BOOK OF

The greatest robots you

can buy right now

NEW

Using basic
code and kit

148

PAGES OF
ROBOTIC
TECH

The helpful robots that

make your life easier

Meet the space robots

taking giant leaps

Pioneering machines
that led the way

LEARN ABOUT
ROOMBA GOPIGO
PEPPER MEGABOTS
HITCHBOT BB-8
MILITARY BOTS

WELCOME TO

ROBOTS
BOOK OF

Robots are awesome, in every sense of the word, invoking

reactions from excitement to fear to awe. As scientists
continue to nd new ways to replicate human behaviours,
and machines perform functions that we never thought
they could, they become ever more present in our lives. In
this book, youll trace back the history of the rst robots
and discover the best bots that you can own, right now.
Youll gaze into the future of robotics and look a little closer
to home at those designed to make your house intelligent.
Youll discover how robots are making the universe smaller
than ever as they help us nd new worlds, before meeting
the megabots who ght for sport. Finally, youll learn how
to make your very own robot, using a simple Raspberry
Pi kit and some code. So, get ready to learn about the
machines that are changing the world and discover how
you can make your mark.

ROBOTS
BOOK OF

Imagine Publishing Ltd

Richmond House
33 Richmond Hill
Bournemouth
Dorset BH2 6EZ
 +44 (0) 1202 586200
Website: www.imagine-publishing.co.uk
Twitter: @Books_Imagine
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Publishing Director
Aaron Asadi
Head of Design
Ross Andrews
Production Editor
Alex Hoskins
Senior Art Editor
Greg Whitaker
Photographer
James Sheppard
Additional cover images courtesy of
NASA, Aldebaran, Honda, Toyota, Engineered Arts, iRobot, Getty, Corbis, ESA, WowWee,
Modular Robotics, Jibo, Megabots
Printed by
William Gibbons, 26 Planetary Road, Willenhall, West Midlands, WV13 3XT
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Disclaimer
The publisher cannot accept responsibility for any unsolicited material lost or damaged in the
post. All text and layout is the copyright of Imagine Publishing Ltd. Nothing in this bookazine may
be reproduced in whole or part without the written permission of the publisher. All copyrights are
recognised and used specifically for the purpose of criticism and review. Although the bookazine has
endeavoured to ensure all information is correct at time of print, prices and availability may change.
This bookazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein.
How It Works Book of Robots 2015 Imagine Publishing Ltd
ISBN 9781785461927

Part of the

bookazine series

008 Top 10 robots

money can buy
HUMANS & ROBOTS

016 The birth of robotics

020 How robots are
transforming
our world
026 Articial Intelligence
030 Robotic surgery
032 Bionic humans

008
Top 10 robots
money can
buy

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

058
062
066
068
072
078

NEXT-GEN BOTS

038
042
046
052
006

Robot wars
Future of robotics
Exo suits
VTOL drones

Fun bots
Robot butlers
Driver versus driverless
Autonomous vehicles
Family robots
Homes of the future

066
Driver versus
driverless

SPACE ROBOTS

086 Astrobots
090 Gecko robots help out
in space
092 Future space tech on
Titan
093 Unmanned space
probes
093 How robots keep
astronauts company
094 Automated transfer
vehicles
096 Exploring new worlds
100 Dextre the space robot
101 The Mars Hopper
102 ExoMars robots

102
ExoMars
robots

092
Uncovering
Titans
mysteries

BUILDING ROBOTS

113

106 Build your

rst robot
112 Raspberry Pi
robots
126 Make the ultimate
Raspberry Pi
robot

007

TOP 10 ROBOTS

TOP 10

ROBOTS
MONEY CAN BUY
The world of
robotics has
something for
everyone, but
which one is
perfect for you?
008

hen Czech writer Karel Capek rst

used the word robot to describe a
ctional humanoid in his 1921 science
ction play, R.U.R., he had no idea that one day,
almost every person on the planet would be
familiar with his then ctional term. Less than
100 years later, robotics is set to become the next
trillion-pound industry; its a matter of when
rather than if.
As advancements in robotics made robots
smaller and cheaper, they quickly found their
way into the shops. Today, a colossal variety of

different robots are available to buy, from small

programmable toys to monstrous humanoid
suits of armour. Entertainment robots are
becoming increasingly popular, many of which
make use of a piece of technology we all seem to
have these days: a smartphone. These toys range
from small race cars and helicopters to robotic
puppies, and are soon to be the top of every
childs Christmas wish list.
If youre looking for something more practical,
there are a whole host of home robots that can
vacuum your oors or even mow the lawn,

DID YOU KNOW? Studies suggest that two thirds of Roomba vacuum cleaner owners are emotionally attached to their robots

without you having to lift a nger. Home security

robots are also just starting to come onto the
market, such as the Robotex Avatar III, which
can patrol your house on its own while it streams
HD video directly to your smartphone. Not
exactly RoboCop, but this robot will give you
valuable peace of mind when youre not at home.
Helping the elderly is another major eld of
robotics; as our population continues to age,
these robots could become a vital part of
everyday life for the older generations. Personal
robots really come into their own in this regard,

particularly telepresence robots that are able to

move around the house and interact with people
at eye level, reminding them to take their
medication or even just providing a friendly face
to talk to.
So which of these types of robot is right for
you? Weve put together a list of our ten favourite
robots for you to choose from, ranging from
entertainment robots that everyone can afford to
the pinnacle of todays robotic engineering,
which will require you to re-mortgage your
house and possibly your familys homes too!

TOP 10 ROBOTS

Affordable robotics
Nowadays anyone can own their own robot, thanks to
huge advancements in the eld of personal robotics
Ten years ago, personal robots were seen as
something only the rich could afford. Times
have quickly changed however; today you can
pick up a fairly nifty robot for well under 50,
including brilliantly educational, build-yourown robot kits that teach children about
programming, engineering and computing in
a fun and engaging manner. The vast
developments that have been made in
computing are relevant across most elds of
robotics, and have enabled this form of
technology to become cheaper as it has
become more widely available and

increasingly mass produced. Key components

of intricate robotics, such as vision sensors and
gripping systems, have also advanced to such
an extent that robots have become smarter,
highly networked, and are able to perform a
wider range of applications than ever before.
Thanks to these advancements, prices have
rapidly fallen while performance has
increased exponentially. All in all this is
brilliant for the consumer, as robots that were
recently considered cutting-edge are now
older but not obsolete, making them affordable
for the masses.

1: Rapiro
This cute, affordable and easy-to-assemble humanoid has endless customisation options

Price: 330
Country of origin:
Japan
Main function:
Entertainment
Expandable
With the addition of
Raspberry Pi and sensors,
you can add more
functions like Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth and even
image recognition.

LED eyes
Rapiros eyes light up
brilliantly, and can work to
give the robot changing
facial expressions through
additional programming.

12 servo
motors
Rapiro comes
with 12 separate
motors, one for
its neck, one for
its waist, two for
its feet and six
to operate its
two arms.

010

It may be small, but the Rapiro is very much capable of acting big should
you programme it to do so. It relies on a Raspberry Pi for its processing
power and actually takes its name from Raspberry Pi Robot. Its ability to
be continually upgraded and changed is Rapiros main strength; the
more you put into it the more you get out. The possibility to learn about
robotics with Rapiro is a huge selling point. You do have to buy the
Raspberry Pi separately, but its relatively inexpensive so dont hold it
against this cute little robot. Rapiro is recommended for anyone aged 15
or over, but younger children can have a huge amount of fun with Rapiro
under the supervision of an adult.

2: WowWee MiP
This loveable robot buddy will spin-dance to
music and express its own emotions with
shouts and groans

Price: 89.99
Country of origin: China
Main function: Entertainment
The faintly humanoid MiP sits on Segway-like
parallel wheels, which it uses to furiously dart
across all at surfaces. Lots of technology is
packed into the relatively small frame,
including a head-mounted microphone, LED
eyes, infrared transmitters and a speaker.
Using hand gestures, it can be directed to move
or dance, which it does with impressive
balance considering its resting on two parallel
wheels. This provides hours of fun, especially
when its immersive personality starts to
interact with you as you play with it more.
WowWee strongly recommends you
download the accompanying app, which is free
and available on iOS and Android. This app will
allow you to access MiPs extra features and
makes it even easier to control: simply swipe
forward with your left thumb to move forwards
while using your right thumb to steer. You can
also perform a few extra dance moves, but this
is a minor feature compared to the ability to
control MiPs movements directly.

Arduino
compatible
If you do fancy making
a few changes, Rapiro
can be programmed
using Arduino IDE to
perform a host of
different functions
from dancing to
sweeping your desk.

Works immediately
If youre not a programmer, dont
worry Rapiro has a preprogrammed controller board to
ensure that it works as soon as
its assembled.

Easy assembly
Putting together Rapiro
is easy; you only need
two screwdrivers to
carry out the step-bystep instructions that
are provided.

DID YOU KNOW? BB-8 features in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and is a female droid, filling a similar role to R2-D2

3: Star Wars BB-8 App-Enabled Droid

The perfect robot for any Star Wars-obsessives, the BB-8 will provide hours of fun for all ages

Price: 129.99
Country of origin:
United States
Main function:
Entertainment

It may only be 11.4 centimetres (4.5 inches) tall and incredibly cute, but
the BB-8 App-Enabled Droid has an abundance of cool features that are
incredible considering its size. It can be operated using your smartphone,
which it connects to via Bluetooth, and can respond to voice commands
by listening and responding to what you say. A battery life of an hour and
a 30-metre (100-foot) range means you really can explore the world
around you. The more you use the BB-8, the better it will respond to your
commands, understanding how you like to use it and tailoring its
operation to suit you. Much like its cinematic predecessor R2-D2, the BB-8
can record, send and view holographic videos, albeit in the virtual world
only (fans of George Lucas movies will still be impressed). The BB-8
showcases just how much clever robotics technology has become
affordable to the masses, and will no doubt be a hit with children and
adults alike now that the Star Wars franchise is back in full swing.

4: Sphero 2.0
The original app-enabled robotic
ball, the Sphero is as relevant
today as when it rst rolled onto
the scene in 2013

Price: 79.99
Country of origin: United States
Main function: Entertainment

Programmed to evolve
Spheros intelligence is
impressive to start with, but it
can be hacked and
programmed by the owner to
give it even more tricks than it
already possesses.

Glowing LEDs
Spheros LEDs are ultra-bright,
glowing in over a million
different colours depending on
your personal preference; its
fully customisable.

Ramp up the fun

With additional ramps, you can
really start to enjoy the power
of the Spheros electric motor
by performing cool stunts.

Strong design
The Sphero has a tough
polycarbonate outer shell that
protects the advanced
technology housed inside from
all kinds of potential damage.

Clever charging
You dont need to plug the
Sphero in when its battery runs
low, simply sit it on its base and
let the ingenious inductive
charging system do the rest.

Spheros designers originally made this

awesome little robot from a 3D-printed shell
and the electronics from a smartphone. This
early concept quickly turned into the real
thing, a white robotic orb weighing 730 grams
(1.6 pounds), which drives along at 2.1 metres
(seven feet) per second thanks to its built-in
electric motor. You can drive Sphero with any
Bluetooth-enabled smartphone; it can even be

used as a controller for certain games on both

iOS and Android platforms. The ofcial Sphero
app is a nice touch, as it automatically updates
the robots software, keeping your robot
bug-free and working at its optimum level. If
customisation is your thing, programmable
versions are available that allow you to code the
robot yourself using a simple coding language.
The changeable colour schemes are great when

Great connectivity
Connect your Sphero with any
Bluetooth-enabled device, such
as your smartphone, and you
are ready to start rolling!

racing a couple of these robots together,

particularly when you race at night.
Amazingly, Sphero is completely waterproof,
and can take on a swimming pool with ease,
like a ball-shaped Olympic athlete racing for
gold. The Sphero is a brilliant introduction to
the world of robotics. If youre not sure if robots
are for you, try one of these little chaps; theyll
denitely convert you.

011

TOP 10 ROBOTS

5: Kuratas
The closest you can get to
Tony Starks suit, this Japanese
super-robot provides you with
your own weaponised,
armoured suit

Price: 650,000
Country of origin: Japan
Main function: Armoured suit
Kogoro Kurata, a Japanese
engineer, always dreamt of seeing
the giant robots in the television
shows of his childhood come to
life. With the help of another
roboticist, he built the worlds rst
human-piloted robot Kuratas.
Standing at a towering four metres
(13 feet) tall and weighing 4,500
kilograms (9,920 pounds), Kuratas
is truly impressive to behold.
Unveiled in 2012, it has a host of
superb technology, including a
fantastic heads-up display in the
cockpit and advanced weaponry.
One of its most sinister features is
the ring system for its 6,000
rounds per minute BB Gatling gun;
the pilot can re simply by smiling.
Its run by an intelligent V-Sido
operating system, designed by the
head roboticist who helped build
Kuratas. The software enables the
robot to be controlled by an
internet-enabled smartphone, a
feature known as the Master Slave
System. Amazingly, a fully-edged
version of this incredible robot is
already available to buy, showing
just how far robotics has come in
the last 20 years. In 2016, Kuratas is
set to ght a similar creation from
an American company, Megabots,
to see who has created the
toughest mechanoid. The
American robot is tough, but once
youve seen Kuratas its hard to bet
against it.

Heads-up display
Within the cockpit is an impressive
heads-up display, which not only
shows where youre going but also
has an advanced targeting system.

Protective chest
cavity
The large chest cavity is
completely bulletproof,
and is designed to
protect the pilot should
the robot fall.

Fully
functioning
hand
With the help of a
specially designed
glove, the robots
hand has a full range
of motion, and can
copy exactly what the
pilots hand does.

Optional weaponry

Diesel-powered
hydraulics

Weaponry options include a BB

Gatling gun that res 6,000
rounds per minute, and can
even lock onto a target.

The hydraulics in the

arms and legs are
powered by diesel,
and move quickly and
smoothly to
manoeuvre the
robots huge frame.

Four-legged
mechanoid
Kuratas has four wheeltipped legs that enable it to
travel at a top speed of
9.6km/h (6.0mph).

6: iRobot Roomba 880

This programmable robot vacuum cleaner will clean your oors without
the need of human assistance

Price: 569.99 Country of origin: United States Main function: Cleaning

With the Roomba 880, cleaning your own
oors becomes a thing of the past. Simply
programme in a time and day and the
Roomba will trundle off at its own leisure to
vacuum all your rooms, returning to its
charging base once its battery runs low.

012

Removing tough stains isnt Roombas thing;

its designed to clean once a day to keep oors
clean at all times. Its not cheap, but works out
to be less pricey than hiring a human cleaner,
and gives you that just-vacuumed feeling
without lifting a nger.

DID YOU KNOW? In 2014, an estimated 3.3 million household assistance robots were sold worldwide

7: MOSS Exofabulatronixx 5200

The Exofabulatronixx 5200 is fully customisable, letting you unlock your inner
engineer and build your very own robot

Price: 499 Country of origin: United States Main function: Customisable robot

8: RoboThespian 9: HRP-4

10: Pepper

Designed to guide museum visitors or to be

used in education, RoboThespian is an
excellent public speaker whos here to help

One of the most advanced humanoid robots

ever made, the HRP-4 is literally all-singing,
all-dancing

Able to read human emotions and analyse

your body language, you can talk to Pepper
as if it were a friend or family member

Price: 55,000
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Main function: Education

Price: 200,000
Country of origin: Japan
Main function: Human assistance

Price: 1,070
Country of origin: Japan
Main function: Household robot

RoboThespian has been under continuous

development since 2005. It is primarily a
communication robot, which is evident in its
impressive ability to gesture and convey
emotion. Its eyes are made of LCD screens,
which change colour in relation to the robots
movement, and its limbs are driven by changes
in air pressure. This allows for precise
movement of the robots hands, helping it to
communicate effectively. It can be controlled
remotely from any browser, to make sure its
providing the best possible public service.

The HRP-4 from Kawada Industries is one of

the most advanced humanoid robots ever
created. It was designed to work in
collaboration with humans, and its high level
of intelligence means it could easily integrate
into almost any working environment. Each
arm has seven degrees of freedom, allowing it
to move in any direction it needs, and it can
walk like a human, maintaining its balance
with ease. The robot is able to converse with
humans and understand them. The HRP-4C
model is even able to dance and sing!

Pepper uses its emotional engine and a

cloud-based articial intelligence system to
analyse human gestures, voice tones and
expressions, enabling it to read our emotions
more effectively than the majority of its
contemporaries. Pepper doesnt take up much
space, standing at only 58 centimetres (23
inches) tall but doesnt lack in intelligence,
speaking 19 languages uently. 1,000 units of
this humanoid sold within a minute of it going
on sale, which shows that there is some serious
demand for this type of household robot.

013

Engineered Arts Ltd; Corbis; Getty Images; Exofabulatronixx PR; Rapiro PR; RoboThespian PR; Sphere PR

The clever design behind this robot relies on a

block-based construction system. Each block is
a different part of the robot and can provide a
different function, meaning the more you
experiment with the structure, the more you
can develop. Its designed to be used by
children and adults alike as there is no
complex programming required. When
you alter the robots structure, its very
much plug-and-play. Whether you want to
build your own front-loaded racecar or just
experiment, the Exofabulatronixx 5200 is a
great introduction to the world of robotics.

HUMANS
& ROBOTS
016 The birth of robotics
Find out how hundreds of years of
robotic development has changed
the world we live in

032
Robotic tech
helping
the deaf

020 How robots are changing

the world we live in
The groundbreaking robots that
have improved many aspects of
human life

026 Articial Intelligence

What makes robots intelligent,
and could they be a threat?

030 Robotic surgery

Discover how medical technology
has come on in leaps and bounds

032 Bionic humans

Advanced robotic technology
is helping less able people to be
mobile find out how

021
Robots
changing
the world

014

026
What is articial

032
Bionic

intelligence?

humans

016
The history
of robots

030
Robotic
surgery

020
What is
Uncanny
Valley?

015

HUMANS & ROBOTS

with advanced
ts
o
b
ro
to
s
e
in
ch
a
dates back
cs
From automated m
ti
o
b
ro
f
o
ry
to
is
h
ce, the
articial intelligen d has changed the world we live in
an
hundreds of years

016

DID YOU KNOW? The first robotically assisted heart bypass took place in Leipzig in 1997 and used the da Vinci Surgical System

he concept of automated machines

has existed for thousands of years,
from articial servants for Gods in
Greek mythology to intricate, waterpowered astronomical clocks by Chinese
inventors in the 11th century. Leonardo da
Vinci even designed a range of automata
including self-propelled carts and
mechanical knights. So when did
automated machines become robots?
The modern concept of robotics began
during the Industrial Revolution with
steam and electricity paving the way for
powered motors and machinery.
Inventions and discoveries made by
Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla helped
usher in a new era of robotics. In 1898,
Tesla presented his radio-controlled boat
which he boasted was the rst in a future
race of robots. Many have credited this
The da Vinci Surgical
event as the birth of robotics.
System now assists
However, the word robot wasnt used
complex procedures all
over the world
until 1921 when Czech playwright Karl
Capek wrote R.U.R (Rossums Universal
Robots) which told the story of robot
factory workers rebelling against their human
masters. More famously, science ction writer
Isaac Asimov coined the term robotics in the 1942
short story, Runabout. This optimistically
characterised robots as helpful servants of mankind.
Asimovs three Laws of Robotics continue to inuence
literature, lm and science as our research into
articial intelligence continues.
Key inventions in the 20th century, including the
digital computer, transistor and microchip, meant
scientists could start developing electronic,
programmable brains for robots. Industrial robots
are commonplace in the modern factory, used for
a range of tasks from transporting materials to
assembling parts. Biomedical, manufacturing,
transportation, space and defence industries are
utilising robots in more ways than ever before.
Signicant advancements in software and articial
intelligence (AI) has produced robots like Hondas
bipedal ASIMO that mimics the basic form and
interaction of humans. IBMs Watson computer has an
advanced AI that was originally designed to compete
on the American quiz show, Jeopardy! however, the
software is now being applied to help diagnose
illnesses in the health care sector.
BigDog by Boston Dynamics is a rough-terrain robot
capable of carrying heavy loads and is currently being
trialled by the US Marines. Modern autopilot systems
integrated into aircraft, self-driving cars and even
space rovers such as Curiosity currently roaming the
surface of Mars demonstrate how sophisticated
programmable robots have become.
Robots are no longer the property of Greek myth or
Hollywood lm. Droids, drones and robots are now a
widespread and essential part of our society.

First medical robot

Name: Arthrobot
Year: 1983
Creators: Dr James
McEwen, Geof Auchinlek,
Dr Brian Day
The rst documented use of a
medical robot occurred in 1984
when the Arthrobot, developed in
Vancouver by Dr James McEwen
and Geof Auchinlek in collaboration
with the surgeon Dr Brian Day, was
used as part of an orthopaedic
surgical procedure.
The Arthrobot was a small,
bone-mountable robot for
performing hip arthroplasty
(restorative surgery for joints). It
was designed for the task of
precision drilling in hip surgery and
could be programmed with the

specic location and trajectory of

the cavity it would create to house
the hip implants.
Although small and relatively
basic, improvements and
modications of the original
Arthrobot have led to the use of
robots in more complicated surgical
procedures, including total knee
replacements.
As ground-breaking as the
Arthrobot was in the eld of medical
robotics, it wasnt until 1997 that
robots started to enter mainstream
medicine. The da Vinci Surgical
System by Intuitive Surgical, Inc
became the rst surgical robot to
gain approval by the US Food and
Drug Administration. The da Vinci
robot is a full surgical system
featuring a range of instruments,
cameras, sensors and utensils.

The concept of robotics began

during the Industrial Revolution,
with steam and electricity paving
the way for powered motors
017

HUMANS & ROBOTS

First military
robot
Name: Teletank
Year: 1930-40
Creator: USSR
Nikola Teslas invention of the radio-controlled
boat in 1898 was intended for military use, but
the technology, offered to both the US and UK,
was never developed.
World War II saw the rst use of military
robots in the form of the unmanned and
remotely controlled German Goliath tank and the
Soviet Teletank. The Teletanks were repurposed
T-26 light tanks tted with hydraulics and wired
for radio control. They were equipped with
machine guns, amethrowers and smoke
canisters which meant they were a formidable
weapon on the battleeld. German Goliaths, on
the other hand, were designed as mobile
landmines that could be remotely driven up to
enemy vehicles or personnel and detonated.
Although the Teletank and Goliath were
developed in a similar time period, the Teletank
was deployed rst during the Winter War of
1939-1940 when the Soviet forces battled Axis
forces in Eastern Finland.

First humanoid robot

Name: Leonardos Robot Knight
Year: 1495
Creator: Leonardo da Vinci
A humanoid robot, often referred to
as an android in science ction, is
designed to resemble the human
form. Basic humanoid automatons
have existed for centuries, and have
gradually been rened to more closely
mimic our appearance and behaviour.
One of the rst well documented
examples is Leonardo da Vincis
mechanical knight.
Leonardos robot was
operated by a series of pulleys
and cables that allowed the it to
stand, sit and independently

move its arms. It had a human form

and was even dressed in armour to
resemble a knight. Although da Vincis
design is primitive by todays
standards, lacking any articial
intelligence or remote control, it was
ahead of its time in the 15th century.
Da Vinci employed the use of
pulleys, weights and gears in many of
his inventions, including his selfpropelled cart which many consider to
be the rst robot. He later went on to
design the robot knight for a royal
pageant in Milan that took place
during the late 1490s.
Da Vincis drawings for the robot
knight are still used as blueprints by
modern roboticists, and even helped
develop robots for NASA.

First robotic transport

Name: Eureka PROMETHEUS
Project
Year: 1986
Creator: University of Munich/
Mercedes-Benz

Mercedes-Benz has been

involved in driverless vehicle
research since the 1980s

018

Following the 1964 Worlds Fair, science

ction writer Isaac Asimov predicted a
future where vehicles were driven by
robot brains. For years, autonomous
vehicles were limited to theoretical
concepts and research projects.

Real progress began in 1986 when

the University of Munich launched the
Eureka PROMETHEUS Project. For
nearly a decade, the team developed a
driverless vehicle called VITA, which
used sensors to adjust its speed as it
detected hazards. In 1994, VITA
completed a 1,000-kilometre (620mile) journey on a highway in heavy
Paris trafc, reaching speeds of 128
kilometres (80 miles) per hour. Aspects
of VITA were eventually incorporated
into new Mercedes-Benz cars.

DID YOU KNOW? Robonaut 2 is covered in a soft material and is programmed to stop if it touches a human, avoiding injuries

First space
robot
Name: Robonaut 2
Year: 2010
Creator: NASA/GM
It could be argued that the Sputnik 1
satellite, launched by the USSR in 1957,
was the rst robot in space. However,
the Robonaut 2, designed in
collaboration between General Motors
and NASA, earnt the titles of rst
humanoid robot in space and rst robot
to work with human-rated tools in
space. It is currently operating on the
International Space Station.
The rst Robonaut, R1 was a
prototype to explore how humanoid
robots could assist astronauts during
spacewalks. Its successor, R2, features
a full robotic exoskeleton, state-of-theart vision systems, image recognition
software, sensors, and control
algorithms along with a robotic hand
that helps astronauts close their gloves
to reduce human fatigue. A version of
R2 is also being trained by researchers
in Houston to perform medical
procedures, including using syringes
and conducting ultrasound scans.

First industrial
robot
Name: Unimate
Year: 1961
Creator: George
Devol
The rst industrial robot
joined the assembly line
at General Motors in 1961.
The Unimate used its
powerful robot arm to
create die castings from
machines and welded
components onto car chassis. It
was the rst robotic arm that helped
speed up production lines at manufacturing
plants around the world.
Originally costing $25,000 (approx 16,200),
the robot featured six programmable axes of
motion and was designed to handle heavy
materials and components at high speed. Using
its 1,800-kilogram (3,970-pound) arm, the
Unimate was extremely versatile and soon
became one of the most popular industrial
robots in the world.
Unimate became popular outside of the
manufacturing industry too, appearing on Jonny
Carsons The Tonight Show where it poured a
beer and even conducted an orchestra.
George Devol, who rst designed the Unimate
in the 1950s, went on to create the worlds rst
robot manufacturing company, Unimation.
Robots have become commonplace on the
modern assembly line as their ability to perform
repetitive tasks at high-speed makes them ideal
for manufacturing.

First robot drone

Name: Tadiran Mastiff III
Year: 1973
Creator: Tadiran Electronic Industries
Robot drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs), have existed for hundreds of years, with
the rst documented use by the Austrian army,
who used balloon bombs to attack Venice in
1849. Military research in the 20th century
resulted in a number of technological
innovations, including Global Positioning
Systems (GPS) and the Internet.
This led to the development of the rst, fully
autonomous battleeld drone in 1973. The
Israeli-made Tadiran Mastiff III featured a
data-link system that could automatically feed
live, high-resolution video of the target area to its
operators. The drone was unmanned, could be
pre-programmed with a ight plan and was
commonly used by the Israeli Defence Force.
State-of-the-art military drones like the
Predator and Taranis play a pivotal role on the
modern battleeld.

019

HUMANS & ROBOTS

Do Asimovs
laws still apply?
Sci- author Isaac Asimov wrote the
Three Laws of Robotics in 1942 to
govern the direction of his
ction. The rst law stated that
a robot may not harm a human
or allow them to come to harm
through inaction. The second
was that a robot must obey
humans except where the
command would violate the
rst law, and the third was that
a robot must protect its
existence except where this
violates laws one and two.
Though these guidelines have
achieved a cult-like status,
robot ethics have evolved as
much as the tech.

020

veryone, at some point in their lives, has

looked at one robot or another and said
Wow!. Whether its excitement,
enthusiasm, fear or repulsion, there always seems
to be an emotional response to the appearance of
the latest mechanical being.
Robotic technology has been steadily
progressing over the last few decades, and new
mechanics and materials are beginning to make it
possible for robots to do some quite unbelievable
things. Improving strength and reducing weight
are two vital requirements of any robotic system
as this allows ever-smaller robots to do bigger and
better things. Materials such as carbon-bre
composites, advanced metal alloys, extraordinary
plastics and modern ceramics make almost any

DID YOU KNOW? The HI in Geminoid HI-1 stands for Hiroshi Ishiguro, the maker of the original bot

ASIMO

Realistic skin and lips

are made of carefully
painted silicone,
expertly shaded to look
as natural as possible.

Respiration
For added realism, an
actuator in the chest
simulates breathing,
which varies
infrequency depending
on mood and activity.

Vision

Model

The eyes contain

cameras that allow the
mimicking of a persons
expressions, as well as
recognition of faces and
common emotions.

Based on a real woman

in her 20s for greater
authenticity, Geminoid F
(the F stands for
female) can replicate 65
facial expressions.

GEMINOID F

The human impersonator

Meet perhaps the most human-looking machine ever to have been built
 A convincing human  Pop singer replacement  Passes the Turing Test
Underneath the realistic silicone skin of the
Geminoid F lies the familiar face of a robot.
Machined from aluminium, the latest
version of this Japanese robot has just one
quarter of the hardware used in its
predecessor (Geminoid HI-1), with just 12
degrees of freedom. Unlike most modern
robots, the Geminoid series doesnt use
electric motors for animation. Compressed
air and pneumatic rams are used instead, as
the creators feel it gives a more human-like
quality to their movements. Geminoid F

uses an electric air compressor to supply

her many actuators. These are controlled by
computer-operated valves, in order to
reliably synchronise the 65 facial
expressions to match the words spoken by
the robot. Human head movements,
gestures and facial features are observed,
recorded by the computer and mimicked to
improve realism. Operators can speak via
the Geminoid, or have her respond
autonomously using a computer program to
work out a suitable reply to questions.

physical requirement possible, but even newer

technologies, such as carbon nanotubes, are
promising almost unlimited strength.
The latest advances in brushless motor
technology and control, lithium batteries and
digital optics open up possibilities that simply
have never existed before. These technologies
are still quite recent, however, so they have a
long process of renement ahead of them.
Robots are being designed specically to
work with disabled and vulnerable children
and adults, following observations that patients
responded extraordinarily well to friendly,
non-threatening robots, often when human
contact had failed. This is amazing as having
such emotional bonds with inanimate objects

We reveal the latest enhancements

to Hondas ever-popular Advanced
Step in Innovative Mobility
 Uses sign language
 Serves you Martinis
 Plays football
ASIMO has been in development for
26 years. He can now run, jump,
climb stairs, make drinks and shake
hands, so his physical development
is going well. The key to future
progress is to take advantage of
new tech such as ever-faster
processors and the muchanticipated quantum computers.
ASIMO uses brushless
servomotors that allow a very high
degree of motion accuracy.
Miniaturisation of the gearboxes and motors
has been made possible by advanced
materials such as magnesium alloys and
neodymium magnets. ASIMO has a
magnesium skeleton, but a switch to
carbon-bre composites will benet him
greatly as its both lighter and stronger. ASIMO
relies heavily on a predictive algorithm that
anticipates the most likely requirements of the
limbs before moving them. This type of
pre-emptive control is an exciting area as its
only limited by computing capability, so it may
not be long before ASIMO can not only move but
also think for himself.

Robot density
The gures below represent the number of industrial
robots per 10,000 human workers in similar roles

Austria: 104

is counterintuitive: what is it about robots that

makes them lovable or trustworthy? Extensive
research is now underway into therapeutic
robotic applications.
What really makes modern robots special,
though, is the key element in any automaton:
the brain. This has been growing year after
year, with computers getting ever-faster and
more capable. Modern laptops are powerful
enough to run some of the most complex robotic
systems, which has made the whole industry
accessible to more innovators that stimulate
new ideas. We are, however, approaching a key
point in history, when computers cant get any
faster without a fundamental change in the
way they work, and quantum computing will

Italy: 149

Germany: 261

Japan: 339

Republic of
Korea: 347

either happen, or it wont. This will be an

evolutionary crossroads for robots. They will
either get exponentially smarter almost
overnight maybe to the point of being
self-aware or their meteoric rise will
suddenly level off and they will remain at their
current level of capability, more or less, for the
foreseeable future.
Its an exciting time for those interested in
these complex machines, as theyre so
advanced, they surely cant develop at this rate
for much longer. The question is, when current
materials can get no stronger, and conventional
computers can get no faster, will robot
development step up to a whole new level, or
will it hit a brick wall? Only time will tell.

021

Getty; Honda

Complexion

The advanced
humanoid

HUMANS & ROBOTS

ROBONAUT 2

The astrobot
The rst humanoid robot in space has been
lending a helping hand to astronauts
on the ISS
 Goes where astronauts darent
 Steady arm
 Can go for a stroll

E.ZIGREEN CLASSIC

The gardener

The latest version of the Robonaut is an

engineering marvel. Not only does he look cool,
but hes also leading the way for future robotic
systems to work alongside humans in space and
industry. The International Space Station (ISS)
supplies electricity to the super-advanced
computerised control systems stored in
Robonauts torso, which in turn control brushless
electric motors. The grease in the motors must be
a special compound for re resistance and to
prevent out-gassing in a vacuum. As advanced
as he is, its his personal interaction thats made
his case for future development. Working
alongside astronauts in the ISS has shown his
inductive control system is powerful enough to
move huge loads, yet gentle enough that
accidental contact will cause no harm. This
means that future industrial bots wouldnt need
safety screens or emergency stop buttons.

Strong arm

iROBOT 710 WARRIOR

A two-link multipurpose
arm can lift the weight
of the robot.

The warrior

Dodging obstacles and trimming turf

with the latest in auto-lawnmowers
 Cuts grass
 Avoids gnomes
 Takes cuttings to the dump
The E.zigreen Classic is a small, autonomous
lawnmower that can adapt to its environment
using sensors. It knows where the edges of the
garden are thanks to limit wires, while ultrasound
sensors detect obstacles. The cutting blades and
the driving wheels are powered by electric
motors and run off rechargeable batteries. A
number of failsafe sensors ensure the
mower deactivates if anything
goes wrong, and it can return to
its charging dock by itself.

Service robot
sales breakdown
From agriculture to the military, which sector
spent the most on service robots in 2011?

This multifunctional robot is far from a one-trick pony

with the ability to be tted out for a host of scenarios
More than tracks
 Expert at mine excavation
The innovative tracked
 Arm-wrestling master
drive system makes this
 Outlasts a fully charged iPhone
a very exible platform.

10%
13%

The 710 Warrior is a remote-control

robot that can climb stairs and perform
manoeuvres such as standing up on
its innovative tracks. The twin lithium
batteries keep the powerful electric
drive motors turning for up to ten hours
at a time. It can be tted with robotic
arms, sensors or weapons, as well as
cameras, data-links and a wireless
internet hub to support the information
and communication needs of troops
and rescue workers. The amazing thing
about this robot is that it can adapt to
the ever-changing requirements of a
mission with upgrades easily bolted on.

Firm handshake

31%

Key:
Defence
Field
Logistics
Medical
Source: International Federation of Robotics

Hummingbird

HAL robot suit

As big as A blood cell

These chemically powered
tiny robots are being
developed to locate and
even treat cancerous cells.

As big as A human hand

The Nano Air Vehicle
(NAV) has been created
for military operations,
such as covert surveillance.

As big as A human leg

The Hybrid Assistive Limb
(HAL) suit is a robotic
exoskeleton designed for
rehabilitation after injury.

DARPA

Nanobot

Prof Sankai/CYBERDYNE Inc

Because theyre used for a wide variety of roles, robots come in many different shapes and sizes

Thinkstock;

40%

The powerful grippers can

delicately lift items or
crush them.

Sizing up robots

022

6%

Curiosity rover

Titan

As big as A small SUV

Currently the all-in-one lab
is looking to establish
whether life could ever
have existed on Mars.

As big as A lamppost
Articulated robot arms
used in heavy industry are
incredibly strong. KUKAs
Titan can lift up to a ton!

Other

Robots

38
Percentage
increase in sales
of robots in 2011
from 2010

DID YOU KNOW? The Robonaut was launched into space in 2011, and is now aboard the ISS

Sight
Sensors
There are a staggering
241 pressure sensors
in each hand.

Stereo vision comes

courtesy of two
cameras in his head.

LIDAR
Light Detection and
Ranging technology
allows the AlphaDog to
see what lies ahead, so
it can plot a course
around any obstacles.

Friendly
looks
Legs

GPS

Powerful and fast

hydraulic rams make
this a very agile beast,
which is capable of
walking across a wide
variety of surfaces.

The AlphaDog can

autonomously navigate
to rendezvous points
using a built-in satellite
navigation system.

Get to know the petrol-powered hydraulic pet that can traverse almost any terrain
 Faithful canine companion  House-trained  Can be kicked over

841,000
Estimated number of entertainment
robots that were sold in 2011

Predicted percentage of
average rise in sales of
robots per year

The butler

pump to push oil to 16 hydraulic servo actuators

(four in each leg) through a network of lters,
manifolds, accumulators and valves. This moves
each leg quickly and precisely. The advanced
stabilisation gyro and accelerometers keep the
AlphaDog on its feet through mud, sand, snow and
even ice. The technology and techniques developed
on the AlphaDog have led to a two-legged version
that moves just like a human, which opens up all
number of possibilities for the future.

 Helps the aged

 Strong yet sensitive
 Can hold a pencil
Twendy-One is designed to offer assistance to the
elderly and disabled. Using its innovative harmonic
drive motor, Twendy-One is able to lift 35 kilograms
(77 pounds). The highly dexterous hands and
inductive passive control system ensure it doesnt
impact a person or object hard enough to harm them.
In order to manoeuvre around bends, Twendy-One
rolls around on an omnidirectional wheel-based drive
system. The torso also has 12 ultrasonic sensors and
padded silicone skin. This robot is designed to look
after vulnerable people, so it has a sculpted, curved
body and head to appear more friendly.

9.8 million

Estimated number of domestic robots

that will be sold between 2011 and 2014

13

25.5 billion
Estimated worldwide market value for robotic
systems in 2011 in US dollars

Percentage increase
in sales of medical
robots in 2011

40

Percentage of total
number of service robots
in defence applications
023

Sugano Lab, Waseda University; Boston Dynamics; iRobot; E.zicom Robotics; NASA

A soldiers best friend

by numbers

TWENDY-ONE

This workhorse is perfectly suited to caring for

the inrm both in hospitals and the home

ALPHADOG

Very little captures the imagination more than a

fully functioning robotic pack horse that moves
just like the real thing. This stunning machine has
four legs that are independently controlled by a
central computer, using the data from dozens of
sensors. The data is continuously translated into
navigation and stability requirements. The
requirements are then translated into leg and hip
movements by a powerful hydraulic system. The
screaming petrol engine turns a high-pressure

To appear less
threatening, the
robots features are
heavily sculpted.

