What is the background of the robot? Why develop robots?

First of all, I want to introduce the background of robot and the development of robot technology. It should be said that it is the comprehensive result of the development of science and technology, and at the same time it has had a great impact on social and economic development. Its development is attributed to the fact that during the Second World War, countries strengthened their economic investment and their own economic development.

On the other hand, it is also the demand of productivity development and the inevitable result of human development. With the development of people's society, people are increasingly discussing the process of nature, the process of transforming nature and the process of understanding nature, in order to realize people's understanding and transformation of the unreachable world, which is also the objective need of people in the process of scientific and technological development.

So what is a robot? Generally speaking, a robot is a mechanical and electronic device with some functions similar to human beings, or an automatic device. It is still a machine. It has three characteristics. One is humanoid function, such as working function, sensing function, walking function, and it can also complete various actions. Another feature is that it can work automatically according to human programming. A remarkable feature here is that it can be programmed to change its work and action. But from the complete and far-reaching definition of robot, more emphasis should be placed on the intelligence of robot, so people put forward the definition of robot, that is, a machine that can perceive the environment, learn, feel and think logically about the outside world. Then this puts forward higher requirements for robots. Looking forward to 2 1 century, robots will be deeply applied to various fields, just like the popularization of computers in the 20th century. The first 20 years of 2 1 century is an important period for the development of robots from manufacturing to non-manufacturing, and it is also a key period for the development of intelligent robots.

Just now, we spent a short time talking about the development of robots and our views on robots, and made a simple introduction. I believe everyone can study robots with us in the future.

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First of all, I want to introduce the background of robot and the development of robot technology. It should be said that it is the comprehensive result of scientific and technological development. At the same time, it has a great impact on social and economic development. Its development is attributed to the strengthening of economic investment and their own economic development in the Second World War. For example, Japan started the automobile industry after World War II. At this time, due to the shortage of manpower, there is an urgent need for a robot to carry out mass manufacturing, improve production efficiency and reduce labor intensity, which is the demand of social development. On the other hand, it is also the inevitable result of the development demand of productive forces and the inevitable result of human development. With the gradual social development of human beings, people are increasingly discussing the need for a slave who can liberate human beings in the process of nature, in the process of transforming nature and in the process of understanding nature. Then this kind of slave is to take the place of people to engage in complex and heavy manual labor and realize people's understanding and transformation of the unreachable world, which is also an objective need of people in the process of scientific and technological development. On the other hand, although people have all kinds of good ideas, it is also attributed to the development of electronic technology, computer technology and manufacturing technology, which provide strong technical support.

Then let me talk about why people want to develop robots, which is a matter of great concern to people. Simply put, there are three reasons why we need to develop robots: First, robots do things that people don't want to do, freeing people from toxic, harmful, high-temperature or dangerous environments, and robots can do jobs that they can't do well. For example, in the automobile production line, we see that workers hold 100 kilograms of electrode holders every day and weld thousands of points every day, which leads to repeated work. On the one hand, they are tired, but the products are poor. On the other hand, robots can do jobs that people can't do, which is also a very important reason for the development of robots. For example, people's understanding of space, people can't get up, so they call robots to go to the sky, the moon, the ocean and into the human body. Robots that move atoms and molecules in a microscopic environment are unattainable tasks. The three problems mentioned above are the three reasons for the development of robots.

So what is a robot? This question is very interesting. However, people generally understand that robot is a mechanical and electronic device or an automatic device, which has some functions similar to human beings. It is still a machine. It has three characteristics: one is human-like function, such as homework function; Perceptual function; Walking function; It can also perform various actions. Another feature of it is that it can work automatically according to human programming. A remarkable feature here is that it can be programmed to change its work, actions, objects and requirements. It is a man-made machine or mechatronics equipment, so this robot is still a machine. But at present, there is no unified definition of robot. Generally speaking, we think that robot is a programmable automatic machine controlled by computer that can complete some work or move at present, which is defined by the American Society of Engineers. However, Japan and other countries also have different views on robots. They think that from a complete and far-reaching definition of robot, the intelligence of robot should be emphasized, so people put forward the definition of robot as being able to perceive the environment, learn, feel and think logically about the outside world. Then this puts forward higher requirements for robots. For example, robots can weld instead of people here. The welding environment is very complicated and portable. Glass and various parts can be transported on the production line, and palletizing can also be carried on the production line. This is an example of liberating people from heavy manual labor.

