Using robots to understand social behaviour.

A major challenge in studying social behaviour stems from the need to disentangle the behaviour of each individual from the resulting collective. One way to overcome this problem is to construct a model of the behaviour of an individual, and observe whether combining many such individuals leads to the predicted outcome. This can be achieved by using robots. In this review we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of such an approach for studies of social behaviour. We find that robots-whether studied in groups of simulated or physical robots, or used to infiltrate and manipulate groups of living organisms-have important advantages over conventional individual-based models and have contributed greatly to the study of social behaviour. In particular, robots have increased our understanding of self-organization and the evolution of cooperative behaviour and communication. However, the resulting findings have not had the desired impact on the biological community. We suggest reasons for why this may be the case, and how the benefits of using robots can be maximized in future research on social behaviour.

Historical contingency affects signaling strategies and competitive abilities in evolving populations of simulated robots.

One of the key innovations during the evolution of life on earth has been the emergence of efficient communication systems, yet little is known about the causes and consequences of the great diversity within and between species. By conducting experimental evolution in 20 independently evolving populations of cooperatively foraging simulated robots, we found that historical contingency in the occurrence order of novel phenotypic traits resulted in the emergence of two distinct communication strategies. The more complex foraging strategy was less efficient than the simpler strategy. However, when the 20 populations were placed in competition with each other, the populations with the more complex strategy outperformed the populations with the less complex strategy. These results demonstrate a tradeoff between communication efficiency and robustness and suggest that stochastic events have important effects on signal evolution and the outcome of competition between distinct populations.

Learning and adaptation in physical heterogeneous teams of robots

In this paper we present a novel approach to assigning roles to robots in a team of physical heterogeneous robots. Its members compete for these roles and get rewards for them. The rewards are used to determine each agent’s preferences and which agents are better adapted to the environment. These aspects are included in the decision making process. Agent interactions are modelled using the concept of an ecosystem in which each robot is a species, resulting in emergent behaviour of the whole set of agents. One of the most important features of this approach is its high adaptability. Unlike some other learning techniques, this approach does not need to start a whole exploitation process when the environment changes. All this is exemplified by means of experiments run on a simulator. In addition, the algorithm developed was applied as applied to several teams of robots in order to analyse the impact of heterogeneity in these systems

La convivencia con los cyborgs y los robots: Consideraciones filosóficas, ético-morales y sociopolíticas

In this work, we present the cultural evolution that has allowed to overcome many problems derived from the limitations of the human body. These limitations have been solved by a"cyborization" process that began since early anthropogenesis. Originally, it was envisioned to deal with some diseases, accidents or body malfunctions. Nowadays, augmentations improve common human capabilities; one of the most notable is the increase of brain efficiency by using connections with a computer. A basic social question also addressed is which people will and should have access to these augmentations. Advanced humanoid robots (with human external aspect, artificial intelligence and even emotions) already exist and consequently a number of questions arise. For instance, will robots be considered living organisms? Could they be considered as persons? Will we confer the human status to robots? These questions are discussed. Our conclusions are that the advanced humanoid robots display some actions that may be considered as life-like, yet different to the life associated with living organisms, also, to some extend they could be considered as persons-like, but not humans.

Reflexiones sobre los cyborgs y los robots: evolucion humana y aumentacion

The human being has changed in time due to both, biological and cultural evolution. In a first step, biological evolution was the cornerstone of the changes in our species. However, cultural evolution was also a key element producing adaptations that allowed the evolution of modern human being. These adaptations include aspects as different as clothing, tools, reading and writing, calculation and some forms of rudimentary prosthesis. Technoscience has enhanced these adaptations that conduce to the concept of broad-sense cyborg. Present human society includes a huge proportion of these latter individuals. In this article we discuss this reality and the future of our society based on the interconnections between humans, cyborgs and robots.

