Discusses the global robotics industry, specifically how key foreign nations support commercial robots, while almost all of America’s vast spending on this technology goes to military and space exploration uses.

Robotics: An Introduction

The concept of a robot as we know it today evolved over many years. In fact, its origins could be traced to ancient Greece well before the time when Archimedes invented the screw pump. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) made far-reaching contributions to the field of robotics with his pioneering research into the brain that led him to make discoveries in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. He provided physical explanations of how the brain processes visual and other sensory inputs and invented a number of ingenious machines. His flying devices, although not practicable, embodied sound principles of aerodynamics, and a toy built to bring to fruition Leonardo's drawing inspired the Wright brothers in building their own flying machine, which was successfully flown in 1903. The word robot itself seems to have first appeared in 1921 in Karel Capek's play, Rossum's Universal Robots, and originated from the Slavic languages. In many of these languages the word robot is quite common as it stands for worker. It is derived from the Czech word robitit, which implies drudgery. Indeed, robots were conceived as machines capable of repetitive tasks requiring a lower intelligence than that of humans. Yet today robots are thought to be capable of possessing intelligence, and the term is probably inappropriate. Nevertheless it is in use. The term robotics was probably first coined in science fiction work published around the 1950s by Isaac Asimov, who also enunciated his three laws of robotics. It was from Asimov's work that the concept of emulating humans emerged.

ARNE's key physical component is a 300 mm diameter disc which supports the control electronics and the rotating sonar sensor. Below the disc is a chassis which holds the motors and shaft encoders to control the two drive wheels.

5.1 Hardware

ARNE has a drive wheel on each side of the chassis and a low-friction castor at the back. It moves holonomically, turning the wheels in the same direction to move forward or in opposite directions to rotate on the spot. Shaft encoders with a precision of 1024 steps per revolution determine the distance travelled by each wheel to a precision of 0.2 mm.

At the lowest level, the wheel movements are controlled by two dedicated HCTL-1100 motion control chips (Hewlett-Packard 1992, pages 1–77 to 1–115) which generate and execute trapezoidal velocity profiles. The length, acceleration and peak velocity of these movements are specified by the on-board CPU, a 68000-compatible ‘Mini-Module’ micro controller from PSI Systems Limited (PSI 1991).

ARNE's only range sensor is a single rotating Polaroid ultrasonic rangeflnder (Polaroid 1991) which can be seen in Figure 5.1 on top of the box which houses the CPU and other control electronics. The transducer is rotated by a stepper motor with a minimum step size of 1.8°. A full 360° scan is performed in twenty 18° steps.

Section 1.3 explained the decision to connect ARNE to a stationary workstation. A 9600–baud connection to the Mini Module's RS485 serial port was used for this purpose.

Manufacturing in cleanroom environments

Clean environments are required for manufacturing modern electronics devices, in particular semiconductor devices, but also hard disks, flat panel displays (FPDs), and solar panels. Wafer processing in the semiconductor industry includes some of the most demanding processes in terms of complexity and cleanliness, due to the submicron dimensions of modern semiconductor devices. This book focuses on industrial cleanroom robotics in semiconductor and FPD manufacturing. Both industries experienced phenomenal technical advancement and growth in the 1980s and 1990s and have established manufacturing facilities in several geographic regions: North America, Europe, and Asia/Pacific Rim. India may emerge as another manufacturing region. The market for semiconductor manufacturing equipment was valued at approximately US$45.5 billion in 2007. The market for FPD manufacturing equipment surpassed the US$1 billion mark in 1997 for the first time. In 2008 it was estimated at US$10 billion.

Cleanroom requirements

Cleanrooms are isolated environments in which humidity, temperature, and particulate contamination are monitored and controlled within specified parameters (SEMI standard E70). Particulates are fine particles, solid or liquid, that are suspended in a gas. Particulate sizes range from less than 10 nm to more than 100 µm. Particulates of less than 100 nm are called ultra-fine particles. Here the term ‘particle’ is used throughout, representing particles of all applicable sizes, either suspended in a gas or attached to a surface. Cleanroom environments are required if particle contamination is a concern, as is the case, for example, in semiconductor manufacturing.

