History of Humanoid Robotics

This paper aims to show the possible and actual synergies between social robotics and sociology. The author argues that social robots are one of the best fields of inquiry to provide a bridge between the two cultures – the one represented by the social sciences and the humanities on the one hand, and the one represented by the natural sciences and engineering on the other. To achieve this result, quantitative and qualitative analyses are implemented. By using scientometric tools like Ngram Viewer, search engines such as Google Scholar, and hand calculations, the author detects the emergence of the term-and-concept ‘social robots’ in its current use, the absolute and relative frequencies of this term in the scientific literature in the period 1800-2008, the frequency distribution of publications including this term in the period 2000-2019, and the magnitude of publications in which the term ‘social robots’ is associated to the term ‘sociology’ or 'social work'. Finally, employing qualitative analysis and focusing on exemplary cases, this paper shows different ways of implementing researches that relate sociology to robotics, from a theoretical or instrumental point of view. It is argued that sociologists and engineers could work in a team to observe, analyze, and describe the interaction between humans and social robots, by using research techniques and theoretical frames provided by sociology. In turn, this knowledge can be used to build more effective and humanlike social robots.

The activities at the Robotics Laboratory at the Institute “Mihailo Pupin”, headed by professor Vukobratović, and their pioneering achievements covered virtually the entire traditional robotics in all its segments in '60s and ' 70s, from automatic creation of dynamic models for spatial active mechanisms, dynamic control of robotic mechanisms, decentralized control of tightly linked active mechanisms31, introduction of centralized
control of feedback32, introduction of centralized control of
negative feedback in robotics, introduction of practical stability
tests in decentralized control of robotic mechanisms, unique
approach to the synthesis of the law on control of position/
force for robots interacting with dynamic environment and
new approach to modelling and control of multi-arm robots
that interact with each other and dynamic environment as well.
Robotics Laboratory at the Institute “Mihailo Pupin” became
the foundation and the place of birth for numerous productive
and creative researchers in robotics and mechatronics.

Активношћу тима Лабораторије за роботику Института "Михајло Пупин", на челу са професором
Вукобратовићем, и њиховим пионирским достигнућима
практично је покривена традиционална роботика у свим
сегментима током шездесетих и седамдесетих година 20. века, од аутоматског добијања динамичких модела
за просторне
активне механизме, преко динамичког
управљања роботским механизмима, децентрализованог
управљања чврсто повезаним активним механизмима31,
увођења повратне силе у динамичко управљање манипулацијом
и локомоторним роботима, увођења централизованог
управљања
повратном спрегом32, увођења централизованог
управљања негативном повратном спрегом
у роботику, увођења практичних тестова стабилности у
децентрализованом управљању за роботске механизме,
до јединственог приступа синтези закона о управљању
положајем/силом за роботе у интеракцији са динамичким
окружењем и новог приступа моделирању и управљању
роботом са више руку које су у међусобној интеракцији и
интеракцији са динамичким окружењем.

In the realization of moving automata for Francesco I de' Medici's sixteenth-century Villa Pratolino outside of Florence, the memory of antiquity informed both the practical and theoretical operations of these " living statues. " The 1587 description of the villa and its wonders, Delle Maravigliose Opere di Pratolino, & d'Amore by Francesco de' Vieri, associates magical traditions of statue animation with Renaissance automata in a passage that cites Aristotle's description, rooted in atomism and sympathetic magic, of the physical process by which Daedalus animated his legendary wooden Venus. From the fifteenth century onwards, the rediscovery and popularity of Neoplatonic and Hermetic philosophical texts in the Renaissance perpetuated Greco-Egyptian methods of investing man-made vessels, typically cult statues, with some kind of " life " from received celestial influences, thus manufacturing the " living gods " of antiquity. Simultaneously , mechanical texts which preserved mechanical devices and principles from ancient Alexandria were being assimilated to the engineering repertoire of Western Europe, and air and water were harnessed to impart movement to the early modern automata which graced Italian Renaissance hydraulic villas and gardens. For the court of Francesco I de' Medici, the division between our modern scientific concept of air and a metaphysical " spirit " was not yet drawn, and manipulating this occult " influence " was invested with a mastery of a far broader, unseen sphere. For the court philosopher De' Vieri, Neoplatonic and Hermetic writings furnished alternative and not necessarily contradictory understandings of various hidden forces which could cause statues to move. In the late sixteenth century, a much broader conception of " nature " allowed for the confirmation of invisible or " occult " phenomena which did not preclude the magical philosophy of antiquity from being related to the empirical discoveries being made via the production of new mechanical devices. De' Vieri's 1587 panegyric to Pratolino demonstrates that the mastery of mechanical as well as esoteric magical philosophy came to feature in the propaganda of the newly-invested Medici Grand Duke.