HUMANS & ROBOTS

DA VINCI
SURGICAL SYSTEM

The surgeon

Great view
The 3D HD cameras
ensure the very best
view while the surgeon
performs an op through
tiny incisions just 1-2cm
(0.4-0.8in) across.

A steady hand, 3D HD vision and great

dexterity make this one smooth operator

Tools of the trade

A variety of
interchangeable, highly
specialised, articulated
tools are available, from
cautery equipment to
dissecting forceps.

Virtual doctor
The immersive workstation
allows the skilful, uent
operation of the tools by
a human surgeon.

PREDATOR MQ-9 REAPER

Industry robot
sales breakdown

The aerial assassin

Explore the pilotless vehicle which can soar across
enemy lines and take out a target with deadly accuracy
 Flies autonomously  Remotely bombs hostiles  Provides real-time intel
This unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has proved to be
one of the most important military systems in recent
years. Having no pilot to worry about, the MQ-9
makes efcient use of the conventional airframe to
pack a huge array of sensors, weapons and fuel into a
relatively small aircraft. Driven by a 708-kilowatt
(950-horsepower) turboprop engine, electrical power
is generated to run the on-board sensor and
communication array, as well as the electrically

If there is one person you need to trust, its the

surgeon operating on you or a loved one. Using the
da Vinci Surgical System, the patient undergoes
keyhole surgery by the robot, but this is controlled
by the hand movements of a surgeon
sitting in a control booth. These
movements are measured and
modied to reduce hand tremors or
sensitivity, and then performed by
the robot, meaning the da Vinci
Surgical System is actually better
with the tools than the surgeon
controlling it. Doctors can conduct
operations from a booth anywhere in
the world thanks to the 3D highdenition display and cameras,
though typically they will be sitting
just a few metres away, in case of
complications.

Corbis

 Helps save lives

 Controllable over great distances
 Substitute for medical advice

actuated ight control surfaces, which are doubled up

for redundancy. The UAV can function almost wholly
autonomously, with an effective autopilot and
auto-land capability, but due to the weapons on
board, its never allowed to attack a target itself.
Using a secure satellite communications system
thousands of kilometres away, human operators take
control in a similar way to ying a model aircraft
and command the Reaper to deploy its missiles.

Take a quick look at the main areas in which

industrial robots were employed in 2011

23%
36%
7%

The Reaper, formerly known as the

Predator B, is made by General
Atomics and has a top airspeed of
240 knots (444km/h; 276mph)

3%

9%
22%

Key:
Automotive
Electronics
Chemical, rubber & plastics
Food & beverage
Metal & machinery
Other
Source: International Federation of Robotics

Jobs for the bots

Could that job be carried out by a robot? In

Corbis

Babysitter

024

PaPeRo
NECs PaPeRo robot has
many of the abilities of a
babysitter. It can tell
stories, play games and
most importantly track
the movement of children
via its RFID chips.

DID YOU KNOW? The Predator MQ-9 Reaper used to be known as Predator B

Inside RIBA-II
Audio and vision
RIBA-II is installed with two
cameras and microphones that
allow it to ascertain positional
awareness at all times.

Guidance
Capacitance-type smart
rubber sensors on the
arms and chest provide
precise tactile guidance.

RIBA-II

The lifesaver
This intelligent lifting robot is revolutionising
how the convalescing get about in hospital
 Gets you out of bed in the morning
 Calculates your weight
 Features sensors made entirely of rubber
RIBA-II is an electrically powered robotic lifting
system designed to reduce injuries in carework. The
bear-faced bot safely lifts patients from oor level into
bed or onto chairs. His computer and sensors
measure the weight and balance of the patient as they
are picked up, and RIBA-II calculates the correct
positioning of the arms to provide a comfortable lift.
Another benet is the increased dignity offered by
such a system, which is very important to patients.
Extensive research continues in this exciting area of
robot/patient trust and interaction.

The best of
the rest

Kod*lab
cat-bot

To avoid getting stuck

on its back, this modied
version of the X-RHex has a
swinging counterweight,
used as a precisely controlled
tail to orientate the body so
that it always lands on its feet.

USC BioTac

Superhydrophonic
bot (Harbin Institute)

This clever robo-nger

mimics human ngerprints
to generate a measurable
vibration that is different for
every texture. It builds up a
database of tested materials.

Ideal for reconnaissance,

water content measurement
and wildlife research, this
tiny bot can walk on water by
exploiting surface tension.

Resistance-type sensors
in the hands allow it to
detect contact with
patients or barriers.

Joints

Mobility
Four omni-wheels help it to navigate
narrow gaps and passages.

Mechanised joints in the base

and lower back enable the
robot to crouch down and lift
patients even from oor level.

E.ZICLEAN WINDORO

The window cleaner

RIBA-II is a new-and-improved
version of RI-MAN (the green
robot just above) with a far
greater range of capabilities

Magnets

Smart

Neodymium magnets mean

the Windoro will stay in
place on the window even
when the batteries run out.

It autonomously measures
the window and works
out the best pattern for
cleaning all of the glass.

The bot offering a window into the future of domestic help

 Perfectionist  Good sticking power  Can be remote controlled
The Windoro is an autonomous window cleaner, similar in concept
to the robot vacuum cleaner. The primary unit operates on the inside
of the glass, and contains the electric motors, gears and wheels that
drive it around the window. Scrubbing the glass with rotating
brushes, the electronics send power to the two drive motors to
make it follow a pre-programmed pattern that doesnt miss a spot.
The slave unit is towed around on the outside using powerful
neodymium magnets that also hold both parts tightly against the
smooth surface, just like a giant magnetic sh-tank cleaner.

Reservoir
An integral water tank in
each unit holds the cleaning
uid and water, for a
streak-free nish.

BD SandFlea

This wheeled robot looks

quite conventional, until it
reaches a wall. Pointing
itself upwards,
the computer
calculates the angle
and power required
before leaping up to eight
metres (26 feet) into the air.

Kuratas

This four-metre (13.2-foot)

monster is for one purpose
only: to show off. Bottle rocket
launchers and twin BB guns
will get everybodys attention
as you sit behind the fullcolour display to control it.

which vocations are humans being replaced by bots?

UCSF Medical Center
The UCSF Medical Center
has a robotics-controlled
pharmacy that can pick,
package and dispense pills.
The system has so far
prepared in excess of
350,000 prescriptions.

Cabbie
Claudia Heinstein

Corbis

Pharmacist

Autonomous
driverless car
Self-driving cars are a
tempting option for taxi
companies with their
low fuel costs and
insurance policies, if
theyre ever legalised.

025

General Atomics; RIKEN; Kod*lab, University of Pennsylvania; Boston Dynamics; E.zicom Robotics

First contact

HUMANS & ROBOTS

From autonomous vehicles to data mining, we are living

in the age of intelligent machines

hat is articial
inteligance? you ask
Google. To which it
replies, Did you mean articial
intelligence? Of course you did.
Meanwhile, in the 0.15 seconds it
took you to realise your own
stupidity, an intelligent machine has
assembled 17,900,000 results for your
consideration including video,
audio, historical records and the
latest headlines ordered by
relevance and reliability. 20 years
ago, this type of articial
intelligence would have been the

026

stuff of science ction, but now we

simply call it technology.
Articial intelligence began over
60 years ago as a philosophical
question posed by the brilliant
English mathematician Alan Turing:
Can machines think? In 1955, the
words articial intelligence rst
appeared in print in a proposal for a
summer academic conference to
study the hypothesis that every
aspect of learning or other feature of
intelligence can in principle be so
precisely described that a machine
can be made to simulate it.

At its core, the science of AI is the

quest to understand the very
mechanisms of intelligence.
Intelligence in humans or machines
can be dened as the ability to solve
problems and achieve goals.
Computers, it turns out, are the ideal
machines for the study of AI, because
they are highly teachable. For half a
century, researchers have studied
cognitive psychology how humans
think and attempted to write
distinct mathematical formulas, or
algorithms, that mimic the logical
mechanisms of human intelligence.

Machines have proven

extraordinarily intelligent, with
highly logical problems requiring
huge numbers of calculations.
Consider Deep Blue, the chessplaying computer from IBM that beat
grandmaster Gary Kasparov using
its brute processing strength to
calculate a nearly innite number of
possible moves and countermoves.
Alternatively, consider the
everyday examples of astonishing
AI, like the GPS navigation systems
that come standard in many new
cars. Speak the address of your

DID YOU KNOW? Colossus, the first electronic computer, was built in 1943 by British engineers to crack coded Nazi transmissions

IBMs Watson Shaking

In February 2011, an IBM
supercomputer named Watson
trounced two previous champions of
the US trivia quiz show Jeopardy!.
Watson parsed natural language
questions fast enough to beat the
quickest human minds. IBM
researchers preloaded the computer
with hundreds of millions of pages of
data, then armed it with algorithms
for searching and reading text
separating subjects, verbs and
objects. But this was much more than
a super-powered Google search.
Watson used advanced algorithms to
reason which of its millions of
hypothetical answers was most likely
to be true. The face behind the
Jeopardy! podium was backed by a
roomful of servers, comparing results
in fractions of a second until the
computer had enough statistical
condence to buzz in. Watson
technology is already being
considered as the brains behind an
automated physicians assistant.

hands
with
ASIMO

Recognition
Using head-mounted
cameras
and radio
Verizon
sensors, ASIMO can
read data on
magnetic ID cards in
its vicinity. It also
uses facial
recognition software.

Robotics
and AI
Hand command
ASIMO is programmed to
recognise and respond to
several hand gestures,
including stop, go there,
and handshake.

The IBM Watson

supercomputer

Servo motors
ASIMOs joints and limbs are
powered by 34 servo motors.
When it processes the
handshake sign, it brings its
arm and hand into position.

destination and the on-board

computer will interpret your voice,
locate your precise location on the
globe and give you detailed
directions from Moscow to Madrid.
Or even something as simple as the
spell check on your word processor,
casually xing your typos as you go.
And then there are AI machines
that go far beyond the everyday, like
robots. Todays most extraordinary
robotic machines are much more

Honda

IBM

Programming
ASIMO is not
autonomous, but
programmed to
perform specific
tasks. When
approached, it will
stop and wait for
commands.

Force sensors
Sensors in ASIMOs wrists help it to apply
the exact amount of force necessary to
push its cart, or to step backwards or
forwards when being pushed or pulled.

than logically intelligent; theyre

also physically intelligent. Consider
Stanley, the 100% autonomous
vehicle that barrelled through the
Mojave Desert to win the 2005 DARPA
Grand Challenge. Stanley used GPS
data to pinpoint its location, as well
as laser-guided radar and video
cameras to scan the distance for
obstacles in real-time. Internal
gyroscopes and inertial sensors feed
constant streams of data into the

5TH CENTURY BCE

on-board computer to control

steering and acceleration.
The Honda ASIMO (Advanced Step
in Innovative MObility) robot
grabbed the worlds attention with
its human-like walk, a feat of
intelligent engineering. ASIMO uses
infrared and ultrasonic sensors to
gauge distances from oors, walls
and moving objects, and constantly
adjusts its balance and motion with
34 high-precision servo motors.

The worlds most advanced

robots navigate their
environments with sensors that
mimic our senses of vision,
hearing, touch and balance.
The lifelike androids designed
by Hiroshi Ishiguro at the
Intelligent Robots Laboratory use
real-time facial recognition
software to mimic the facial
movements of the controller.
Walking robots like ASIMO are
equipped with an internal
gyroscope and speed sensor to
help it maintain balance, even
when shoved. Infrared and
ultrasonic sensors are used to
gauge the distance of the oor
and the speed and path of
approaching objects. Sensors
in hands and feet help it feel
the six axes of force up/down,
left/right, forwards/backwards
and the degree of force applied.

ASIMOs processors are so lightningfast, you can shove the robot

sideways in mid-stride and it will
instinctively throw its weight onto
an outside foot to right itself.
Perhaps the greatest achievements
of articial intelligence over the past
half-century have been illustrated
by the way that machines can
intelligently process information.
Google is just one example of
intelligent information technology

1642

13TH CENTURY

Aristotles logic

Lullian machine

Pascals calculating machine

Aristotle defines syllogistic logic how a single

conclusion is drawn from two premises.

A Spanish monk creates a machine that draws

conclusions from different paired symbols.

The wooden box with a metal crank can

handle both addition and subtraction.

AI FIRSTS Where artificial intelligence all began and where its heading next
Mechanical dove

Spring-driven clocks

Punch cards

Archytas of Tarentum constructs a wooden

dove that can flap its wings and even fly.

These clocks and watches are the worlds

first mechanical measuring machines.

A French silk weaver automatically controls

a loom using a series of punch cards.

400 BCE

15TH CENTURY

1801

027

HUMANS & ROBOTS

that can parse obscene amounts of
data into useful information.
Intelligent cell phone networks
bounce packets of voice data along the
most efcient path. Logistics software
is the engine of global business,
calculating the most efcient and
protable way to procure supplies,
manufacturer and ship products
around the world.
Credit card companies use
intelligent software to analyse the
buying patterns of millions of
cardholders and identify the subtle red
ags that signal fraud or theft. In the
information age, we rely on these
intelligent machines to make sense of
streams of seemingly random data.
As processing power continues to
multiply, we are coming closer to
answering Turings original question:
Can machines think? We are
teaching machines to rely less on pure
logic and more on probabilities and
experience, what we might call
intuition. They are able to pick things
up quickly too!

INSIDE THE AI BRAIN

The human brain is a profoundly complex machine.
What we regard as simple common sense is actually
a combination of stored knowledge, logical reasoning,
probability and language interpretation. In the last 50
years, AI researchers have made strides towards
building a machine that can truly think

LOGIC

Dating back to the days of Aristotle, philosophers

have attempted to map and define the logical
processes by which we make decisions. Rather
than living life on a whim, the rational actor
makes choices and takes action based on evidence
and inference, cause and effect. If a machine is to
become a rational actor, it must be programmed to
recognise that if A and B are true, then the only
logical conclusion is C. The challenge of AI is to
create mathematical models for logical processes
that the machine can use to make reasonable
decisions based on evidence and probability.

LANGUAGE

ASIMO uses
complex tech to
help it maintain
balance

Human beings have many ways

of learning, such as listening,
watching, reading and feeling.
The only way for a machine to
learn is through language.
Computer programming
languages are grounded in logic.
Consider the most basic if/then
statement: If X is greater than 1, then go to Y. With greater processing
power, computers are being taught to interpret natural language the
way humans communicate. IBMs Watson computer can read natural
text because it was programmed to parse sentences for subject, verb and
object and compare those entries with its vast database of knowledge.
IBM

SEARCH AND OPTIMISATION

Honda

Google is an example of artificial intelligence if it was only a search engine, it would

randomly assemble a list of every webpage that included your term. But Google
programmers have armed the engine with algorithms that help it optimise searches
to retrieve the most relevant matches first. AI machines use the same methods to
search for the most logical response to environmental data (dont run into that table)
or direct queries (whats the balance on my bank account?). Theyre programmed to
use heuristics short cuts to eliminate the least-probable search paths.

1821

1921

1943

Cybernetics

Difference Engine No 1

Electric tabulating system

Robot coined

Charles Babbage envisages a complex

calculating machine.

Herman Hollerith devises a way to

mechanically record data.

Sci-fi play is the first to call automatons

roboti, Czech for forced labourers.

Studies help to understand

machine learning.

Boolean algebras

Principia Mathematica

Turing machine

George Boole uses syllogistic logic to reduce

maths functions to two symbols: 0 and 1.

Work the first to derive mathematical truths

from a set of axioms using symbolic logic.

Polymath Turing describes his machine, a theoretical device

that establishes the logical foundation for computer science.

1850S

028

1889

1910

1936

DID YOU KNOW? IBMs Watson runs on 90 servers, with the combined brainpower of 2,880 POWER7 microprocessors

PROBABILITY

How human
are you?

Humans are likely to base decisions on the

probability of something being true, given
past experiences and the current conditions.
AI machines can be programmed to reason in
similar ways. Computers are excellent
statisticians, and with the right algorithms,
they can quickly make billions of calculations
to decide which answer/action is most likely
to produce the desired result. As new
evidence is presented, AI machines use
Bayesian probability to overlap the new set of
probabilities over existing calculations.

ALGORITHMS

Algorithms are the bits of programming logic that

instruct the computer how to do something. A good
example is the minimax algorithm that helps a
chess-playing computer like IBMs Deep Blue decide its
next move. Minimax algorithms assign a value to each
position and piece on the board and search through all
possible moves to decide which delivers the best results.
To optimise the search, Deep Blue only considered the
next 12 moves instead of every possible move and
countermove, until checkmate.

AI

Alan Turing was a British mathematician and

philosopher who is considered by many to be
the father of AI and modern computer science.
In his 1950s paper Computing Machinery And
Intelligence, Turing posed the question Can
machines think? Admitting that thought is
such a vague and subjective term, he decided
to answer a different question: Can a
machine successfully imitate the way
humans interact? He proposed a game or
test in which subject A was human, subject
B was a machine and subject C another
human had to distinguish between the two
using text-based questions and answers.
Turing himself believed that with enough
storage capacity and processing power, a
machine could successfully beat the test. This
Holy Grail of AI is being pursued by designers
of interactive virtual assistants and
question-answering supercomputers.
Shown below are answers from the
Loebner Prize, an annual competition to
determine how human a program can be. In
terms of conversation, we clearly still have a
little way to go

Do you like baseball?

ROBOT ANSWER

HUMAN ANSWER

What is a
baseball team?

Yes!

When were you born?

REASONING

HUMAN ANSWER

1978

What kind of food do you like?

It was once believed that the AI

brain could only reason
according to strict rules of logic.
Question-answering computers
like IBMs Watson are proof that
machines can be taught to reason on
higher levels. Watson begins with straight
logic: searching its vast database of
knowledge for keywords in the question. But
then it uses much more complex algorithms to
identify related concepts and make the kind of
intuitive connections we call experience. Probability is
a huge component of higher-level machine reasoning,
using unprecedented processing power to give the most
likely answer from a nearly limitless range of knowledge.

1955

ROBOT ANSWER

I have been born?

ROBOT ANSWER

HUMAN ANSWER

Well, what kind of

band is it?

Im partial to
anything, really

Have I offended you?

ROBOT ANSWER

HUMAN ANSWER

I just met you. Its kind

of hard to develop love

No, not at all!

What is your favourite book?

1979

ROBOT ANSWER

HUMAN ANSWER

Led Zeppelin

Lord Of The Flies

2011

Articial intelligence invented

Autonomous robot

IBM Watson

John McCarthy uses the phrase in a proposal

for a conference on machine learning.

The Stanford Cart successfully navigates a room full

of obstacles using sensors and software.

The DeepQA supercomputer uses language analysis

algorithms to beat two former Jeopardy! champions.

Computer chess

First AI program

Deep Blue

Google

Claude Shannon proposes the functions for

programming a computer to play chess.

The Logic Theorist is the first program written

to mimic the human thought process.

World chess champion Gary Kasparov

loses to the IBM supercomputer.

The webs most influential piece of AI

programming is launched.

1949

1956

1997

1997

029

HUMANS & ROBOTS

Robotic surgery
Medical technology in the operating theatre has come on leaps
and bounds, but it still needs a helping hand from humans
obotic surgery allows for control and
precision previously unknown to
surgeons. Contrary to popular belief, the
robot does not operate on the patient alone. It is
a slave to a human master, meaning it is not a
true robot (these have intelligence and react
automatically). The surgeon sits at a console
next to the operating table and the robot is
placed around the anaesthetised patient. The
surgeon looks at a high-denition 3D image
provided by the robots cameras, and special
joysticks are used to control the ultra-ne
movements of the robotic arms.
This brings many exciting advantages. The
camera, previously held by a human being, is
now held perfectly still by the robot. The
movements and angles that the arms of the
machine provide allow for ne precision and
less damage to adjacent tissues when cutting,
leading to reduced pain and a faster recovery.
This has led to very rapid uptake by some
specialists, including urologists (who
operate on the bladder and kidney),
gynaecologists (who operate on the
uterus and ovaries) and heart
surgeons. As with most
technologies, there are
downsides to using robots in
operations. They are
expensive, large, cumbersome
to move into place, and remove
the important tactile feeling of real
tissue between the surgeons ngers.
Robotic surgery is considered a
step forward from standard keyhole
surgery, where the surgeon holds the
camera and operating arms. However,
early results have shown that there are
practically no outcome differences
between the two techniques. Combined
with higher costs, some surgeons think this
means robots are actually inferior to current
techniques. This has led to the
development of on-going trials,
comparing robotic to
standard keyhole surgery.
Surgeons around the world
are working as a single, giant
team to deliver these, and the results will
determine the future of medical robots for
generations to come.

030

da Vinci in action
This state-of-the-art surgical system works as part of a big team to
deliver high-precision surgery. Find out what role it plays now

Human operator
The robot is the slave,
while the surgeon is the
master. This means that
the robot cant act alone,
as the surgeon controls
all its movements.

3D vision
The terminal provides a
hi-def 3D image,
generated from the
camera attached to one
of the robotic arms.

Joysticks
The surgeon uses
joysticks that allow for
complete movement of
their hands; da Vinci
then exactly replicates
these micro-movements
within the patient.

Foot pedals
The surgeons use both
their hands and feet to
control the robot. The
foot pedals help move
the cameras position.

DID YOU KNOW? Surgical robots are incredibly expensive, with current versions costing around 900,000 ($1.45mn) each

Robotic arms
The ends of the robots
arms, which include a
camera and operating
instruments, are placed in
the operating site at the
start of the procedure.

Internal view
The camera is projected
onto several screens around
the operating theatre, so
the team knows exactly
what the surgeon is doing.

Surgical team
Someone always remains
scrubbed up, so that they
are sterile and ready to
move any parts of the
patient or robot.

Fluorescence imaging is still in the

experimental stages, and is right
at the cutting edge of
technological science. Indocyanine
green (ICG) is a dye that was
initially developed for photography
and is now used clinically. It is
injected into the patients
bloodstream, and has been
adapted so that it sticks to cancer
cells for example, within the
bowels. At the time of surgery, the
doctor inserts a camera into the
patients body (either using their
hands or a robot), and the dye is
excited by light at a precisely
matching wavelength. This creates
bright green uorescence,
distinguishing cancerous from
normal tissue and allowing the
surgeon to make precise incisions.

The evolution of
robotic surgery
The current robots in use, like the da Vinci
Surgical System, are second generation. The rst
generation, like the Unimation PUMA developed
in the Eighties, had very limited movements and
could only carry out specic tasks. The second
generation brought a range of ne and varied
actions, which surgeons rapidly adapted to.
These new-and-improved robots were pioneered
and driven forward by North American health
systems. Uptake has been slower in Britain due
to health budgets, at a time when other
treatments have an even bigger impact on
patient outcome. There is excitement over
development of the third generation of robot,
which promises to be more compact, faster and
to be packing in even more cutting-edge
technology. The future may see telesurgery,
where the surgeon in one place (eg a hospital)
performs robotic surgery on a patient elsewhere
(eg an injured soldier on a battleeld).

2013 Intuitive Surgical Inc; NASA

Fluorescence
imaging

The PUMA 200 (inset) was used to

place a needle for brain surgery in
1985, then was later developed by
NASA to aid virtual reality studies

031

HUMANS & ROBOTS

ionics experts attempt to build

mechanical and electronic devices to
mimic biological functions. With the
exception of the brain, the human body can
essentially be broken down and rebuilt using a
combination of mechanical, electronic and
biological technologies.
A bionic limb strips human biology back to
its constituent parts. Tough materials like
aluminium and carbon bre replace the
skeleton, motors and hydraulics move the limb,
while springs replace the tendons that store
and release elastic energy. A computer controls
motion and wires relay electrical signals, as
nerves would have done in a real limb. Users
are now even able to control these limbs with
their minds (see The power of thought).
Technology is also in development to replace
individual muscles and tendons following

032

injury. The synthetic muscles are made from a

polymer gel, which expands and contracts in
response to electrical currents, much like
human muscle. The tendons are made from
ne synthetic bres designed to imitate the
behaviour of connective tissue.
The mechanical nature of limbs makes them
excellent candidates for building robotic
counterparts, and the same applies to the
human heart. The two ventricles, which supply
blood to the body and lungs, are replaced with
hydraulically powered chambers. However, its
not just the mechanical components of the
human body that can be replaced; as time goes
on, even parts of the complex sensory system
can be re-created with technology.
Cochlear implants, for example, use a
microphone to replace the ear, while retinal
implants use a video camera to stand in for the

human eye. The data that they capture is then

processed and transformed into electrical
impulses, which are delivered to the auditory
or optic nerve, respectively, and then on to the
brain. Bionic touch sensors are also in
development. For example, the University of
California, Berkeley, is developing eSkin a
network of pressure sensors in a plastic web.
This could even allow people to sense touch
through their bionic limbs.
Replacing entire organs is one of the ongoing
goals of bionic research. However, breaking
each organ down and re-creating all of its
specialised biological functions is challenging.
If only part of an organ is damaged, its
simpler to replace the loss of function using
bionics. In type 1 diabetes, the insulinproducing beta cells of the pancreas are
destroyed by the immune system. Some

DID YOU KNOW? An artificial heart implant operation costs about 80,000 ($125,000) and 11,500 ($18,000) a year to maintain

The power of
thought explained
Cutting-edge bionic limbs currently in development
allow the user to control movements with their
own thoughts. Technically called targeted muscle
reinnervation its a groundbreaking surgical
technique that rewires the nerves in an amputated
limb. The remaining nerves that would have fed the
missing arm and hand are rerouted into existing
muscles. When the user thinks about moving their
ngers, the muscles contract, and these
contractions generate tiny electrical signals that
can be picked up by the prosthetic.
The prosthetic is then programmed to respond
to these muscle movements, taking each
combination of signals and translating it into
mechanical movement of the arm. Some of the
most sophisticated have 100 sensors, 26 movable
joints and 17 motors, all co-ordinated by a
computer built into the prosthetic hand.

Motor cortex
This region of the brain is
responsible for planning and
co-ordinating movement.

Rerouted nerves
The nerves that used
to feed the missing
limb are rewired into
existing muscles.

Sensors
Sensors pick up tiny
electrical signals when the
user thinks about moving.

Motors
A series of motors
replace the biological
function of muscles.

Joints
Joints are designed to
match the natural range
of human motion.

A scientist controls a wheelchair using a brainmachine interface

Computer
A computer in the hand of the
prosthetic arm co-ordinates
all the other components.

patients are now tted with an articial

pancreas: a computer worn externally, which
monitors blood sugar and administers the
correct dose of insulin as required.
Entire organ replacements are much more
complicated, and scientists are turning back to
biology to manufacture articial organs. By
combining 3D printing with stem cell research,
we are now able to print cells layer by layer and
build up tissues. In the future, this could lead
to customised organ transplants made from
the recipients very own cells.
Advances in bionics mean that already limbs
are emerging that exceed human capabilities
for weight bearing and speed. That said, the
sheer complexity of our internal organs and
how they interact means that it is not yet
possible to fully replace man with machine.
But maybe its just a matter of time

The right materials

One of the most important factors in biomedical
engineering is biocompatibility the interaction of
different materials with biological tissues.
Implanted materials are often chosen because
they are biologically inert and as a result they
dont provoke an immune response. These can
include titanium, silicone and plastics like PTFE.
Articial heart valves are often coated in a layer of
mesh-like fabric made from the same plastic used
for soft drink bottles Dacron. In a biological
context, the plastic mesh serves as an inert
scaffold, allowing the tissue to grow over the valve,
securing it in place. Some scaffolds used in
implants are even biodegradable, providing
temporary support to the growing tissue, before
harmlessly dissolving into the body.
Bionic limbs are worn externally, so their
materials are chosen for strength and exibility as
opposed to biocompatibility. Aluminium, carbon
bre and titanium are all used as structural
components, providing huge mechanical strength.

Articial heart
valves are often
made from metal,
such as titanium or
stainless steel

033

HUMANS & ROBOTS

Building a
bionic human
Advances in technology make it possible to build
limbs with components that mimic the function of
the skeleton, musculature, tendons and nerves of
the human body. Meanwhile, the sensory system
can be replicated with microphones, cameras,
pressure sensors and electrodes. Even that most
vital organ, the heart, can be replaced with a
hydraulic pump. Some of the newest technologies
are so advanced that the components actually
outperform their biological counterparts.

Retinal
implant
Argus II, Second Sight
A camera mounted on a pair
of glasses captures real-time
images and transmits them
wirelessly to an implant on the
retina. The implant contains
60 electrodes and, depending
on the image, will generate
different patterns of electrical
signals, which are then sent
to the remaining healthy
retinal cells. These cells are
activated by the signals, and
carry the visual information to
the brain for processing.

Cochlear
implant
Nucleus 6, Cochlear
A cochlear implant has
four main components. A
microphone, worn near
the ear, detects audio and
transmits a signal to a
sound processor. The
processor then arranges
the signal and sends it to
a built-in transmitter. The
transmitter passes the
signal to an implanted
receiver/stimulator, which
transforms it into
electrical stimuli for the
electrodes. Finally these
signals are relayed to
the auditory nerve.

Many thousands of
nerve cells project
from the cochlea to
the auditory nerve.

Rods and
cones

Nerve cells respond

to electrical signals
made by the implant.

Light detection by
the eyes own cells
is not necessary.

Wireless
technology
Video signals are
sent wirelessly
to the implant.

Ganglion cells

Implant

The long axons of

these cells make
up the optic nerve.

The implant
transmits signals
via 60 electrodes.

Receiver/
stimulator
Signals from the
external transmitter
are received through
the skin by this device.

Microphone
and processor
The equipment for
detecting and
processing the sound
is worn over the ear.

Electrical wires
Electrodes
Between 4 and 22
electrodes interact
with the nerves of
the cochlea.

The signals are turned

into a series of electrical
impulses sent via wires.

Aorta

Pulmonary
artery

The right-hand
articial ventricle
sends oxygenated
blood to the body.

The left-hand articial

ventricle sends blood
to the lungs to pick
up more oxygen.

Pneumatic
tubing
Pulses of air from
an external pump
push blood out
of the heart.

034

Cochlea

Interface

Synthetic
ventricles
Plastic ventricles
replace both of the
lower chambers.

Articial
heart
Total Articial Heart,
SynCardia Systems
Plastic hearts can be
implanted to replace the
two ventricles of the
heart. Plastic tubing is
inserted to replace the
valves, and two articial
chambers are also
attached. The heart is
then connected to a
pneumatic pump worn in
a backpack, which sends
bursts of air to the
chambers, generating
the pressure thats
required to pump blood
around the body.

DID YOU KNOW? In 1812 a prosthetic arm was invented that could be moved using cables attached to the opposite shoulder

Bionic limbs The future

of bionics

Bionic arm
Joints
Joints replicate the
range of motion in a
human arm and hand.

Computer
A computer processes
information coming in
from the electrodes.

Electrodes

Motors

Electrodes pick up
signals from nerves
rerouted into
nearby muscles.

Beneath the casings

are motors to provide
movement in the arm.

Touch-sensitive
prosthetics

Prosthetic limbs have come on

leaps and bounds in the past
couple of decades. They still
retain characteristic features,
such as an internal skeleton for
structural support and a socket to
attach to the amputation site,
however the most innovative
models are now able to
reproduce, or even exceed,
biological movements. Motors are
used in place of muscles, springs
instead of tendons and wires
instead of nerves.
The movement of many
prosthetics is controlled
externally, using cables attached
to other parts of the body, or
using a series of buttons and
switches. New technology is
emerging to allow the user to
move the limb using their mind
(see The power of thought). The
next logical step in this process is
developing technology that
enables the prosthetic limb to
sense touch, and relay the
information back to the user.
DARPA-funded researchers have
developed FINE, a at interface
nerve electrode (see below left)
which brings nerves into close
contact with electrodes, allowing
sensory data to pass to the brain.

Bionic leg
Spring
A spring replaces
the Achilles tendon,
providing elastic
energy storage.

Touch sensor
Sensors on the prosthetic
detect touch and send a
signal to the electrodes.

3D-printed organs

3D printing is the future

of manufacturing and
biologists are adapting the
technology in order to print
using living human cells.
The cells are laid down in
alternating layers alongside a
transparent gel-like scaffold
material. As the cells fuse,
the scaffold disappears.

Ekso skeleton

Articial kidney

Ekso Bionics has made

bionic exoskeletons to allow
people with lower limb
paralysis to walk. Ekso
supports their body and uses
motion sensors to monitor
gestures and then translate
them into movement.

The University of
California, San Francisco, is
developing a bionic kidney. At
about the size of a baseball, it
contains silicone screens with
nano-drilled holes to lter
blood as it passes. It will also
contain a population of
engineered kidney cells.

Electrodes
Powered ankle
A motorised ankle
works in place of
the calf muscle.

Computer
Microprocessors
analyse the users
movement and adjust
the leg accordingly.

Signalling
The electrodes send
a small electrical
signal to the nerve,
causing it to re.

Nerve
Sensory nerves
transmit incoming
signals to the brain.

Joint
The joints are all
programmed to move
in co-ordination with
one another.

Man-made immunity

Leuko-polymersomes are
plastic smart particles that
mimic cells of the immune
system. They are being
designed to stick to
inammatory markers in the
body and could be used to
target drug delivery to
infections and cancer.

Sheath
The nerve is encased
and attened to
maximise contact area
with the electrodes.

Robotic blood cells

The Institute for

Molecular Manufacturing is
developing nanotechnology
that could increase the
oxygen-carrying capacity of
blood. Known as respirocytes,
the cells are made atom by
atom mostly from carbon.

035

Corbis; Alamy; Thinkstock; SynCardia Systems; Getty; DARPA; Second Sight Medical Products, Inc

A panel of electrodes
sits across the
attened nerve.

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS
038 Robot wars
Discover the next big thing in
sport: watching huge robots fight
each other

052
VTOL drone
technology

042 Future of robotics

What are next-gen robots and
what can we expect from them?

046 Exo suits

Now that its possible to fuse man
and machine, will we become a
more powerful race?

052 VTOL drones

Just like helicopters, these drones
are taking full advantage of
vertical take-off and landing tech

042
Lifesaving
tech

036

052
DARPA drones
046
Bionic
walkers

046
Combining
man and
machine

042
What does
the future of
robots hold?

037

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

Discover the next big thing in sports:

giant mechanical monsters that ght to the death
Americas
MegaBot Mark II
Long-range combat
The Mark II is equipped only
with long-range weaponry at
the moment, but its planned
upgrades include hand-tohand combat options.

Powerful hydraulics
The robots legs are tted with
powerful hydraulics, allowing
its body to drop down between
the treads, making it smaller
and easier to transport.

Two-person cockpit
The cockpit ts two people: one
sits at the front to control the
weaponry and the other sits
behind and drives.

Body-mounted
cameras
As the driver sits behind
the gunner, body-mounted
cameras connected to a
cockpit monitor are used to
help steer the robot.

Pneumatic weaponry
All of the weaponry is powered
by high-pressure air, allowing
supersized paintballs to be
red at speeds of over
160km/h (100mph).

Tank treads
The robot currently has treads
from a Cat 289C Skid Steer loader,
but these are likely to be replaced.

038

DID YOU KNOW? Kogoro Kurata was inspired to build his Kuratas robot by the Armored Trooper Votoms television series

ince the birth of science ction, cinema

has been pitting giant robots against each
other in colossal ghts to the death. The
closest we ever got in real life was UK television
show Robot Wars (and its US counterpart
Battlebots), where radio-controlled machines
went to battle in an area rigged with ame pits,
angle grinders and other robot death-traps. Now,
were set to see towering automatons go head-to-

head, but these creations wont be judged on

damage, control, style and aggression. The
winner will be the one left standing.
American startup MegaBots Inc has created
their very own piloted, humanoid robot, the
MegaBot Mark II. Standing at an impressive 4.6
metres (15 feet) and weighing 5.4 tons, it employs
cutting-edge robotics to deliver metal-splitting
blows and re weaponry as the pilots command.

Japans
Kuratas
Heads-up display

Optional weaponry

Within the cockpit is an

impressive heads-up display,
which not only shows where
Kuratas is going but also has
an advanced targeting system.

Weaponry options include a BB

Gatling gun that res 6,000
rounds per minute, and can
even lock onto a target.

Protective
chest cavity
The large chest cavity is
completely bulletproof, and
is designed to protect the
pilot should the robot fall.

Fully
functioning
hand
With the help of a
specially designed
glove, the robots
hand has a full
range of motion,
copying what the
pilots hand does.

Four-legged
mechanoid

Diesel-powered
hydraulics

Unlike MegaBots
offering, Kuratas
has four legs that
give it a top speed
of 9.7km/h (6mph).

The hydraulics in the arms

and legs are powered by
diesel, and move quickly
and smoothly.

The Mark II can launch 1.4-kilogram (threepound) paint-lled cannonballs at a gutpunching 160 kilometres (100 miles) per hour,
while its other arm sports a specially designed
gun that launches paint rockets. The Megabots
creators explained, Were Americans, so weve
added really big guns. As the juggernauts take
chunks out of each other, two brave pilots will be
in the cockpit, controlling the Mark IIs every
move. The drivers view is almost fully obstructed
by the robots gunner, so an intricate camera
system has been tted to relay live video and
help the driver see where they are going.
From the beginning of their project, the
MegaBots team have had only one thing in mind:
epic sports entertainment. Although the Mark II
was a rst for the US, it was not the rst piloted
humanoid to be created a suitable opponent for
the MegaBot already existed. Back in the
summer of 2012, collaborators from Suidobashi
Heavy Industry in Japan unveiled Kuratas, a
four-metre (13-foot), single-pilot super-robot.
Despite being older than the Mark II, its much
more impressively equipped, with a superb
heads-up display inside the cockpit and more
advanced weaponry. One of its signature if
slightly sinister features is the ring system for
its 6,000 round per minute BB Gatling gun. Once
the target is locked, the pilot can re simply by
smiling. Trigger-happy has a whole new
meaning once youve seen Kuratas in action.
A particularly clever feature of Kuratas is that
you dont need to be in the cockpit to operate it.
Thanks to the clever V-Sido operating system,
you can control the humanoid with any internetenabled phone, which the designers call the
Master Slave system. At the moment this
technology only works to control the robots
movement, but could be capable of ring its
weapons in the future.
Incredibly, anyone can buy a fully-edged
version of Kuratas right now. Its probably the
coolest thing for sale on Amazon Japan, but a
fully customisable version will set you back over
650,000 ($990,000). Although the majority of us
dont have that kind of cash to splash on
humanoid robots, it does go to show that they
have arrived, and theyre here to stay.
When inventor Kogoro Kuratas received the
challenge from the American team, he was quick
to accept. Giant robots are a very real part of
Japanese culture, and the team are not about to
let the Americans defeat them. The duel will take
place in June 2016, in a neutral location thats yet
to be decided. The two challenge videos have
received over 10 million YouTube views between
them, so there is denitely enough interest to
make this battle truly epic. The sport of the future
is here, and its straight out of science ction.

