Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
novel situation. Mark Yim of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in
California says this is one area in which polymorphic robots could be
most useful. “There's no point in taking an entire toolkit into space, he
says, when you don't know which tools you'll need: a single robot arm
can be shaped to do the job of all of them.” [10]
Lipson also believes it is conceveable that the three-dimensional print-
ing technology will allow several materials to be printed, including con-
ductive materials (such as are used in printed circuit boards), non-
conductive and even semi-conductive materials (for example, micropro-
cessors). “Wires, motors and logic circuits, as well as structure, could be
printed in one pass without the need for assembly.”
Some versions of the Golem robots push themselves along on one
leg, while others produce a hinge-like motion and crawl about like a fish
out of water. Yet another moves sideways like a crab. Although a robot
is ready to move when it comes out of the three-dimensional printer, its
motor must be inserted by a person. But one aim of the project is to make
the robots totally independent, much like the vengeful shape-shifter in
the movie
Te r m i n a t o r 2
.
Currently, when a robot has performed its task, it offers itself up to
be melted down, so its thermoplastic components can be recycled into
another useful droid by the three-dimensional printer. While robots are
so self-effacing the human race has nothing to fear from them.
The mechanical aspects of manufacturing new robots in experiments
such as these, employ well-established technologies, for example the three-
dimensional printer mentioned above. Research in the field of Rapid
Prototyping has drastically reduced the long waits that product designers
and inventors used to face when building prototypes. Rapid Prototyp-
ing, which is also known as Layered Manufacture, is a manufacturing
technique whereby three-dimensional solid models are constructed by
fusing layer upon layer of material, for example plastic powder, under
the control of a computer. This process is widely used for the rapid fab-
rication of physical prototypes of functional parts, patterns for moulds,
prototypes of medical implants and bones, and consumer products. The
principal advantage of the process is that it allows early verification of
a design so that improvements to the design can be made and the new
design fabricated and tested quickly.
The U.S. Government has shown some considerable interest in self-
reproducing robots (sometimes referred to as Self-Replicating Systems or
SRSs). In 1980 a NASA study was conducted by request of newly-elected
