine Player?and?The Digesting Duck, which is considered his masterpiece. The duck had over 400 moving parts in each wing alone, and could flap its wings, drink water, seemingly digest grain, and seemingly defecate.?Although Vaucanson's duck supposedly demonstrated digestion accurately, his duck contained a hidden compartment of "digested food", so that what the duck defecated was not the same as what it ate, the duck would eat a mixture of water and seed and excrete a mixture of bread crumbs and green dye that appeared to the onlooker indistinguishable from real excrement. Although such frauds were sometimes controversial, they were common enough because such scientific demonstrations needed to entertain the wealthy and powerful to attract their patronage. Vaucanson is credited for having invented the world's first flexible rubber tube while building the duck's intestines. Despite the revolutionary nature of his automata, he is said to have tired quickly of his creations and sold them in 1743.

THIS MARKS THE END OF ANCIENT ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATA.

HISTORY OF RADIO CONTROLLED UNMANNED VEHICLES (NIKOLA TESLA)

Nikola Tesla??(10 July 1856?– 7 January 1943) was a?Serbian-American inventor,?electrical engineer,?mechanical engineer, and?futurist?best known for his contributions to the design of the modern?alternating current?(AC)?electricity supply?system.

Born and raised in the?Austrian Empire, Tesla studied engineering and physics in the 1870s without receiving a degree, gaining practical experience in the early 1880s working in?telephony?and at Continental Edison in the new?electric power industry. In 1884 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen. He worked for a short time at the?Edison Machine Works?in New York City before he struck out on his own. With the help of partners to finance and market his ideas, Tesla set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His?Alternating current?(AC)?induction motor?and related?polyphase?AC patents earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the polyphase system which that company eventually marketed.

Attempting to develop inventions he could patent and market, Tesla conducted a range of experiments with mechanical oscillators/generators, electrical discharge tubes, and early X-ray imaging. He also built a wireless-controlled boat, one of the first ever exhibited. Tesla became well known as an inventor and demonstrated his achievements to celebrities and wealthy patrons at his lab, and was noted for his showmanship at public lectures. Throughout the 1890s, Tesla pursued his ideas for wireless lighting and worldwide wireless electric power distribution in his high-voltage, high-frequency power experiments in New York and?Colorado Springs. In 1893, he made pronouncements on the possibility of?wireless communication?with his devices. Tesla tried to put these ideas to practical use in his unfinished?Wardenclyffe Tower?project, an intercontinental wireless communication and power transmitter but ran out of funding before he could complete it.

After Wardenclyffe, Tesla experimented with a series of inventions in the 1910s and 1920s with varying degrees of success. Having spent most of his money, Tesla lived in a series of New York hotels, leaving behind unpaid bills. He died in New York City in January 1943.Tesla's work fell into relative obscurity following his death, until 1960, when the?General Conference on Weights and Measures?named the?SI unit?of?magnetic flux density?the?tesla?in his honor.?There has been a resurgence in popular interest in Tesla since the 1990s

In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a boat that used a?coherer-based?radio control which he dubbed "Telautomaton", to the public during an electrical exhibition at?Madison Square Garden.?Tesla tried to sell his idea to the US military as a type of radio-controlled?torpedo, but they showed little interest. Remote?radio control?remained a novelty until World War I and afterward when many countries used it in?military programs.?Tesla took the opportunity to further demonstrate "Teleautomatics" in an address to a meeting of the Commercial Club in?Chicago, while he was traveling to?Colorado Springs, on 13 May 1899.

HISTORY OF RADIO CONTROL DEVICES (LEONARDO TORRES Y QUEVEDO)

Leonardo Torres y Quevedo (28 December 1852 – 18 December 1936) was a Spanish civil?engineer?and?mathematician?of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Quevedo was a pioneer in the development of the?radio control?and automated calculation machines, the inventor of a?chess automaton,?and a innovative designer of the three-lobed non-rigid?Astra-Torres airship?and the?Whirlpool Aero Car?located in Niagara Falls. With his?Telekine, Torres-Quevedo created wireless?remote-control?operation principles.?

In 1903, he presented the?Telekino?at the Paris Academy of Science and making an experimental demonstration.?In the same year, he obtained a patent in France, Spain, Great Britain, and the United States. It was intended as a way of testing a dirigible of his own design without risking human lives.