039

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

The Megabots team have big plans

for the Mark II, including increased
power and steel armour

Coming soon: Mark II upgrades

With less than a year to go, see how the MegaBots team plan to defeat their Japanese rivals
The designers of the Mark II recognise that they
are a number of megabot-sized steps behind
Kuratas. To help fund the necessary
improvements, they have launched a
Kickstarter campaign, in which they detail
their plans to create a robot capable of handling
anything Kuratas can throw at it. The power
unit will be extensively upgraded, giving the
Mark II ve times its current horsepower,
enabling it to cope with the demands of a
heavier, energy-sapping frame.
Shock-mounted, steel armour
will cover the majority of the
Mark IIs body, enabling
it to withstand
considerable
punishment from the
ve-ton-punching
Kuratas. The current
track base mobility
system tops out at a
measly four kilometres (2.5
miles) per hour; MegaBots
plans to introduce a new,
ve times faster system
designed by Howe and

040

Howe Technology, who have designed similar

systems for the vehicles seen in Mad Max: Fury
Road and G.I. Joe: Retaliation.
At the moment the Mark II is very top heavy,
and risks toppling over should it take a punch or
dish out a particularly powerful one itself.
MegaBots is hoping to team up with IHMC
Robotics, who specialise in robotic balance and
control, making them the ideal company to
design a custom system for the Mark II to ensure
the robot stays upright no matter what happens.

Megabots is planning to include

a cigar amethrower and
eagle-mounted Gatling guns

If the Kickstarter campaign raises 800,000

($1.25 million), MegaBots will seek help from
NASA to improve their current cockpit safety
system. This will help the robot ght more
aggressively without endangering the pilot and
gunner inside.
As the creators of Kuratas have demanded
that the duel involves hand-to-hand melee
style combat, the Mark II will need to be tted
with appropriate weaponry. No one really
knows what will work at this scale, but options
include crushing and grasping claws, shields
and pneumatically-driven sts.
The designers themselves have said they
would like to incorporate a giant chainsaw and
shoulder-mounted Gatling guns, which re out
of eagle heads. Whichever combination of
these gets the go-ahead, watching two giant
robots knock the life out of each other will be
quite a spectacle.
It is worth mentioning that no details have
been released relating to the upgrades that the
Kuratas team are planning. The Japanese are
keeping their cards close to their chest, but if
the current model is anything to go by, they will
be mightily impressive.

DID YOU KNOW? If MegaBots secures 980,000 ($1.5 million) of funding, they will give the Mark II a Hollywood-grade paint job

Camera drones

Live audiences

Drones will stream

live HD video to home
viewers, allowing
them to follow their
favourite team and
see the ght from the
robots point of view.

MegaBots hope to one day

host ghts with a live
audience, in huge
stadiums across the globe.

Team ghts
As well as one-on-one
battles, team ghts could
also feature in the arena.

War-torn arenas
The arenas themselves are
likely to be designed as
dishevelled cities, providing
rugged terrain to test the
robots movement and small
areas of cover to hide behind.

The future of ghting robots

Building a sports league, one giant robot at a time
will be of paramount importance, pilots
of robots such as the Mark II will be on
the end of countless paintballs, and will
be inside a robot thats being
pummelled by huge steel sts.
Whether or not this really is the evolution of
WWE, UFC and Formula One, as the MegaBots team
claim, there is no doubt that this style of arena
combat between two robot behemoths would have
viewers around the world reaching for their
remotes, and potentially even their wallets.

Destructible robots
The robots will be designed
to fall apart when they take
a certain number of hits;
limbs will fall off and
mechanisms will slow down
as the ght goes on.

The tech behind the robots

Although both the MegaBot Mark II and Kuratas
are piloted robots, they both require their own
operating system to allow for effective human
control. Kuratas uses V-Sido OS, which was
designed by the projects head roboticist,
Wataru Yoshizaki. In terms of functionality,
this software can be compared to the ight
control systems, also known as avionics,
present in all modern aircraft, as it handles all
of the low level tasks while letting the pilot
focus on high level commands. Specically,
V-Sido OS integrates routines for balance and
movement, helping it to correct posture and
prevent the robot from falling over if it is hit
during combat or travels over a particularly
uneven surface.

The MegaBot Mark II uses Robot OS, an

operating system that gives users a exible
framework for writing their own robot
software, and is essentially a collection of tools,
conventions and libraries that aim to simplify
the unenviable task of coding a giant robot. It
can be adapted for any mission, making it ideal
for MegaBots as they arent entirely sure how
their robot will complete simple undertakings,
such as walking and maintaining its balance.
As robotics continue to develop, operating
systems will be rened and improved. If
robotics advances at the same rate as personal
computing has done in the last 20 years, it wont
be long before robots are commonplace in both
our homes and the workplace.

041

Corbis

The proposed duel in 2016 opens up a number of

commercial opportunities for the creators of
MegaBots and the Kuratas designers. The
American team believe they could eventually
start the next generation of sports leagues,
in which colossal robots ght each other in
front of huge live crowds, and even bigger
television audiences.
Competitors will create brands within the
league, touring the globe and ghting different
robots from any team that enters. Although safety

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

ROBOTS ARE MAKING GREAT STRIDES

QUITE LITERALLY SO THE UPCOMING
FEW YEARS PROMISE TO USHER IN A
WHOLE NEW ERA FOR AUTOMATONS

ithout a doubt, robots have

captured the imagination of
science-ction writers and
lmmakers over the last
80 years, but even the best efforts of
engineers have so far fallen short of
this unsettling vision of the graceful,
intelligent, self-aware machines that
may aim to kill us, love us or become

more human.
The application of advanced systems
and technology throughout the modern
world begs a re-evaluation of the
question: what is a robot? Going back to
the basic denition of the word, which
comes from the Czech robota, meaning
forced labour, a robot could be anything
that performs a physical task for a user.
Available technology has generally
limited robot development relative to
the imagination of writers and
lmmakers. Computer processing
capability is currently at a level that
allows very sophisticated software to
be used, with a large number of
advanced sensors and inputs giving

Domestic
ASIMO

huge amounts of information for the

software to utilise. One example is the
Samsung Navibot, which negotiates its
environment with a host of sensors and
clever programming to map a room,
store the room shape in its memory,
dene its position and vacuum-clean
the oor before returning to a special
dock to recharge itself.
Decades of research and development
in key areas have begun to pay off, with
signicant weight reductions and
increased structural strength made
possible by advancements in carbon
bre and composite material
technology. Mechanical and ergonomic
research has been instrumental in
domestic and care applications, such as
the Japanese robot RI-MAN, which
easily lifts patients in care homes to
save both staff and patients risking
injury. Robot/human interaction
research is also allowing machines to
be tailored to be more widely accepted
and trusted, especially with vulnerable
or disabled users. NAO is a good

Titanoboa, an exciting project led by Charlie Brinson,

is reincarnating a one-ton electromechanical snake

Application:
Technology demonstrator
Status: Continual development

Info: The all-new ASIMO is

lighter and more streamlined
than ever. Its new smaller body
belies the awesome tech within
though, with ASIMO now
capable of improved capabilities
(such as talking while delivering
drinks) thanks to advanced AI
systems and considerably
improved movement. ASIMO
now has 57 degrees of freedom,
can run at 9km/h (5.6mph) and
communicate via sign language.

042

Michael JP Hall

When it will replace humans:

Unknown

2x BAE Systems

FUTURE OF
ROBOTICS

DID YOU KNOW? ASIMO was able to move in such a humanlike manner, Honda sought blessing from the Vatican to develop it

ROBOT
LAWS

BAE Pointer

BAE SYSTEMS
POINTER ROBOT

Application: Soldier
Status: In development
When it will replace humans:
2020
Info: BAEs Pointer is a concept
vehicle recently presented to the
UK government as part of its
Future Protected Vehicles
programme. The Pointer is a
robotic soldier designed to carry
out repetitive or dangerous
reconnaissance work in the eld,
eg sweeping for mines. It can
travel at high speed on its
horizontal tracks or walk like a
spider. Its body was designed to
be modular, allowing for a variety
of congurations, be that a
support of human troops with an
autocannon, acting as a medibay
or delivering battleeld intel as a
highly mobile mechanised scout.

Science-ction writer
Isaac Asimov introduced
the three laws of robotics
in a 1941 story. These are:
A ROBOT MAY NOT
INJURE A HUMAN
BEING, NOR
THROUGH ITS
INACTION ALLOW A
HUMAN BEING TO
COME TO HARM
A ROBOT MUST
OBEY THE ORDERS
GIVEN TO IT BY
HUMAN BEINGS,
UNLESS SUCH ORDERS
WOULD VIOLATE THE
FIRST LAW
A ROBOT MUST
PROTECT ITS OWN
EXISTENCE, AS LONG
AS THIS DOES NOT
CONFLICT WITH THE
FIRST TWO LAWS.

3
BAE SYSTEMS
TARANIS ROBOT
2x BAE Systems

Military
BAE Taranis
Application: Unmanned combat
air vehicle (UCAV)
Status: In development
When it will replace humans:
2018
Info: BAEs Taranis is named
after the Celtic god of thunder
and has been designed to explore
how an autonomous vehicle
controlled by a team of skilled,
ground-based operators can
perform many of the roles
undertaken by human pilots
while remaining non-detectable
to radar. Due for ight trials this
year, the Taranis relays info back
to command at which point it
can engage a target if it sees t.

Although the Taranis will ultimately be controlled by a

team on the ground, it will still be able to make its own
judgement calls within a preprogrammed remit

example of this as its cartoon-like

features make it look friendly, which
is ideal in its role of supporting the
teaching of autistic children.
Integration with other
technologies is another key
capability of future robotics that is
making a huge difference to
development, with existing global
positioning systems and
communication networks allowing
autonomy at never-before-seen levels
of accuracy, cost and reliability.
The internet has proven invaluable
in offering access to similar lines of
research, the sharing of open-source
materials and the easy exchange of
opinion and resources, which
benets the improvement of

technologies. One interesting use of

the web is to easily and reliably
control robotic systems from
anywhere in the world, allowing
machines like the da Vinci medical
robot to be used by the best surgeons
on the planet, while in a different
country to the patient if necessary.
Military applications have
traditionally pushed the
development of all areas of
technology, and robotics is an area
that is beneting from this, with
many unmanned and autonomous
aircraft, tracked and wheeled
vehicles, snakes and microbots are
being designed to suit modern
battleeld situations. Assets such as
BAEs Taranis robotic stealth ghter

promise high capability, high

autonomy and come at a high price,
but the development of low-cost,
exible solutions for information
gathering, bomb disposal and troop
support is evident with the stealthy
snake-like robots making excellent
progress with several armies, and
systems like BAEs Pointer and
Boston Dynamics LS3 taking over
many repetitive, dull and risky jobs.
We see the benets of these next-gen
robots every day. Autonomous
satellites provide GPS navigation for
our cars, as well as data links for our
mobile phones and computers.
Cutting-edge robot technology is
making the mass production of items
from drinks cans to cars evermore

efcient and cost effective, thanks to

the progression of industrial robotic
systems. Unmanned warehouse and
production-line robots move goods
around factories, while the level of
autonomous control that modern
cars have over their brakes, power
and stability systems to improve
safety takes them very close to the
denition of a robot. The massmarket autonomous car is likely only
a few years away, with most major
manufacturers such as Volvo and
BMW having developed driverless
technology demonstrators, but it is
the human element in this holding
the systems back more than the
technology, as many people feel very
uncomfortable putting their lives in

043

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

NAO is a 57cm
(22in)-tall
humanoid robot,
often used as a
teaching aid

NAO
ROBOT

Domestic
NAO robot
Application: Teaching support
Status: Operational
When it will replace humans:
Currently in use

1. Looking up
The top houses
the infrared roof
sensor that
shows Navibot
the shape of
the room.

Info: To see its surroundings

this bot uses two cameras above
and below its eyes, while an
accelerometer and gyrometer aid
stability. NAO is also equipped
with ultrasound senders and
receivers on its torso, allowing it
to avoid obstacles. A complex
set of algorithms means NAO is
able to interpret its surroundings
like no other robot; it can
recognise a persons face, nd a
particular object and respond
appropriately in a conversation.

SMART
CLEANING
The Samsung Navibot
has 38 sensors to map
rooms, avoid bumps
and recharge itself

2. Brush
Following an
efficient pattern
within the
room, the power
brush sweeps
the whole floor.

RI-MAN
& RIBA II

3. Suck-up
Dust is sucked
up into the bin
by the powerful
vacuum, from
both carpet and
smooth floors.
2x Harvard University

Aldebaran Robotics

the hands of a robot driver.

Scientic and space research is an
area to which next-gen bots are well
suited, with machines such as the
NASA Dawn spacecraft excelling in
their roles. Using an advanced ion
engine to move around the solar
system, this small, low-budget craft
is performing a mission which would
be impossible with manned systems.
Similar robots can keep humans out
of danger in arctic, deep-sea or
volcanic research as conducted by the
eight-legged Dante II in 1994.
We are on the verge of further
technological breakthroughs that
will transform the capabilities of
robots. The quantum computer may
be with us in a few years, and could
give a huge increase in processing
power while power-generation tech
has made a huge leap recently with
lithium-based systems. Motors for
controlling robots may be replaced
with new tech based on expanding/
contracting memory metals,
electro-reactive materials or other
means proving to be more efcient or
precise. The next generation of robots
is now arriving; who knows whats
waiting around the corner?

4. Teeth

Domestic

RIBA II can lift

people weighing
up to 80kg (176lb)

Application:
Care work assistance
Status: Operational
When it will replace humans:
Currently in use
Info: RIBA (Robot for Interactive
Body Assistance) evolved
RI-MANs ability to lift and set
down a human; RIBA II can lift up
to 80kg (176lb). Joints in the base
and lower back allow the bot to
crouch down to oor level, while
rubber tactile sensors enable it to
safely lift a person. These sensors
let the robot ascertain a persons
weight just by touching them, so it
knows how much force to apply
when picking them up.

5. Hair-free
The anti-tangle
system ensures
that no long
strands of hair
jam up the
rotating brush.

6. Allergy
The hyperallergenic filter
can be cleaned
and the vacuum
can be set to
operate daily.

Samsung

2x Provided by RIKEN-TRI Collaboration Center for Human-Interactive Robot Research

RI-MAN and RIBA II

The brush pulls

through teeth
inside the body,
next to infrared
sensors which
detect drops.

1938
Auto paint sprayer
Harold Roselund and
William Pollard pioneer
industrial production
robotics with an automated
paint-spraying arm.

044

1939

1948

1950

1954

Elektro

Robot tortoise

Isaac Asimov

With autonomous
roaming, obstacle
avoidance and light
sensitivity, this bot was
well ahead of its time.

I, Robot, the book that

defined our modern
take on robots, was
based on Asimovs
three laws of robotics.

Programming

While stories depicted

intelligent, humanlike
robots, this mechanical
man appeared at the
1939 Worlds Fair.

The first programmable

robot was designed by
George Devol, who
started Unimation, the
first robotics company.

NASA

ROBOTIC LANDMARKS

DID YOU KNOW? Future planet exploration may be done with robot snakes and spiders, as wheels can struggle in this terrain

Lifesaving

Lifesaving

Soft Robot Starfish

Application:
Search and exploration

Emergency Integrated
Lifesaving Lanyard
(EMILY)

LIFESAVING
LANYARD

Status: In development

Application: Lifeguard

When it will replace humans:

2025

When it will replace humans:

Currently in use

EMILY featured in the top ten of

TIME Magazines 50 best
innovations of 2010

Info: EMILY is a 1.5m (5ft)-long

remotely controlled buoy used to
rescue swimmers in distress.
The buoy can race across the
ocean at 39km/h (24mph),
enabling swift rescues. It has
been advanced with sonardetection tech which helps it to
nd and identify distressed
swimmers on its own. Once
EMILY has reached the swimmer,
they can either hang on to the
buoy and await a lifeguard, or the
buoy can tow them ashore itself.

2x Hydronalix

Info: Scientists at Harvard

University are engineering
exible, soft-bodied (elastomeric
polymer) robots inspired by
creatures like squid and starsh.
Capable of complex movements
with very little mechanisation,
this sort of bot could be used in
search-and-rescue operations
following earthquakes. The multigait robot is tethered to a bottle
of pressurised air, which pulses
through the hollow-bodied robot
to generate simple motion.

Status: Operational

SOFT ROBOT
STARFISH

UNCANNY VALLEY
Humans have evolved to be repelled by certain
things. Aversions to smells, tastes and the way
things look are ways of protecting ourselves,
eg a dead body produces a strong feeling of
discomfort, even if its much the same as a
living one. The uncanny valley theory states
we show greater affection towards objects as
they become more humanlike, but there comes
a point where they get too close, in manner or
appearance, triggering repulsion. The key is for
robots to be endearing but not too realistic.

Exploration
Application:
Technology demonstrator
Status: Operational
When it will replace humans:
Currently in use
Info: This robot is about the size
of a condor and, using an array of
internal sensors, is able to y
autonomously. It is incredibly light,
(450g/2.8oz), despite having a
wingspan of 2m (6.4ft). The
wings, which move up and down
thanks to a host of gears, are
similar to a jumbo jets thick at
the front and thinner at the back
with rods providing support; they
can also twist to alter the
direction of the robo-bird.

Healthy person

These soft-bodied robot sea-creatures,

whose development is supported by
DARPA, could one day be saving lives

FESTO
SMARTBIRD

ird, Festo
SmartB

UNCANNY
VALLEY
NAO robot

Traditional
motors for
controlling
robots may be
replaced with
tech based on
expanding/
contracting
memory metal

Familiarity

Festo SmartBird

Samsung Navibot

BAE Pointer

Real-world
likeness

50%

100%

ASIMO

1986

1997

Computer control

2011

2020?

Honda EO

RoboCup

Robonaut 2

Next-gen robots

The very first space

robot, though
primitive by modern
standards, kicked off
the Space Race.

The Stanford Research

Institute develops the first
robots that are controlled
by computers; these were
called Cart and Shakey.

Honda begins building

walking humanoid robots,
investing 25 years and huge
resources into development;
this leads on to ASIMO.

The first tournament

that aims to have a
robot football team
one day beating
humans is held.

NASA launches the

second robot astronaut,
which can operate tools
and assist human
astronauts in orbit.

The next few years should

see robots with quantum
computer brains and
biomechanical muscles
become a reality.

NASA

1970

Sputnik I

1957

045

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

ON OF
I
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U
F
E
TH
INE
H
C
A
M
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MAN ANOUGHT THE
WAS THOF SCIENCE
STUFF UNTIL NOW
,
FICTION

046

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in
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c
an-ma
the hum

DID YOU KNOW? The first prototype for the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) was built in 1997

HUMAN LIMBS EVOLVED

One of the most useful developments in
human augmentation right now is
Cyberdyne Incs Hybrid Assistive Limb,
codenamed HAL. HAL is the worlds rst
cyborg-type robotic system for supporting
and enhancing a persons legs, giving them
the ability to walk if disabled.
Attached to the users lower back and
legs, HAL works in a ve-step process. The
user merely thinks about the motions they
want to undertake, such as walking. This
causes the users brain to transmit nerve
signals to the muscles necessary for the
motion to take place. At this stage, a
disabled user wouldnt be able to receive
these nerve signals correctly in their limb
muscles, but with HAL attached, they can.
HAL is able to read the users emitted
bio-electric signals (BES), faint subsidiary
signals from the brain-muscle signals that
extend to the surface of the users skin. By
detecting these signals, HAL is then able to
interpret the motion intended by the user
and execute it, allowing them to move.
What is most exciting about HAL is its
potential to train disabled individuals to
move without its help. That is because
every time HAL helps its user move, a
natural feedback mechanism sees the
users brain conrm the executed
movement, training the users body to
transmit those nerve signals correctly.
While still some way off, continued
development could eventually see HAL
train a disabled person to walk unassisted.

Top 5 movie mechs

Gipsy Danger

Power Loader

AMP

Rhino

APU

Pacic Rim (2013)

One of the most important
mechs from 2013s Pacic
Rim, Gipsy Danger helps
humanity combat interdimensional beasts bent on
Earths destruction.

Aliens (1986)
Piloted by Ripley in James
Camerons Aliens, the Power
Loader mech helps
Sigourney Weavers feisty
protagonist face off against
the fearsome alien queen.

Avatar (2009)
Another hot mech from the
mind of James Cameron,
Avatars AMP plays a key role
in the lms nale, with the
baddie wreaking a whole lot
of havoc in one.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

(2014)
Russian mobster Aleksei
Sytsevich breaks out of
prison and tears up
Manhattan in a mech suit
inspired by a rhinoceros.

The Matrix Revolutions

(2003)
Protecting the remnants of
humanity against the
sentinels of the Matrix
universe, the APU deals huge
damage with big guns.

047

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

No longer the sole domain

of comics and movies like
GI Joe, exoskeletons are
helping soldiers in the eld

FASTER, STRONGER, TOUGHER

While Cyberdyne Incs HAL is
helping disabled people move
once again, Lockheed Martins
HULC Exoskeleton is
transforming able-bodied
soldiers into mechanised
warriors capable of feats of
strength, speed and endurance
never before seen by humans.
A hydraulic exoskeleton, the
HULC allows soldiers to perform
superhuman feats such as
carrying loads of 90 kilograms
(200 pounds) over difcult terrain
for hours on end, all the while
retaining maximum mobility. It
achieves this by augmenting the
soldier with a pair of powered
titanium legs and a computercontrolled exoskeleton with a
built-in power supply. This

mechanism transfers the weight

carried by the soldier into the
ground, while providing power
for continued, agile movement in
the theatre of war.
Due to the HULCs advanced
composite construction and
build materials, it also acts as
armour for its user, protecting
them from musculoskeletal
injuries caused by stress from
carrying heavy loads. Indeed,
when you consider that HULC
may also improve metabolic
efciency in its user, reduce
oxygen consumption and
improve the rate of muscle
wear, its hard not to see
the future of frontline
combat becoming reliant
on these mech warriors.

The Prosthesis Anti-Robot is

an impressive extension of
the users movements

THE ULTIMATE PROSTHESIS

The Prosthesis Anti-Robot is a
towering machine operated purely
by human body movements. If that
doesnt impress you, how do you feel
knowing the Anti-Robot weighs over
3,400 kilograms (7,500 pounds) and
is 4.6 metres (15 feet) tall?
The pilot can move such a huge
machine by their own efforts thanks
to an interface that attaches to their
arms and legs and translates the
movements of their limbs into the
robots four hydraulic legs. This,
along with positional and force
feedback, means the pilots limbs

The rise
of the
mechs
A timeline of real-life
robotic tech

048

directly correlate to those of the

machine and when the force on
them increases, the limbs get harder
to move. A suspension system also
helps the pilot feel when the bots
feet connect with the ground.
The Anti-Robot clearly highlights
the possibilities of exoskeletons,
with human strength and speed not
only dramatically increased but also
transferred into a machine many
times their size. Its not hard to
foresee construction workers suited
up and shifting huge crates with
ease in the near future.

1961

1968

1989

1993

2000

Jered Industries in
Detroit creates the
Beetle, a tracked mech
tank weighing 77 tons.
The pilot is shielded by
steel plating.

General Electric
creates the rst
cybernetic walking
machine, a piloted
mech with hydraulic
hands and feet.

MIT creates
Ghengis, a small
robot insect capable
of scrambling over
rough terrain while
remaining stable.

Honda unveils its rst

humanoid robot, the
P1, which can walk
around on two feet while
tethered. It evolves into
the now-famous ASIMO.

DARPA, the US Defense

Advanced Research
Projects Agency, requests
proposals for a powered
military exoskeleton. It
chooses the Sarcos XOS.

DID YOU KNOW? The Prosthesis Anti-Robot project is a 100 per cent volunteer-staffed project

Walking
modes

SUIT UP!
The most advanced gait-training exoskeleton
currently in use, the Ekso Bionic Suit has been
specially designed to grant people with paralysis
a means of standing and walking. Once wearing
the Bionic Suit, those who have suffered from
neurological conditions such as strokes, spinal
cord damage or traumatic brain injury can
re-learn correct step patterns and weight shifts
things that able-bodied humans take for
granted all the while supported by a system that
assists when needed and records every
movement for later analysis.
The Bionic Suit already has an shining record,
with every medically cleared user walking in the
suit in their rst training session. Fitting the suit
takes just ve minutes so doctors can treat
multiple patients, with the suit simply afxed
over a users normal clothes. Considering that it
also offers multiple training modes, progressing
its wearer from being unable to walk right
through to various motor levels, and that Ekso has
only been in operation since 2005, its easy to see
how the technology could transform lives.

Anatomy of the Ekso Bionic Suit

Check out the core components and features
of this revolutionary exoskeleton

First steps
A physical therapist
controls the users
steps with button
pushes, with the wearer
supporting themselves
with crutches.

Power plant
The Bionic Suit is
powered by a brace of
high-capacity lithium
batteries that can
energise the exoskeleton
for up to four hours.

Computer
A central computer
system receives data
from the Bionic Suits
15 sensors to
ne-control the users
leg movements.

Motors

Active steps

Four electromechanical motors

drive movement at
the users hips and
at each knee.

In the second stage,

the user takes control
of their limb
movements through
button pushes on a set
of smart crutches.

Crutches
Fixed assist

If needed, a set of
smart crutches can
be used by the user
to control their leg
movements with
arm gestures.

Each of the exoskeletons

legs is tted with a xed
assist system that can
contribute a xed
amount of power to help
the user complete a step.

Pro steps
In the most advanced
stage, the exoskeleton
moves the users hips
forward, shifting them
laterally into the correct
walking position.

Joints
The exoskeletons
mechanised joints are
designed to allow the
user to bend their limbs
as naturally as possible.

Pegs

Adaptive assist

Heel pegs help secure

the wearers feet and
ensure they dont
stumble while training
on uneven ground.

Depending on the
strength and capability
of the user, the Bionic
Suit can be adjusted to
produce various smooth
and natural gaits.

2004

2006

2009

2011

2013

TMSUK and Kyoto

University reveal the
T-52 Enryu, one of the
rst rescue robots to
be used by Japanese
emergency services.

Japanese machinery and

robotics manufacturer
Sakakibara-Kikai produces the
first genuine bi-pedal mech.
The machine measures a huge
3.4m (11.2ft) tall.

Lockheed Martin
reveals its Human
Universal Load Carrier
(HULC), an exoskeleton
purpose-built to be
worn by US soldiers.

Rex Bionics launches the

Rex exoskeleton, a device
that consists of a pair of
robotic legs that can help
people with paraplegia to
stand and walk.

Honda begins US trials of

its Walking Assist Device
at the Rehabilitation
Institute of Chicago. The
product aims to help
stroke patients walk again.

049

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

Real-life
spidey sense
Ever thought it would be cool to
have the spidey sense of
Spider-Man in real life? Well, now
you can, thanks to a neat research
project undertaken by the
University of Illinois. SpiderSense is
a wearable device that, by
manipulating the some of the
millions of sensory receptors
located on human skin, can relay
information about the wearers
environment to them. This clever
tech means that despite being
blindfolded, the user would know
exactly where they were in relation
to moving objects.
The system works thanks to the
SpiderSenses wearable tactile
display, which consists of a series
of sensor modules afxed to the
users arms and legs. As the user
moves about a room, distance
information regarding its objects
are relayed to the user through the
pads via increases or decreases in
pressure, with the skins receptors
relaying that information to the
brain. The sensor modules scan the
environment using ultrasound,
repeatedly sweeping an
environment for objects and
barriers in the way.
In terms of applications,
technology like SpiderSense could
be used to compensate for a
dysfunctional or missing sense,
such as visual impairment, or to
augment someones fully
functional senses.

050

BATTLEMECH POWER
On the most extreme side of the mech
revolution sits Sakakibara-Kikais Land Walker,
a 3.4-metre (11.2-foot) tall, 1,000-kilogram
(2,200-pound) bipedal exoskeleton. Designed to
replicate the battle mechs of popular science
ction, such as the AT-STs of the Star Wars
lms, the Land Walker is the worlds rst
machine of its kind, capable of moving
around on two feet, thunderously
plodding around under the command of its
human pilot. The Land Walker is powered by
a 250cc four-stroke engine, can walk around
at 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles) per hour and is
equipped with an auto-cannon capable of
ring squishy rubber balls. Unfortunately, the
Land Walker currently retails for 210,000
($345,000), so it might be some time before you
can stomp to work in one.
While the Land Walkers current
performance arguably leaves a lot to be
desired, with more development funding, a
machine such as this could easily become
the future of law enforcement, with its
intimidating physical presence and if
armed correctly damage-dealing
capabilities more than a match for any
civilian vehicle.

The Land Walker is

still a novelty device
but has great
future potential

DID YOU KNOW? A real, life-size Gundam mech statue has been built in Tokyo, Japan

The best of
the rest

A large-scale, human-controlled
robot for use in disaster sites, the
T-52 Enryu (which translates as
T-52 Rescue Dragon) is one heck of
a piece of kit. At 3.45 metres (11.3
feet) tall and 2.4 metres (7.9 feet)
wide, its packed with seven
6.8-megapixel CCD cameras and
the ability to lift objects
weighing up to one ton with its
hydraulic arms. The T-52 is
arguably the most advanced
disaster-relief mech in service,
inltrating hazardous areas and

withstanding conditions a human

never could.
The mech was built by the
Japanese company TMSUK in
partnership with Kyoto University
and Japans National Research
Institute of Fire and Disaster for
undertaking heavy-duty work in
disaster areas. The T-52 can either
be operated from its armoured
cockpit or remotely from a control
station, with the pilot receiving
contextual information via a series
of LCD displays.

The machine specialises in

lifting large and heavy objects,
meaning that it can easily help free
people trapped in earthquakegenerated building collapses.
While the Rescue Dragon is still in
its development phase, it has
already passed a number of
operational tests and was recently
deployed to help clear up the
Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant
disaster of 2011, patrolling the site
and removing large pieces of
radioactive rubble.

Fat boy
3.45m (11.3ft) high and
2.4m (7.9ft) wide, the T-52
is a beast of a machine,
weighing over ve tons.

Cockpit control
It has a central, armoured
cockpit from which a
human pilot can control
the mech if conditions
are safe enough.

Kuratas

The ultimate executive

toy, the Kuratas mech
allows its owner to
ride around in its
futuristic cockpit
while ring 6,000 BB
rounds per minute
from its dual, arm-mounted
Gatling guns.

Cybernetic
Anthropomorphous
Machine

One of the rst mechs ever

built, the CAM was designed
and built for the US Army in
1966 to move cargo and
weapons across battleelds.

Sarcos XOS 2

An exoskeleton that
grants its wearer
superhuman strength, the
XOS 2 is currently being
trialled by the US Army, with
a nished untethered variant
set to enter service in 2020.

4
Weight lifter
Power plant
The T-52 is powered by a
large diesel engine,
which supplies juice for
crawler movement as
well as operating each of
its moving parts.

Sand crawler
The ve-ton T-52 moves on a
set of crawlers, which can
propel the mech at a maximum
speed of 3km/h (1.9mph).

Each of the T-52s large

hydraulic arms has eight
joints and can carry 500kg
(1,100lb), or one ton using
both arms together.

Maximum joy
When remotely
controlled, the T-52 is
operated with a joystick,
with inputs
communicated to the
mech via wireless LAN
and PHS.

Body Weight Support

Assist

Hondas Body Weight

Support Assist from is
a partial exoskeleton
that, once worn,
helps to support the
users upper body,
taking some of its weight
off their legs.

Raytheon Heavy
Lifter

Designed to move large

crates, containers and
objects, the Heavy Lifter
offers its user a high degree of
freedom and agility.

Kids Walker

The Land Walkers baby

brother, the Kids Walker
which costs about 12,000
($20,000) is designed to
allow children to pilot their
own toy mech while
remaining safe.

051

Rex; Getty; Peters & Zabransky; Lockheed Martin;

Lance Long/UIC Electronic Visualization Laboratory

ROBOTIC RESCUE DRAGON

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS

VTOL drones
From the humble helicopters of yesterday,
to the robotic drones of tomorrow: vertical
lift technology is on the rise

lmost as far back as humans have been

dreaming of inventions for ight, they
have been envisioning craft capable of
vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL). Leonardo
da Vinci is responsible for some of the earliest
designs for todays most common VTOL aircraft
the helicopter. It may have only been an
untested imagining of a ying machine that
never got off the ground, but this so-called
aerial screw harnessed the essential
principles of lift through air compression
utilising a corkscrew design.
Though scores of inventors and pioneers
attempted to take to the skies in their own
prototypes, over the following ve hundred
years not much further progress in VTOL
ight was made. However, though the
gyrocopter design was left well behind, the
Italian geniuss principles of ight in essence
remained much the same.
The beginning of the 20th century saw the
age of ight dawn, and by 1907 some of the
rst-ever successful VTOL tests took place in
France. Aviation pioneers Jacques and Louis
Breguet, as well as Paul Cornu, had developed

The GL-10 on its maiden test ight

in 2014, tethered by a safety cable

VTOL craft capable of hovering some feet off the

ground for a short length of time the rst baby
steps of vertical ight.
The following decades saw aviation
technology race skyward, with designs
popping up all over the globe. Though the Great
War saw a huge demand for newer, faster and
more-efcient aircraft to ght the enemy,
helicopter designs were largely ignored until
the 1940s and the Second World War. Nazi
Germany used some early helicopters for
reconnaissance, transportation and medical
evacuation, but it wasnt until 1944 that the rst
mass-produced helicopter was revealed.
Hundreds of engineer Igor Sikorskys R-4, R-5
and R-6 helicopter models were built during the
nal year of WWII to aid the Allies, and by the
end of the war the VTOL craft was quickly
gaining acclaim. Unlike da Vincis gyrocopter
design, this modern helicopter used rotorblades to rapidly compress air downwards to
create the necessary lift, and a tail rotor-blade
to prevent the aircraft spinning.
As the world cooled into the threatening Cold
War, it was the opinion of many that VTOL craft

Variable propellers
The GL-10 is able to alter
its pitch by manoeuvring
just two of its props, at
each end of its wing.

Battery housing
The dual batteries are kept in
the tail, which also supports
two xed pitch propellers to
maintain the crafts balance.

NASAs VTOL
drone takes ight
NASAs hybrid-electric craft, dubbed Greased
Lightning GL-10, may only have a three-metre
(ten-foot) wingspan, but it has already shown
promise for stretching VTOL technology much
further. Its ten distinctive propellers provide
maximum lift efciency while travelling vertically,
before both wing and tail panels tilt to transfer
GL-10 to horizontal ight. Only two propellers do all
the work at this point, to save energy, while the
rest fold back aerodynamically.
Its the combination of biofuel and electric power
that gives the craft its nickname the grease of
the fuel and the lightning of the batteries. The
hybrid design of the engine means its far less
cumbersome than a standard jet or combustion
engine, enabling not only a sleeker design but also
far less wasted energy.
While the GL-10 prototype is obviously far too
small for transporting any signicant payload,
NASA has revealed its GL-10 represents a
scale-free design, meaning the weights and
measures of Greased Lightning could work in much
larger sizes. This means that craft similar to GL-10
may become more and more common if further
tests are successful.

052

DID YOU KNOW? Because the Osprey derives its thrust from its twin tilt rotors, it isnt considered either a plane or a helicopter

Fixed pitch
propellers
The six central xed pitch
propellers are folded while
the aircraft is in ight.

NASAs Greased Lightning

GL-10 prototype uses a
combination of biofuel
and electric power

Payload

Lightning electric

When full-scale prototypes

are developed, it is
envisioned that payloads
could be kept within the
crafts nose.

Two diesel engines drive

electric alternators to
power the aircraft, giving
a combined total of
16 horsepower.

Greasy fuel
The engines are able to run
off organic fuel similar to
fryer oil, kept here in the
centre of the craft.

The most famous VTOL aircraft

BAE Sea Harrier

Developed during the 1970s, the Harrier Jump
Jet utilises four separate vector nozzles to direct
its engine thrust. In this way it is able to
transition from vertical to horizontal ight, and
even hover.

Boeing CH-47 Chinook

Considered one of the great workhorses of
modern militaries all over the globe, the
Chinooks twin-rotor design enables it to
transport hefty payloads of up to 10,886
kilograms (24,000 pounds).

NASA; Thinkstock

V-22 Osprey
Developed by US manufacturers Bell and
Boeing, the Ospreys two unique tilt-rotor
propellers provide its VTOL ability. They also
enable the craft to reach speeds of up to
500km/h (311mph).

053

NEXT-GEN ROBOTS
ARES can use landing zones half the size
typically needed by similarly sized
helicopters, enabling it to land aboard ships

Unmanned VTOL
goes to war
How DARPAs Aerial Recongurable Embedded System
(ARES) could change the face of frontline combat
In a bid to overcome the problem of transporting supplies
across difcult and often dangerous battleeld terrains, DARPA
has turned to unmanned VTOL drones. The ARES design is
capable of carrying a range of payloads; from supplies, to
reconnaissance equipment, to evacuated casualties.
An onboard computer will be capable of selecting optimal
routes from its home base to the troops in the eld. It will even
be able to select a landing zone completely by itself, providing
quick and invaluable support to troops on the ground.

Individual engine
Each engine powers one of the
twin tilting ducted fans. They
are powerful enough to allow
ARES to cruise at high speeds.

Separate ight module

The VTOL ight module is entirely
self-contained and separate from
the mission module.

Unmanned control
The unmanned aerial
system command-andcontrol interfaces enables
remote ight and potential
for autonomous control.

Detachable payload
The detachable payload
module can weigh up to
around 1,361kg (3,000lb)
and could be used to
transport supplies, house
reconnaissance equipment
or even evacuate troops.

054

VTOL ight
The VTOL ight module will
enable ARES to transition
from quick horizontal ight,
to hovering, to a vertical
landing, all remotely.

The US military can adapt the

vehicle to medical evacuation units,
cargo pods, a tactical ground
vehicle and more

Twin fans
These fans take up far less
room than conventional
helicopter blades and can
tilt while in ight to provide
vertical or horizontal thrust
as required.

Small wingspan
With a much smaller overall size,
the landing zone area
ARES needs will be much smaller
than that of most helicopters.

