Robots …
in the image of Man
Art, Technolgy and the Body
H.J. Sommer III
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University
www.me.psu.edu/sommer
1
in the image of Man
2
Robot – the word
robota – Czech for forced
labor
 “Rossum’s Universal Robots”
play, Karel Kapek, 1921

3
Metropolis, 1926
4
Metropolis, 1926
5
C3P0 versus Arnold
6
BattleBots, 2000
7
Robot – a definition

Robotic Industries Association

reprogrammable manipulator
8
The first real robot, 1961
Machine tool + Computer
 Unimate 2000
 Engelberger and Devol
 Handle hot castings

9
The first real robot, 1961
10
The first real robot, 1961
11
Robot motion
Cartesian
 Cylindrical
 Spherical
 Anthropomorphic

12
Robot power
Pneumatic
 Hydraulic
 Electrical

13
Early robot applications
Machine loading
 Welding
 Painting
 Assembly

14
PUMA
Programmable Universal Manipulator for
Assembly
15
Robots - today
16
Robots - today
17
Robots - today
18
New robot applications
Semiconductor
 Surgery
 Mobility
 Remote sensing

19
Robots - tomorrow
20
Shortfalls –
robots versus human
Sentience
 Sensors
 Dexterity
 Power
 Mobility

21
Advantages –
robots versus human
Precision
 Reparability
 Hazardous environments
 Stasis

22
Perception versus
measurement


Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
Our organo-receptors contaminate
perception
Art
 Emotions
 Drugs

23
For a breath I tarry …
Therefore, Solcom’s strangest creation was
given dominion over half the Earth, and they
called him Frost.
For ten thousand years Frost sat at the North
Pole of the Earth, aware of every snowflake
that fell.
Frost knew temperature but he did not know
cold.
novelette, Roger Zelazny, 1967 in "The Last Defender of Camelot", 1995
24
The players







Frost – controller of the Northern Hemisphere, first
and greatest of Solcom’s creations
Beta – controller of the Southern Hemisphere
Solcom – machine placed by Man in permanent orbit
and invested with the power to rebuild the world
Divcom – alternate rebuilder activated when Solcom
sustained minor damage from a stray atomic missile
Mordel – a minion of Divcom
Ore-Crusher – an excavator that killed the last Man in
His bomb shelter, doomed to wander the Earth telling
the tale of woe while carrying the bones
Man – extinct
25
The dilemma

Frost is so efficient that he takes up a hobby – to
know the nature of Man

Frost only knows measurement - not perception

Solcom and Divcom wager if Frost can learn the
nature of Man

Mordel tempts Frost with knowledge about Man in
defiance of Solcom and Beta

Frost constructs mechanical analogs of human
sensory equipment but he still only knows
measurement
26
The question

Frost clones the body of a Man and transfers his
matrix of awareness into the body for five minutes.

Has Frost become a man?

Frost declares that he has failed.

Which machine can answer this question?
27
The answer

Perhaps our machines may help us
better know ourselves
28
in the image of Man
29