The?Telekino?consisted of a?robot?that executed commands transmitted by electromagnetic waves. It constituted the world's second publicly demonstrated apparatus for radio control, after Nikola Tesla's Patented "Teleautomaton", but unlike Tesla's “on/off” mechanisms, Torres device was able to memorize the signals received to execute operations on its own and could carry out to 19 different orders. In 1906, in the presence of the king and before a great crowd, Torres successfully demonstrated the invention in the?port of Bilbao, guiding a boat from the shore with people on board. Later, he would try to apply the?Telekino?to projectiles and torpedoes but had to abandon the project for lack of financing.

In 2007, the prestigious?Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers?(IEEE) dedicated a Milestone in Electrical Engineering and Computing to the?Telekino, based on the research work developed at?Technical University of Madrid?by Prof.?Antonio Pérez Yuste, who was the driving force behind the Milestone nomination.

MODERN ROBOTICS ORIGIN (WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC CORPORATION)

"Elektro"?is the nickname of a?robot?built by the?Westinghouse Electric Corporation?in its?Mansfield, Ohio?facility between 1937 and 1938. Seven feet tall (2.1 m), weighing 265 pounds (120.2?kg), humanoid in appearance, he could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using a 78-rpm?record player), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move his head and arms. Elektro's body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminum skin. His?photoelectric?"eyes" could distinguish red and green light. He was on exhibit at the?1939 New York World's Fair?and reappeared at that fair in 1940, with "Sparko", a robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg to humans.

MODERN DAY COMPUTERS ORIGIN (MIT?SERVOMECHANISMS LABORATORY)

Whirlwind I?was a?Cold War-era?vacuum tube computer?developed by the?MIT?Servomechanisms Laboratory for the?U.S. Navy. Operational in 1951, it was among the first digital electronic computers that operated in real-time for output, and the first that was not simply an electronic replacement of older mechanical systems. It was one of the first computers to calculate in?parallel, and was the first to use?magnetic-core memory.

Its development led directly to the Whirlwind II design used as the basis for the?United States Air Force?SAGE?air defense system, and indirectly to almost all business computers and?minicomputers?in the 1960s,?particularly because of "short word length, speed, people."

HISTORY OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ORIGIN (WILLIAM GREY WALTER)

Elmer and Elsie?(Electro-Mechanical Robot, Light-Sensitive Robot) were two electronic robots that were built in the late 1940s by?Neurobiologist?and?Cybernetician,?William Grey Walter.

They were the first?robots?in history that were programmed to "Cognitively think" the way biological brains do and meant to have free will.?

Elmer and Elsie were often labeled as tortoises because of how they were shaped and the manner in which they moved. They were capable of?phototaxis?which is the movement that occurs in response to light stimulus.

MODERN INDUSTRIAL ROBOTS ORIGIN(GEORGE DEVOL)

"Unimate"?was the first?industrial robot,?which worked on a?General Motors?assembly line?at the?Inland Fisher Guide Plant?in?Ewing Township, New Jersey, in?1961. It was invented by?George Devol?in the 1950s using his original patent filed in 1954 and granted in 1961. The present invention relates to the automatic operation of machinery, particularly the handling apparatus, and to automatic control apparatus suited for such machinery. Devol, together with?Joseph Engelberger, his business associate, started the world's first robot manufacturing company,?"Unimation".

The machine undertook the job of transporting?die castings?from an assembly line and welding these parts on auto bodies, a dangerous task for workers, who might be poisoned by toxic fumes or lose a limb if they were not careful. The original Unimate consisted of a large computer-like box, joined to another box and was connected to an arm, with?systematic tasks?stored in a?drum memory.

The Unimate also appeared on?The Tonight Show?hosted by?Johnny Carson?on which it knocked a golf ball into a cup, poured a beer, waved the orchestra conductor's baton and grasped an accordion and waved it around. In?2003?the Unimate was inducted into the?Robot Hall of Fame.

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This marks the end of?the History of Robotics and Automata. Many more inventions were done between the past and current years, but these are the most revolutionary inventions and creations from ancient history that tells us about Automata and Robotics.

My message to the youngsters nowadays who say that it costs a lot to create or do something in any field (Science, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Robotics, Cyber-securities, Computer -Sciences, Defense Systems, and more) is?"Brother/Sister, It does not cost a single penny when you start learning how to overcome problems. History itself is about how our ancestors overcame their problems by creating and inventing things. Now, it's your turn to show the world how you can solve the problems of this Era".

?-Pranay Bhonagiri.