DARPAs VTOL X-Plane

will be able to provide
quick and invaluable
support for troops on
the ground

Autonomous ight
With further development
its hoped that ARES will be
able to y and land all by
itself, using sensors to
select optimal routes and
landing locations.

would be the future. In a world potentially

ravaged by nuclear blasts, obliterating any
obliging runways, it was thought a craft with
the ability to take off and land anywhere would
rule the skies. In time, bizarre VTOL aircraft
such as the Lockheed XFV Salmon an
experimental ghter and even the ying
saucer-inspired Avrocar were tested by the US
military, but most failed and were
discontinued. Among the only VTOL aircraft to
make it out of the Cold War with ying colours
was the BAE Sea Harrier.
Also known as the Harrier Jump Jet, this
plane was the rst successful VTOL jet aircraft.
Four vectoring nozzles direct the jets engine
thrust anywhere within a 90-degree radius,
enabling the plane to y across vertical and
horizontal paths, transitioning in mid-air and
even hovering.
The Harriers VTOL ability was ideal for
working on aircraft carriers the oating
fortresses of the waves. Its Rolls-Royce turbo
fan engine, coupled with unparalleled
exibility and the latest weapons arsenal, made
the jet a formidable opponent.
One other vehicle to emerge from the Cold
War was the V-22 Osprey. Developed by Bell and
Boeing, this vertical-lift transport aircraft is
packed with twin tilting rotors capable of both
hovering and landing like any helicopter, or
transitioning to y like a turboprop airplane.
With a range of over 400 nautical miles (740
kilometres/460 miles) and the ability to rapidly
transport over 30 troops, the Osprey serves the
US Marine Corps in key insertion and extraction
missions. It even has the ability to fold its
25-metre (82-foot) wingspan away, condensing
down to just its 5.6-metre (18-foot) -wide
fuselage. This makes it invaluable for storage on
aircraft carriers.
With each new generation come fresh
challenges for engineers to overcome. Todays
military minds face the problems of producing
aircraft that are not only cost-effective and
incredibly exible, but also smart. Into the
future, contractors and state defence ministries
are increasingly turning towards VTOL
technology for use with military drones.
While the computer power behind these
machines may be cutting-edge, the physics
lifting them into the air and setting them safely
back on the ground remain the same.
Either by remote operation or autonomous
ight, VTOL drones will be capable of
performing a range of transport,
reconnaissance, or even offensive missions.
Weve shown you a few exciting visions
from the best and brightest in the aviation
industry set to launch VTOL technology into
the next generation.

055

DARPA

DID YOU KNOW? The VTOL X-Plane program has an estimated budget of 84 million ($130 million) and a time frame of 52 months

EVERYDAY BOTS
058 Fun bots
What better reason to use brand
new technology than to make life
more fun?

058
Robots
for fun

062 Robot butlers

Sit back, relax and let these
machines keep your house clean
and tidy

066 Driver versus driverless

Can a car set a faster speed on its
own than it can with a human at
the wheel?

068 Autonomous vehicles

Never drive again with smart
vehicles getting ever closer to
being on the road

072 Family robots

The band of family helpers keen to
work their way into your heart

078 Homes of the future

Control everything from heating
and light to when your food starts
cooking from your smart phone

056

066
Driver versus
driverless
cars

062
Here to

072
Meet your

help: robot
butlers

robot
family

068
Self-driving cars
078
Control
your home
with a
button

057

 Huisten Bosch

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

TO HAVE
SOME FUN?

How robots for fun and leisure will change the way
we relax and play in years to come
n case you hadnt noticed, there are robots
everywhere. But instead of the malevolent
killers weve seen in The Terminator or
Battlestar Galactica, robots are actually making
our lives easier, healthier, more fun and even
full of inspiration.
Advanced technology in computer
processors, materials science and other
advanced elds like facial recognition and
machine learning are making robots stronger

058

and more versatile, and enabling them to think

and act faster than ever.
Its long been the dream of humanity to give
the tasks we nd too mundane, dangerous or
dirty to machines to do for us. Thanks to
well-resourced institutions like the US Military
and a new breed of tech giants like Google, IBM
and Qualcomm, robots are penetrating
collapsed buildings after earthquakes to search
for survivors, motoring around other planets to

unlock the secrets of the universe and even

driving cars autonomously.
But less talked about over the last few years is
the potential for robots to make our lives simply
more enjoyable. Taking cues from the
dangerous or monotonous work described
above, a new generation of designers has
wondered how robots can change the way we
play sport, talk to friends or colleagues and
even enjoy a drink.

DID YOU KNOW? Research suggests that 3% of people would let a robot walk their dog

The Double gives you an

audiovisual presence from a
distance completely
controlled over the internet
from wherever you are.

Carrying clubs is a
thing of the past
when you have a
personal caddy robot
to do it for you.

Golf caddy
Wheeling your own golf bag is so
pass when you can put it on a
robotic cart that follows you around
Clip the handset remote to your belt and the
CaddyTrek R2 locks on, following you over
any course terrain you might encounter. Set
it to march a few feet ahead if you prefer or
even on to the next tee.
The best part? Forget its there until you
need to select a club (or take a drink from the
cup holder).

The CaddyTrek R2 looks like a

well-designed, albeit everyday,
golf cart...until it follows you
around the course by itself.

Wheeme
massager
Might the never-ending
massage (or at least until the
battery runs out) be the
pinnacle of robotic
technology?
If theres one thing we wish could
go on forever, its a massage. But its
rarely the case, and you often nd
your appointment is nished far
too soon.
The Wheeme massager is a cute
device the size of a large toy car
that crawls around your back,
soothing you with its vibrations
and rubberised wheels. You can
also af x removable metal prongs
that draw relaxing circles on
your skin, and the tiltcorrection technology
means it never
falls off.

Telepresence robot
Teleconferencing to a laptop or
dedicated video station is so yesterday
now that you can control a virtual body
in the room

This cute massaging robot

that wheels around your back
might be your idea of heaven

Imagine a Segway, put a video monitor, camera

and microphone on top and you have the
Double. It gives you the mobility of a video call
on a tablet, but you're controlling it from a
remote location, driving it around the meeting
room or ofce on the mobile base.
It rolls back to a dock to recharge, and when
you're ready for your next interaction, just re
up the app and take command again. Your
camera and mike project your image and voice
to the Double's display, and it transmits all the
video and audio at the other end back to you.

059

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

Huisten Bosch

Where else can you be greeted by

a robot dinosaur for a hotel stay
than Japan's Hen-na Hotel?

Robotic hotel
Japan's roboticised hotel
offers a thrilling glimpse
into a future where
domestic help is
completely mechanised

The Makr Shakr uses a

precision work environment
and carefully self-programmed
movements to bring robotics
to a very human institution

When you check into Sasebo's

Henn-na Hotel you're greeted by
a humanoid robot (or a robotic
velociraptor in a wig seriously).
A robot stores your coat.
Another takes your bags to your
room. The facial recognition
system identies you at your
door and unlocks it.
The services are limited so far
they cant provide room
service, for example but the
future beckons.

Huisten Bosch

Hitchbot
Weve always been told
hitchhiking is dangerous, but
what if a robot could teach us
all to be kinder to strangers?

Robosnail
Your sh might be startled
for a while, but they'll
appreciate the robot-cleaned
glass of their aquarium

This tiny robot attaches to the

glass of your aquarium and
takes the elbow grease and
mess out of cleaning it

060

In a similar way to how your

robotic vacuum remembers the
layout of your house, the Robosnail
plots and then remembers the size
and distance of the glass walls of
your aquarium, driving itself
around and cleaning as it goes. It
will do a lap of the tank once a day.
Watching it work is as welcome
as the hours you'll gain by not
having to clean yucky algae off the
glass yourself.

It appears to be a plastic garden

bucket with swimming noodles for
arms and legs, rubber gloves for
hands, rubber wellies for feet and an
LED display for a head, but the
Hitchbot has journeyed across four
countries relying only on the
kindness of strangers.
Hitchbot was a social experiment,
relying on the kindness of motorists
to pick him up from the side of the
road, help him tick items off his
bucket list and leave him to make
another friend.
And he certainly captured
imaginations everywhere when
Hitchbot fell victim to vandals in
Philadelphia, his many fans on social
media reacted were outraged.

DID YOU KNOW? Pool Shark is a robotic pool table that uses a webcam and trigonometry to deliver a perfect shot every time

Makr Shakr
What's cooler than a hip
mixologist at your next
trendy event? A robot
bartender, of course
A snooty attitude, slack service and
tipping might be a thing of the past
with the Makr Shakr. The device is
a robotic arm kit with a grasping
talon that selects and combines
ingredients, properly mixes or stirs
them and serves your drink with
aplomb just order through the
app and watch it go.
The smooth movements of the
articulated robot arm are
fascinating to watch and look just
like a choreographed dance. No
word yet on juggling the cocktail
shaker though...

Having hitchhiked across

several continents, this
friendly home-made robot
showed the heart-warming
kindness of strangers

061

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

ROBOT
BUTLERS

SAY GOODBYE TO CLEANING

Sit back, relax and let these robots keep your house clean

Suck it up
Two brushless rubber extractors with a specially
designed tread pattern spin in opposite directions.
This creates a sealed channel that concentrates
the airflow, which in turn sucks up more dirt.

062

DID YOU KNOW? The first automatic vacuum was called Trilobite and was released by Electrolux in 1997

Self control
The integrated clock allows for seven-day scheduling. Simply pick a
time and date and the Roomba will automatically clean. When
finished it will return to its base to recharge.

This robot sucks

In a perfect world a room would have four
straight walls, and perhaps in the future they
will. But back in the present the Roomba vaccum
cleaner bot has to contend with all angles as it
kickstarts into life. Every time it encounters an
obstacle its integrated light-touch bumpers tell
its sensors that it needs to change direction.
While zipping across carpet, or hard oors, the
Roomba automatically sucks up all dust and dirt

Cleans to the edge

Dust and dirt hidden away at wall edges has
nowhere to hide. A spinning 3-pronged side brush
pushes out any debris, which is then swept into
the path of the Roombas extractors.

via its brushless cleaning. All manner of debris

makes its way into the bin. Dust and dirt sensors
seek out areas that have yet to be cleaned, little is
left behind. For near total autonomy the Roomba
can be scheduled to perform a cleanup as the
same time everyday before reporting back for
duty as its base recharging station. This is a robot
that does what it says on the tin and has a lot in
common with the equally impressive Scooba.

Dirt detector
Roomba uses its Dirt Detect Series 2
technology, a set of optical and acoustic
sensors, to find dirt and debris and
perform concentrated cleaning in the
areas where its needed most.

Air lters
The air filters need
regular maintenance
and cleaning. When
emptying the bin, just
tap the Roomba on the
side to clean them.

Spot the dirt

The brand new spot option
is a great way to target
particularly small areas in
need of a deep clean.

600 | $700
irobot.com

iRobot Roomba 880

Cliff sensor

A robot vacuum for your floors

equipped with a brushless
durable rubber tread design that
grabs and breaks down dirt and
debris from any floor type you
might have in your home.

The clever cliff sensors stop the

Roomba from falling over
edges, such as stairs.

063

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

Throw out your old

mop and bucket
Theres no need for dirty knees when the
Scooba is about. It sweeps, pre-soaks, scrubs
and sucks up the dirty water into its two
compartment tank. Before the robot takes
over its the human touch that is called into
action. Warm water and the included hard
oor solution are mixed and added to the
tank, ready for action. The Scooba kicks off
in a circular motion, sweeping and placing
solution onto the oor before heading to the

edges of the room. Soft touch bumpers direct

the unit round the edges to complete its rst
pass across the oor. The Scooba goes back
for another pass around the room with its
scrubbing brush that loosens up any grime
for a nal pass when the squeegee vacuum
sucks up the dirty water. Voila! You now
have a clean oor. The beauty of the Scooba
is that is does thoroughly clean a oor,
unlike the Braava.

Clean hard oors

with indoor GPS

Talk back
Need to know what is your robot doing?
The information button offers audible
cues. Press the button and a voice will
tell the user that it has finished its cycle
and its tanks needs emptying and
battery recharging.

600 | $600
irobot.com

Indoor GPS

iRobot Scooba 450

The NorthStar Navigation cube

projects a signal onto the ceiling
and down to the unit. This
determines its location and
builds up a virtual map of the
room so it knows where it has
been and where it needs to go.

The sister to the Roomba, the

Scooba is a robot that scrubs
floors clean via a three-way
process. It sweeps, soaks and
scrubs and vacuums to leave a
spotless and germ-free floor.

Time for change

A set of strong magnets hold the cleaning
head in place. The dry mop head uses a
push in grip to hold its microfibre cloth.
The damp mop head uses Velcro to hold its
cloth in place.

Stay clean
A dual compartment tank is used when
cleaning. One tank contains fresh water and
solution. This is applied to the floor as the
brush rotates at 600RPM, scrubbing the
floor. Dirty water is sucked into the second
tank providing a cleaner, more sterile finish.

5 ROBOTIC CLEANERS

Hard oors arent hard to keep clean but

they do need love and attention to stay clean.
The iRobot Braava is a simple creature in
principle, using a cleaning head with a
microbre cloth. It offers two options, one for
dry mopping and the other for the more
traditional damp mopping. The dry mop
option simple goes forwards picking up dirt
and debris. The damp mop mode uses water

and cleaning solution, with its cloth to clean

the oor.
The Braava doesnt have a set of soft-touch
bumpers like the Scooba and Roomba, but it
uses the NorthStar Navigation System. This
acts like an indoor GPS and maps out the
room it is currently in. This tells the Braava
where it has been and where it still needs to
go to nish its cleaning cycle.

iRobot Braava 380 280 | $300 | irobot.com

064

Hes got his 360degree eye on you

Your robot can clean

when youre away

The 360 Eye is another

smart invention from
Dyson. It is a vacuum
cleaning robot that
uses a panoramic lens
to get a 360 view of the
room. This uses complex
maths to triangulate its
position. This in turn helps
determine where it has
been and what is left.

A smarter-than-most
vacuum robot due to its
ability to be controlled
via the companion app.
The user can set the robot
to clean from almost
anywhere. The unit boasts
two brushes and combines
a curved and straight edge
design for corner cleaning.

Dyson 360 Eye

555 | $850
neatorobotics.com

750 | $1,250
dysoneye.com

Botvac Connected

DID YOU KNOW? The first working robot was on the Ford production line in 1961

HOW THE
SCOOBA
SCRUBS UP

On the move
To move the Looj 330 through a
gutters dirt and debris a pair of
rugged, flexible and waterproof
polymer treads provide the traction
needed to get the job done.

01 Clear the floor!

To begin, the Scooba sweeps up any

loose debris and covers the floor in a thin
gloss of water.

02

The scrubbing brush

The intense scrubbing brush spins

at 600 rpm while the squeegee vacuum
sucks up the dirty water.

Sensible sensors
The Scooba cleans hard
floors. A selection of
built-in sensors detect
when the surface
changes to avoid carpets.
Cliff detention sensors
ensure that the Scooba
stops at sharp drops.

The Robot
gutter-rat

Bumper
protection
A light-touch bumper
system senses obstacles.
When the bumper
touches an obstacle it
will stop and turn/
reverse and repeats the
process until it is clear.

03 Squeegee clean

The squeegee vacuum performs one

final suction to get rid of the last dregs of
water and leave the floor perfectly clean.

The ME770 is no onetrick pony

Is it a Furby or a
Gremlin duster?

Suction cup
Spider-Man

The ME770 is a multitalented hybrid robot that

vacuums and mops. It
boasts a 460cm squared
microfiber mop and a
150cc reservoir to supply
moisture for up to 3 hours.
The unit can vacuum, mop
or combine the two for its
hybrid cleaning option.

This little Gremlin is a

manic fluffy robotic duster
that is powered by AA
batteries. It is surrounded
by a pink microfibre fur
coat that rolls around
attracting dust and dirt. The
coat is machine washable
and best suited to wooden
and vinyl floors rather than
carpet.

No need for a ladder

with the Winbot window
cleaning robot. It uses a
combination of suction
pads, tank-style tracks
and cleaning pad to clean
windows. A selection of
sensors identify obstacles
and make the W930 turn
and change direction to
reach into all corners.

Mocoro Robot Cleaning Ball

Winbot W930

25 | $39
firebox.com

325 / $500
ecovacsrobotics.com

Moneual ME770 Style

525 | $808
moneualusa.com

Super spin
The cleaning auger is made up of four ejector
components. Two paddles and two wire brushes spin
at 500rpm to blast debris away from the house.

If there is ever a job where a robot is needed then cleaning

gutters is surely it. You still need to climb a ladder to pop the
Looj in position, but once there the robot will do the rest. The
Looj is a three-part unit, it has the body with its tank tracks
which drive it along. The detachable carrying handle also
doubles up as a remote control and nally there is the cleaning
auger. This is the key cleaning component and has two rubber
ejectors and two nylon brushes. The spins at high speed
removing dirt, leaves and any other debris from the gutter. Its
a simple robot, arguably the simplest of the iRobots range, as
there no sensors or bumpers needed to achieve its task. The
remote control offers manual interjection allowing the
operator to choose spin direction and forward or reverse,
nothing more, nothing less. Alternatively, just hit the Clean
button and go and make a cup of tea.
iRobot Looj 330
200 | $300 | irobot.com

065

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

Driver versus
driverless
How the Audi RS7 driverless car
can set a faster lap time on its own
than with a human at the wheel
ts the age-old debate: is technology better
than the talents of humans? In the
automotive world, this argument is fast
rearing to a head, with driverless cars now
being fully tested on public roads around the
world. However, while driverless cars are
primarily aiming to be safer than those
piloted by a human being, German
manufacturer Audi wanted to nd out if they
are faster, too. The answer to this is the Audi
RS7 driverless car prototype, a pumped-up
sports car thats been specially adapted with
driverless technology.
The RS7 driverless concept works in much
the same way as a conventional driverless car
currently being developed by other
manufacturers, including Toyota and Google.
As well as an advanced GPS system with
pinpoint accuracy, cameras are placed
around the vehicle that read signs and the
layout of the road or track ahead. These work
in tandem with sensors and radars dotted
around the vehicle, which constantly monitor
the proximity of the car to the road and other
objects. All this information is fed to a central
computer, which processes the information
and operates the car accordingly.
Where the Audi RS7 triumphs over other
driverless cars, though, is not only in the
speediness of this entire process, but also in
its intelligence. On a regular track, a racing
line is taken by drivers to get around the
track in the quickest time. This involves using
the entire width of the track, braking at the
last possible moment before a corner, and
keeping the car perfectly balanced
throughout. As a thrash around the
Hockenheim circuit demonstrated, the
driverless RS7 prototype was found to take a
very precise racing line on the track, nearly
identical to that of a seasoned racing driver.
The technology itself isnt without merit,
either: a driverless RS7 actually beat a lap
time around the Ascari circuit (by two whole
seconds!) set by a human being driving an
identical car.

066

The driverless
Audi RS7 in action
Heres how the driverless Audi RS7 prototype
races round a track without any human input

Differential GPS

Mapping programmes
Different mapping programmes are
available, but at its limit it can travel at up
to 240km/h (149mph) and position itself to
within 1cm (0.4in) of the edge of the track.

This improved GPS system is

accurate to within 10cm (4in), far
better than the 15m (50ft) accuracy
of a conventional GPS system.

Front-mounted camera
This reads road signs and, on a
track, the projection of the next
corner for the ECU.

The evolution of the driverless car

The driverless car industry is fast evolving within the
automotive industry. Interestingly, its not car
manufacturers themselves that are at the forefront
of the technology either: that accolade goes to
technology giant Google, which has developed a
unique pod-like vehicle that contains a single
cushioned bench inside for all occupants to sit on.
Materials used on the Google car are also groundbreaking, with a bendy facia and plastic windscreen
implemented to help cushion the blow to a human in
the unlikely event of a collision.
Other companies such as Toyota or Volvo have
been busy adapting their own conventional
passenger vehicles to accommodate driverless tech,
but the roof-mounted radar and bigger computers
have often proved unsightly and impractical. But
theres more: rumours are also gathering pace that
Apple is developing its own autonomous vehicle, so
watch this space

The Tesla model

S comes equipped
with autopilot

DID YOU KNOW? In 2010, a driverless Audi TTS successfully took on the Pikes Peak hillclimb challenge

Car controls

Infrared camera

Central ECU

The ECU sends

inputs to the cars
controls, such as
steering or
throttle input.

An infrared camera is tted to enable

the car to be driven in darkness
thanks to night vision.

This constantly processes all

the data from cameras, sensors
and GPS, and decides how to
control the car as a result.

APEX

APEX
TURN POINT
TURN POINT

BASIC
RACING LINE
LATE APEX
(SQUARING OFF)

Racing line: the

quickest way
around the track
Race drivers will take a certain line around a
race track, in order to complete a lap in the
shortest time possible. This is called a racing
line and is best described as a route that cuts
through corners without cheating, of course
most effectively, and enables the driver to
keep their foot on the accelerator pedal for the
longest possible time. Different racing drivers
will interpret different racing lines on a track
there is no right or wrong here though drivers
in a world-class competition like Formula One
will likely take very similar lines after years of
experience and practice on each circuit.

Ultrasonic sensors

Audis RS7 driverless concept could

be bad news for professional racing
drivers in the long term

067

Audi; Google/Rex Features

Dotted all around the car,

these constantly monitor
the proximity of the car to
the edge of the track.

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

Self-drive cars use a host of new technology to present a novel

concept of travel for road users
068

DID YOU KNOW? Mainstream autonomous cars are closer than you think: Volvo wants to release a fully self-driven vehicle by 2017

All aboard the road train

A further development on the self-drive principle
for a single car has already been implemented on
a series of vehicles, allowing them to travel
autonomously as well as in tandem as part of a
group. The concept was an idea borne from the
SARTRE project, which stands for Safe Road
Trains for the Environment.
Pioneered by Swedish manufacturer Volvo and
a group of technological partners, their system
uses an array of radar, camera and laser sensors
linked together by wireless technology to allow
autonomous vehicles to travel together in a
train-like platoon.
At the front of the platoon is a dedicated lead
vehicle driven by a professional driver, which is

followed autonomously by the trailing vehicles.

This is all being done in a bid to reduce the
number of road accidents caused every year by
driver fatigue.
The technology has already been prove
plausible after tests were carried out over 200
kilometres (124 miles) of road near Barcelona,
Spain, in May 2012, with three cars automatically
following a truck driven by a human being.
The road train successfully melded
autonomous technologies with car-to-car
communication to ensure that the three
self-driven vehicles remained in line throughout
the whole test and crucially, with no collisions
at all.
Volvos SARTRE
project in action
on a public road

Self-driving trucks
Family cars arent the only vehicles currently
receiving the autonomous treatment.
Mercedes is developing the self-drive
concept for its eet of heavy-haulage
trucks. And, different to the realms of
pioneering software of a Google car,
Mercedes is simply evolving some of the
tech already found in their new luxury
saloons instead.
Cruise control, lane assist, auto braking
and stability control all available on the
Stuttgart companys new S-Class has been
synced to a radar on its Mercedes-Benz
Future Truck 2025 prototype, which scans
the road ahead by up to 250 meters (820
feet) and communicates with the
established systems to keep the lorry
moving safely, without input from a driver.
Developers say the system will drive more
economically than a human, saving fuel,
while increasing productivity as the vehicle
will be able to travel for longer periods than
what daily driver limits will currently allow.

he cars of tomorrow wont need

steering wheels, an accelerator or a
brake pedal; theyre autonomous and
dont require any human input. Whats more
is that they are already on the road, with car
company Volvo unleashing 100 of them on
public roads of Gothenburg, Sweden, in a
two-year project.
An autonomous (known as self-drive)
vehicle works mainly thanks to a wealth of
on-board radars, sensors and cameras that
continuously read the cars surroundings to
build a picture of the road ahead. While
radars and sensors monitor everything from
the proximity of other cars on the road to the
whereabouts of cyclists and pedestrians, a
forward-facing camera interprets highway
instructions from road signs and trafc
lights. All of this information is continuously
fed to the vehicles on-board computer, which
uses the data to action appropriate inputs
into the cars speed and trajectory within
milliseconds. Meanwhile, advanced GPS
technology is constantly used to clinically
navigate the vehicle along a precise route.
An autonomous vehicle prototype,
otherwise known as a self-driving car, looks
fairly similar to a contemporary humandriven vehicle. Built-in sensors dotted
around the car emit frequencies that bounce
back off objects much in the same way
modern parking sensors work on many
everyday cars now to provide a rationale
of how close things such as curbs,
pedestrians and other vehicles are to the selfdriving car. The processing computer and
GPS system are stored out of sight, leaving
the roof-mounted LIDAR (Light Detection and
Ranging) as the only discerning
differentiation from the norm.
This rotating camera sends out lasers and
uses the reected light to effectively build a
3D picture of the cars position within the
current environment. The information
received from these bounced light rays is
sent to the main on-board computer. In the
cabin, an occupant is treated to a screen
showing the route, plus theres an emergency
stop button that will immediately pull the
car over if needed.
Although technology giant Google has led
the way in terms of evolving self-drive
technology, automotive manufacturers such
as BMW and Nissan have placed considerable
resources for research and development into
the technology of their own autonomous
vehicles. These test vehicles tend to be
adapted versions of current human-driven
vehicles and as soon as a person touches any
of the foot pedals or steering

Self-drive technology
could revolutionise
truck transport

069

EVERYDAY ROBOTS
wheel, the system immediately cedes
control back to the driver.
Although Google began its autonomous
vehicle mission by adapting already
homologated Toyota and Lexus cars as far
back as 2010, its latest prototype is arguably
the best yet. So far, it has proved to be
markedly safe compared to human-input
driving, as driver fatigue or alcohol
impairment will play no part in getting
from A to B.
To heighten safety even further, Google is
experimenting with exible windscreens
and a front made of foam-like material to
protect pedestrians on impact, should the
worst happen. These cars have also been
limited to a relatively tame 40-kilometre
(25-mile)-per-hour top speed while the
project is still in the development stage.
However, while the theory of self-drive
cars is relatively straightforward a
computer actions an input for a mechanical
device to implement the unpredictability
of hazards when driving is the biggest
challenge for an autonomous vehicle to
overcome. Much like a human having
plenty of practice ahead of their driving
test, the process for training self-drive cars
is to evaluate every single possible hazard
perception scenario that could arise on the
road and input them into the cars computer
for the best course of action to take.
There are further limitations to the
technology. Currently, a Google car cannot
drive on a road that hasnt been mapped by
the companys Maps system, so taking a
self-drive car for a spin around your newly
built suburban housing estate could prove
somewhat problematic. Also, sensors on the
car currently struggle to pick up on lane
markings when roads are wet or covered in
snow, making autonomous driving in
adverse conditions particularly hazardous.
Companies are seeking to address these
shortfalls, with safety drivers currently
testing their self-drive vehicles in a variety
of situations on the road every day and
providing feedback on how to further
improve the concept. Google even admits
that its self-drive prototype is built with
learning and development and not luxury
in mind, so their own vehicle is currently
bereft of any real creature comforts.
However, if the blueprint for an autonomous
car proves successful, that could well
change and we could soon see motorways
packed with moving vehicles where every
occupant is kicking back and watching a
lm, checking emails, or reading their
favourite magazine.

070

The world of a self-drive car

The Google car is a pioneering autonomous vehicle
heres how it negotiates the environment around it

Position sensor
Located in the wheel
hub, these sensors
monitor speed and
positioning.

Laser scanner
The LIDAR generates
a 360-degree view of
the environment to
within 70m (230ft).

Main
computer

Radar
sensors

The information is
processed and
actions sent to the
relevant inputs,
such as steering.

These monitor
moving objects
up to 198m
(650ft) ahead.

Kill switch
As soon as a driver
touches any of the
foot pedals or
steering wheel,
autonomous mode
is deactivated.

Interior
Occupants have a
comfortable seat to sit
on and a screen to input
the route. Google now
plans to build cars
without steering wheels
or pedals.

Autonomous tech available now

Predictive braking

Lane assist

Available on most modern cars, a radar-controlled

Electronic Stability Program (ESP) continuously analyses
the trafc ahead and, if the driver fails to react to the
proximity of another object, it automatically stops the car.

This stops a vehicle from drifting between lanes. If the

front camera detects the vehicle has unintentionally
deviated out of a motorway lane, itll input counter-steer
at the wheel to ensure the vehicle returns to its lane.

DID YOU KNOW? An autonomous vehicle builds a 360 picture of its environment, better than human field of vision

Radar sensors
Placed at the front
and rear, these relay
info to the computer
to help determine the
proximity of other
vehicles and objects.

Engine
Similar in principle
to a power unit in a
conventional car, an
engine control unit
controls the engine
performance.

LIDAR

Sensors on
all sides

The LIDAR sits on top of the

car and continuously spins
at a rapid pace while
emitting light pulses that
bounce back off objects to
sense and map the
surrounding environment.

GPS
An evolution of
sat-nav technology,
this helps position the
vehicle and maps a
route to a destination.

Processor
This ECU continuously reads
the info fed to it by the radars,
LIDAR and camera, altering
the cars speed and direction.

Front-facing
camera

Forward-facing
video camera
This detects conventional
road signs, trafc lights
and other highway
instructions the LIDAR and
radar sensors cannot see.

Mounted at the top of

the windscreens,
these effectively read
road signs and trafc
lights, detecting
trafc cones and
even lanes.

Wheels

Active high beam control

Porsche and Volvo have introduced active high beam
control, which dips the main headlight beam when
sensors detect oncoming trafc at night. This avoids
dazzling other road users with glare from the main beam.

Bosch; REX; Peters & Zabransky

Driving technology may

be vastly different in a
Google car, but vehicles
still need lightweight
alloy wheels and
rubber-compound tyres
for practical and efcient
motoring over a variety
of surfaces.

This is what a driverless car

sees. It utilises laser radar
mounted on the roof and in
the grill to detect pedestrians,
cyclists and other vehicles
and avoid them

071

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

Meet the robotic helpers who want to work

their way into your home and your heart
2-D2, C-3PO, Rosie Jetson, Johnny 5, Wall-E
popular culture is packed with examples
of friendly, sentient robot sidekicks who
just want to serve us. Yet despite the human race
having sent robots to Mars and beyond, there
remains a distinct lack of interactive robots in
most of our daily lives. But that might nally be
about to change thanks to a few key
technological developments.
Of course, NASA has more money to throw at
robotics than us mere mortals. Today, however,

072

the processors, sensors, tiny motors and other

components involved are vastly improved and
have become much cheaper to produce, thanks
largely to the smartphone revolution. Advances
in 3D printing and the open source software
movement have dragged costs down even
further, to the point where emerging social
robots are just about in the realm of what is
typically seen as affordable at least for those
who can comfortably purchase high-end
personal computers or used cars.

A second, arguably even more important,

barrier is gradually being overcome too:
humanising the technology. Its a fact that, for
every adorable R2-D2 in our collective memories,
theres a HAL 9000 or a Terminator hell-bent on
driving us to dystopia. Stories like I, Robot and
The Matrix have conditioned us to fear a global
cybernetic revolt where robots take over our
lives and control our every move.
Technology is being developed to enable
robots to recognise and respond sensitively to

DID YOU KNOW? The word robot derives from the Czech word robota (meaning forced labour), coined by Karel Capek in 1920

JIBO

The most adorable pile of electronics

ever just wants to be part of your family
JIBO the runaway crowd-funding
success story that reached its goal within
four hours is pegged as the worlds rst
family robot and will start shipping in
late 2015. Standing stationary at a
diminutive 28 centimetres (11 inches) tall,
he eschews the traditional humanoid
form in favour of something altogether
more Pixar avoured and he simply
wants to make your home life run that
little bit more smoothly.
Reading his surroundings with a pair of
hi-res cameras and 360-degree
microphones, JIBO recognises faces and
understands natural language. In-built
articial intelligence algorithms help him
learn about you, adapt to your life and
communicate with you via a naturalistic
range of social and emotive movements,
screen displays, gestures and sounds.

JIBOs skillset

our emotions. They can perform gestures and

expressions that mimic ours like sagging
shoulders or a curious head tilt making it easier
for us to form bonds with machines.
Unlike fabled robot servants, family robots
are intended to engage, delight and enrich our
lives. They will help keep us organised with
reminders about appointments or medication
doses. They will provide genuine
companionship and help the elderly live
independently for longer by being present and
ready to call for help if needed.
The most important thing for us is to ght
loneliness, explained Bruno Maisonnier
founder of Aldebaran Robotics, a French
company that produces a number of social
robots including Pepper and NAO in an
interview with Yahoo Tech. If youre angry and
losing your humanity, NAO can detect that and
do something to help you bring it back. It
actually helps humans be more human. Thats
the part nobody expects.

Communication facilitator

Photographer

JIBO makes video calls with absent friends and family feel
like youre actually in the room together. As the incoming
caller, you can direct him to look at a specic person with
one tap of your nger and his see-and-track camera will
follow them naturally as they move around. When a new
person chimes in, JIBO will automatically turn to them.

Via his dual hi-res cameras, JIBO can recognise faces,

identify individuals and track any activity that is going on
around him. Using natural cues like movement and smile
detection, for example, he can decide the optimal
moment to snap a picture, or will obediently oblige your
voice command to take the shot.

Storyteller

Personal assistant

Story time with JIBO is just as entertaining as it is with a

parent. He regales his playmates with tales embellished
with sound effects, animated graphics and expressive
physical movements and using his sensors and special
interactive apps reads and responds to the reactions of
his enthralled audience.

JIBOs camera software recognises each member of your

household, enabling him to be a hands-free personal
assistant to everyone delivering reminders and
messages at the right time to the right person. When
youre busy, hell search the internet for anything you ask
for. Hell even log your takeaway order and place it!

073

Aldebaran

The many and varied roles of

the worlds rst family robot

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

NAO
Say hello to the friendliest social
humanoid, created for companionship

NAO is one of the most sophisticated humanoid

robots ever built, not to mention one of the
cutest. Standing 58 centimetres (23 inches) tall,
he is completely programmable, autonomous
and interactive. He can walk, dance, sing, hold a
conversation and even drive his own miniature
robot car! Currently in his fth incarnation
known as NAO Evolution he has, in fact, been
constantly evolving since he burst on to the
scene in 2006.
NAO reads his surroundings via sensors
including cameras, microphones, sonar range
nders and tactile pads. Today he can recognise
familiar people, interpret emotions and even
form bonds with those who treat him kindly
roughly mimicking the emotional skills of a
one-year-old child.
With a battery life of more than 1.5 hours and
an electrically motorised body whose joints give
him 25 degrees of freedom, he can navigate his
world avoiding obstacles, pick himself up if he
falls, and most importantly bust out
impressive dance moves.
A key feature of NAOs programming is the
ability to learn and evolve. Over 500 developers
worldwide are engaged in creating applications
to run on his NAOqi 2.0 operating system and
three gigabytes of memory. Being autonomous,
NAO can download new behaviours on his own
from an online app store.
Today, NAO is the leading humanoid robot
used in research and education worldwide, with
more than 5,000 NAO units in over 70 countries,
according to his creators Aldebaran Robotics.

NAOs best features

Hes a little character with a unique
combination of hardware and software

Audiovisual input
NAO is equipped with a pair of
cameras and can perform facial and
object recognition; a suite of four
directional microphones enables
him to decipher where sounds
originate from and recognise voices.

Vocal synthesiser
Includes text-to-speech
capabilities for internet
recital; able to
communicate in 19
different languages.

Sonar system
NAO judges distances to
nearby objects and
obstacles using a pair of
ultrasonic transmitters
(top) and a pair of
receivers (bottom) that
analyse the time it takes
for inaudible sound
pulses to bounce back.

Prehensile hands
Enable NAO to grasp and manipulate
objects. A trio of capacitive touch sensors
in each hand let him know when he has a
good grip on something without crushing it.

NAOs sensitive side

NAO reads human emotions by analysing a set of
non-verbal cues. Using data from his cameras,
microphones and capacitive touch sensors, he interprets
things like how close a person stands, how animated
they are, how loud theyre being compared to their usual
level, what facial expression theyre wearing, what
gestures theyre making and how tactile they are being.
His understanding of emotion has been cultivated
using professional actors to help him recognise these
non-verbal cues, and he is currently able to accurately
detect emotions about 70 per cent of the time. He is
programmed with a set of basic rules about what is
good or bad for him which help him decide how he
ought to respond.
NAO expresses his own emotions via a combination
of lifelike postures and gestures (for example, he will
cower and shake if he is afraid), vocalisations and
sound effects, and coloured lights in his eyes. Using
machine-learning algorithms, he picks up new ways to
express himself from the people he interacts with
just like a baby.

074

NAO uses machinelearning to pick up

new ways to
express himself

Feet
Equipped with noise
damping soles for a quiet
walk and tactile sensors
for interacting with
objects and obstacles.

Infrared transceiver

Tactile sensor

Permits wireless communication

with other NAOs or infraredenabled devices.

Communicate with NAO via touch:

press once to shut down, or
program the sensor as a button
that triggers specic actions.

A key feature of NAOs

programming is the ability
to learn and evolve

Brain
Main CPU, running dedicated
NAOqi operating system, enables
NAO to interpret and react to data
received by his sensors and
provides wireless connectivity.

Inertial
measurement unit
Includes an accelerometer and a
gyro to let NAO know whether hes
standing, sitting, or in motion.

Robohelpers
Check out how these robot servants could help
make household chores a thing of the past!

Floor
cleaning
Automatic vacuum cleaners like
iRobots popular Roomba size up a
room and navigate the oor in a
random motion as they clean.
Roombas younger sibling,
Scooba, can vacuum and wash
non-carpeted oors
simultaneously, and both devices
can be set to clean on a schedule.

Getting
up
Good news for those who struggle
to get up in the morning: the
Clocky robot alarm clock gives
users one chance to snooze before
it rolls off the bedside table and
nds a hiding place different
each day forcing would-be
slumberers to chase it down.

Garden
upkeep
Cheating teenagers everywhere out
of a little extra pocket money,
Robomow works like an outdoor
version of the Roomba to keep
lawns in pristine condition. It
handles all grass types, slopes up
to 20 degrees and knows to head
for cover as soon as it detects any
rain in the air.

Laundry
maid
Researchers at UC Berkeley
programmed research and
innovation robot PR2 to carefully
fold fresh laundry back in 2010.
Fast-forward four years, and they
had it taking dirty laundry to the
machine and setting it going too.
The catch? Your own PR2 would set
you back $400,000 (about 260,000)!

Robo
Butlers
A recent PR stunt from the makers
Motorised
joints
With 25 degrees
of freedom and
sensors to
stabilise his walk
and resist small
disturbances.

of the Wink home automation app

touted a revolutionary (and fake!)
Robot Butler but, despite a few
early inroads like BrewskiBot a
hefty rolling fridge that is
designed to shuttle drinks
robotic butlers have yet to be
commercially realised.

075

iRobot; Nandahome; Xinhua / Alamy

DID YOU KNOW? 28% of people surveyed wouldnt pay over $1,000 (650) for a domestic robot, and 29% wouldnt buy one at all

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

Pepper

Microphones
Four microphones
detect which direction
sound originates from.