Robotics refers to the study and use of robots (Nof, 1999). Likewise, industrial robotics refers to the study and use of robots for manufacturing where industrial robots are essential components in an automated manufacturing environment. Similarly, industrial robotics for electronics manufacturing, in particular semiconductor, hard disk, flat panel display (FPD), and solar manufacturing refers to robot technology used for automating typical cleanroom applications. This chapter reviews the evolution of industrial robots and some common robot types, and builds a foundation for Chapter 2, which introduces cleanroom robotics as an engineering discipline within the broader context of industrial robotics.

History of industrial robotics

Visions and inventions of robots can be traced back to ancient Greece. In about 322 BC the philosopher Aristotle wrote: “If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the work that befits it, then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.” Aristotle seems to hint at the comfort such ‘tools’ could provide to humans. In 1495 Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical device that resembled an armored knight, whose internal mechanisms were designed to move the device as if controlled by a real person hidden inside the structure. In medieval times machines like Leonardo's were built for the amusement of affluent audiences. The term ‘robot’ was introduced centuries later by the Czech writer Karel Capek in his play R. U. R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), premiered in Prague in 1921.

The use of machine learning in robotics is a vast and growing area of research. In this chapter we consider a few key variations using: the use of deep neural networks, the applications of reinforcement learning and especially deep reinforcement learning, and the rapidly emerging potential for large language models.

We are living through an era of increased robotization, with robots becoming integrated into settings such as factories, hospitals, transportation systems, military, workplaces, households and healthcare. But what are the social and moral implications arising from our interpersonal connections with robots? Can robots have significant moral status? Can we be friends with a robot? When your robot lover tells you that it loves you, should you believe it? In this conversation, philosopher of technology John Danaher considers whether we are robots ourselves; whether we should understand our relationships with robots by analogy with non-human animals; whether robot friendships can complement and possibly enhance human friendships; whether robots have an inner life; whether robots are capable of deceiving us; and much more.

JOHN DANAHER is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway. He researches on a wide range of topics at the interface of philosophy, law and technology, and he is host of the popular “Philosophical Disquisitions” podcast.

ANTHONY MORGAN is editor of The Philosopher and commissioning editor for philosophy at Agenda Publishing.

Anthony Morgan (AM): In an interview, the philosopher Kevin O’Regan said that he believes he is a robot, and, furthermore, that people get upset when he tells them that they are robots because they feel that they’re persons and not robots. He goes on to say that the fact that he is a robot doesn't mean that he doesn't suffer pain or fall in love or appreciate art. It just means that there are no “magical mechanisms” explaining these phenomena, such as free will. What insights do you think we can glean from thinking about whether we are robots ourselves?

John Danaher (JD): I consider our world to be a collection of mechanistic structures knitted together in very complicated ways, and so we are in principle very sophisticated mechanisms. Hence if we can create mechanisms that are as sophisticated as us – they may not be exactly functionally equivalent but they may behave and act in much the same way – then they can have all the qualities and attributes that we have, and possibly others too. Thus there's no reason for me to think that we can't create general artificial intelligence or robots that are effectively the same as humans.

This chapter explores design guidelines and potential regulatory issues that could be associated with future baby robot interaction. We coin the term “robot natives,” which we define as the first generation of human’s regularly interacting with robots in domestic environments. This term includes babies (0–1 year old) and toddlers (1–3 years old) born in the 2020s. Drawing from the experience of other interactive technologies becoming widely available in the home and the positive and negative impact they have on humans; we propose some insights into the design of future scenarios for baby–robot interaction, aiming to influence future legislation regulating service robots and social robots used with robot natives. Similarly, we aim to inform designers and developers to inhibit robot designs which can negatively affect the long-term interactions for the robot natives. We conclude that a qualitative, multidisciplinary, ethical, human-centered design approach should be beneficial to guide the design and use of robots in the home and around families as this is currently not a common approach in the design of studies in child robot interaction.

Although many mobile robot systems are experimental in nature, systems devoted to specific practical applications are being developed and deployed. This chapter examines some of the tasks for which mobile robotic systems are beginning to appear and describes several existing experimental and production systems that have been developed.