Since her creation in 2016, Sophia has become the world’s most recognized humanoid social robot. Gendered female by creator David Hanson, she is a harbinger of a tomorrow world that is here. She performs at events around the planet as a messenger, celebrity, and ambassador representing the human-technological future. Sophia is a symbol, and humans are witnesses to an origin story as much hers as it is our own.

Revelation 13:14-15 mention a curious "image" that moves and speaks. This essay suggests that the reference is to an ongoing controversy in first-century proto-Christianity over idol-sacrificed meat, and also to examples in classical art-technology of mechanical automata. The essay also looks at I John 5:21 in this context.

Resource Person: Dimitrios A.Karras

Dimitrios A. Karras received his Diploma and M.Sc. Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece in 1985 and the Ph. Degree in Electrical Engineering, from the NTUA, Greece in 1995, with honours. From 1990 and up to 2004 he collaborated as visiting professor and researcher with several universities and research institutes in Greece. Since 2004 he has been with the Sterea Hellas Institute of Technology, Automation Dept., Greece as associate professor in Digital Systems and Signal Processing, till 12/2018, as well as with the Hellenic Open University, Dept. Informatics as a visiting professor in Communication Systems (the latter since 2002 and up to 2010). Since 1/2019 is Associate Prof. in Digital Systems and Intelligent Systems, Signal Processing , in National & Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, School of Science, Dept. General. He is, also, adjunct professor with GLA University. Mathura, India and BIHER, BHARATH univ. India as well as with EPOKA and CIT universities Tirana. Moreover, he is with AICO EDV-Beratung GmbH as senior researcher as well as Director of Research and Documentation at ADIafrica N. G. O. He has published more than 70 research refereed journal papers in various areas of pattern recognition, image/signal processing and neural networks as well as in bioinformatics and more than 185 research papers in International refereed scientific Conferences. His research interests span the fields of pattern recognition and neural networks, image and signal processing, image and signal systems, biomedical systems, communications, networking and security. He has served as program committee member in many international conferences, as well as program chair and general chair in several international workshops and conferences in the fields of signal, image, communication and automation systems. He is, also, former editor in chief (2008-2016) of the International Journal in Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering (IJSISE), academic editor in the TWSJ, ISRN Communications and the Applied Mathematics Hindawi journals as well as associate editor in various scientific journals. He has been cited in more than 2469 research papers (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=IxQurTMAAAAJ&hl=en), his H/G-indices are 20/50 (Google Scholar) and his Erdos number is 5. His RG score is 31.66

Wm J. Hammer worked for Edison as early as the days of Menlo Park and made a specialty of developing cutting-edge improvement's to his boss' inventions. This article uncovers much of his work in creating phonographic automata as well as his ability to publicize the Edison interests at various World's Fairs and Electrical Expositions (especially Paris in 1889). He also helped to introduce the use of Radium in the US and knew many of the first aeronautical pioneers.

ABSTRACT

In a 1989 essay in _Extrapolation_, bibliographer of science fiction E.F. Bleiler described a sub-genre of dime novels that featured young inventors of contraptions called Steam Men-metal humanoids that pulled carts. The first of these, _The Steam Man of the Prairies_, was published in August 1868 in #45 of _Beadle's Dime Novels_.  It was written by Edward S. Ellis, then a superintendent of schools in New Jersey, and a prolific dime novel writer who had also authored fifty books on American History. The hero, Johnny Brainerd and his pals engage in the typical frontier escapades expected by Western dime novel readers:  run-ins with outlaws and hostile Indians, and digging for gold.  Although Ellis never wrote another technologically-based dime novel, his story was pirated, reworked, and published in different forms frequently throughout the rest of the nineteenth century. Bleiler credited Ellis's inspiration to a similar contraption invented by Zadock P. Dederick, a machinist from Newark, New Jersey, who with Isaac Grass patented it in early 1868.  The "steam carriage," a cast iron articulated humanoid figure that housed the engine, pulled a cart that was used for both balance and to hold the water tanks as well as passengers.