The perfect houseguest: a conversationalist

wholl adapt to your mood

Pepper is the rst autonomous social robot

designed to live with humans. Like us, he reads
emotions by analysing facial expressions, vocal
tone and gestures, and engages people in
meaningful mood-appropriate conversations.
He exudes 1.2 metres (four feet) of pure style,
rolling around autonomously for up to 14 hours
at a time, and even knows when its time to plug
himself in for a recharge.
Pepper learns from his interactions with
humans and uploads his generalised ndings
to the Cloud so that he and other Peppers can
evolve as a collective intelligence. This is
welcome news because, so far, his jokes are
pretty lame! Since June 2014 Peppers have been
used in SoftBank Mobile stores in Japan to greet
and assist customers. The rst 1,000 models
were made available to consumers in June this
year and sold out in under a minute.

HD cameras
A pair of HD colour video
cameras works together
to give him close and
long-range vision.

Speakers
Speaks multiple languages,
including English, French,
Spanish and Japanese.

Depth-perceiving sensor
Infrared camera gives Pepper 3D
sight of his surroundings, up to a
distance of 3 metres (9.8 inches).

Arms
With anti-pinch
articulations that
let him make uid
and expressive
movements.

Robotic pets
You may think its crazy to suggest you could possibly love a
robot as much as you love your real-life dog or cat. But for
some people, robotic pets offer a chance for connection and
companionship that they might otherwise miss out on for
example, older people who are less mobile than they used to
be or children with life-threatening allergies.
Theyve come a long way since the alien-like Furbies in the
late 1990s and the multi-functional dogs like Zoomer
which hurls itself around with all the grace and unbridled
energy of a puppy. Robotic pets have motorised bodies
equipped with sensors to detect things like motion, objects
and voice commands. Some even have the ability to learn,
respond to kindness, develop a unique personality and grow
through various life stages, like baby dinosaur PLEO.
Of course, there are the added benets that robotic pets
will never ruin your furniture, dont require expensive food or
vet visits and wont demand walks when its pouring with
rain! All the fun none of the inconvenience!

Touchscreen
Used to communicate
along with voice and
gestures; displays abstract
visual representations of
his feelings.

Internal gyro
Hands
Equipped with
touch sensors
for getting his
attention, but
unable to pick
up objects.

Feeds him information

about the position of
his body and how it is
moving in space.

Base sensors
Three bumper
sensors, a trio of
paired laser
sensors and a
sonar range nder
help Pepper judge
distances.

Omnidirectional
wheels
Enable him to move
around freely, including
reversing and rotating
on the spot, at speeds
up to 3km/h (1.9mph).

All the fun none of the clean up!

076

DID YOU KNOW? During 2002-2012, Roombas collectively covered a distance equivalent to 28 round-trips to the Sun

Personal
Robot
Assistant, security guard, and home
automation system all rolled into one

Personal security guard

Emotionally intelligent

Recognises objects

Sends you updates and real-time video feeds so you can

check on your home and pets while youre gone.

Recognises human emotions by interpreting facial

expressions with articial intelligence (AI).

Identies familiar household objects and wirelessly

connects to and controls compatible appliances.

Feels the environment

Personal photographer

Personal assistant

Uses a suite of sensors to monitor variables like

temperature, humidity and air quality.

Recognises good photo opportunities and leaves you free

to join your friends in the frame.

Provides wake-up alarms, appointment reminders,

fashion advice, fact-checking and business information.

Survey respondents likelihood of using a robot for various tasks

55%

54%

31%

16%

11%

9%

Heavy lifting

Home security

Ironing clothes

Preparing food

Elderly care

Babysitting
077

Aldebaran; vario images GmbH & Co.KG / Alamy

Personal Robot is a smart personal assistant

equipped with a heavy dose of articial
intelligence (AI). The 1.2 metre four-foot tall robot
consists of a sturdy, wheeled base and a sensorpacked interactive screen carried by a telescopic
strut. It navigates its environment autonomously,
using in-built mapping algorithms to build and
memorise the oor plan.
The gender and characteristics of each Personal
Robot are customisable and its AI algorithms
bring together face, emotion and object
recognition, natural language processing and
wireless connectivity to allow it to interact
seamlessly with its environment and owners. Its
creators, New York City start-up RobotBase,
expect to start selling the robot by the end of 2015.

EVERYDAY ROBOTS

HOMES
OF THE
FUTURE

Smoke detector
Alerts you by text if
theres a problem at
home or its batteries
are running low.

Now that smartphones are

everywhere, get ready for
the smart home!
eve all been there. Halfway to the
airport and suddenly gripped by the
unshakable fear that weve forgotten
to switch off the oven or lock the windows. With
a smart home, you can put your mind at rest
and x any little oversights, all from your phone
as you speed toward your ight.
In a smart home, all the electronic devices
are connected to one another in one
controllable network, allowing inhabitants to
interact with their homes like never before and
offering greater comfort, convenience,
personalization, energy savings and
opportunities for fun!
Want your coffee maker to crank up
downstairs as soon as you throw back your
sheets? A smart home will let you arrange that.
Want to start the bread maker churning and the
pool heating as you leave the ofce? You can
do that too. Want your home to learn
your habits and help cut your
energy consumption, or to notify
you if it senses anything
untoward like an intruder?
No problem at all.
The basis for all these
technological advances is
the Internet of Things
the exponentially
expanding web of devices
that are connected to the
internet, allowing them to
talk to each other and to you,
transforming the way we live.

078

Smart bulbs
Create atmosphere
without leaving
your seat, by
ne-tuning
intensity and hue
from your tablet.

Movie night
Selecting movie
setting dims the lights,
activates surround
sound, res up the
popcorn maker and
lowers the shades.

Digital discipline
Shut off the computer,
TV or lights remotely
from the sofa when its
past childrens bedtime.

DID YOU KNOW? The USAs smartest home is owned by SmartThings CEO Alex Hawkinson and includes over 150 devices

Talking to your tech

Surveillance unit

Tracking the growth of the

Internet of Things

Live video sent to your

phone puts your mind
at rest while at work or
on holiday.

Smarter slumber
Bed tracks your sleep
cycles and sleep quality,
activating the coffee
maker at the rst signs
of waking.

Sun shades
Open and close automatically
according to the amount of
direct sunlight.

Smart thermostat
Saves you money on
energy bills by learning
your habits and cranking
down automatically
while youre gone.

20

NUMBER OF USA ADULT INTERNET USERS

WHO ALREADY OWN A DEVICE THAT
CONNECTS THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
TO THE INTERNET [FORRESTER]. THIS WILL
RISE TO 50% BY 2020 [PARK ASSOCIATES]

NUMBER OF FULL
HOME AUTOMATION
SYSTEMS INSTALLED
IN THE USA IN 2012
[ABI RESEARCH]

1.5
million

224 million
NUMBER OF HOMES WORLDWIDE (1 IN EVERY 8.5 HOMES)
THAT WILL HAVE SOME SORT OF SMART HOME TECHNOLOGY
INSTALLED BY 2019 [STRATEGY ANALYTICS]

101 in%9

NUMBER OF US
HOMEOWNERS
AGED 25-34
WHO OWN
AT LEAST
ONE SMART
ENERGY
DEVICE [PARK
ASSOCIATES]

(11%)

NUMBER OF UK HOUSEHOLDS THAT WILL BE

USING AT LEAST ONE SMART DEVICE BY THE
END OF 2014. THIS NUMBER WILL JUMP TO
OVER 1 IN 4 (27%) JUST FIVE YEARS FROM NOW
[STRATEGY ANALYTICS]

billion

$7.8
150

(4.6 BILLION) PREDICTED

SIZE OF THE DIY SMART
HOME MARKET BY 2019,
UP FROM $1.3 BILLION
(770,000) TODAY
[NEXTMARKET INSIGHTS]

NUMBER OF INTERCONNECTED DEVICES IN USAS SMARTEST

HOME [HUFFPO VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH OWNER]

20%
7%
AMOUNT AN AVERAGE USER
COULD SAVE ON THEIR ENERGY
BILL BY INSTALLING A NEST
LEARNING THERMOSTAT [NEST]

THE NUMBER OF
US HOMES WITH
PROGRAMMABLE
THERMOSTATS
JUMPED BY THIS
MUCH BETWEEN 2012
AND 2013 [CONSUMER
ELECTRONICS
ASSOCIATION]

Intelligent fridge
Washing machine
Can delay start until energy
prices are cheapest, and
will text you when laundry
cycle is complete.

Enters sleep mode while

youre out of town,
suggests recipes based
on contents and alerts
you of low inventory or
expiring items.

234

OR $393, AVERAGE TECHNOLOGY SPEND OF UK SMARTHOME OWNERS, LESS THAN HALF THAT OF THEIR US
EQUIVALENTS (517 / $868) [STRATEGY ANALYTICS]

079

EVERYDAY ROBOTS
Automated home electronics have been on
the scene for decades, but only recently have
they been able to begin talking to one another
and functioning in concert. Thats largely
thanks to the advent of efcient low-cost
wireless protocols think Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
and mobile phone networks in the early2000s, which use radio waves to transmit
messages wirelessly.
ZigBee and Z-Wave are similar protocols
that can be thought of as low-power, shortrange versions of Wi-Fi. They are ideal for use
inside the smart home because theyre
optimised for transmitting small amounts of
data like messages to and from smart devices
through walls and furniture, over the range
needed for a typical household.
Smart devices are connected via these
wireless networks to a central hub where they
can be controlled with a tablet or smartphone.
They can also be programmed to carry out any
action based on the logic command If This Then
That, or IFTTT (rhymes with lift). IFTTT lets you
dictate what action a device should take for a
given stimulus.
For example, announcing to your TV, Its
movie time, might lower the shades, dim the
lights, activate your surround sound system and
re up the popcorn maker. Now thats smart.

Smart locks
Grants keyless entry
to family members
and guests with
time-restricted access
codes handy when
struggling with
groceries!

Garage door
Opens as your car
approaches the property
and can be locked and
unlocked remotely.

Homeowner wish list

Top ten most coveted smart technologies*
WIRELESS HOME
SECURITY

50%

37%
HOME
THEATRE
PROGRAMMABLE
THERMOSTAT

47%

37%
MULTI-ZONE
HVAC SYSTEM
SECURITY
CAMERAS

40%

34%

*data from National Association of Home Builders

CENTRAL
VACUUM SYSTEM
LIGHTING CONTROL
SYSTEM

39%

Motion sensors

32%
ENERGY MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
WIRELESS HOME
AUDIO SYSTEM

39%
080

OUTDOOR SPEAKERS
AND AUDIO CONTROLS

31%

Heated driveway

Welcome home!

Embedded radiant heat

system kicks in to melt
snow and ice when
temperatures plummet.

Outdoor lighting and

illuminated walkways
brighten as you
approach the property.

Youll receive a text

when doors or
windows open,
alerting you to
potential intruders
and helping to keep
tabs on pets and kids.

DID YOU KNOW? X10, a wired connection system made in 1975, was one of the earliest smart-home systems and is still in use

Sprinklers
Override their
program to turn off
when it rains and
on if the soil
becomes too dry.

Pool party
Water temperature
can be set on your
drive home, ready
for your evening dip.

THE
SMART
OUTSIDE
Attentive awnings
They adjust themselves
automatically as the Sun
moves overhead.

Surveillance system
Keeps an eye on the kids in
the pool, and knows the
difference between pets
and an intruder.

Occupied home simulator

Activates lights and shades to give
an impression of habitation while
youre away on holiday.

EVERYDAY ROBOTS
Until recently, smart homes have mostly
been viewed as quirky playgrounds reserved
for the super-rich and diehard Jetsons fanatics.
In the US today, less than one per cent of homes
have a full automation system installed, but
the picture is changing rapidly. Why?
Whats happening is theres a shift from
that past market which required a
professional installer, and more recently a
service-provider subscription to what were
starting to see now: the roll-out of what we call
DIY smart homes, explains chief analyst and
smart-home expert Michael Wolf of
NextMarket Insights in Seattle.
The majority of new smart objects are
designed to plug-and-go. New smart-home
residents can shop around for devices that best
meet their needs, download the apps that
make them run, stitch them all together
through their humble smartphone, and save
themselves a fortune in the process. Thats
where we see the potential for much greater
adoption, because the barriers in terms of cost
and heaviness of the install start to go down,
says Wolf.
In 2014, several tech giants rushed to make
their rst forays into the smart-home market,
steering it rmly toward the mainstream. In
January 2014, Google acquired Nest Labs
founded by iPod designer Tony Fadell for 1.9
billion ($3.2 billion). Nests most popular
product, the Learning Thermostat, responds to
your routines and preferences, turns itself
down when it notices youre away, helping you
save energy.
Elsewhere, Microsoft formed a partnership
with smart hub and device company Insteon
in 2014, while Apple announced that its own
Siri-integrated smart-home platform HomeKit
would debut as part of the iOS 8 release across
iPhones, the iPod touch and iPads.
So if smart homes offer improved comfort,
convenience, security and environmental
credentials, for an affordable price, whats the
catch? For one thing, the explosion of new
products, all running on different protocols,
can be hard to integrate; less tech-savvy
consumers might want to hold off a year or so
while the industry reaches a better consensus.
More troubling is that smart homes, like any
internet-connected device, are potentially
hackable. What if a burglar nds a way to open
your smart lock and disable your intelligent
security systems? Others worry that products
like Nest give Google even deeper reach into
our personal data.
One thing is for certain: whether youre set to
be an early adopter in the smart home market
or youre still on the fence, this is only the
beginning for smart homes.

082

Next big things

Welcome home! Check out some of the
features of your oh-so-smart future abode

Witt induction
hobs
www.witt-ltd.com
Induction multizones sunk into
the work surface automatically
detect where a pan is placed;
shut off when a pan is
removed, overows, or
boils dry; and offer a
pause function if
you need to walk
away suddenly.

Feed & Go Online

Automatic pet feeder
www.feedandgo.com
All the scheduling and dispensing features of
a traditional automatic feeder, plus a
camera so you can share every
gory detail of your pet gobbling
up its dinner, and a voice
recorder so you can leave it a
secret mealtime message.

Lifx LED Bulb

lifx.co
Lets you set endless moods,
selecting from over 16 million
possible hues in a colour wheel
on your smartphone. Can be
programmed to brighten and
dim slowly at opposite ends of
the day, easing you out of and
into sleep; to ash when you
receive a text or email; and to
come on automatically as
soon as it detects your
smartphone approaching your
property. Highly energy
efcient, it lasts 27 years.

DID YOU KNOW? A planned miniature smart home for dogs, T-Pai is shaped like a double-decker bus and has video-call facilities

Sleep Number
Sleep IQ
Nest Protect
nest.com
Combined smoke/carbon
monoxide detector gives you a
heads up before sounding the
full alarm, texts you when its
batteries are low, alerts you of
hazards detected while
youre out and will
shut down your
Nest Thermostat if
it sniffs something
untoward.

HomeChat by LG
lgusblog.com
With HomeChat you can converse naturally with
your appliances to nd out what theyre up to
and make requests. Your fridge might text you to
remind you youre running low on milk; you can
ask the washing machine, where are you up to
and when will you be done? You can also set the
robot vacuum to work an hour before you return
home. They probably wont have any useful
relationship advice for you, though.

Belkin WeMo Switch

www.belkin.com
Lets you control any electric appliance
remotely from your smartphone. Options to
monitor how much energy your devices are
consuming, or pair with a motion
sensor so that, for example,
walking through the front door
turns on an appliance in
another room.

PointGrabs PointSwitch
www.pointgrab.com
This nifty gadget allows you to control
multiple appliances lights,
entertainment systems, air-con and
more from across the room simply
by pointing and gesturing, so you
wont even need to pick up your
smartphone. PointSwitch uses
motion-detection algorithms with a
standard two-dimensional infrared
camera to accurately identify
your gesture and its direction.
Just remember to turn it off
before you start dancing on
your own in the lounge

Elertus Smart Sensor

www.elertus.com
Originally designed to monitor the temperature and
humidity of cellars housing prize wines, the Elertus
has ballooned into an all-encompassing watchdog
that keeps tabs on anything precious to you. As well
as clocking
temperature
and humidity, it
will alert you if it
detects
movement,
water, changes
in light levels or
doors opening
and closing.

LED light
transmissive
carpet
www.philips.com
Carpet transmits light from
programmable LED arrays laid
underneath it. Use it to highlight
the route to the bathroom in the
night; guide inhabitants to safety
during a re; deliver instructions,
directions or greetings to house
guests; or best of all recreate
the music video for Billie Jean right
there in your living room. Maybe.
No, denitely.

083

Sleepnumber; PointGrab; Elertus; LGHomeChat ; Philips/Desso; Witt UK & Ireland; Nest; Feedandgo; Belkin

www.sleepnumber.com
Sleep IQ monitors you as you
sleep, tracking your heart
rate, breathing rate,
movements and sleep cycles
to calculate the quality of
your sleep and help you ne
tune details like your bed
time, mattress texture and
daily habits to attain optimal
sleep each and every night.
Especially useful if your
bedfellow is prone to snoring
Sleep IQ responds to the
voice command Stop
snoring! by gently raising
your partners head while
they continue to slumber.

SPACE ROBOTS
086 Astrobots
Robots move from sci-fi film to
reality as they help us to explore
the universe

101
The Mars
Hopper

090 Gecko robots help out

in space
How NASAs sticky lizard-inspired
tech could help clean up space

092 Future space tech on Titan

Autonomous technology that NASA
hopes will solve some of Titans
many mysteries

093 Unmanned space probes

Just how do these essential space
robots work?

093 How robots keep

astronauts company
Meet Kirobo, the Japanese robot
living on the ISS

094 Automated transfer

vehicles
How do these resupply craft keep
the ISS fully stocked?

096 Exploring new worlds

Robots mean we can explore
places no-one has been before

100 Dextre the space robot

The robot that fixes the
International Space Station

101 The Mars Hopper

Meet the robot that hops, skips and
jumps around the Red Planet

102 ExoMars Robots

The most extensive search for life
on Mars

084

086
Robots in
space

093
Robots for
company

093
How do space
probes work?

096
How we
explore new
worlds

094
Resupplying
with ATVs

085

SPACE ROBOTS

Astrobots

Robots have moved from sci- to reality with alarming ease. But how is
NASAs robotic technology helping us explore the universe?

se of robotic technology in
space goes back much
further than Lunokhod 1,
the rst robot ever to land on a
terrestrial body. Even the rst
unmanned spacecraft (Sputnik)
had semi-robotic components on
board, although their capabilities
were rudimentary at best.
However, since the cancellation
of the Apollo programme, robots
have all but replaced man at the
cutting edge of space exploration.

There are several key reasons for

this; with cost being top of the list,
particularly in todays nancial
downturn. Robotic missions cost a
fraction of their manned equivalents,
involve less risk and produce far
more useful, empirical information.
Just in the last year, Indias rst
unmanned lunar probe,
Chandrayaan-1, was found to have
detected the probability of ice-lled
craters on the moon, something the
12 US astronauts who actually
walked on its surface failed to deduce
at a cost of tens of billion of dollars.
Neil Armstrongs one small step for
man may have been symbolic, but
the great leap for mankind has since
been accomplished by robots. Today,
two Mars Exploration Rovers are
already hard at work on the surface
of a planet man is not expected to
reach for at least another decade.
Robotic devices can be found
operating in various forms; from
satellites, orbiters, landers and
rovers to orbiting stations such as
Skylab, MIA and the current
International Space Station.
However, the most impressive of all
are the rovers, rst used during the
Apollo 15 missions in 1971. Devices
like rovers still rely on a combination
of telemetry and programming to
function. However, as the distance
they are expected to travel grows,
making it harder to receive
instructions from Earth, the
importance of articial
intelligence in making such
devices more autonomous will only
grow in future.

086

Mars Exploration
Rovers

NASAs most
ambitious strategy
since Apollo
continues apace
with the Mars
Exploration Rovers

There have been three Mars

Exploration Rovers (MER) so
far. The rst was Sojourner,
carried by the
groundbreaking Pathnder,
which landed in 1997 and
continued to transmit data for
84 days. The second and third
(Opportunity and Spirit)
touched down three weeks
apart in 2004 and are now six
years into their missions.
Spirit, after a productive start,
is now permanently immobile
although still functioning.
Opportunity is moving
steadily across the planet
surface, using software to
recognise the rocks it
encounters, taking multiple
images of those that conform
to certain pre-programmed
characteristics.

DID YOU KNOW? The US was not first to land an object on Mars. The Russian Mars 2 crash-landed on the surface in 1971

Mars Exploration Rovers

Spirit and Opportunity are still transmitting
from the surface of Mars despite some
decidedly archaic components. Although
reinforced against radiation, the 32-bit RAD
6000 CPU and 128RAM would sound meagre

even in a laptop. However, other aspects are

still state of the art, including the aerosol
insulated compartment that keeps vital
equipment working through the -100 Celsius
Martian nights.

1. Click!
Both MERs boasts a panoramic
camera (Pancam) capable of
1024x1024-pixel images that are
compressed, stored and
transmitted later.

5. Wheelies
Each of the MERs six
wheels has their own
motor. However,
despite the improved
rocker-boogie
mechanism, Spirit is
now permanently
stuck in red dust.

2. Antenna
Spirit and Opportunity use a
low-gain antenna and a steerable
high-gain antenna to communicate
with Earth, the former also used to
relay data to the orbiter.

3. Power me up
These MERs boast superior solar
technology to Sojourner, with 140
watt solar panels now recharging
the lithium-ion battery system for
night-time operation.

4. Safeguarding science
A gold-plated Warm Electronics
Box protects vital research
equipment, including miniature
thermal and x-ray spectrometers
and a microscopic imager.

Sojourner
The Statistics
Sojourner
Dimensions: Length: 65cm,
width: 48cm, height: 28cm
Mass: 10.6kg
Top speed: 0.07mph
Mission: Exploration and
experimentation
Launch vehicle: Pathnder
Lander systems:
Soft land and release
Current status:
Abandoned on Mars

NASA engineers work on the

Spirit/Opportunity

Sojourner was the rst truly

self-sufcient rover, largely
restoring NASAs space
exploration credentials when it
touched down on Mars in July
1997. Although it only travelled
100 metres in its 84-day mission,
this was 12 times longer than
expected, producing a massive
amount of data, including over
8.5 million atmospheric
measurements and 550 images.

The Statistics
Spirit/Opportunity
Dimensions: Length: 1.6m,
width: 2.3m, height: 1.5m
Mass: 167kg
Top speed: 0.11mph
Mission: Exploration and
experimentation
Launch vehicle: Delta II
Lander systems:
Guided and parachute
Current status:
Active on Mars

MSL: To
Opportunity
and beyond!
At a cost of $2.3 billion, the
Mars Science Laboratory
(MSL) is designed to go much
further than the current
Opportunity and Spirit
MERs. Using four different
landing systems it is
expected to make a
precision landing on Mars in
the autumn of 2011. The
six-wheeled craft will then
spend a year determining
whether Mars has ever
supported life.

A future landing
method?

The Statistics
Mars Science Laboratory
Dimensions: Length: 2.7m,
width: n/a, height: n/a
Mass: 820kg
Top speed: 0.05mph
Mission: Exploration and
experimentation
Launch vehicle: Atlas V 541
Lander systems:
Guided, powered, parachute and
sky crane
Current status: Testing

1. Eyes and ears

2. Power saving

MSL will carry eight

cameras, including two
mast-mounted B&W
models for panoramic 3D
images and four
dedicated hazard cams.

A state-of-the-art
Radioisotope Power
System (RPS) powers the
MSL by generating
electricity from its own
plutonium supply.

1. Telemetry
Sojourner relied on a single high
gain antenna to receive
instructions from the Pathfinder
Lander for the manoeuvres it made.

2. Power up
Top-mounted solar cells provided
the power. However, the
non-rechargeable D-cell batteries
led to the mission ending.
A heat-protected box surrounded
the rovers key components,
including the CPU and an Alpha
Proton x-ray spectrometer to
analyse the 16 tests performed.

5. Dont rock boogie

Sojourner was the first to use a
rocker boogie mechanism,
with rotating joints rather than
springs allowing it to tip up to 45
per cent without losing balance.

4. Wheels in motion
Six wheels and the
ability to boogie

Sojourners revolutionary
six-wheeled design took the
rugged terrain in its stride.

3. Everincreasing
circles
Based on the same
principle as previous
MERs, MSL is far
more agile, being
able to swerve and
turn through 360 on
the spot.

4. Intel
MSLs Warm
Electronics Box
protects vital
equipment like the
CPU, communications
interface and SAM
(Sample Analysis at
Mars) which literally
sniffs the air for gasses.

5. Armed not
dangerous
MSLs robotic
three-jointed arm can
wield five tools,
including a
spectrometer to
measure elements in
dust or rocks and a
hand lens imager for
magnifying samples.

087

All Images NASA

3. Payload

SPACE ROBOTS

Lunar rovers
Before the MER there
was the lunar rover,
for a time the most
talked-about handheld technology (not)
on Earth
Although lunar rovers seem little more
than sophisticated golf-carts compared
to todays Mars Rovers, their impact was
immense; allowing astronauts and
equipment to travel much further than
on foot and carry back rock samples that
the Apollo 15-17 astronauts later returned
to Earth.
The lunar rover was rst deployed on
Apollo 15 in 1971 and only four were ever
built for a cost of $38 million (about $200
million in todays money). Powered by
two 36-volt non-rechargeable batteries,
the rovers had a top speed of eight miles
per hour, although astronaut Gene
Cernan still holds the lunar land speed
record of an impressive 11.2mph. All
three rovers remained on the lunar
surface after their mission ended.

The Statistics
Lunokhod 2
Dimensions: Length: 170cm,
width: 160cm, height: 135cm
Mass: 840kg
Top speed: 1.2mph
Mission: Exploration and
experimentation
Launch vehicle: Luna 17
Lander systems: n/a
Current status:
Abandoned on moon

Lunokhod One and Two

Apollo may have put Armstrong
on the moon, but for robotics,
Lunokhod was the benchmark

Lunokhod 1 was the rst unmanned vehicle ever to land on

a celestial body in 1970. The Russian designed and
operated rover packed a lot into its 2.3 metre length,
including four TV cameras, extendable probes for testing
soil samples, an x-ray spectrometer, cosmic ray detector
and even a simple laser device. It was powered by solar
rechargeable batteries and equipped with a cone-shaped
antenna to receive telemetry. It exceeded its mission time
by lasting nearly 322 days, performing soil tests, travelling
over 10.5 kilometres and returning over 20,000 images.
Lunokhod 2 followed in 1973, an eight-wheeled solar
powered vehicle equipped with three TV cameras, a soil
mechanics tester, solar x-ray experiment, an
astrophotometer for measuring visible and ultraviolet light
levels, a magnetometer, radiometer, and a laser
photodetector. Its mission lasted only four months before
Lunokhod 2 overheated, however in this time it covered
37km and sent back over 80,000 pictures.

The Lunokhod 1 looks like it might shout

Danger Will Robinson any minute

Introducing
the ATHLETE

This is what the

caravan club will
look like in 50 years

The competition for future robots in space is

erce, with commercial companies
developing contenders like ATHLETE
Currently under development by the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the
All-Terrain Hex-Legged ExtraTerrestrial Explorer (ATHLETE) is
designed to be the next generation of
MERs; bigger, faster and more
versatile than the current models.
Its also the most striking to look at,
about the same size as a small car
with a spider-like design

The Statistics
ATHLETE
Dimensions: Diameter: 4m
Mass: Unknown
Top speed: 6.5mph
Mission: Transport, exploration
and experimentation
Launch vehicle: TBC
Lander systems: n/a
Current status:
In development

088

Payload

Legs

Walk

Large payload
capacity of 450kg per
vehicle, with much
more for multiple
ATHLETE vehicles
docked together.

R6-DOF legs for

generalised robotic
manipulation base
can climb slopes of
35 on rock and 25 on
soft sand.

Capable of rolling
over Apollo-like
undulating terrain
and walking over
extremely rough or
steep terrain.

incorporating a central base and six

extendable legs, mounted on wheels,
allowing it to travel over a wide
variety of terrains.
Future plans include the addition
of a voice or gesture interface for
astronaut control and a grappling
hook to haul it up vertical slopes.
ATHLETEs modular design allows it
to dock with other equipment,
including refuelling stations and
excavation implements. It also boasts
a 450kg payload capability, making it
a powerful workhorse.
The big cloud over ATHLETE is the
current recession which is now
placing the whole Human Lunar
Return strategy, for which it was
designed, in jeopardy.

DID YOU KNOW? In 1970, Lunokhod 1 became the first unmanned vehicle ever to land on a celestial body

The Canadarm Remote

Manipulator
System
It will never win awards for its looks but
Remote manipulator systems (RMS) have been
around since the Fifties, but it wasnt until 1975
that one achieved its own nickname. The
Canadarm became both a symbol of national
engineering pride for the country that
designed and built it (Canada) and the most
recognisable and multi-purpose tool on the
Space Shuttle.
The Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (to
give it its real name) is a 50-foot arm capable of
lifting loads, manipulating them at small but
precise speeds. It has been used extensively in
Shuttle missions for a variety of purposes
including ferrying supplies, dislodging ice
from the fuselage and performing crucial
repairs to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Canadarm has never failed. Its successor,
Canadarm2, is a key part of the ISS, used to
move massive loads of up to 116,000kg. It is also
useful in supporting astronauts on EVAs and
servicing instruments.

the Canadarm has worked harder than The Statistics

any space robot before
Canadarm

Dimensions: 15.2m long and

38cm in diameter
Mass: 450kg
Top speed: n/a
Mission: To manoeuvre a
payload from the payload bay to
its deployment position
Launch vehicle: Space shuttle
Lander systems: n/a
Current status: Operational

4. On rails
The arm is attached to a
Mobile Base System
(MBS) that allows it to glide
along a rail to reach all sides
of the required Space
Station surface.

1. Standing
room only
Several devices can
be attached to
Canadarm2 the
most common being
a platform on which
astronauts stand to
perform repairs or
maintenance outside
the Shuttle.

1. Double take

2. Twos company?

Robonaut 2s Boba
Fett-like head
contains all the
optic technology to
allow it to see and
transmit pictures
back to base.

Designed to assist humans and

perform its own functions
independently, this illustration
suggests Robonauts may also be
able to work together. Unlikely,
but strangely unnerving.

2. Mobility
3. Extendable
Canadarm2 can extend
to 17.6 metres.

Canadarm has seven motorised

joints, each capable of pivoting
independently to ensure
maximum flexibility.

Humanoid
robots
Will we ever see a robot with
real human abilities?

4. You need hands

Robonauts hands are its most
challenging and sophisticated
design feature.

3. Legless in space
Robonaut 1 moved on
wheels, Robonaut 2 is able
to operate using a variety
of locomotion methods;
from wheels and buggies
to being permanently
fixed to external cranes.

When the original Robonaut was unveiled

at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) nearly a
decade ago, one glance at its Davros-like
design revealed the glaring weakness.
How could something on a xed-wheel
chassis really help in the demanding EVAs
for which it was required? The answer,
currently under development by JSC and
General Motors, is called Robonaut 2.
Robonaut 2 adds advanced sensor and
vision technologies to do far more than
basic lifting and moving, as currently
performed by devices like the Canadarm.
Whether helping with future repairs at the
ISS, maintaining base stations for
planetary landings, or doing hazardous
jobs in the motor and aviation industries,
Robonaut 2 is designed to work anywhere
using bolt-on arm and leg appendages
appropriate to the task at hand.

While not as dextrous

as a real human hand,
Robonaut 2s hands
have 14 degrees of
freedom and contain
touch sensors at the
ngertips

089

All Images NASA

SPAR Aerospace Ltd, a Canadian

company, designed, developed,
tested and built the Canadarm

SPACE ROBOTS

Gecko robots
help out
in space
NASAs lizard-inspired sticky
tech could clear up space junk

An artists concept of the

Limbed Excursion Mechanical
Utility Robot (LEMUR) that
can cling to spacecraft

090

DID YOU KNOW? Velcro was created by Swiss inventor George Mestral in 1948, after examining seeds that stuck to his dogs fur

n space, Velcro is currently the

sticking method of choice, with
astronauts using it to secure
equipment to the interior walls of the
International Space Station in
microgravity. However, Velcro has
the drawback of needing a suitable
surface to stick to, so NASA has now
turned to nature to help them find a
better alternative.
Its engineers have developed a
material inspired by gecko feet that
can cling to almost any surface,
doesnt leave any residue and wont
lose its stickiness over time. The
gecko-grippers even work in extreme
temperature, pressure and radiation
conditions, so the vacuum of space
wont be an issue. The adhesive uses
tiny synthetic hairs, thinner than a
humans, that create van der Waals
forces when weight is applied the
same technique used by geckos.
The adhesive has already been
tested on a microgravity flight,
proving that it can hold the weight of
a 100-kilogram (220-pound) human.
It is now being used to develop a
climbing robot with sticky feet that
could be used to inspect and repair
the exterior of the ISS. NASA even
hopes that this technology could one
day be used to grab space junk and
clear it from orbit.

A geckos
sticky feet
Geckos are one of natures greatest
climbers, as they can stick to almost
any surface and even cling to
ceilings. The secret of their stickiness
comes down to the millions of tiny
hairs on their feet and some clever
physics. Each of the microscopic
hairs contain molecules with
positively and negatively charged
parts, and when these molecules
come into contact with another
surface, they are attracted
to the opposite charges
in that surface,
forming van der
Waals forces. This is
then strengthened
when the gecko
bears its weight
down to bend the
hairs, so it can
unstick itself
by straightening
them again.

091

SPACE ROBOTS

Future
space tech
on Titan
The autonomous technology that NASA hopes will solve
many of Titans mysteries

he Titan Aerial Daughtercraft has been put forward

by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC)
programme with the aim of sending a small
quadcopter drone to Titan, alongside a mothership. The
drone would operate above the moons surface, landing to
take samples when required. When the drones charge
runs out, it would be able to return to the mothership,
where it could recharge and then continue its mission.
Unlike the Mars rovers, the drone would be designed to
work autonomously. It would be left to gather research for
days at a time, before returning its data to Earth via the
mothership. As it stands there is no set date for such a
mission to Titan, however the interest that has been
sparked by the Huygens probe will no doubt encourage
this mission to materialise.

View of Saturn

Drone charging

From the side of Titans

surface that constantly
faces the ringed planet,
Saturn would just be
visible through the thick
hazy atmosphere.

When low on power, the

drone could automatically
return to the mothership to
recharge, before starting
another set of samples.

Drone ight
The drone is likely to weigh
less than ten kilograms (22
pounds), and will be
capable of taking
high-resolution pictures
while it collects samples.

Scientic
instruments
The submarine will be
equipped with an array of
scientic instruments,
allowing it to examine the
chemical composition of
Titans seas, and to check
for signs of life.

092

Intelligent design
Although the nal design is
still to be conrmed, the
submarine is likely to have
a light, enabling it to see
clearly underwater.

Surface samples
One of the drones primary
objectives would be to
collect surface samples,
including soil and liquid.

Submarine mission
The Kraken Mare is the largest known sea on Titan.
Scientists are interested in exploring this giant liquid
mass, which is over 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) wide,
and is thought to be roughly 300 metres (984 feet)
deep. The NIAC has proposed an autonomous
submarine, which could search the hydrocarbon seas
while a drone scans the land above. The primary aim
would be to study the seas liquid composition closely,
to nd out exactly what it is made of. Furthermore,
the submarine would search for signs of plant or
microbial life, which could be lurking deep beneath the
liquids surface. This data would then be transmitted
back to Earth via a mothership once the submarine
returned to the surface.

DID YOU KNOW? The BepiColombo should launch in July 2016, on its mission to Mercury via Venus

Unmanned space probes

They have made some of the most
fundamental discoveries in modern
science, but how do space probes work?
n 4 October 1957 the former Soviet
Union launched the worlds rst
successful space probe, Sputnik 1,
heralding the start of the space race
between Russia and the USA. In the
initial ten years the vast majority of mans
efforts to conduct scientic experiments
in space were failures, and it wasnt until
the late Sixties that successes were
achieved. While many were chalked up
to launch failures, most couldnt weather
the harsh realities of space.
Withstanding temperature extremes is
a monumental task in itself. Of course, its
not temperatures that pose problems for
probes wanting to land in alien
environments, they must also be capable
of putting up with intense radiation and
atmospheric pressures which uctuate
from pure vacuum to 90 times that of
Earths surface pressure and beyond.
Russias 1970 Venera 7 probe successfully
landed on the surface of Venus and

managed to send data back for

just 23 minutes before being
crushed under the immense
pressure exuded on it.
Not only do space probes have
to act as highly sensitive scientic
instruments, but they have to be
built tougher and more rugged than
the hardiest black box recorder. As
such, the vast majority of a space probes
design is dedicated to sustaining itself
and protecting its mission-critical
systems. Ultimately their makers
consider four elds of science while
theyre under construction. Engineering
(ultimately self sustainability), eld and
particle sensing (for measuring
magnetics among other things), probing
(for specic hands-on scientic
experiments) and remote sensing, which
is usually made up of spectrometers,
imaging devices and infrared among
other things.

An artists impression of
the Galileo space probe,
launched by NASA
in 1989

Galileos yby
of Venus
provided new
data on the planet

How robots keep

astronauts company
Meet Kirobo, the Japanese robot living on the ISS

technology to develop other robots

conversational abilities. The Kirobo
experiment also aimed to see how humans and
robots might live alongside each other during
longer space missions, which may take
place in the future. Kirobo has now
returned to Earth after an 18-month
stay aboard the ISS.