Local model predictive control experiences with differential driven wheeled mobile robots

This work extends a previously developed research concerning about the use of local model predictive control in differential driven mobile robots. Hence, experimental results are presented as a way to improve the methodology by considering aspects as trajectory accuracy and time performance. In this sense, the cost function and the prediction horizon are important aspects to be considered. The aim of the present work is to test the control method by measuring trajectory tracking accuracy and time performance. Moreover, strategies for the integration with perception system and path planning are briefly introduced. In this sense, monocular image data can be used to plan safety trajectories by using goal attraction potential fields

Robots and robotic systems for the electronics and telecommunication industry

Tämä diplomityö tutkii elektroniikka- ja telekommunikaatioteollisuutta sekä siihen läheisesti liittyviä robotteja ja robottijärjestelmiä. Tavoitteena on määrittää E&T-teollisuuden prosesseihin soveltuvien robottien testausmenetelmä. Tavoitteena on myös selvittää kahden ABB:n robotin soveltuvuutta E&T-teollisuuden tarpeisiin. Muutamia systemaattisia valmistusjärjestelmien suunnitteluun soveltuvia menetelmiä ja apuvälineitä on myös käsitelty. Alussa työ keskittyy elektroniikka- ja telekommunikaatioteollisuuden nykytilan tutkimiseen sekä siellä vallitsevien ja ennustettujen trendien kartoitukseen. Kohdat “Collaborative manufacturing” ja E&T-teollisuuden valmistusjärjestelmille asettamat vaatimukset käydään yksityiskohtaisesti läpi. Tutkimuksen pääkohteina ovat robotit, erityisesti ABB:n IRB 140 ja IRB 340 sekä robottien testausmenetelmän määrittäminen. Työssä käydään läpi IRB 340:llä suoritetut testit, jotka tehtiin sekä konenäköjärjestelmää apuna käyttäen että ilman. Myös TTKK:lla suoritetut robottitestit on käyty läpi. Robottien testituloksia on analysoitu ja vertailtu muihin robotteihin. Testausmenetelmät perustuvat ISO 9283 standardiin. Viimeinen osa työstä esittelee robottijärjestelmien systemaattiseen suunnitteluun soveltuvia menetelmiä ja apuvälineitä. Esillä ovat mm. Modular function deployment (MFD) ja The system design method (SDM).

Behind and beyond of the cyborgs and robots ideas and realities: some techno-scientific and philosophical hints

We are progressively immersed in technology to such extend that in our everyday life we are and we do what technology allows us to be and to do. In this process, cyborgs and robots constitute elements that we analyze from a number of techno scientific and philosophical approaches. Additionally, we propose that a new concept: GEH (Genetic Engineered Human) as a new potential social imaginary element, which would be the human being improved by the broad-sense genetics engineer (that is, changing many genes by genetics engineer, modifications in the genome, cloning, and so on). If our aspirations as humans pass through technology and in particular for cyborgs, robots and GEH, the bidirectional links between these theoretical or real entities and our personal identities will be the more and more substantial in our society.

Shout and Act: an Algorithm for Digital Objects Preservation Inspired from Rescue Robots

We adapt the Shout and Act algorithm to Digital Objects Preservation where agents explore file systems looking for digital objects to be preserved (victims). When they find something they “shout” so that agent mates can hear it. The louder the shout, the urgent or most important the finding is. Louder shouts can also refer to closeness. We perform several experiments to show that this system works very scalably, showing that heterogeneous teams of agents outperform homogeneous ones over a wide range of tasks complexity. The target at-risk documents are MS Office documents (including an RTF file) with Excel content or in Excel format. Thus, an interesting conclusion from the experiments is that fewer heterogeneous (varying skills) agents can equal the performance of many homogeneous (combined super-skilled) agents, implying significant performance increases with lower overall cost growth. Our results impact the design of Digital Objects Preservation teams: a properly designed combination of heterogeneous teams is cheaper and more scalable when confronted with uncertain maps of digital objects that need to be preserved. A cost pyramid is proposed for engineers to use for modeling the most effective agent combinations

Els robots s'inspiren en les taràntules

La robòtica està experimentant un gran auge, amb el disseny de màquines cada cop més sofisticades i complexes pel que fa a les funcions que poden dur a terme i a la capacitat d'interacció amb les persones. Molta inspiració ve de la natura. Un dels reptes actuals és optimitzar els sistemes que controlen el moviment de les extremitats perquè permetin ajustar la velocitat i la coordinació de manera precisa i ràpida. Anna N. Ahn i els seus col·laboradors, dels departaments de biologia i d'enginyeria del Pitzer College i del Harvey Mudd College de Claremont, als EUA, han proposat un sistema de control basat en el moviment de les extremitats de les aranyes. Concretament, han estudiat la locomoció hidràulica de les taràntules, que es veu afectada per la temperatura, segons han publicat a The Journal of Experimental Biology.