While Bleiler added a footnote about a steam man produced in Newark the following year by another inventor, he did not acknowledge that they were part of a phenomenon that spread across the northeastern US and eastern Canada in the years after the American  Civil War, inspiring competitions, newspaper reports and hoaxes, and keeping interest in the dime novel steam men alive. This paper picks up where Bleiler left off, providing additional information on the relationship between these inventions and the subsequent steam man (and electric man) dime novels.  I also address Bleiler's disclaimer that steam and electric men were not robots. While the contraptions were indeed essentially prime movers housed in humanoid casings, they have a significant place in both the history of automatic machines and science fiction about robots.

As humanoid robot technology makes its way into the global economy, it is important for robot designers to try to under- stand the variety of cultural attitudes that exist throughout the world. However, to our knowledge, no one has yet surveyed Middle Eastern attitudes on this topic. We aim to try to bridge this gap. In particular, we wanted to understand how Arabic people might view having hu- manoid robots in their daily lives, and developed a questionnaire to understand these views. We also built an end-to-end Arabic conver- sational system on our humanoid robot Ibn Sina, and brought the robot to a mall in the United Arab Emirates. At the mall we en- couraged people to interact with the robot as well as complete our questionnaire. With 131 respondents from 21 countries, our find- ings show significant regional differences in overall attitudes (people from the Gulf viewed humanoid robots more favorably than people from Africa), as well as an effect from college education (people with college degrees viewed humanoid robots less favorably than people without college degrees).

Description:  The Robot: The Life Story of a Technology by Lisa Nocks, PhD, a historian of science, technology, and media culture, is an extensively researched "biography" of the concept of robotic machines, from their first iteration in archaic myth and religious ceremonies to the latest developments in the field.

Part I details the development of mechanical devices based on the simple machines. Part II covers the first industrial manipulators in the twentieth century and the development of AI as it relates to robotics. Part III describes the most recent advances in industrial, service and entertainment robotics.

The author provides background on the engineers and AI specialists who conceived and developed these robots, as well as their theories about human-robot interaction and their application of cognitive studies to the development of humanoid robots.  The volume includes descriptions and statistics about robot labs and companies around the world, and photos of some of the most recent accomplishments - from the winner of the DARPA Grand Challenge to the humanoid robot ASIMO.

 The volume also includes a time line of important events, a glossary of terms, and a bibliography of important primary and secondary sources that are useful for further research. The Further Reading section includes websites of robotics labs and associations, and articles by robot engineers.
 
 This text is designed to be useful as either a library reference or as a classroom text.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I - Ancestors
1. Between Ritual, Myth, and Machine
2. From Automata to Automation
Part II - The Early Years
3. Into the Factory: The First Robots
4. Smarter Machines: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
Part III - Growth of the Field
5. Getting Around: Perception, Locomotion, Power
6. Robots Among Us: The Latest Developments
Conclusion: Into the Future
Glossary
Time line
Further Reading
Index

Very likely, we shall eventually be able to own humanoid robots that—in professional interactions, casual conversations, and even shallow romantic relationships—will act persuasively human. In this article, I ask two questions: What is it that we will have made? And more importantly, through these artificial entities, what will we make ourselves become?

http://churchlife.nd.edu/2019/03/18/what-will-a-future-with-androids-among-us-look-like/

This book explores the creation and use of artificially made humanoid servants and servant networks by fictional and non-fictional scientists of the early modern period. Beginning with an investigation of the roots of artificial servants, humanoids, and automata from earlier times, LaGrandeur traces how these literary representations coincide with a surging interest in automata and experimentation, and how they blend with the magical science that proceeded the empirical era. These representations eerily prefigure modern robots, androids, and artificially intelligent networks, and the art that is responsible for their creation blurs the edges between magic and science in a way that resonates especially with modern notions of cybernetics. In the instances that this book considers, the idea of the artificial factotum is connected with an emotional paradox: the joy of self-enhancement is counterpoised with the anxiety of self-displacement that comes with distribution of agency. In this way, the older accounts of creating artificial slaves are accounts of modernity in the making—a modernity characterized by the project of extending the self and its powers, in which the vision of the extended self is fundamentally inseparable from the vision of an attenuated self. This book discusses the idea that fictional, artificial servants embody at once the ambitions of the scientific wizards who make them and society’s perception of the dangers of those ambitions, and represent the cultural fears triggered by independent, experimental thinkers—the type of thinkers from whom our modern cyberneticists directly descend.