Corbis; NASA; Toyota

eelings of loneliness are often hard to

avoid when youre in space. Astronauts
who stay on the International Space
Station (ISS) for extended periods often
struggle with this. Sometimes, their
psychological issues can be harder to deal with
than living in microgravity or sleeping upright.
To combat this, Japanese scientists designed
a robot with the aim of providing psychological
support. It was named Kirobo, which is derived
from the Japanese word for hope (kibo) and
robot. Kirobo stands 34 centimetres (13.4
inches) tall and weighs one kilogram (2.2
pounds). It has a clever voice-recognition
system and can produce its own sentences
with the help of an advanced languageprocessing system, and its own built-in voice
synthesis software.
These innovative systems were actually
designed by Toyota, which plans to use the

093

SPACE ROBOTS

Automated
transfer
vehicles
T

he European Space Agencys (ESA)

automated transfer vehicles (ATVs) are
unmanned spacecraft designed to take
cargo and supplies to the International Space
Station (ISS), before detaching and burning up in
Earths atmosphere. They are imperative in
maintaining a human presence on the ISS,
bringing various life essentials to the crew such
as water, food and oxygen, in addition to bringing
along some new equipment and tools for
conducting experiments and general
maintenance of the station.
The rst ATV to y was the Jules Verne ATV-1 in
2008; it was named after the famous 19th-century
French author who wrote Around The World In 80
Days. This was followed by the (astronomer)
Johannes Kepler ATV-2 in February 2011, and will be
succeeded by the (physicists) Edoardo Amaldi and
Albert Einstein ATVs in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
The ATV-1 mission differed somewhat from
thesubsequent ones as it was the rst of its kind

attempted by the ESA and thus

various additional procedures were
carried out, such as testing the
vehicles ability to manoeuvre in
close proximity to the ISS for several
days to prevent it damaging the station when
docking. However, for the most part, all ATV
missions are and will be the same.
ATVs are launched into space atop the ESAs
Ariane 5 heavy-lift rocket. Just over an hour after
launch the rocket points the ATV in the direction of
the ISS and gives it a boost to send it on its way, with
journey time to the station after separation from the
rocket taking about ten days.
The ATV is multifunctional, meaning that it is a
fully automatic vehicle that also possesses the
necessary human safety requirements to be
boarded by astronauts when attached to the ISS.
Approximately 60 per cent of the entire volume of
the ATV is made up of the integrated cargo carrier
(ICC). This attaches to the service module, which

ATV docking
procedure

Each ATV is capable of carrying

6.6 tons of cargo to the ISS

propels and manoeuvres the vehicle. The ICC can

transport 6.6 tons of dry and uid cargo to the ISS,
the former being pieces of equipment and personal
effects and the latter being refuelling propellant and
water for the station.
As well as taking supplies, ATVs also push the ISS
into a higher orbit, as over time it is pulled towards
Earth by atmospheric drag. To raise the ISS, an ATV
uses about four tons of its own fuel over 10-45 days to
slowly nudge the station higher.
The nal role of an ATV is to act as a wastedisposal unit. When all the useful cargo has been
taken from the vehicle, it is lled up with
superuous matter from the ISS until absolutely no
more can be squeezed in. At this point the ATV
undocks from the station and is sent to burn up in
the atmosphere.

APPROACH

POST-LAUNCH

Tracking
The ATV uses a star tracker
and GPS satellites to map its
position relative to the
stellar constellations and
Earth so it can accurately
locate the space station.

Locking on
Release
After launch, the Ariane 5s
main stage gives the ATV an
additional boost to send it
on its way to the ISS.

094

When its 300m (984ft) from

the ISS, the ATV switches to
a high-precision rendezvous
sensor called the video
meter to bring it in to dock.

ESA

How do these European resupply

craft keep the ISS fully stocked?

DID YOU KNOW? The ESA hopes to upgrade the ATV into a human-carrying vehicle by 2020

ATV anatomy
Non-solid cargo,
including drinking
water, air and fuel, is
stored in tanks.

Docking
Inside the nose of the ATV
are rendezvous sensors
and equipment that allow
the ATV to slowly
approach and dock with
the ISS without causing
damage to either vehicle.

NASA

Liquids

The spacecraft module

of the ATV has four
main engines and 28
small thrusters.

ESA/D Ducros

Propulsion

The MPLM was

transported inside
NASAs Space Shuttle

Other resupply
vehicles
Protection

Racks
Equipment is stored in
payload racks. These are like
trays, and must be configured
to be able to fit into the same
sized berths on the ISS.

Navigation
On board the ATV is a
high-precision navigation
system that guides the
vehicle in to the ISS dock.
Currently, ESA ground control
pilots the ATVs remotely

Solar power
Four silicon-based solar
arrays in an X shape provide
the ATV with the power it
needs to operate in space.

DOCK
Lasers
Two laser beams are
bounced off mirrors on the
ISS so the ATV can measure
its distance from the station,
approaching at just a few
centimetres a second.

Emergency
In the case of an
emergency the astronauts
can stop the ATV moving
towards the ISS or propel it
away from the station.

Boost
The ISS moves 100m (328ft)
closer to Earth daily, so to
prevent it falling too far
ATVs use their main engines
to push it into a higher orbit.

3x ESA D Ducros

Like most modules

on board the ISS, a
micrometeoroid
shield and insulation
blanket protect an
ATV from small
objects that may
strike it in space.

The ESAs automated transfer vehicle isnt the only

spacecraft capable of taking supplies to the ISS. Since its
launch, three other classes of spacecraft have been used to
take cargo the 400 kilometres (250 miles) above Earths
surface to the station. The longest serving of these is
Russias Progress supply ship, which between 1978 and the
present day has completed over 100 missions to Russias
Salyut 6, Salyut 7 and Mir space stations, as well as the ISS.
Succeeding Progress was the Italian-built multipurpose
logistics module (MPLM), which was actually own inside
NASAs Space Shuttle and removed once the shuttle was
docked to the space station. MPLMs were own 12 times to
the ISS, but one notable difference with the ATV is that they
were brought back to Earth inside the Space Shuttle on
every mission. The ATV and MPLM share some similarities,
though, such as the pressurised cargo section, which is
near identical on both vehicles.
The last and most recent resupply vehicle is the Japanese
H-II transfer vehicle (HTV). It has completed one docking
mission with the ISS to date, in late 2009, during which it
spent 30 days attached to the station.

095

SPACE ROBOTS

Going where no one has gone before, these robotic rovers are our
eyes and hands which we can use to investigate alien planets
rawling, trundling and perhaps one day
walking across the surface of other
worlds, roving vehicles are designed to
cope with the roughest terrain and most hostile
conditions the Solar System has to offer. The
famous Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) driven by
NASA astronauts on the later Apollo missions is
a distant cousin of the robot explorers that have
been revealing the secrets of Mars since the
late-Nineties, and may one day venture to even
more distant planets and their satellites.
Equipped with ever-more sophisticated
instruments, they offer a cheaper and safer if
less versatile alternative to human
exploration of other worlds.
While the LRV is probably the most famous
wheeled vehicle to have travelled on another
body, the true ancestors of modern robot
missions were the Soviet Lunokhod rovers.
Resembling a bathtub on wheels with a tilting
lid of solar panels, two Lunokhods operated
for several months on the Moon in the earlySeventies. Despite this success, however, it was
1997 before another rover NASAs small but
robust Sojourner, landed on the surface of Mars.
Sojourners success paved the way for the larger
and more ambitious Mars Exploration Rovers,
Spirit and Opportunity, then even more
successful Curiosity, and planned missions
such as the ESAs ExoMars rover, due in 2018.
Robotic rovers have to cope with a huge range
of challenges; millions of miles from any
human assistance, they need to tackle the
roughest terrain without breaking down or
tipping over. Designs such as the car-sized
Curiosity run on a set of robust wheels, each
with an independent drive motor and
suspension so that if one does become stuck
the others carry on working. In order to see how
their designs will manage in alien conditions,
engineers rst test them in hostile Earth
environments such as Californias Mojave

096

Desert near Death Valley. Engineering teams on

Earth even maintain a clone of their Martian
rovers so they can test difcult manoeuvres in
safe conditions on Earth prior to the real thing.
These robot explorers carry a variety of
equipment, often including weather stations,
an array of cameras, robotic arms, sampling
tools and equipment for chemical analysis.
Science teams on Earth study images of the
rovers surroundings and decide on specic
targets for study, but the rover often conducts
many of its basic operations autonomously.
What rovers lack in exibility compared to
human astronauts, they make up for in

endurance. Drawing power from solar panels or

the heat from radioactive isotopes, they can
operate for months or even years (indeed,
NASAs Opportunity rover landed in the
Meridiani Planum region in January 2004 and is
still running more than nine years later).
Properly designed, they can resist the
dangers of high-energy radiation and extreme
temperature changes and, of course, they dont
need food, drink or air to breathe. In the future,
designs for multi-legged walking rovers may
make our mechanical stand-ins even more
exible, helping to further bridge the gap
between robotic and human explorers.

DID YOU KNOW? Spirit and Opportunity owe their long lives to Martian winds blowing away dust from their solar panels

Keeping in touch with Earth

Sending commands to a rover in
space is a unique challenge. While
radio signals take little more than a
second to reach the Moon, signals can
take anything from four to 21 minutes
to reach a robot on the Red Planet.
So while the rst Soviet Moon
rovers could be remote controlled
with just a little delay, its impossible
to do the same with Martian rovers; it
would simply take too long to send
each command and assess its results.
Instead, rovers from Sojourner
through to Curiosity and beyond are
pre-programmed with a range of
functions that allow them to work
more or less independently; their

operators back on Earth select

directions of travel and rocks for
inspection, and the rover can then do
many of the tasks for itself.
The huge distance to Mars also
causes problems for the strength of
radio signals, since its impractical for
a rover to carry a directional high-gain
antenna dish and keep it locked on to
Earth. Instead, rovers use broadcast
radio antennas to send their signals to
a relay station (usually a Mars-orbiting
satellite), which then uses its dish
antenna to relay them to Earth. In case
of emergencies, however, modern
rovers are also usually capable of slow
communications directly with Earth.

097

SPACE ROBOTS

The Curiosity
rover up close

MastCam
This two-camera system
can take full-colour images
or study the surface at
specic wavelengths to
analyse its mineral makeup.

Navcams
This pair of
cameras creates
twin images to
analyse the rovers
surroundings in 3D.

NASAs Curiosity is the most sophisticated

rover so far, equipped with a variety of
instruments to study Marss surface

ChemCam
This system res pulses
from an infrared laser,
and uses a telescopic
camera to analyse the
light from vaporised rock.

UHF antenna
The rovers main antenna
sends data to Earth via
orbiting Martian space
probes, using highfrequency radio waves.

Rover Environmental
Monitoring Station
Curiositys weather station,
REMS, measures wind speed,
air pressure, temperature,
humidity and UV radiation.

Power unit
While previous rovers relied
on solar cells, Curiosity
generates electricity from
the heat released by
radioactive plutonium.

Robotic arm
Curiositys robot arm has
a reach of 2.2m (7.2ft).
Instruments and tools
are mounted on a
rotating hand at the end.

Chemical laboratory
Two automated chemical
workshops are used to process
minerals and look for organic
(carbon-based) chemicals.

Hazcams
Four pairs of cameras
produce 3D images that
help the rover avoid
obstacles automatically.

Wheel
Curiositys six wheels
each have independent
suspension and drive
motors, while separate
steering motors at the
front and rear enable the
rover to turn on the spot.

Roving
through
history
We pick out some of the
major milestones in the
development of rovers

098

1970
The Soviet Unions
Lunokhod 1 lands
on the Moon. The
rst-ever off-Earth
rover operates for
ten months.

1971
NASAs Apollo
15 mission lands the rst of
three Lunar Roving Vehicles
on the surface of the Moon.

1973

1997

2004

Lunokhod 2 lands
on the Moon,
operating for four
months but failing
when it overheated,
presumably due to
soil contamination.

NASAs Mars
Pathnder mission
carries the
Sojourner, a small
robot that becomes
the rst rover on
another planet.

NASAs Mars
Exploration
Rovers, Spirit
and Opportunity,
land on opposite sides of the planet
in the Gusev Crater and Meridiani
Planum, respectively.

DID YOU KNOW? Scientists have adapted Curiositys X-ray analysis tools to study Roman manuscripts from Herculaneum

A self-portrait of
Curiosity captured
in the Gale Crater

Mars Hand
Lens Imager

Alpha Particle X-ray

Spectrometer

The MAHLI close-up

camera studies soil
and rock on Mars in
microscopic detail.

Curiositys APXS
spectrometer analyses the
chemistry of Martian rock by
studying X-rays released
when it is bombarded with
radioactive particles.

On-board
technology
Rovers can carry a variety of different
equipment for studying the soil of other
worlds. Multispectral cameras (capable of
photographing objects through a variety of
colour lters) can reveal a surprising
amount about the mineral properties of the
rocks around them, while spectrometers
which study the light emitted when a
target object is bombarded with radiation
can serve as chemical sniffers to identify
the signatures of specic elements and
molecules that they nd.
As rovers have become even more
sophisticated, they have also improved their
sampling abilities. The compact mini-rover
Sojourner could only investigate rocks that
were exposed at the surface, while Spirit
and Opportunity were both equipped with a
rock abrasion tool (RAT) that allowed them
to expose fresh rock for study with the
instruments on their robotic arms.
Curiosity and the planned ExoMars rover,
meanwhile, are both equipped with special
drills that enable them to collect subsurface
rock samples and pass them to built-in
chemical laboratories for analysis. Time will
tell as to their success.

This sample of Martian rock drilled by

Curiosity indicated the Red Planet
could have once supported life

The SEV: rover of the future?

NASAs concept Space Exploration Vehicle is designed for space and surface missions

Suitport
Astronauts climb in and out
of spacesuits stored on the
outside of the pressurised
module, mitigating the
need for an airlock.

Sampling tools

2010
After becoming
stuck in 2009, the
Spirit rover nally loses
contact with Earth.

2011
Opportunity nds
evidence for ancient
water owing
through underground
springs in Marss
Endeavour Crater.

Pressurised module

Docking hatch

Mobility chassis

The core of the SEV can be docked

to a wheeled mobility chassis or
used as a free-ying spacecraft,
comfortably sustaining two
astronauts for a fortnight.

The SEV is designed to link

up with other modules in
order to build semipermanent bases on the
surface of another planet.

The 12-wheeled chassis

allows the SEV to remain
stable while travelling
across even the roughest
terrain of other worlds.

2012
NASAs car-sized
Curiosity rover
touches down in the
Gale Crater near the
Martian equator.

2013
Curiosity uses its drill to
sample rocks from beneath
the Martian surface for
the rst time, discovering
evidence for clays formed in
hospitable Martian water.

2018
Currently scheduled
landing of the Europeanbuilt ExoMars rover,
the rst robot explorer
specically designed to
search for signs of ancient
life on the Red Planet.

NASA; Alamy

Devices including a brush,

sieve, scoop and drill are
used to collect rock and
soil samples for analysis.

099

SPACE ROBOTS

All images courtesy of NASA

Dextre as attached to
the International
Space Station

Dextre the
space robot

Dextre being
unpacked and
readied for
launch

The robot that will x the International Space Station

n the ISS, components sometimes need repair or
must be moved for tests. Late in 2010, the Special
Purpose Dexterous Manipulator, or Dextre,
became operational after about two years of testing.
The primary reason for sending in a repair robot has to
do with saving time for astronauts, who can focus on
science experiments and because the robot is impervious
to radiation and other space hazards. Dextre also helps
reduce the risk from micrometeorites or suit failures that
astronauts are exposed to during an EVA (Extravehicular
Activity), says Daniel Rey, the manager of Systems
Denition for the Canadian Space Agency.
Dextre is an electrical robot. It has two electrically
controlled arms, each with seven degrees of movement.
Each joint is controlled by a separate computer processor
and runs a set of predetermined computer code. CPUs
control co-ordinated movements, says Rey, explaining
that the robot is mostly controlled from the ground but

100

does have some autonomous behaviour. All the joints are

rotary joints so they have to move in a co-ordinated
fashion. The 3.67-metre tall robot weighs 1,560 kilograms
and had to be orbitally assembled. The colossal bot has
four main tools it will use for repairs. Rey described the
two important characteristics of Dextre which makes it
the ultimate space repairbot.
First, Dextre uses an inverse kinematic engine to
control joint movement. The inverse is that the joints are
instructed on the nal place to move one of its repair
tools, and then must work backwards and move joints to
arrive at that position. Rey described this as similar to
instructing a human to put a hand on a doorknob, and
then knowing that you need to move an elbow, forearm,
and shoulder to that position. A second characteristic is
called forced moment sensor, which measures the forces
applied on the joints and is used for correcting inputs
from an astronaut to avoid errors and joint bindings.

The Statistics
Dextre

Height: 3.67 metres

Weight: 1,560 kilograms
Arm length (each):
3.35 metres
Handling capability:
600 kilograms
Crew: 98
Average operating power:
1,400 watts

DID YOU KNOW? The first manned mission to Mars is planned to launch as early as 2030

The Mars Hopper

The Martian vehicle that will hop, skip and jump its way around the Red Planet

nozzle. The Martian atmosphere, thick in

carbon dioxide, would provide the fuel as it is
compressed and liqueed within the Hopper.
If successful, the Hopper would allow rapid
exploration of Mars with tricky terrains like
Olympus Mons and other hills, craters and
canyons much easier to navigate. On current
vehicles such as the Exploration rovers, the
wheels have become stuck on slopes and the
sandy, rocky texture of the planets surface.
The Hopper will use magnets in its four-metre
(13-foot) leg span to allow it to leap again and

again. The magnets will create an eddy current

to produce a damping effect.
Proposed by experts from the company
Astrium and the University of Leicester, the
concept was rst designed in 2010. A slight
issue lies in the rate of CO2 gathering, with the
current system taking several weeks to
completely ll the fuel tank. However, the
vehicle will more often than not be at a
standstill as it thoroughly scours the Martian
landscape, so this should not pose an
immediate problem.

The rst-ever spacecraft to

orbit Mars, NASAs Mariner 9

Martian
exploration
programmes
The rst craft to attempt to explore Mars was
launched way back in 1960 when the USSRs 1M
spacecraft failed to leave Earths atmosphere.
After various unsuccessful launches by the USA
and the Soviet Union, NASAs Mariner 9 became
the rst craft to orbit the planet in 1971. In 1975
the Viking 1 lander was the rst to successfully
touch down on the surface. The USSR managed
to orbit Mars only weeks after the Mariner with
their Mars 2 spacecraft but have not yet landed
on the planet. The most recent lander is NASAs
Curiosity, which was launched in 2011 and is
tracking the Martian surface as we speak. The
third organisation to get in on the act was the
ESA (European Space Agency) who launched the
Mars Express and Beagle 2 Lander in 2003. The
Express has successfully orbited the planet but
unfortunately communication was lost with
Beagle 2 after its deployment. The most recent
NASA craft is MAVEN, the Mars Atmospheric and
Volatile EvolutioN, which launched in 2013 and
will enter Martian orbit this September.
Also in 2013, the Indian Space Research
Organization (ISRO) launched its Mars Orbiter
Mission (MOM) in its bid to become the fourth
space agency to reach the Red Planet.

101

NASA; ESA, Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage in cooperation with the University of Leicester

ritish scientists have designed a robot

that could roam the Red Planet by
jumping over 0.8 kilometres (half a mile)
at a time. The Mars Hopper will tackle the
rocky landscape by leaping over obstacles.
The Hopper measures 2.5 metres (8.2 feet)
across and weighs 1,000 kilograms (2,205
pounds), which is slightly more than NASAs
Curiosity rover. One hop could launch the
vehicle up to 900 metres (2,953 feet) at a time. To
achieve this, a radioactive thermal capacitor
core will provide thrust through a rocket

ExoMars
robots
The most extensive search for
life on Mars yet

ESA

SPACE ROBOTS

A Sky Crane will lower the

rovers to the surface

LANDER MODULE
Launch date: 2016

he primary goal of the ExoMars mission is to determine if life ever

existed on the Red Planet. The European Space Agency (ESA) and
NASA are working together on several robots to probe the planet
like never before, and provide unprecedented data on the history and
current composition of this fascinating world. It is hoped that the
mission will provide the basis for a Mars Sample Return mission in the
2020s, and provide data for a planned human mission in the 2030s.
The mission has been dogged by alterations and cancellations.
The rovers will both have a
ExoMars was initially intended to launch by 2012 in tandem with
complex camera array
a Russian spacecraft. Now, however, ESA has teamed with
NASA and will launch two ExoMars missions aboard two Atlas
V rockets in 2016 and 2018.
Here we look at the four machines that will travel to Mars,
what their objectives are and how they will work.
ESA

Testing for the prototype ESA

rover is already underway

ESA

THE ROVERS
Launch date: 2018

The rovers
The 2018 NASA-led mission will see two rovers, one
ESA-built and one NASA-built, work in tandem on
the surface of Mars in the same area. The rovers will
arrive nine months after their May 2018 launch date,
travelling together but separating before
atmospheric entry. The objective for both rovers is to
land in an area of high habitability potential and
search for evidence of life beneath the surface.
The aim of the ESA rover is to perform subsurface
drilling and sample collection. Ground control will
give it targets to reach based on imagery from the
on-board cameras and instruct it to travel 100m
(330ft) per sol (Martian day). Six wheels will drive the
rover in addition to adjusting its height and angle,
while gyroscopes and inclinometers will help it
traverse soft soil. Its sample device can drill to a

102

depth of 2m (6.5ft) to retrieve soil and study the

subsurface borehole. Four instruments (the Pasteur
payload), crush the soil into a powder and study its
chemical and physical composition, before data
(100Mbits per sol) is sent back to Earth via the
ESAs orbiter.
NASAs Mars Sample rover (MAX-C) is still very
much in its concept phase, yet its goal is clear:
retrieve samples of Martian soil for collection. The
mission raises the possibility that if the ExoMars
drill on the ESA rover discovers signs of biology in a
soil sample, the MAX-C rover could store the soil for
collection by the Mars Sample Return mission in the
2020s and return them to Earth.
Following meetings in April 2011, NASA and ESA
are considering combining the two rovers into one.

DID YOU KNOW? The first machine to search for life on Mars was NASAs Viking lander in 1976

Trace Gas Orbiter

TRACE GAS ORBITER
Launch date: January 2016

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) will

be transported along with the Entry,
Descent and Landing Demonstrator
Module (EDM). It is the rst mission of the
ExoMars program, scheduled to arrive at
Mars in 2016. The main purpose of this
ESA mission is to detect and study trace
gases in the Martian atmosphere such as
methane, water, nitrogen dioxide and
acetylene. By locating the source of
gaseous releases on the surface, the TGO
will determine an ideal landing site for
the EDM that will follow in 2019.

The TGO will study the

composition of Marss
atmosphere

The TGO will be 11.9 metres (39 feet)

long and use a bipropellant propulsion
system. Two 20m solar arrays will
provide 1,800 watts of power, in addition
to two modules of lithium-ion batteries for
when the orbiter is not in view of the Sun.
Together, these two power sources will
allow the orbiter to operate for six years
until 2022. Two antennas provide
communication with both Earth and the
rovers on the surface of Mars, while 125kg
of science payload will gather data from
the Martian atmosphere.

ESA

The orbiter and lander will travel

together but separate when they
reach Mars

Lander module

1. Atmosphere
The 600kg EDM will first
encounter the atmosphere of
Mars at a height of 120km (75
miles) from its surface.

One of the reasons for any mission to Mars is the search

for evidence of life, but a huge obstacle is actually landing
on the planet. Its gravity is just 38% that of Earth, and
its atmosphere is much, much thinner. With that
The eightin mind, the ESAs 2.4m (7.9ft)-wide Entry,
minute entry
Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module
(EDM) will include limited science
capabilities, instead focusing on
performing a controlled landing and
demonstrating a safe and reliable
method to do so. It is more a tech-demo
hitching a ride with the Trace Gas
Orbiter than a standalone science
station, but nonetheless it will provide
data on future Mars landings. The science
2. Heat shield
package that the EDM will deliver to the
This provides protection
surface will operate for about nine days.

3. Parachute
A 12m parachute slows it
down to about the speed
of a commercial airplane:
1,225kph (760mph).

during deceleration from

42,000 to 2,450kph
(26,640mph to 1,520mph).

7. Landing site
The module will touch
down somewhere in a
plain known as the
Meridiani Planum.

4. Release

ESA

The front heat shield is

jettisoned from the
EDM, followed by the
rear heat shield.

5. Radar
A Doppler radar altimeter
and velocimeter allows
the EDM to pinpoint its
location above the surface.

6. Booster
A liquid propulsion
system lowers the
speed of the module to
about 15kph (9mph).

103

BUILDING
ROBOTS
106 Build your rst robot
With a nifty little kit and some
beginner knowledge, youll have
your robot moving in no time

112 Raspberry Pi robots

We put a selection of the most
popular Pibots through a series of
gruelling tests

126 Make the ultimate

Raspberry Pi robot
Build on your skills and follow this
in-depth guide to building a more
advanced robot

106
Build your rst robot
112
Raspberry Pi
robots

126
Make the ultimate
Raspberry Pi robot
104

Robot building glossary

Robots are awesome, and with the Raspberry Pi, a little bit of code and a few
other electrical bits and bobs youre going to learn how to make your own.
Thanks to affordable mini-computers like the Raspberry Pi and easy-to-learn
languages like Python, everyone can have a go at building and programming
their own robot. Dont worry if youve never heard of an Arduino or GitHub,
well guide you through everything you need to know.

Arduino
An Arduino is a
microcontroller, a basic
form of computer that you
can program to read and
control connected devices,
such as a light, motor or
sensor. Inexpensive and
often used by hobbyists,
Arduinos are normally
dedicated to controlling a
single process. Several
coding languages can be
used to program it.

Breadboard
An electronic breadboard
is useful for making
temporary and
experimental circuits.
Breadboard can also
mean prototype, as you
can test new electronic
parts and circuit designs.
They house simple or
complex circuitry without
needing soldering which
makes it reusable.
Normally made of plastic,
Breadboards have
numerous pluggable
contact points.

Coding
Code provides a set of
instructions for your

computer so it knows what

you want it to do. All
software, websites, games
and apps are created with
code. Computers dont
understand English the
way you and I do, so
instead we write code in a
programming language.

Flask
Flask is a type of web
framework which means
it gives you the tools and
libraries to build a web
application such as a
website or blog. Known as
Pythons Flask
Framework, its small,
powerful and written in
the Python language.

GitHub
GitHub is like Facebook for
programmers. Its an
online code-sharing
service and the largest
online hub, or repository,
of coding projects and Gits.
A Git lets you easily
manage, view and track
changes to your source
code and is known by
programmers as a version
control system.

GND Pin
Most electronic circuits,
including the
semiconductors used to
power your computer or
mobile phone, have a
number of power-supply
pins. One of these pins is
referred to as the ground
or GND pin. It can carry a
range of voltages and
usually provides the
negative power supply to
the circuit.

GPIO
A General-Purpose Input/
Output (GPIO) is a
programmable pin on a
circuit. GPIO behaviour
can be controlled by the
user. This includes
enabling or disabling the
pin as well as conguring
it as an input or output.
Most integrated circuits,
including the Arduino and
Raspberry Pi make use of
GPIO pins.

Python
Named after Monty
Python, its a powerful
and user-friendly
programming language.
Python is popular with

programmers as it
is efcient and has
easy-to-understand
syntax (the grammar,
structure and order of the
code). Its also open-source
which means it is free for
anyone to use.

Range detector/
sensor
A range sensor lets a
device, such as a robot,
determine where objects
or obstacles are in relation
to it without coming into
physical contact. These
can include sonic (sonar)
or light-based (laser,
infra-red or visible
reected light) proximity
sensors. Range detection
is useful for navigation .

Raspberry Pi
This low-cost, credit-card
sized computer is
designed to help people of
all ages explore
computing. Its a minidesktop computer, able to
browse the internet and
even play HD video.
Running the Linux

Never picked up
a Pi before? This
is what they
look like!

operating
system, a free
alternative to Microsoft
Windows, you can use it to
learn programming
languages like Python.

Resistor
A resistor is an electrical
component that allows you
to precisely restrict or limit
the flow of current in a
circuit. They can be used to
protect components, split
voltage between different
parts of a circuit or control
a time delay by providing a
fixed or variable voltage.

Text editor
A text editor is a program
that lets you edit plain text
les. Whereas Microsoft
Word or Apple Pages use
their own special
formatting for normal
written languages, unique
programming languages
are better suited to more
exible and simple text
editors. Sublime Text is a
popular example.

105

BUILDING ROBOTS

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106

DID YOU KNOW? The US celebrates Raspberry Pi Day annually on 14 March, meaning the date code is 3.14 (the short form of pi)

BUILD YOUR FIRST

Construct your own robot
that can explore its
surroundings and avoid
obstacles. It can even be
controlled with your phone
and internet connection!
n this article we will build a Wi-Fi controlled
robot in a using the GoPiGo kit (available from
www.dexterindustries.com/gopigo). The
GoPiGo contains the components to construct
your own robot car, with a Raspberry Pi and a
few extra bits of kit. The GoPiGo works well
because it is entirely open source. This means
that if you want to know how the kit works in
more detail, you can go and read the source code
on GitHub (www.github.com/DexterInd/
GoPiGo). The schematics are also on GitHub and
can be viewed in a program such as EAGLE. You
can also add your own features to the rmware
(which is actually an Arduino sketch) because
the board can be reprogrammed directly from
the Raspberry Pi.
The rst step is to build the circuitry for the
ultrasonic range detector and connect that to the
Raspberry Pi. Then its time to assemble the
GoPiGo kit and connect the Raspberry Pi to it.
Once the circuitry is built, we will write three
Python applications. Each is designed so that it
can be used as a component in another app. In
this case, well write a module to communicate
with the range sensor and obtains the distance
to any obstacles detected by the sensor. This will
then be included in a robot application which
has the code to make the robot move around and
explore its environment, using the range sensor
to avoid obstacles. Finally, we will write a web
robot application to control the movement
module via a web interface. The robot we made
looks slightly different to the one pictured, but
the differences are only cosmetic.

Your robot will be

a piece of DIY to
be proud of 0nce
its finished

107

BUILDING ROBOTS

How the kit works

If you ignore the battery pack and a couple of
other components, the GoPiGo robot kit is
essentially an Arduino connected to a
Raspberry Pi. The Arduino communicates with
the Raspberry Pi via a protocol called IC
(Inter-Integrated Circuit), pronounced
I-squared-C. To put it simply, a pre-determined
list of commands is sent from a library stored on

the Raspberry Pi to the Arduino, which follows

these commands to put tasks into action.
The Arduino is connected to the rest of the
electronics on the board: the motor controller,
the motor encoders, some LEDs, and the battery
voltage detector. The motor controller is an
SN754410 Quadruple Half-H Driver. An H driver
is something that allows voltage to be applied

across a load (in this case a motor) in both

directions. This means that the motors can be
moved forwards or backwards depending on
the signal that you send to the controller. The
motor encoder sends a signal back to the
Arduino each time it detects the wheel has
moved, allowing the software to compensate if
one wheel is moving slower than the other.

Make your bot

bump-proof
Your robot needs a range detector circuit in order
to avoid collisions. Build this according to the
breadboard diagram shown below. The 5V and
GND (ground) supplies are on the front of the
GoPiGo. If you look at the board from the front
(caster wheel at the back, wheels closest to the
front side), youll see there are three pins for
connecting accessories. Luckily, the pin in the
middle is a 5V, and on the right is a GND pin we
will use these to attach our supplies. If you have a
multimeter, measure the voltage between those
two pins to ensure you use the right one.
The resistors in the circuit act as a voltage
divider. We need this because the Pi uses 3.3V for
its GPIO pins, but the sensor needs 5V. By creating
a voltage divider with a 1k1 resistor from the
signal, and a 2.2k1 resistor to ground, we can
reduce the 5V signal to a 3.3V signal.
A breadboard view of the Ultrasonic Range Sensor circuit

This shows the 5V and

GND pins at the front of
the GoPiGo

The GoPiGo robot kit is essentially an

Arduino connected to a Raspberry
Pi. A list of commands is sent from a
library stored on the Raspberry Pi
108

DID YOU KNOW? The Pi in the computers name refers to Python, the main programming code for the Raspberry Pi

Assemble the GoPiGo kit

Detailed instructions for assembling the GoPiGo
can be found on their website at this link:
www.dexterindustries.com/GoPiGo/1-assemblethe-gopigo/assemble-gopigo-raspberry-pi-robot

Take your
robot online
These steps assume you are starting with a
fresh Raspbian Jessie SD card. The rst thing
well do is set up a Wi-Fi connection so you
can use your robot without any cables once
its using the battery pack.
Youll need to know your Wi-Fi networks
name (the SSID), and the passphrase. Check
that you can see your Wi-Fi network in the
output of:
sudo iwlist wlan0 scan

Then edit /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_

supplicant.conf with your favourite editor,
for example:
sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.
conf

Then append the following section, lling

in the full details of your Wi-Fi network
as appropriate.

How should it look?

Your Pi will look slightly different to the one in
the pictures because we have the range sensor
connected to the GPIO pins. However, the robot
still connects to the Pi in the same place.

Assuming you used GPIOs 5 and 6 as in the

diagram on page 108, there will be two pins
between the connector on the GoPiGo board
and where your rst jumper cable is.

network={
ssid=The_ESSID_from_earlier
psk=Your_wifi_password
}

Now reset the Wi-Fi interface with: sudo

ifdown wlan0; sudo ifup wlan0. You should
now be able to nd out the Pis IP address by
running: ip -4 addr. Once you have the IP
address you can connect to the Pi using SSH
rather than needing a monitor and keyboard
connected. If you get stuck nding your
Raspberry Pi, try logging into your router and
see if its address is there. Alternatively, you
can Google nd Raspberry Pi on network
and nd several results.
Once you have found the IP address log in
via SSH using the default username of pi
and the default password of raspberry. This
process is different for each operating system,
so Google will help if you get stuck.

Power your robot with a

MicroUSB supply while
you develop it

Save your battery life

It is important to think about how you will power your robot while youre testing it, otherwise its likely you will
drain your battery pack. While you are developing your software it is much better to connect the Raspberry Pi to
power using a MicroUSB cable, and only use the batteries when you need to test the motors. The battery pack
can be switched on with the On/Off switch on the GoPiGo circuit board so you dont have to disconnect it, and it
will work even if the Raspberry Pi is connected to the MicroUSB supply. You may have to remove one of the
struts that support the canopy of the robot to connect a MicroUSB cable to the Pi.

109

BUILDING ROBOTS

Software setup Test it out!

Once you are logged into the Pi, its time to
install the GoPiGo software. Before that, well
do a general system update with:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

We then need to install Flask, which is a

Python web framework well be using later on
for the web interface:

GoPiGo have provided a handy script which lets

you test the features of the robot. Were going to
use this to check the motors are connected
correctly. You might want to prop the robot off the
ground if the GoPiGo is on your desk to avoid it
running off. Also make sure you switch the
battery pack on.
Run the software with:
python2 GoPiGo/Software/Python/basic_test_all.py

sudo pip2 install flask

Then we need to clone the software from the

GoPiGo GitHub repositry, and then use their
setup script to install the required libraries.
git clone https://github.com/DexterInd/GoPiGo.
git
cd GoPiGo/Setup
sudo ./install.sh
sudo reboot

As an optional step, you can update the

GoPiGos rmware to ensure you run the latest
version. Disconnect the motors to do this. Once
the motors are disconnected, run:
sudo bash ~/GoPiGo/Firmware/firmware_update.sh

You give commands by typing a character and

pressing enter. The keys are: w for forward, s for
backwards, a to turn the right wheel forward
(resulting in a left rotation), d to turn the left wheel
(resulting in a right rotation) and x stops the
wheels. Both wheels should turn in the same
direction when going forward. If not, then swap
the white and black wires for one of the motors
around. To ensure the orientation is correct, you
should drive the wheels forward with the caster
wheel facing backwards. If not, swap the wires on
both motors. Once you have veried the motors
are working correctly you can start writing your
own software. Use Ctrl + C to edit the script.

Range sensor software

Now its time to write the range sensor
software. It works by sending a trigger signal to
the range sensor, then timing how long the
echo pin stays high for. This lets us calculate
the distance to the object in front of the sensor.
You can write the script in any editor.
Run the script with Python 2 RangeSensor
and it will print the distance to a detected
object. It doesnt have to be totally accurate,
you just have to nd a threshold where
something is too close and use that number.

RangeSensor.py
#!/usr/bin/env python
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
class RangeSensor:
def __init__(self, triggerPin, echoPin):
self.triggerPin = triggerPin
self.echoPin = echoPin
# Set up GPIO pins
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(self.triggerPin, GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(self.echoPin, GPIO.IN)
# Wait for sensor to settle
GPIO.output(self.triggerPin, False)
def trigger(self):
# Sends trigger signal by setting pin high
and then low again
GPIO.output(self.triggerPin, True)
time.sleep(0.00001)

110

GPIO.output(self.triggerPin, False)
def readEcho(self):
# Wait for pin to go high with failsafe in
case we miss signal
startTime = time.time()
while GPIO.input(self.echoPin) == 0 and \
(time.time() - startTime < 0.1):
startTime = time.time()
# Now wait for pin to go low
endTime = time.time()
while GPIO.input(self.echoPin) == 1 and \
(time.time() - startTime < 0.1):
endTime = time.time()
duration = time.time()
return endTime - startTime
def getDistance(self):
self.trigger()
duration = self.readEcho()
# Using Speed = Distance / Time
# Speed of sound = 340 metres per second
# Sound needs to get to object and back so
170 metres per second
# Distance = 170 metres per second (aka
170000 cm per second) * Time
distance = 170000 * duration
# Round distance in CM to 2 dp
return round(distance, 2)
if __name__ == __main__:
# Small test program
rangeSensor = RangeSensor(triggerPin = 6,
echoPin = 5)
while True:
d = rangeSensor.getDistance()
print Distance is {0}cm.format(d)
time.sleep(1)

The robot is so simple that

any new Raspberry Pi
user can make it

The GoPiGo has a slight

humanoid look afforded
by its two sensor modules

DID YOU KNOW? An impressive 100,000 Raspberry Pi computers were sold on the computers launch day

Robot software
The Robot software is in two parts: a Robot
class with no web interface, and something that
puts a simple web application on top of the
robot class. As with the range sensor code, both
are fairly simple. The WebRobot needs a web
page to display to the user (called index.html). It

has buttons corresponding to an action. For

example, the stop button connects to the web
server and sends a /stop message. Upon
receiving this, the app stops the bot. Flask runs
on port 5000 by default. Here, the web interface
address was 172.17.173.53:5000.

Robot.py

WebRobot.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

#!/usr/bin/env python

from RangeSensor import RangeSensor

from gopigo import *
import random

from flask import Flask, send_from_directory

app = Flask(__name__)

class Robot:
def __init__(self):
self.rangeSensor = RangeSensor(triggerPin
= 6,
echoPin =
5)
self.rangeThreshold = 150
set_speed(100)
self.shouldExplore = True
def _explore(self):
print Going Forward
fwd()
while self.rangeSensor.getDistance() >
self.rangeThreshold:
time.sleep(0.01)
# We have found an obstable
stop()
print Found an obstacle
# Rotate a random amount in a random
direction
if random.randrange(0, 2) == 0:
print Rotating left
left_rot()
else:
print Rotating right
right_rot()
# Sleep for 1 to 5 seconds
time.sleep(random.randrange(1000, 5001) /
1000.0)
def explore(self):
self.shouldExplore = True
try:

from Robot import Robot

robot = Robot()
import thread
@app.route(/)
def index():
return send_from_directory(/home/pi/robot,
index.html)
@app.route(/stop, methods=[GET, POST])
def stop():
robot.stopExplore()
robot.stop()
return OK
@app.route(/left, methods=[GET, POST])
def left():
robot.left()
return OK
@app.route(/right, methods=[GET, POST])
def right():
robot.right()
return OK
@app.route(/forward, methods=[GET, POST])
def forward():
robot.forward()
return OK
@app.route(/explore, methods=[GET, POST])
def explore():
thread.start_new_thread(robot.explore, ())
# Thread will exit when we call /stop
return OK
if __name__ == __main__:
app.run(host=0.0.0.0)

while self.shouldExplore:
# Dont use all cpu
time.sleep(0.1)
self._explore()
except KeyboardInterrupt:
# Stop the robot before exiting
stop()
# Simple direction functions for web server
def stopExplore(self):
self.shouldExplore = False
def stop(self):
stop()
def forward(self):
fwd()
def left(self):
left_rot()
def right(self):
right_rot()
if __name__ == __main__:
r = Robot()
r.explore()

111

BUILDING ROBOTS

RASPBERRY PI

ROBOTS
Discover the best robotics kits around and learn to program them
with your Raspberry Pi or Arduino

he rise of our robot overlords is well underway

give it another ve years and well all be
watched over by Pi-powered machines of loving
grace. In the meantime, though, weve rounded up the
very best DIY robotics kits available to buy right now
that are designed to work with your Raspberry Pi, so
you can get a head start on the inevitable revolution
(and befriend the bots before they become our
overlords). Whether they are Arduino or Raspberry
Pi-based, were getting all of our robots to listen to our
master Pi controller and were going to show you how
to do the same with your kit.
Well also be scoring these robotics kits to identify
their strengths and weaknesses in terms of their build
quality, functionality out of the box, the construction
process and of course their programmability, to help
show you which kit is right for you and where you can
get hold of your own.
And what then? Well, we thought wed put our
robots to the test with a series of gruelling challenges.
Not content to stop there, though, we also reveal how

to get one of your robots to play a mighty ne round of

golf (for an automaton, at least we doubt Rory McIlroy
will be quaking in his golf shoes) and another two to
battle each other (sumo style).
So its time to introduce you to our hand-picked
team of robots some of whom you might recognise
from the book so far.
Over the next few pages youll meet Rapiro, our most
humanoid robot (who you can see in all his glory on
the right) and our good friend from pp. 106-111, GoPiGo
plus the similar bot Pi2Go, both being nippy little
two-wheel tricars with ball-bearing casters for
stability. Youll also meet Frindo, the sensor-loaded,
open source mobile robotics platform; Rover 5, the
rugged two-track tank with a Seeeduino brain and an
inexorable top speed of 1km/s; and Hexy, the sixlegged, crab-walking, Thriller-dancing (bit.ly/1lj2CqR)
force of robotic nature.
So grab your pocket computer of choice and get
ready to advance the eld of robotics in your own
home, with these little mechanical critters.

Pi2Go

Rover 5

112

Frindo

Hexy the Hexapod

GoPiGo

Rapiro

113

BUILDING ROBOTS

Rover 5 Seeeduino
A relative monstrosity, the Seeeduino is fully kitted out and makes a great gift

TECH SPECS
Manufacturer
Dawn Robotics

Height
170 mm

Width and depth

225 x 235 mm

Weight
1.05 kg

Power
9 volts from 6 AA batteries

Control board
Seeeduino Arduino (ATmega 328P)

Form of locomotion
Two treads powered by four motors

Sensors
Ultrasonic and four corner-mounted
infrared sensors

awn Robotics are not new to the robot-making

market, and have produced a slew of innovative
Pi robots including a chassis with a camera and
the Rover 5 is sort of a successor to that kit. The Rover 5 is
a lot larger and generally has a few more functions than
that particular Raspberry Pi robot. Said Raspberry Pi is
not needed for the Rover 5 as it is fully powered by the
Seeeduino, another ATmega 328P.
Construction is not the easiest and requires an extra
hand at times. Theres no soldering involved but there

are an enormous amount of wires that connect up the

board. Couple this with some extremely ddly nuts
and bolts, a manual that is sometimes a bit unhelpful,
the odd cheap screw and you get a few problems that
take a bit of lateral thinking in order to nd a solution.
The whole kit is a mixture of different components
manufactured separately, which explains some of the
discrepancies in the screws and how cobbled together
the entire thing actually is.
The big board sits on top of the Rover 5 and is quite
well suited for the kit, but it does contribute to the DIY,
mashed-together look of the Rover 5 with all the wires
ying around.
Programming it is slightly harder than other robots
due to using pure Arduino rather than having serial
commands or Python functions. You'll need to get right
into the code to start programming, however there are
some preset tutorial scripts that give pointers on how to
create your own code. With the sensors on each corner
of the Rover 5, the board and robot can react to almost
any obstacle thanks to their coverage, not to mention the
ultrasonic sensor also attached to it.

Website
www.dawnrobotics.co.uk

LEFT The main control board connects to the rest of the robot
and is easily accessible to add more components

114

Code listing
const int NUM_IR_SENSORS = 4;
const int IR_LED_PINS[ NUM_IR_SENSORS ] = { A0, A0, A1, A1 };
const int IR_SENSOR_PINS[ NUM_IR_SENSORS ] = { A3, A2, A4, A5 };

{
enterTurningLeftState();
}
}

bit.ly/1uQzsNa

...
break;
float ultrasonicRange = gUltrasonicSensor.measureRange();
gRoverIRSensors.takeReadings();
int frontLeftIR = gRoverIRSensors.lastFrontLeftReading();
int frontRightIR = gRoverIRSensors.lastFrontRightReading();
int rearLeftIR = gRoverIRSensors.lastRearLeftReading();
int rearRightIR = gRoverIRSensors.lastRearRightReading();
...
case eRS_DrivingForwardsLookingForWall:
{
// Check to see if weve hit an obstacle we didnt see
if ( gLeftMotor.isStalled()
|| gRightMotor.isStalled() )
{
enterBackingUpState();
}
else
{
// Check to see if weve found a wall
if ( ultrasonicRange <= CLOSE_ULTRASONIC_RANGE
|| frontLeftIR >= CLOSE_RANGE_IR_VALUE
|| frontRightIR >= CLOSE_RANGE_IR_VALUE )

Get
the code

}
...
void enterFollowingWallOnRightState()
{
// Point the ultrasonic sensor to the right
gPanAngle = LOOK_RIGHT_PAN_ANGLE;
gTiltAngle = LOOK_RIGHT_TILT_ANGLE;
gPanServo.write( gPanAngle );
gTiltServo.write( gTiltAngle );
gLeftMotor.clearStall();
gRightMotor.clearStall();
gLeftMotor.setTargetRPM( BASE_WALL_FOLLOWING_RPM );
gRightMotor.setTargetRPM( BASE_WALL_FOLLOWING_RPM );
gStateStartEncoderTicks = gLeftMotor.getLastMeasuredEncoderTicks();
gStateStartTimeMS = millis();
gRobotState = eRS_FollowingWallOnRight;
}

First motor test

No tires or drill instructors, but the robot
still needs to navigate a maze of challenges
Kept top secret by the Pi Wars
organisers, at the time of writing we
can only guess at what kind of robotdestroying tasks are planned. The
challenge they have set is for remotecontrolled bots, but were going to
change the rules slightly and rely a bit
more on automation. In our scenario,
were using a walled maze that runs
a specific yet random course that the
robot needs to navigate without any
kind of lines to guide a robot with line
sensors. Its a little more tailored to the
Rover 5s capabilites, but how so?
In this challenge, the Rover 5 is
perfectly equipped to handle pretty
much any course we can throw at
it. Thanks to its array of proximity
sensors, it will know if theres a wall
in the way around its body. We
can also use the ultrasonic
sensor to figure out its
distance from the wall and
the way that the wall will
change as you travel along
the course.

Theres some great code for the Rover

5 that allows you to follow a wall along
the right of the robot. You can grab
it here with the URL bit.ly/1vp2LLZ.
Upload it via Arduino; its a bit of a
long task, but we will help you out by
explaining some parts of it here. Firstly,
there are a lot of setup integers created
to begin with. These include defining
minimums for speed, wall proximity
and defining the sensors in general.
Next, we have a small part of the
sensing code. All the readings are taken
and turned into useful data for the
rest of the code in this case, integers.
After that, we have one of the various
movement sections. This is used to just
move forward, looking to see where an
obstacle/wall will be and beginning
the chain of events that occurs after
noticing or bumping into a wall. This
will include backing up, turning left
and turning right.
Finally, the code ensures that the
sensor keeps an eye on the wall as it
runs along it to make sure its still there.

The Rover 5 is perfectly

equipped to handle any course

VERDICT
Assembly
Build quality
Programmability
Functionality

ABOVE The ultrasonic sensors enable the Rover

5 to sense distance to avoid collisions

115

BUILDING ROBOTS

Pi2Go Lite
One of the smallest robots, yet the Pi2Go has a few tricks

TECH SPECS
Manufacturer
4tronix

Height
90 mm

Width and depth

130 x 145 mm

Weight
0.40 kg

Power
9 volts from 6 AA batteries

Control board
Raspberry Pi

Form of locomotion
Two-wheel drive

Sensors
Ultrasonic sensor, two line sensors
and two IR obstacle sensors

Website
www.pi2go.co.uk

116

he Pi2Go Lite is a very interesting little bit of kit.

Coming in a tiny little box and utilising no chassis,
in favour of construction via its PCBs, youd think it
would be a super simple robot that follows commands and
doesnt really react much to the environment. It makes it
sound like a remote control novelty more than anything
else. That couldnt be further than the truth, as the Pi2Go is
probably the most featureful robot we tested.
All this functionality comes at a price though, as its
the only robot that requires a lot of soldering and pre-

preparation before construction. Youll need to be a bit

handy with a soldering iron to do it, although you dont
need to strip any wires and such. There are about 50
components to fit, possibly more, and it can be a little timeconsuming. The instructions are not extremely helpful,
but the individual components are actually listed on the
PCB as a rough guide to where things should be fitted. Once
the soldering is done though, you just need to put the few
parts together to complete it. The website lists a 90 minute
construction time, but we found it took somewhat longer it
was no longer than any of the bigger or more complicated
robots on the other pages though.
Its a sturdy, compact little thing and its powered
purely by the Raspberry Pi via a custom Python library.
Sensing, turning on the LEDs, activating the motors and
other physical functions have their own corresponding
Python function. It lets you create scripts that can make it
fully autonomous, as long as the autonomy only requires
distance, line and proximity sensing to operate. At least
it can take extra timed or web information from the
Raspberry Pi if thats set up correctly.
For the price, functionality and relative ease of
programming, its a fantastic piece of kit thats great for
getting into starter-level robotics and slightly beyond. Some
soldering skills required though.

VERDICT
Assembly
Build quality
Programmability
Functionality

Line following is very

easy: you put a line
on the floor and you
expect the robot
to follow it
ABOVE The PCB makes up the
bulk of the chassis with the
components fully visible

Code listing

Line following

import time, pi2go

Follow the black painted line, although you

may not nd a wizard at the end of it
Line following is very easy: you put a line on
the oor and you expect the robot to follow
it. This includes turning as well, following
a course accurately to its destination or to
accumulate laps. The Pi2Go Lite is the only robot
were looking at that comes equipped with
line-following sensors, although it is the main
unique feature. Sounds like it should be quite
simple then, however theres no line-following
function in the Python script so we need to
build a script for it.
As we said, the solution involves the linefollowing sensors these are IR sensors located
on the underside of the smaller PCB where the
caster sits. Well assume weve placed the Pi2Go
down on the line and you want to go straight
forward along it. One of the problems were
going to run into is that the motors will likely

not run at the exact same speed with a bit of

trial and error you can maybe x this in the rst
forward command, but for now well keep it at
50, which is 50 per cent of its full speed. You can
tweak this to be faster or slower as you see t.
The loop is quite simple: it sees if any of the
line sensors are activated. As were assuming
that the line is under the caster wheel, well
need to correct course in a specic direction for
each true statement.
You can set the individual speed of the
motors (left and then right in the turnForward
function), and then we have it pause a bit before
returning to full speed.
The code ends when you stop it and cleans up
the GPIO port settings before exiting. The code
requires the pi2go Python les, which you can
grab here: http://4tronix.co.uk/blog/?p=475.

pi2go.init()
pi2go.forward(50)

Get
the code
bit.ly/1z1REHW

try:
while True:
if pi2go.irLeftLine() = True:
pi2go.turnForward(45, 50)
time.sleep(2)
pi2go.forward(50)
elif pi2go.irRightLine() = True:
pi2go.turnForward(50, 45)
time.sleep(2)
pi2go.forward(50)
else:
time.sleep(0.5)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
print
finally:
pi2go.cleanup()

117

BUILDING ROBOTS

Hexy the Hexapod

The Kickstarter success story with six legs,
19 servos and some mad dance moves

TECH SPECS
Manufacturer
ArcBotics

Height
100-140 mm

e were really impressed by this all-in-one

kit that lives up to its Kickstarter promise
of being easy to assemble for people of any
skill level, including absolute beginners. Everything
is neatly packaged in the box and theres even a tiny
screwdriver meaning you dont need any other tools
(though to be fair, those servo horns ended up breaking
ours, but more on that later).

Width and depth

300-400 x 200mm approx
(depending on stance)

Weight
0.90 kg

Power
6 or 7.5 volts from 4 or 5 AA
batteries

Control board
Arduino

Form of locomotion
Legs x6

Sensors
Ultrasonic sensor

Website
www.arcbotics.com

ABOVE The bluetooth sensor on the Hexy

provides an easy way to connect wirelessly

Next step
The step-and-turn code on the next page can
be adapted into a full-on catwalk routine, with
tilts, leans, belly ops, audience-pointing and
even a dance routine, should you wish to go all
out. Just grab the PoMoCo source code (bit.
ly/1ykuLQF) and work those Python chunks
into your main script wherever you like.

118

For the most part the instructions are excellent

but there were a couple of occasions where a slight
lack of clarity meant that we just followed the images
instead, though they were generally spot-on and very
useful. You can really see the thought thats gone into
it, from the strong and lightweight plastic material to
their razor-sharp design. The wiring instructions are
perfect and the software tutorials are really useful
you can get an Arduino IDE set up and also dive straight
into PoMoCo, ArcBotics position and motor controller
software thats already preloaded with actions
(including dance moves) for you to play with.
Theres only one real criticism of this kit the
screws are all wrong. There is a big bag of various size
screws provided but you dont even use a quarter of
them, instead being forced to open each individually
packaged servo and borrow the medium screws from
them instead because the small holes on the servo
horns are far too tiny for the recommended medium
screws. The slightly smaller ones from the servo packs
t, so we used those, but you still have to widen
those pinholes with brute force. It brings the
otherwise speedy build process to a total
halt, but all in all, we have to say that
Hexy is absolutely worth the trouble.

Code listing
deg = 25
midFloor = 30
hipSwing = 25
pause = 0.5
rotate_deg = 180
rotate_step = 30
steps = 0
rotations = 0

hexy.RM.replantFoot(hipSwing,stepTime=0.5)
hexy.LB.replantFoot(-deg-hipSwing,stepTime=0.5)
...
else:

...
While True:
if steps != 10:
# replant tripod2 forward while tripod1
# move behind
# relpant tripod 2 forward
hexy.LF.replantFoot(deg-hipSwing,stepTime=0.5)

# set neck to where body is turning

hexy.neck.set(rotate_step)
# re-plant tripod1 deg degrees forward
for leg in hexy.tripod1:
leg.replantFoot(rotate_step,stepTime=0.2)
time.sleep(0.5)
# raise tripod2 feet in place as tripod1
# rotate and neck
for leg in hexy.tripod2:
leg.setFootY(int(floor/2.0))
time.sleep(0.3)

Get
the code
bit.ly/129HXMK

Three-point turn
Our robots can go in reverse, but how
easily can they do a 180 turn?
This is usually a tricky challenge
for robots, especially if it has to be
done autonomously like in Pi Wars.
The challenge requires the robot to
walk out of a designated area and
travel just over two metres before
it performs a three-point turn in
an area that is only 750mm deep.
Once it has completed this complex
manoeuvre, it must then return to
the starting area. To do this in the
classic way, youd need to know the
speed and distance at which
your robot travels

with extreme accuracy to make the

180 degree turn easier.
The Hexy has an advantage in
that it can literally spin around on
the spot, or at least shufe its way
around. Theres even example code
to make it turn. All you need it to do
is walk to the desired location, turn
around and walk back. To do this
we made a very simple script where
the Hexy walks a few steps forward
before it attempts a full 180 degree
turn and then does the same number
of steps back to its starting position.
Well go over some parts of it here but
you can grab the full thing through
the link we have included next to the
code listing above.
First we must dene a few basic
parameters such as the way in which
the Hexy will walk and some of its
speed parameters. Weve also got a
rotation parameter which we have
set to 180, but you may need to tweak
it for your own Hexy. Theres also the
steps variable created just to make
the code slightly easier.
Next we create a loop where for
the rst and last ten steps, the legs
are articulated in order to make the
Hexy move forward. This is a quarter
of the walk forward section of the
code, and once all parts have been
completed we increase the step
value by one.
When it has reached ten steps, we
do a load of code like in the last part
to perform a full 180 degree turn,
and then it does ten steps back with
another if statement stopping the
loop when a further 20 steps have
been made.

VERDICT
ABOVE There are three parts to
each leg and each part contains
one servo. This articulation could
potentially enable Hexy to climb
over medium-sized objects
and obstacles

The Hexy has an

advantage in that it
can spin on the spot

Assembly
Build quality
Programmability
Functionality

119

BUILDING ROBOTS

Frindo
The puck robot with a low prole and plenty of front-facing sensors

TECH SPECS
Manufacturer
Frindo

Height
85 mm

Width and depth

160 mm diameter

Weight
0.55 kg

Power
9 volts from 6 AA batteries

Control board
Arduino and/or Raspberry Pi

Form of locomotion
Wheels

Sensors
Four infrared proximity sensors

Website
www.robotbits.com

120

he Frindo is sold more as a robotics platform than an

actual all-inclusive robot on its own, but that doesnt
mean its a very basic base to be built upon. Out of
the box you can do a fair bit with it, while its still extremely
easy to build upon thanks to its support of standard
Arduino and Raspberry Pi boards.
Construction is very straightforward and quick,
although you will have to solder on wires to the motor
during the construction. This is the only soldering that
needs to be done on the Frindo though and its very basic
stuff. However, it is an extra step on top of everything else

that not everyone may be equipped for. Still, the actual

chassis construction and fitting of the motors and boards
and wheels is done with very few components and can be
completed quite quickly.
Once its done you have a few options to upgrade. Firstly,
you can add a Raspberry Pi to the system either with or
without the supplied Arduino. This can be mounted on
the opposite side of the board using holes specifically cut
out for the original Model B (though unfortunately not the
B+). Theres also room for four more proximity sensors as
standard, attachable in the spaces between the back and
front sensors to create complete 360 degree coverage. The
Uno and Pi can take a lot more inputs and outputs as well,
so adding custom components is pretty easy.
Due to the dual controller support, the Frindo can be
programmed in both Python and the Arduino IDE. Arduino
uses the standard libraries and commands, making it great
for those already up-to-speed with Arduino programming.
The Python program uses the serial library, which uses
terminology similar to Arduino, and theres a good, basic
example on the website that can help you understand exactly
how the sensors and motors can be operated in this fashion.
The Frindo is the most accessible robot we have here.
Very simple yet very good, and excellent to learn with
plenty of robotic applications.

Get
the code

Code listing
int frontTrigger = 200;
int sideTrigger = 100;
int rearTrigger = 100;

bit.ly/121Xa38

...
int front_bump() {
bump = analogRead(FrontBump);
if(bump > frontTrigger){
return 1;
}
else {
return 0;
}
}

if(!left_bump() && !right_bump()) {

Serial.println(NO bump detected - move forward);
rs.forward(500, 200);
// move forward for 500 mS at speed 200
// (200/255ths of full speed)
}
else if(left_bump() && !right_bump()) {
Serial.println(LEFT bump detected - wrong angle);
rs.rot_ccw(100, 200);
// turn right for 100 mS at speed 200
// (200/255ths of full speed)
}

...

else if(!left_bump() && right_bump()) {

Serial.println(RIGHT bump detected - wrong angle);
rs.rot_cw(100, 200);
// turn left for 100 mS at speed 200
// (200/255ths of full speed)
}

void loop() {
Serial.println(Here we go...);
while(!front_bump()){
// while there is no bump keep going forward

Proximity
sensor

// (about 10cm with GPD120)

BELOW The Robot Shield has been donated to the Frindo

project as an open-source version

How close do you

dare to go to the
wall at the end of
the course?
This challenge is somewhat simple:
drive right up to a wooden wall and
stop before hitting it. The closer you
are before coming to a stop, the more
points you get. No touching of the wall
is allowed. Should be easy with all
those proximity sensors, right? Well
its not as easy as you would think, as
the proximity sensor is not analogue.
Surely there must be a way around this
problem though?
The Frindos sensors have some
form of distance sensing on them,
although its by no means perfect. The
other thing youd have to calibrate for is
program speed and stopping distance
and thats assuming youre heading
straight on to begin with. The motors
on the Frindo are unlikely to be in full
sync, making it likely that youll be
heaving at a slight angle
That helps us in multiple ways as
the Frindo has three sensors on the
front, and we can use the left and right
sensors to detect the extremes of the
wall and turn the Frindo itself to get the
perfect stop.
In the code snippets above, you
can see that we first define what
constitutes the Frindo stopping this

VERDICT
Assembly
can be modified with trial and error
to get a more accurate reading for your
situation. The numbers themselves do
not correspond to a distance value.
Next is one of the parts where we
define how we look at the readings from
the sensors so that they can be used in
the final part. This rotates the Frindo as
it finds any obstacles in its path. The full
code for this script can be downloaded
using the link above.

The Frindos
sensors have some
form of distance
sensing on them

Build quality
Programmability
Functionality

121

BUILDING ROBOTS

Rapiro
It stood up! The bipedal,
humanoid, glowing-eyed,
Arduino and Pi-powered
robot straight out of Japan

TECH SPECS
Manufacturer
Kiluck

Height
257 mm

Width and depth

196 x 159 mm

Weight
1.00 kg

Power
7.5 volts from 5 AA rechargeable
batteries

Control board
Custom Arduino (ATmega 328P)
with optional Raspberry Pi

Form of locomotion
Bipedal walking

Sensors
Support for Pi camera

Website
www.rapiro.comcom

122

he Rapiro is very unique on this list, even

when compared to something like the
Hexy. We were actually discussing in the
ofce the difference in its design: Rapiro looks
like a proper robot with its vacuum-formed shell,
which in a way puts form over function. Not that
it lacks function, but its clear its creator Shota
Ishiwatari tted the motors around a design
idea rather than design around the functions.
Its a bit life-imitating-art, with Rapiros design
referencing robots in Japanese media compared
to the hyperfunctional American and British
robots with their ultrasonic sensors, line sensors
and better stability that are more in line with
some Hollywood lms out there.

should be made, while the mount points are

pretty obvious while constructing the head.
Programming the motors and servos are quite
easy, with a number of preset serial commands
enabling you to create custom scripts for the
Rapiro to move or react a certain way to different
inputs. This kind of autonomy can be achieved
by using the Raspberry Pi and its camera to
detect motion or specic objects, or respond to
commands sent wirelessly to the board.
Its not the most sophisticated robot on this test,
however theres nothing else that can properly
walk on two legs either, or grip things. Its unique
and useful for different tasks in comparison to the
wheeled robots in our selection.

Construction of Rapiro is quite simple; you

attach the myriad motors to different parts
as you assemble the shell around them and
thread the wires into his chest cavity where
the Arduino lives. Its not really that ddly, and
theres no soldering or wiring involved. All the
motors just plug right into the board using the
straightforward labelling youre asked to do in the
manual early on.
While the assembly manual is not written
by a native English speaker, the repetition and
illustrations are generally easy enough to follow
along to. Connecting a Raspberry Pi is not covered
in the manual, but the Wiki shows where the
connections between the Arduino and the Pi

BELOWYou can pull

off some surprisingly
delicate manoeuvres

Robot golf

VERDICT

Its a dog-leg par-four and

Rapiros taking a swing at it

Assembly

Its actually more of a putting challenge,

with the robot tasked to manoeuvre a
small ball across a defined space into a
goal. The goal is of mouse-hole design,
meaning it just needs to be pushed in.
While this challenge was envisioned
with wheeled robots in mind, we
decided we could take it a step further
and have the Rapiro knock the ball into
the hole with some well-placed swings
of a tiny and light gold club. Time is the
measure of success, so how would the
Rapiro best complete the challenge?
While the Rapiro has superb
articulation, it doesnt really have the
ability to adopt a traditional golfer
stance. Its arms cant cross and it doesnt
really bend down. So what we plan to
have it to do is hold a golf club and twist
its body to hit the ball very simple,
yet effective. Not particularly accurate
though, but one step at a time.

Youll see an excerpt of the Arduino

script were using to control the Rapiro,
using the test script you can grab. It
allows you to set eight movements for
the Rapiro to make this includes the
angle of the 12 servos listed in a specific
order, the three RGB values of the light
and the time the action takes.
In our code, the Rapiros eyes turn
purple (with the mixture of 100 red and
150 blue) and it raises its arm quickly.
We have two of the same pieces of code
both taking 1 unit of time for this to
occur. After that it opens its hand and
changes colour to green, allowing you
to put a golf club in its hand. It then
grips it, turning its eyes yellow to let
you know its getting ready to swing.
Finally, it twists its waist to swing the
club. Get the full code through the link
to the right, but you may have to tweak
it to work with your Rapiro.

Build quality
Programmability

Get
the code

Functionality

bit.ly/1z1REHW

Code listing
{ // 10 Golf
{ 90, 90, 90,130,
{ 90, 90, 90,130,
{ 90, 90, 90,130,
{ 90, 90, 90,130,
{ 90, 90, 90,130,
{ 90,180, 90,130,
{ 90,180, 90,130,
{ 90,180, 90,130,
}

90,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90,100, 0,150, 1},

90,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90,100, 0,150, 1},
90,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90, 0,255, 0, 40},
0,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90,255,255, 0, 10},
0,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90,255,255, 0, 20},
0,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90,100, 0,150, 1},
0,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90,100, 0,150, 1},
0,180, 50, 90, 90, 90, 90, 90,100, 0,150,100}

123

BUILDING ROBOTS

GoPiGo
The simple and straightforward Pi project robot with WASD control

TECH SPECS
Manufacturer
Kiluck

Height
257 mm

Width and depth

196 x 159 mm

Weight
1.00 kg

Power
7.5 volts from 5 AA rechargeable
batteries

oPiGo is one of the simplest kits in the array were

testing here simple in a good way though, with none
of the negative connotations. The promised 20-minute
build time is no exaggeration and we were up and running
with this robot in no time at all. With no soldering required
either then this really is an ideal gift for anyone interested
in putting their first bot together. Given the sub-$100 (63.80)
price point it also makes an excellent base upon which to
build more advanced projects, with plenty of room around
the Pi and controller board within the open-sided shield for
your own sensors and augmentations.
Straight out of the box, GoPiGo will work with Dexter
Industries firmware to give you WASD control of the twowheel robot (the ball bearing caster at the rear making
this a tricar of sorts), though nothing else beyond basic

speed control. Being a Rasperry Pi-based project though,

developing more advanced motion scripts and control
for things like the optional ultrasonic sensor and camera
module is a straightforward task.
There is one criticism to make, however: it seems theres a
flaw with the design in that we found it impossible to connect
the wheels properly. The wheels themselves simply slip onto
the end of the axles, and can very easily be popped off with
a quick knock. The short axle length and nuts that graze the
inner tyre wheels mean that its difficult to actually push the
wheels far enough onto the axles to give you the confidence
that itll all hold together while driving.
But that aside, and given the otherwise sterling quality of
the GoPiGo robot, we still feel that this is definitely one of our
favourite kits.

Control board
Custom Arduino (ATmega 328P)
with optional Raspberry Pi

Form of locomotion
Bipedal walking

Sensors
Support for Pi camera

Website
www.rapiro.comcom

We were up and
running with this
robot in no time
and no soldering

Sumo battle
Our gentle robots of strength tested their torque in the ne tradition of
sumo wrestling. The rules were simple, though slightly different to those
of the more well-known Homo sapiens variant of this popular robosport.
Matches could not be won by forcing the opposing automaton to touch
the ground with any part of their body other than the soles of their feet
largely because this would be impossible in most cases but were
instead focused on forcing them out of the dohyo (our tape-marked
robot arena). Its a test of pure power, with each combatant driving forth
and attempting to push back the other.

VERDICT
Assembly
Build quality
Programmability
Functionality

124

Scores explained
Heres a breakdown of our verdicts on these robots qualities and capabilities

Rover5

Rapiro

Assembly
A little tricky in practise but still quite solid. 3/5

Build quality
Generally fine but some of the screws are
a little cheap. 4/5

Programmability
For those without Arduino experience it
can be a little confusing. 3/5

Functionality
Great traction, great control and aware
of its surroundings. 5/5

Hexy the Hexapod

Assembly

Assembly

Fairly straightforward, but the wide array

of screws doesnt help. 3/5

Time-consuming but not fiddly due to its size. 4/5

Build quality

Build quality

Its very sturdy with a low centre of gravity. 5/5

Generally quite solid, but not consistent

due to the screws. 4/5

Programmability

Programmability
PoMoCo gives full control over Hexy using visual aids and sliders. 5/5

Functionality

Functionality
Movement capabilities are incredible enough, but it does more. 5/5

Pi2Go

Very simplistic Arduino commands are

available. 3/5

Rapiro can move by your commands and thats

about it. 2/5

GoPiGo
Assembly
Simple and quick construction takes less than
half an hour. 5/5

Build quality
Generally okay, but the wheels have a problem
staying on. 3/5

Programmability
Assembly
Soldering the kit together is time-consuming and
not easy. 3/5

Build quality

Can use simple terminal commands and be

fully programmed. 3/5

Functionality
GoPiGo can move on its wheels, but it has no
sensors built-in. 1/5

Frindo
Assembly
Simple and quick; the basic chassis is easily
constructed. 4/5

Build quality

Its stable, but the chassis is its circuit boards. 3/5

Very sturdy due to its shape and all components

are protected. 4/5

Programmability

Programmability

A custom Python library makes it fairly easy to

program. 4/5

If Arduino isnt your thing, you can always code it

in Python. 4/5

Functionality

Functionality

For its size and price it has an absurd amount of

features. 5/5

The Frindo comes with three sensors but can be

upgraded. 4/5

125

BUILDING ROBOTS

MAKE THE

Say hello to the 150 Linux-powered robot anyone can make

heres never been a more exciting time to be

into robotics. Until more recently even
building the most basic robot that moves,
senses its environment and reacts to external
stimuli cost thousands of pounds construct.
Thanks to devices like the Raspberry Pi, though, it
can be done at a mere fraction of that price today. In
fact, assuming youve already got a Raspberry Pi
and have dabbled in electronics in the past, its
unlikely youll need to spend more than 100 to put
our project robot together. Over the course of the
feature well be exploring aspects of electronics,
programming and basic articial intelligence. You
dont need to have any experience in any of these
fascinating elds, but we do hope youll be
inspired to learn. Well be making the initial robot,
and will then go on to give him new skills and
abilities, but you dont need to spend a fortune on
sensors and actuators to do real computer
science. Just by following our progress over
the next pages, the door to exciting elds
like navigation, maze solving and articial
intelligence will already be rmly open to
you and your amazing robot creation.

CAUTION
While weve carefully constructed
this feature with safety in mind,
accidents can happen. Imagine
Publishing cannot be held responsible
for damage caused to Raspberry Pis
and associated hardware by following
this feature.

126

SPAGHETTI JUNCTION
It might look like a terrible
tangle of wires now, but by
adding motors and sensors
gradually and testing and
checking as you go, it will
soon make perfect sense

ALL ABOARD
The chassis, motors and
wheels are a popular choice
thanks to their affordability.
As you can see, theres even
room for a USB battery pack
for the Raspberry Pi

PLEASED TO SEE YOU

While this affordable
ultrasonic sensor cant really
make our robot see, he will be
able to employ echo-location
like a bat or dolphin

A TOUCHING MOMENT
The rst sensors well work
with are these microswitches
or touch sensors. These will
enable our robot to react to its
environment should it bump
into anything

127

BUILDING ROBOTS

EVERYTHING YOULL NEED

Get off on the right foot with the right tools, parts and know-how
With our help youll nd that building a robot
with a Raspberry Pi isnt as hard or expensive
as you might think. Since there are a number of
technical challenges to overcome, youll need a
good selection of electronic prototyping bits
and bobs, specialist chips and a few tools to
help along the way.
Weve laid out many of the core components
weve used to make our Raspberry Pi robot

below. Dont feel limited to our choices, though.

As youll quickly learn as we make our way
through this ambitious project, you can apply
the core skills (and even code) needed to access
and control the technology to just about any
digital or analogue sensors.
Make sure you have a decent small-headed
Phillips screwdriver, some decent wire cutters
and a soldering iron to hand. While there is

MODMYPI
www.modmypi.com
We relied heavily on Modmypis extensive range
of hacking and prototyping bits and bobs like
breadboards, resistor kits and jumper wires

PIMORONI
shop.pimoroni.com
If youre looking for the best cases, cables and
accessories, Pimoroni is essential and they
have a great range of sensors too

very little soldering involved in the initial

build, many of the sensors and actuators youll
need later on will depend on them.
If youre looking for the right kit, with the
best service at the most competitive prices, you
could spend weeks canvassing companies or
reading online reviews. Or, you could simply
rely on the suppliers we used to put our
kit together

DAWN ROBOTICS
www.dawnrobotics.co.uk
Dawn Robotics Alan Braun knows robots. Thats why
we relied on his services for the Magician chassis and
the ultrasonic sensor among other things

CPC
cpc.farnell.com
We got our Raspberry Pi, microswitches and some
of our tools from CPC. They have a mind-boggling
range and the buying power to offer brilliant prices

MAKE AND RUN PYTHON CODE

You can use whatever development
environment youre most comfortable with to
write your Python code, be that IDLE, Geany or
anything else. That said, theres a lot to be said
for simply opening LeafPad, typing some code

128

and saving it as a .py le. Its quicker, more

convenient and if youll learning to code, youll
thank us later.
When it comes to running your scripts or our
examples, you need to use elevated privileges

or your code cant interact with the GPIO pins.

This being the case, simply navigate to your le
in the terminal and type:
sudo python file.py (where le is the name of
your code document).

EASY ACCESS
WITH SSH
For the ultimate Raspberry Pi robot coding experience we
highly recommend kitting out your Pi with a Wi-Fi dongle
and SSHing into your Pi from a separate Linux computer. All
it requires is that you know the IP address of your Raspberry
Pi. You can nd it simply by opening a terminal (once you are
connected via Wi-Fi) and typing: ifconfig
Look for the output that relates to Wi-Fi and make a note of
the IP address number. Now open a terminal window on
your other computer and type ssh [email protected]
using the IP address you wrote down a moment ago. If
youve changed the default name from pi, dont forget to
update that too.
Once youve input your Pis password (the default is
raspberry) youll be connected to your Pi. From here you
can navigate to your Python scripts and execute them the
usual way. You can even type: nano file.py
to edit your les before running using nano.

Usually there are two options

when youre demonstrating
electronics complex circuit
diagrams or hard-to-read
breadboard photography. Luckily
for us theres a third option,
which combines the best of both
worlds: Fritzing.
Fritzing is an open source project
designed to support anyone who works
with electronics. The tool allows you to pick components
and using a drag-and-drop interface simply place them
on a document and then output it as an image. Hopefully
youll have as much fun using Fritzing with your projects as
we did with this one! www.fritzing.org

WORKING WITH
THE GPIO PORT
Get to know the GPIO pins on your Raspberry
Pi you wont get far without them
The general-purpose
input/output (GPIO) pins
on your Raspberry Pi are
central to the success of a
project such as this.
Without them we have no
way of interfacing with our
motors, sensors
or actuators.
As youll soon see, with
the help of the Raspberry
Pi GPIO Python library its
actually very easy to use
them provided youre
using the right pin for the
right job. Finding the right
pin is more challenging
that you might think,
though, since the pins
themselves can actually
have several names. For
example, GPIO 18 is also
pin 12 and PCM_CLK. To
save as much confusion as
possible, were using the
Broadcom naming
convention, as opposed to
the board convention.
Therefore, in our code
youll see
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
in all our code listings.
To make matters worse,
some pin numbers also
changed between
Revision 1 and Revision
2 boards.
Were using Revision 2 in
this diagram (the
Raspberry Pi with 512MB
of RAM and mounting
holes), but you can nd the
Revision 1 version by
searching for Raspberry
Pi GPIO online.
It can be confusing at
rst, but the easiest way to
deal with the GPIO pins is
to pick a convention and
stick with it!

THIS IS THE
TOP!
The top of the
GPIO port here is
the end nearest
the SD card on
your Pi

3.3v

5v

5v

3
BCM ,BCM, BCM!
Were using the
Broadcom pin
numbers, which is
4
a different layout
to the physical pin
system that can
also be used
Ground

THIS IS REV 2
There are
some different
pin numbers
depending on
your Pis revision.
Dont forget to
check!

PURPLE PINS
These pins can
be used, but are
also reserved for
things like serial
connections

Ground

14

15

17

18

27

Ground

22

23

3.3v

24

10

Ground

25

11

Ground

We highly
recommend kitting
out your Pi with a
Wi-Fi dongle and
SSHing into your Pi
129

BUILDING ROBOTS

Build the motor circuit

Lets start by making a simple motor circuit on the Raspberry Pi
The base skill of our robot is movement, and
this is handled by the motors supplied with
our Magician chassis. Motors come in a
large variety of shapes and sizes, types and
models, but here we will safely connect two
DC motors to the Raspberry Pi.
Due to the limited electrical power
offered by the Pi, we will require some
additional batteries a small IC to turn our
motors on and off for us. Dont ever power
them from the Pi.
The motor driver we will use is called an
L293D, otherwise known as an H-Bridge.
This one IC, or chip as its sometimes called,
will handle the separate power control as
well as providing bi-directional control for
two motors.

RASPBERRY PI
Works with both rev 1 and rev 2 model
B, and model A Raspberry Pis

MULTIPLE MOTORS
The single motor driver can
handle 2 separate DC motors,
providing independent
control

ADDITIONAL POWER
Motors are powered by
four AA batteries giving
us 6 volts, perfect for
most small robots

MOTOR DRIVER
The L293D sitting
across the middle of the
breadboard will perform
all the hard work

Parts list
Raspberry Pi (any model)
Breadboard
2x DC motors
L293D IC
Jumper wires
4x AA batteries
Battery holder

01 Adding the L293D

Place the L293D chip into the middle of the

breadboard and add the red and black power cables, paying
attention to the pins.
The orange wire will be for the batteries.

130

CAUTION
NEVER connect motors directly to your Raspberry Pi. Doing
so can damage the central processor, resulting in a costly (but
attractive) paperweight.

02 Congure the data lines

Double-check the connections to ensure the pins

are correct. There are six wires going from the Pi GPIO pins
to the input pins of the L293D. These will be responsible for
our motors.

03 Finish the circuit

Now we can add the motors. We wont know

which way they will turn yet, so make sure you can easily
swap them around. Finally, add the batteries and plug in the
Raspberry Pi.

First motor test

Motor circuit
code listing

With your circuit complete, here is how to

get your motors moving
Using Python to control the motors is
made nice and simple with a library
called RPi.GPIO. This gets imported into
your script and will handle all the
turning on and off that you require. It can
also take inputs such as sensors and
switches that we shall cover over the next
few pages, but rst lets make our motors
turn to give us some movement.
First well import the library we need,
RPi.GPIO. We also want to be able to
pause the script so we can let the action
run, so well need to also import the sleep
function from the library called time.
Next well tell the script what numbering
we require. The Raspberry Pi has two
numbering schemes for the GPIO pins:
board corresponds to the physical
location of the pins, and BCM is the
processors numbering scheme. In these
scripts well use the BCM scheme.

Its not necessary, but its a good idea (to

save on confusion later) to give the pins
you will use a name. So we shall use the
L293D pin names to make controlling
them easier. Each motor requires three
pins: an A and a B to control the direction,
and Enable that will work as an on/off
switch. We can also use PWM on the
Enable pin to control the speed of the
motors, which we shall look at after this.
All that leaves us with is to tell the pins
they need to be an output, since we are
sending our signal from the Raspberry Pi.
To turn the pin on otherwise known as
1, or HIGH we tell the Raspberry Pi to set
that pin high; and likewise, to turn it off,
we set the pin LOW. Once we have set the
pins, we shall pause the script using
time.sleep() to give the motors a few
seconds to run before changing
their direction.

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

from time import sleep

THE START
These are the GPIO pin
numbers were using
for our motors. Weve
named them according
to the L293D for clarity

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
Motor1A = 24
Motor1B = 23
Motor1E = 25
Motor2A = 9
Motor2B = 10
Motor2E = 11

Get the
code:
http://bit.
ly/1iNYbTQ

GPIO.setup(Motor1A,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(Motor1B,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(Motor1E,GPIO.OUT)

SETTING OUTPUTS
As we want the
motors to do
something, we need
to tell Python it is an
output, not an input

GPIO.setup(Motor2A,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(Motor2B,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(Motor2E,GPIO.OUT)
print Going forwards
GPIO.output(Motor1A,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(Motor1B,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(Motor1E,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(Motor2A,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(Motor2B,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(Motor2E,GPIO.HIGH)

MAKING MOVEMENT
We are now telling
the L293D which
pins should be on to
create movement
forwards, backwards
and also stopping

print ... for 2 seconds.

sleep(2)
print Going backwards
GPIO.output(Motor1A,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(Motor1B,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(Motor1E,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(Motor2A,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(Motor2B,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(Motor2E,GPIO.HIGH)
print ... for 2 seconds
sleep(2)
print And stop before cleaning up
GPIO.output(Motor1E,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(Motor2E,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.cleanup()

04 Prepare your script

Login into your Raspberry Pi username is pi

and password is raspberry. Now well create our rst script,
type in nano motortest.py to begin. This will open the
nano text editor.

05 Save your code

Typing the code, but remember its case

sensitive. Capital letters are important. And indent the code
with a space, keeping it consistent. When done, hold Ctrl and
press X, then Y to save.

06 Test your motors

Now to run it. For this we type: sudo python

motortest.py. If something doesnt work, retrace the wires,
making sure they connect to the right pins and that the
batteries are fresh.

131

BUILDING ROBOTS

Assemble the robot chassis

Now weve got a working motor circuit, lets start building our Raspberry Pi robot
One thing a robot cant live without is
somewhere to mount all the parts, so for this we
need a chassis. There are many different sizes,
shapes and nishes available. We are going to
use one of the most versatile and common,
called a Dagu Magician.

This chassis kit comes complete with two

mounting plates, two motors and two wheels, as
well as a battery box, which is perfect as a
starting point for most basic robots. Once this is
ready, we can start to expand our robot with
new motor functions, before adding sensors.

01

SORT THROUGH THE PARTS

Lay all the parts out and
familiarise yourself with them.
Assembly is for the most part
straightforward; some care is needed
with the motor bracket, though.

02

ASSEMBLE THE
MOTOR BRACKET
Insert the bracket through the
chassis and sandwich a motor
with the second bracket. Feed a
bolt through the holes and add
the nut on the end.
End of day

03

PIECE THE BITS

TOGETHER
Feed the motor wires up through
the chassis and add the top plate
using the hexagonal spacers and
screws, followed by the castor.

04

WIRE EVERYTHING UP
With everything in
place, using the motor circuit,
reconnect the Raspberry Pi
again and switch it on. Make
sure it works by running the
test script.

05

ADD THE BREADBOARD

Most breadboards have an
adhesive pad on the bottom so you
can peel and stick down or use Blutack for a less permanent x. Mount
this at the front.

06

MOUNT YOUR PI
The Raspberry Pi rev 2 and
some cases have mounting holes
on the bottom, so utilise them for
mounting, and x the battery packs
into place.

Building tips
Take your time

Modications are welcome

Plenty of choice

Its easy to jump ahead and assume you already

understand the build process without glancing at
the instructions. That pamphlet is there to help
use it!

Dont limit yourself to the stock design. If

you need to cut a new set of holes for your
sensors, measure twice and cut once, but
dont feel limited to the stock options.

There is a world of choice when it comes to

robot platforms. Four wheels, tracks and even
hexapods are possible. Take a look at the robots
we tested on pages 112-125 for more ideas.

132

Create movement functions in Python

Our simple motor test wont do for a nished robot we need to add more abilities, so lets
add some movement functions we can call upon whenever we want
Now that we have a fantastic-looking robot
and everything wired in the right place (apart
from the motors, which we may have to
change), we can plug in the Raspberry Pi and
write our rst script to make the robot
controllable. Our simple motor test from
before was perfect for checking if the motors
worked and gave us the basics of movement,
but we want to be able to control and move it
around properly and with precision. To do
this we need to create our own functions.
In Python this is done easily by grouping
repetitive actions into a denition or def block.
Using the def block we can pass parameters
such as speed easily, and write the code that
controls the pins with ease. We will also add
PWM support, so we can set a speed that the
motors should run at.
In the rst few blocks of code, well set up
the pins we need, setting them as outputs; the
next block tells Python to enable PWM on the
two Enable pins.
In the next few blocks we are starting to
create our functions, giving them easy-toremember names such as forward and
backward, but also allowing individual motor
controls by using left and right.
Up to this point nothing will happen, as we
havent told Python what we want to do with
them we do that at the end. We shall tell the
motors to go forward at 100 (which is full
power) for three seconds, then backwards at
full power for three seconds.

01 Set the pins

To begin with, well import the classes we

need, and set up the pins the same as we did for the
motor test.

02

Enable PWM support

To allow us to control the speed of the

motors, we require pulse-width modulation (PWM).
As the Enable pin supports this and works for both
directions, well set it to this pin.

03 Create movement functions

Python allows us to simplify and reuse
code, making it shorter and easier to read. Well use
this to save typing which pin needs to do what, by
grouping them into a denition block.

04 How to change speed

With the addition of the (speed) element,

we can input a number into the function that it can
use and return the result in our case, the speed of
the motor back into the script.

05 Make it move

Up until now the script will do nothing

noticeable, but all the hard work is now out of the
way. To give it some movement, we shall use our
new variables.

PULSE-WIDTH
MODULATION
PWM is a technique
used to vary the
voltage on parts like
LEDs and motors by
rapidly switching it
on and off.

06

Individual
movements

We are also able to control

each motor separately by
using left() and right(),
allowing the robot to turn
on the spot. Combined with
sleep, it means we have a
fully mobile robot!

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

from time import sleep
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(24,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(23,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(25,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(9,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(10,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(11,GPIO.OUT)
Motor1 = GPIO.PWM(25, 50)
Motor1.start(0)
Motor2 = GPIO.PWM(11, 50)
Motor2.start(0)
def forward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def backward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.HIGH)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def left(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def right(speed):
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def stop():
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
forward(100)
sleep(3)
backward(100)
sleep(3)
forward(50)
sleep(5)
stop()
left(75)
sleep(2)
right(75)
sleep(2)
stop()

REPEATING
CODE
In Python we use
a denition block
to repeat sections
of code; this allows
us to use the same
code several times,
as well as making
changes quickly.

We want to be
able to control and
move it around
with precision
133

BUILDING ROBOTS

Installing microswitches
Give your robot the sense of touch and train it to react when it bumps into something
Now weve got a robot that can move anyway
we want it to, lets move on to the simplest form
of interaction: touch.
For our Raspberry Pi robot, it may not be as
sophisticated as we experience as humans, but
giving our robot its rst sense will help it to
navigate its own path, giving it a very basic
form of intelligence.

Adding a sense of touch can be handled in

different ways, but the quickest and easiest
method is by adding some antennae to your
robot in the form of microswitches. Given their
name, they arent so much micro but they have
long arms that protrude, making them perfect
for mounting on the front of the robot. If your
switch hasnt got a lever or it isnt long enough,

NO/NC
Most switches are labelled
with NO and NC; which
stands for Normally Open
and Normally Closed. Open
simply means no current
can pass through

you can always try adding or extending it using

a piece of dowel or a drinking straw.
Adding multiple switches gives our robot a
greater sense of its surroundings and allows a
very simple bit of code to control how it should
operate. As it will be moving forward, we will
only need to add switches to the front. So lets
begin by creating the circuit and testing it.

ADDITIONAL SWITCHES
You can easily add more
switches, not just bumpers,
by following the circuit and
connecting it to a free pin

PULL-DOWN RESISTORS
As we are dealing with digital
logic, the switch has to be
either on or off, and the
resistor helps this by weakly
pulling the pin low

Parts list
3V3 POWER
As the Raspberry Pi has no
protection from overvoltage,
we cant input more than
3.3V otherwise we risk frying
the processor

Jumper wires
2x 10K resistors
2x CPC
microswitches

Testing your microswitches

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

from time import sleep

Now the switches are wired up, lets get them working

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

Wiring them up is nice and simple, but as

mentioned, it is important to remember that
the Raspberry Pi is only 3.3V tolerant when
using inputs, so we are only going to use the
3V3 pin and NOT the 5V pin.
The Python code to read inputs is nice and
straightforward. Since we have one switch per
GPIO pin, we just get Python to tell us what
state it is in when we ask.
So the rst thing we will do is import our
usual libraries and set the pins to BCM board

GPIO.setup(18, GPIO.IN)
GPIO.setup(15, GPIO.IN)

134

mode. In GPIO.setup we are going to tell Python

to set pins 15 and 18 as inputs.
Creating a while True: loop will create an
innite loop as the condition is always true.
While in the loop, we shall store the current
state of the input into a variable, and then use
an if statement to check if it is a 1 for pressed or
a 0 for not pressed. All we are going to do is
display on the screen which switch has been
pressed; it will also help us work out on which
side to place the microswitch.

while True:
inputleft = GPIO.input(18)
inputright = GPIO.input(15)
if inputleft:
print Left pressed
if inputright:
print Right pressed
sleep(0.1)

Completing the bumping robot

Bumping robot
full code listing

Its time to add the switches to the robot and

nd some walls to test it with

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

from time import sleep
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

Well mount the switches to the front of the robot,

xing it down with double-sided tape or Blu-tack
so the levers can stick out enough to be pressed
when it touches an object. Reusing the motor
function code we created before, we can easily
add the microswitch support. So this time if an
object presses the left microswitch, we tell the
motors to switch into reverse for a second and
then stop. Hopefully this is long enough to move

the robot away from the object so we can now

turn just the left-hand motor on for 2 seconds
before continuing on its new path. This is a big
step - were implementing AI and making the
robot smart.
Variations can be made to rene our robot,
such as creating a reverse for the right-hand
motor and having it spin on the spot to create a
new path to continue on.

01 Mount the switch

03 Log in with SSH

Try to place the microswitches as close to the

front of the robot as possible, spaced far enough apart so
we can work out what direction the robot is facing when it
hits something.

As our robot will be starting to run around freely,

it is a good idea to provide the Raspberry Pi with its own
battery. Using Wi-Fi, we can remotely connect using SSH to
emulate the Pis terminal.

04 Create and save your work

As before with the motors, we shall create

our script using nano. Lets do this by typing nano
bumpers.py. Saving different scripts allows testing of
individual parts. We can also use them as a reference
for creating bigger scripts.

GPIO.setup(18, GPIO.IN)
GPIO.setup(15, GPIO.IN)
GPIO.setup(24,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(23,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(25,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(9,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(10,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(11,GPIO.OUT)

DONT FRY
THE PI!
It is important
to check the
specications
of any sensor
to make sure it
is compatible
with 3.3V power
supply.

Motor1 = GPIO.PWM(25, 50)

Motor1.start(0)
Motor2 = GPIO.PWM(11, 50)
Motor2.start(0)
def forward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def backward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.HIGH)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def left(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)

05

Test it in situ

Copying the example script into bumpers.py,

followed by Ctrl+X with a Y to save, we can test it out and
make any hardware modications. With the script running,
press a microswitch and see what happens!

02 Wire it up with the motor circuit

Finding a couple of spare tracks (vertical
columns) on the breadboard, add the GPIO jumper cable to
the pull-down resistor and connect the switch as shown in
the diagram.

06 Modify and improve your code

When you rst start the script, the motors will

start turning forward. Pressing a switch should reverse the
motors and spin one motor before going forward again. Play
with the variables and tweak its response to what you prefer
for it to do.

def right(speed):
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def stop():
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(0)

while True:
inputleft = GPIO.input(18)
inputright = GPIO.input(15)
if inputleft:
print Left pressed
backward(100)
sleep(1)
stop()
left(75)
sleep(2)
elif inputright:
print Right pressed
backward(100)
sleep(1)
stop()
right(75)
sleep(2)
else:
forward(75)
sleep(0.1)

DIGITAL
SWITCHES
A switch is a perfect
digital signal, as
it can only be one
of two states: on
or off.

135

BUILDING ROBOTS

Line-following sensors
Give your robot a track to follow using
masking tape or inked paper

SAFETY FIRST
Thanks to the transistor, we
have a much safer voltage
going back into the GPIO pins
when using 5 volt electronics

So far the robot can decide its own path, which is a great
thing for it to do, but it could end up in trouble. Lets help it
follow a set path.
One solution is to add some line sensors to the underside
so we are able to control it by using some masking tape on a
dark oor (or some dark tape on a light oor). This can be
used in a number of different ways.
By marking a line on the oor, we can get the robot to
follow it obediently; even by throwing in a few curves, it
should be able to navigate a set path. Or it is possible to
tackle it another way by adding a perimeter around the
robot, allowing us to restrict the robot to a box or set area.
Line following is best achieved with two-wheeled robots
as their ability to quickly change direction is important. The
principal is that as a sensor is triggered we can stop a
corresponding motor, allowing the robot to swing around to
stay on the line.
LOWER THE CURRENT
The transistors only need a
small amount of current to
actually work; a resistor helps to
smooth out the sensors output
LINE SENSORS
Sensors come in a variety of
shapes and sizes, but most
have a common set of pins; the
important one is the OUT pin

Parts list

MAKING VOLTAGE SAFER

Transistors work just like a switch,
being able to turn power on and off.
Using it to switch the 3.3V power to
the GPIO is a much safer method

Breadboard
Jumper cables
2x 2N3904 transistors
2x 1K resistors
2x Line detector sensors

Testing the line sensors

01
With the line sensors wired up and the
Raspberry Pi switched on, we can now test
them. This Python script is very similar to
the microswitch test code as we are just
reading the GPIO pins status, checking if it
is high (a 1 or on) or if it is low (0 or off).
As some sensors work differently to
others, we need help to understand the
output. Displaying the current sensor data
on the screen allows us to work out how the
sensor responds on black and white
surfaces and plan the code accordingly.

136

Start your project

Start a terminal on your

Raspberry Pi and create the linefollow.
pyscript: nano linefollow.py. This will
be our test script for the nished linefollowing robot.

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO

from time import sleep
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

03

Print to screen

Save the le as before. Youll

notice the code weve supplied has print
statements to show if the sensor is
picking up any difference between light
and dark surfaces.

02 Read the sensors 04 We have data

Copy the test script into
the le. As each sensor is slightly
different, we may need to tweak the
code slightly to suit, so test what you
have and interpret the output.

POWER
Most sensors are only available
in 5 volt form; we need a
transistor to switch the voltage
to a Raspberry Pi-safe level

If everything is wired up
correctly, the screen will start lling up
with sensor data, letting us know if it
can see black or white. Put some paper
in front of the sensor to try it out.

Input1 = 7
Input2 = 8
GPIO.setup(Input1,GPIO.IN)
GPIO.setup(Input2,GPIO.IN)
while True:
Sensor1 = GPIO.input(Input1)
Sensor2 = GPIO.input(Input2)
if Sensor1 == GPIO.HIGH:
print Sensor 1 is on White
else:
print Sensor 1 is on Black
if Sensor2 == GPIO.HIGH:
print Sensor 2 is on White
else:
print Sensor 2 is on Black
print ------
sleep(1)
GPIO.cleanup()

Finalise your line-following bot

It can see! Now put its new eyes to good use
By now we should be used to controlling the
motors, so building on that knowledge we can
start to concentrate on the sensors. Most line
followers use the same convention as
microswitches, giving a high output to signal
the sensor is over a black surface and a low
output (or off) to signal its over a white surface.
When using a white masking tape line, we
want the motor to stop when the sensor is
touching the line, giving the other side a chance
to turn the robot to correct its position.
The code is nice and simple, so it can be easily
modied to suit your own situation.

03

Add the sensor circuit

Place the two transistors and resistors on the

breadboard, checking each pin is in its own column. Add the
jumper cables from the sensors and power lines, and then to
the GPIO pins.

Bumping robot
full code listing
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
from time import sleep
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

GPIO.setup(7, GPIO.IN)
GPIO.setup(8, GPIO.IN)
GPIO.setup(24,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(23,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(25,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(9,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(10,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(11,GPIO.OUT)

SUDO
PYTHON?
Prex with sudo to
elevate a programs
permission level
to a superuser. Its
required to control
the GPIO pins from
Python, so dont
forget it!

Motor1 = GPIO.PWM(25, 50)

Motor1.start(0)
Motor2 = GPIO.PWM(11, 50)
Motor2.start(0)
def forward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)

01 Mount the sensor

Using the hexagonal mounting rods, mount the

sensors at about 10mm to cope with uneven oors. Most
sensors will be sensitive enough at that distance; if not, there
will be a potentiometer to adjust the sensitivity.

def backward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.HIGH)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)

04 Power up and log on

Connect the batteries for the motors and add

power to the Raspberry Pi. Now log in using SSH on your
computer so we are able to create our motor-controlled line
sensor code.

def left(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def right(speed):
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def stop():
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(0)

05 Creating the script

As you can see, the code for the line-following

robot is quite similar to our previous code. While True:
ensures the code loops until we stop it, and weve kept some
print statements in for debugging purposes.

BIG BUSINESS
Some
manufacturing
plants use lines to
guide robots around
warehouses in an
identical way to our
robot, but on a much
larger scale.

06 Testing your new script

All being well, your robot will now scoot off and
nd a line to follow. There are plenty of ways to improve
and add to this code to make the bots movements along
the line smoother. Its also quite trivial to build this into your
existing code.

while True:
sensor1 = GPIO.input(7)
sensor2 = GPIO.input(8)
if sensor1 == GPIO.LOW:
print Sensor 1 is on white
stop()
else:
left(60)
if sensor2 == GPIO.LOW:
print Sensor 2 is on white
stop()
else:
right(60)
sleep(0.05)

Get the
code:
http://bit.
ly/1iNYbTQ

02 Adding to your breadboard

There should be plenty of room on your robots

breadboard, but make sure you use all the available tracks.
Keep your different types of sensors in their own little areas
get to know them so you can debug the hardware easily.

137

BUILDING ROBOTS

Ultrasonic sensing
Give your robot a track to follow using masking tape or inked paper
Lets start making things a little more
complicated by adding an ultrasonic sensor and
placing it onto a pan-and-tilt mounting.
Ultrasonic sensors are used in different ways to
judge distance by emitting an ultrasonic pulse
and counting how long it takes to bounce off an
object then back to the receiver. Cars that come
with reverse parking sensors work in the same
way to give an audible tone depending on how
far away an object is.

Using an ultrasonic sensor on your robot will

give it a chance to take action as it approaches
an object such as a wall, with enough time to
evaluate and choose a new path.
Ultrasonic sensors come in two varieties,
based on the number of pins. Both types work
in a very similar way. Since we would like to use
the same Python code for both, we would wire
the 4-pin sensor to act like a 3-pin ultrasonic
sensor. However, we will focus on the affordable

4-PIN SENSOR?
The most common is
the 4-pin HC-SR04,
capable of calculating
distances up to
4 metres. Aside from
the power and ground,
it contains Trig and
Echo pins

3-pin model from Dawn Robotics. As we only

require one GPIO pin, we will rst need to set it
as an output and send a 10ms pulse to trigger the
sensor to start and begin counting.
Next we switch to an input to wait for the pin
to go high, at which point we stop timing and
calculate how long that took. The last thing
needed is to convert the time in sound into a
measurement we can read, which in this case is
the number of centimetres.
3-PIN SENSOR
Were using a 3-pin sensor which has a
combined Echo/Trig pin. The functions
perform the same as on the 4-pin

VOLTAGE DIVIDER
As again we are dealing with
5 volt sensors, we need to
lower the voltage to 3.3 volts
to make it safer for use with
the Raspberry Pi

Parts list
;X^lgXek`ckb`k
Aldg\iZXYc\j
J\\\[Jkl[`f
lckiXjfe`Zj\ejfi
)o)B)i\j`jkfij
(o('Bi\j`jkfi

Add a pan-and-tilt kit

Wouldnt it be great to take readings
from different angles? Heres how
Pan-and-tilt mounts are very useful since they
can be combined with any sort of sensor, giving
the robot an ability to move its head around
and sense what is around it without physically
moving its body. The pan-and-tilt is controlled
by two special motors called servos.
Servos allow very precise movement within
their range, typically between 0 and 180
degrees. They do this by using some very

138

precise timing to
send a pulse. The
time between the
pulses tells the
servo its angle.
Typically the Raspberry Pi, being a not-so-great
real-time device, would sometimes struggle
maintaining a steady pulse, as it could forget
what it was doing and go off to check some

JUST ONE GPIO PIN

To save on GPIO pins, one pin
will switch quickly between
output and input to send and
receive a pulse. This will work
with 4-pin models too
emails, for instance. Therefore Richard
Hirst wrote a kernel for Linux called
ServoBlaster, which handles the timing
required perfectly, regardless of how much
is happening. The kernel takes control of
some of the timing registers to provide an
accurate clock. All that is required is to send the
angle you need to /dev/servoblaster and the
servo will spring to life!

The complete ultrasonic

code listing
import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
from time import sleep
from time import time
import os
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(24,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(23,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(25,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(9,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(10,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(11,GPIO.OUT)
Motor1 = GPIO.PWM(25, 50)
Motor1.start(0)
Motor2 = GPIO.PWM(11, 50)
Motor2.start(0)
Echo = 17
Pan = 22
Tilt = 4
def forward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)

GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def backward(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.HIGH)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def left(speed):
GPIO.output(24,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(23,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def right(speed):
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def stop():
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
def get_range():

GPIO.setup(Echo,GPIO.IN)
while GPIO.input(Echo) == 0:
pass
start = time()
while GPIO.input(Echo) == 1:
pass
stop = time()
elapsed = stop - start
distance = elapsed * 17000
return distance
while True:
distance = get_range()
if distance < 30:
print Distance %.1f % distance
stop()
string = echo 0=10 > /dev/
servoblaster
os.system(string)
sleep(1)
disleft = get_range()

Installing your pan & tilt

Its a ddly job, but well worth the trouble
Now weve taken care of the circuit, lets set
them up; rst we need to get the kernel so lets
download that now, so type the following into
your RasPi terminal: wget https://github.com/

Lastly, run it remember, every time you

reboot or switch on your Pi, you will just need to
type this line:

Boeeerb/LinuxUser/raw/master/servod

The pre-compiled kernel is already

congured to use pins 4 and 22 as servos, so lets
hook everything up.

And make it executable:

chmod +x servod

print Left %.1f % disleft

GPIO.setup(Echo,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.output(Echo, 0)
sleep(0.1)
GPIO.output(Echo,1)
sleep(0.00001)
GPIO.output(Echo,0)

sudo ./servod

string = echo 0=360 > /dev/

servoblaster
os.system(string)
sleep(1)
disright = get_range()
print Right %.1f % disright
if disleft < disright:
print Turn right
left(100)
sleep(2)
else:
print Turn left
right(100)
sleep(2)
os.system(echo 0=160 > /dev/
servoblaster)
else:
forward(80)
print Distance %.1f % distance
sleep(0.5)
GPIO.cleanup()

Get the
code:
http://bit.
ly/1iNYbTQ

The servos will need to be powered

separately as they are at heart just motors with a
little bit of circuitry.
The code we have will combine the wheel
motors, servos and ultrasonic. The end result
will involve the robot moving forward until it
senses an object less than 30cm away, stop, then
turn the pan-and-tilt left, check the distance,
then turn the ultrasonic on the pan-and-tilt
right and pick whichever direction has a further
distance until the next object.

01 Assemble the kit

The pan-and-tilt mount allows

a full view of 180 degrees from left to
right, up and down great for adding
ultrasonics or even a camera. The
servos give the perfect control for this.

04 Create your script

Now we can create the

test script. You can copy and paste our
creation from the disc, or better yet
write it out as above and get your codewriting muscle memory working!

02 Connect the servos 05 And shes off

WHAT ARE
SERVOS?
Commonly called
RC hobby servos,
they are found in
remote-control
vehicles and are
used for steering or
wing aps. They are
light, strong and use
very little power,
but importantly are
highly accurate.

The servos are still a motor,

so it is advisable to give them their own
power separate from the Raspberry Pi.
Take note of the voltage required; most
allow up to 6 volts, some less. It can
share the same batteries as the motors.

When you set off the script,

the screen should ll with distance data
so we can see what is happening and
check on the direction it decides to take.
It may pose a challenge if it gets stuck in
a corner - see if you can debug it.

forget
03 Dont
the kernel

06 Debugging
problems

To get full control over the servos, we

need servod (ServoBlaster) running. So
download this and make it executable
with chmod +x servod and run it with
sudo ./servod.

If the robot doesnt act like it should,

or the servo goes the wrong way,
just swap the servo data pins around.
Double-check your code and give it
another try.

The end result is the robot

moving forward until it senses
an object less than 30cm away
139

BUILDING ROBOTS

Use analogue
sensors

3.3V POWER
Make sure the chip is hooked
up to the 3V3 pin and not
the 5V pin on the Raspberry
Pi, otherwise it will kill
the processor

Parts list
(oD:G*''/
)oC`^_k$
dependent
resistors (LDRs)
)o('Bi\j`jkfij
Aldg\in`i\j

Open your robot up to a new

world of input
As weve already shown using microswitches
and ultrasonic sensors, the Raspberry Pi is
very capable of taking inputs and performing
actions based on the outside world. Inputs
also come in a variety of different types. Most
common are digital sensors such as buttons
and switches, but there are also analogue
sensors which can be used to read
temperatures or brightness. These sensors
give their data in the form of a voltage value.
The Raspberry Pi is unable to read an
analogue signal natively, so a little help is
required and this comes in the form of a
microchip called an MCP3008. This chip is
commonly referred to as an ADC (analogue-todigital converter). It can communicate with
the Raspberry Pi via serial and is capable of
reading eight analogue inputs at once and
giving their voltage in the form of a number: 0
will correspond to the lowest, while 1023 is the
maximum voltage.
Using analogue, we can build a robot that is
capable of following (or avoiding) bright light
perfect if you wish to have a plant pot follow
the sun during the day.

DATA CABLES
The MCP3008 communicates
via a serial protocol called SPI,
Serial Peripheral Interface.
More than one can be used at
the same time

THE SENSORS
The light-dependent
resistors (LDRs) change
their voltage based on the
amount of light they receive

MCP3008
The heart of the
analogue-to-digital
conversion

PULL-DOWN RESISTORS
To give a stable reading,
we have to give it a basic
reference point for the
voltage, so a pull-down
resistor is required

Test, test and test again

import spidev
import time

Like good computer scientists well check it works rst

spi = spidev.SpiDev()
spi.open(0,0)

Now we have wired the ADC, we need to make

sure it works. So before we add it into our robot
we shall use Python to read the values and
display them on the screen.
Doing this will help get an overall idea of
what to expect when the sensor is in bright
light, and how different the numbers will be
when they are in the dark.
Before we can interface with the MCP3008,
we need enable the serial drivers and install a
Python library called spidev, so lets do this
before anything else.
Open up a terminal, or connect to your
Raspberry Pi, and then type in the
following commands:

sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/raspiblacklist.conf

And add a # to the start of each line in the
le, then

140

sudo apt-get install python-pip pythondev

sudo pip install spidev
sudo reboot

def get_value(channel):
if ((channel > 7) or (channel < 0)):
return -1

Once this is done, we are now free to start

reading some analogue sensors!
The rst two lines in our test code are there
to tell Python what libraries we need. Now we
need to tell Python to create a new instance
and tell it what channel our MCP3008 chip is
on, this is handled by the next two lines.
We are nearly ready, so well dene a
function which will handle communication
and returning it to our script so that we can act
upon its value called get_value.
From left to right on the chip the channels
start at zero and go all the way to seven, so
using this we combine with the get_value
function to retrieve our value.

ret = ((r[1]&3) << 8) + (r[2] >> 2)

return ret

r = spi.xfer2([1,(8+channel)<<4,0])

while True:
print Chan 0: + str(get_value(0))
print Chan 1: + str(get_value(1))
time.sleep(0.3)

The Raspberry Pi is
very capable of taking
inputs and performing
actions based on the
outside world

Sensing light with the Raspberry Pi

With everything connected up, lets go chase some light
Hopefully we now have a set of
numbers scrolling down the screen,
and have tested it by covering a sensor
or shining a torch to see how it affects
the readings.
Now we can mount the LDRs to the
front of the robot to allow it to sense the
level of light. The aim now is to tell the
robot to move forward at a slower pace,
using a speed of 75. As the LDRs are
constantly checking the light levels, if

01

Mount the LDRs

It is best to place them apart,

pointing outwards,to get a good idea of
the different lighting available. If the wiring
on the breadboard starts getting difcult,
add another breadboard to separate the
two ICs.

one should rise above 600 (as a result of

a torch shining at it, for instance) it will
prompt the opposite wheel to speed up
to turn towards
the light.
As each lighting situation will be
slightly different, perform the test
script to get an idea of the values that
will be expected from the LDRs. These
will uctuate depending on the
ambient light levels.

04

Create the script

Once everything is connected,

we shall use nano to write our Python
script: type nano analog.py to create
the le. Copy the code. Exit nano with
Ctrl+X and then Y and Enter to save the
le. It should be second nature by now!

Perform the test

script to get a
better idea of
the values that
will be expected
from the LDRs

All that is required is to type

import spidev
import time
spi = spidev.SpiDev()
spi.open(0,0)
GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)

Motor1 = GPIO.PWM(22, 50)

Motor1.start(0)
Motor2 = GPIO.PWM(11, 50)
Motor2.start(0)

sudo python analog.py to run the

02 Change the motors

As we are using the SPI serial

bus for the MCP3008 communication,
we will need to move the motor driver pins
to a different set of GPIO pins, so we shall
switch pins 8, 9 and 10 to 22, 27/21 and 17.

program. The robot should start to follow

the brightest light source. If not, check your
code and connections or go back to the
testing code to debug.

06 Something is wrong

If youre sure its working

properly, it could be that a tweak to the
value may be needed. Run the test script
again to get a suitable number to replace
the 600 that is currently used. Remember
testing at different times of day may
require you to change some of your
variables as light levels change.

03 Double-check
everything
As we have a lot of power types we are
using 3V3 for the MCP3008, 5V to the
L293D and also the batteries it is best to
check they are all correctly wired up. Once
it looks good, add some power and log
into the Pi.

Try stopping the bot

when the light goes
below a value; or if a
torch shines on an LDR
sensor, spin around for
5 seconds.

The complete analog code listing

GPIO.setup(27,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(17,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(22,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(9,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(10,GPIO.OUT)
GPIO.setup(11,GPIO.OUT)

05 Run the script

EXPERIMENT

def forward(speed):
GPIO.output(27,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(17,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.
ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.
ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def backward(speed):
GPIO.output(27,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(17,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.HIGH)
Motor1.
ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
Motor2.
ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def left(speed):
GPIO.output(27,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(17,GPIO.LOW)
Motor1.
ChangeDutyCycle(speed)

Get the code:

http://bit.
ly/1iNYbTQ

def right(speed):
GPIO.output(9,GPIO.HIGH)
GPIO.output(10,GPIO.LOW)
Motor2.
ChangeDutyCycle(speed)
def stop():
Motor1.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
Motor2.ChangeDutyCycle(0)
def get_value(channel):
if ((channel > 7) or
(channel < 0)):
return -1
r = spi.
xfer2([1,(8+channel)<<4,0])
ret = ((r[1]&3) << 8) +
(r[2] >> 2)
return ret
while True:
ldr_left = get_value(0)
ldr_right = get_value(1)
if ldr_left > 600:
print Turn right
right(100)
elif ldr_right > 600:
print Turn left
left(100)
else:
forward(75)
time.sleep(0.25)

MCP3008/
MCP3004
A smaller ADC chip called
the MCP3004 is also
available, it only has 4
analogue channels as
opposed to 8 with the
MCP3008.

Testing at different times

of day may require you to
change some variables
141

BUILDING ROBOTS

What next?
So youve nished building our
project robot and youre
wondering whats next

here are loads of choices, which is one of the

attractive things about robotics, and really youre
only limited by your time and imagination.
You could choose to expand your robots hardware,
adding more sensors as your knowledge and condence
improves, so that your robot can learn more about the
world. Gas, light and sound for practically any stimulus
you can imagine, theres the corresponding sensor that you
can add to your robot. With a bigger platform, you could also
add an arm to your robot so it doesnt just sense the world
it can also pick up bits of the world and move them around.
You could expand your robot by giving it the means to
communicate with people it meets in its environment.
Speakers are one way of doing this, but ashing LEDs or
lines of electroluminescent (EL) wire are other ways in
which a robot can indicate its internal state. The more
creative the better here: robotics can be as much of an
artistic pursuit as a technical one.
With the computing power of the Raspberry Pi on board,
you also have the space to expand the software of your robot
and boost its intelligence. Using a webcam or the Pi camera
board for computer vision is probably one of the most
popular options and luckily, OpenCV, a very
comprehensive open source computer vision library, is
available to get you started quickly. You could use it to allow
your robot to recognise faces, to search for interesting
objects in its environment, or to quickly recognise places its
been before.
Dont think that you have to limit yourself to just one
robot, however. Swarm robotics is a very interesting branch
of robotics that seeks to draw inspiration from the
intelligence exhibited by swarms of insects in the natural
world. Its fascinating to consider how complex behaviours
can be built up from the interactions of a number of simple
robots. Your robots can communicate over Wi-Fi, or via a
central computer. Alternatively, you can give the robots
more local communication using IR LEDs and receivers to
communicate with their neighbours.
Whatever you decide to do with your Raspberry Pi robot,
and whichever direction you end up taking it in, remember
to show and tell the rest of the Raspberry Pi community
what youve done! There are lots of friendly, and
knowledgeable, people in the open source communities
surrounding the Raspberry Pi, lots of whom are also
making robots. Places like the Raspberry Pi forum can be a
great source of advice and support as you attempt to build
your dream robot.
Alan Broun, MD of DawnRobotics.co.uk

Robotics can be an artistic

pursuit and a technical one
142

Facial recognition
Let the robot know whos boss
With the simple addition of the Raspberry Pis camera module and OpenCV
software, face detection and recognition is possible. You could do this by
replacing the ultrasonic from the pan-and-tilt mount with the camera; this will
allow the camera to move and follow your movements.

Learning
to talk

Spatial
analysis

Get a new insight into

your robots state

Make accurate maps

of your surroundings

The Raspberry Pi comes with an

audio output. So combining this
with a travel speaker will unlock a
new world of communication for
your robot.
Using a Python-friendly speech
module like eSpeak, you can teach
your robot to talk, sing or simply
report readings for debugging
purposes. This can add another
human element to your creation, but
adding speech recognition with a
USB microphone, or similar, can take
it to a whole new level.

Using the ultrasonic sensor with the

pan-and-tilt kit on your robot, you
can effectively measure every wall
and every object in a room a popular
specialism in computer science.
So by taking a series of
measurements in different
directions, controlled by the servos in
the pan-and-tilt mount, it is possible
to make a map. With another
sprinkling of code and gadgetry, you
could teach your bot to navigate your
house. PID is an excellent eld that
can certainly help with this.

Maze solving Swarming

Robot arm

Outperform a lab rat

One robot is cool, a bunch is better

Make the robot get it

Path nding and maze solving are

other exciting branches of computer
science you can attempt with your
RasPi robot. Competitions are held
around the world to be the fastest to
solve a maze, using lines on the
oor or ultrasonic sensors. All you
need is a mechanism to recall past
movements and a scientic
approach to the robots attitude to
maze solving.

Swarming is an interesting branch of computer science. Using

just a little more code than we already have, we can create
behaviour similar to that of a swarm of bees, or ants. A swarm
of robots could discover an area quickly, or be used to
scientically model trafc-calming measures. You could even
create your own synchronised routines, or build a robot
football team.

Everyone would love a robotic

helper, perfect for performing
tasks around the house.
Unfortunately we arent there yet,
but we can come close. By
mounting a small gripper arm to
the front of the robot, it can fetch
lightweight items. With the help of
the Pi camera module, or an RGB
colour sensor, you could coloursort LEGO bricks or entertain a pet.

A swarm of robots could

discover an area quickly

143

tr Sp
ia ec
l o ia
ff l
er

BOOK OF

ROBOTS
The greatest robots you
can buy right now

Using basic
code and kit

148

PAGES OF
ROBOTIC
TECH

The helpful robots that

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OVER 50
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DISCOVER THE AMAZING ANDROIDS CHANGING THE WORLD

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DISCOVER THE AMAZING ROBOTS

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MEET THE MACHINES THAT PIONEERED
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THE PROBES AND BOTS MAKING

SPACE DISCOVERIES POSSIBLE

DRIVERLESS
CARS

DO THEY SPELL THE END FOR DRIVERS,

AND HOW DO THEY AVOID CRASHING?

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USE A RASPBERRY PI TO CREATE AND

PROGRAM THE ULTIMATE MINI ROBOT