So how did robots come into being? This is in 1920, a Czechoslovakian writer named Capec wrote a science fiction novel called Universal Picture the Robot of Rosam. In this novel, he conceived and fantasized about a robot. Its name is Robert, which is the robot in our English. It can work tirelessly without eating. 1920 or so, as we all know, it was a period of rapid industrial development in various countries after the First World War. We watched the movie Modern Times, and Chaplin's star turned into a robot, working on the production line every day. In this kind of fidgety physical labor, people fantasize about having an imagination and a need to complete such work instead of people. In 1924 and 1927, this novel spread to Japan, France and European countries, and became a puppet show and some plays at that time, so the term "robot" spread all over the world. At that time, people thought it was science fiction, but it hasn't been put into practice.

But through such a novel, a noun like Robert, it embodies a long-term desire of human beings, that is, to create a machine that can take the place of people in various jobs. This idea is the objective requirement of robots, so the development of real robots is in 1947. When studying nuclear fuel, Oak Ridge National Laboratory knew that nuclear fuel, with X-rays, was harmful to human body, and needed a machine to complete the task of handling and handling nuclear fuel. 1947, the world's first master-slave remote control robot was born. After 1947, as we all know, it was a period of rapid development of computer electronic technology, so countries have begun to use some modern technologies at that time to study robots. Subsequently, in 1962, PUMA universal teaching and reproducing robot was successfully developed in the United States, marking the maturity of the robot. It should be said that the first available robot was produced in 1947, and the real robot was produced in 1962. Soon after, some robots were developed in Britain and other countries. Then in the late 1960s, the Japanese combined the automobile industry of their national economy with robots, bought American patents, and re-developed and produced robots in Japan. By 1970s, this kind of teaching and copying robot had been industrialized in Japan, and many companies appeared, such as ABB, MOTOMAN, An Chuan and many robot companies such as OTC. They have industrialized and mass-produced robots, and successfully applied them to the automobile industry, making robots formally applied.

From the 1970s to the early 1980s, after industrial robots became products and were widely used in the world, many research institutions began to study the second generation robots with sensing function. Swedish ABB Company, German KUKA Robotics Company, several Japanese companies and Japanese FUNAC Company all made great achievements in industrial robots. At the same time, we also see that the application fields of robots are constantly expanding. From some industrial applications to the service industry, the workspace has been expanded, and it has been applied in marine space, medical services and other industries. So from this picture, we can see several processes of robot development.

So to sum up, we think robots have three stages of development, that is to say, we are used to dividing robots into three categories. One is the first generation robot, also called the teaching and reproducing robot. It controls a multi-degree-of-freedom machine through a computer. By teaching and storing programs and information, information can be read at work, and then instructions can be issued. In this way, the robot can be repeated according to the results of teaching at that time. Reproduce this kind of action, such as a spot welding robot of an automobile. As long as it has taught spot welding technology, it always repeats this kind of work. It has no perception of the external environment, the magnitude of this force, the existence of this workpiece and the quality of welding. It doesn't know, so in fact, this robot from the first generation has its defects. Therefore, in the late 1970s, people began to study the second generation of robots. It is called a robot with feelings. This sensory robot is similar to human feelings in some functions, such as force, touch, sliding, vision and hearing. It has all kinds of feelings. For example, when a robot grabs an object, it can actually feel the force, and can visually feel and identify the shape, size and color of the object. Grasping an egg, it can know its stress and sliding through the sense of touch.

Then the third generation robot, which is also the most advanced stage we pursue in robotics, is called intelligent robot. So as long as we tell it what to do, it can complete the functions and functions of action, perceptual thinking and man-machine communication. Therefore, the current development is only relative to the concept and significance of this kind of intelligence in some parts, and the truly complete intelligent robot does not exist, but with the continuous development of science and technology.

Then from the development of three generations of robots, on the other hand, from the perspective of application, robots are classified, such as industrial robots, including spot welding, arc welding, painting, handling, palletizing and so on. We call this kind of robots working in industrial sites industrial robots, so from different applications, from underwater robots to space robots, there are also agriculture, forestry and animal husbandry. Medical robots are called medical robots, including entertainment robots, robots used in buildings and rooms, so from the perspective of application classification, including industries and applications, it can be classified as simple as this.

Let me briefly introduce the basic situation of robot development in China. Just now I mentioned that Japan and the United States began to study robots in the 1960s, because there are many other factors and problems in our country. Our country is studying robots. In the late 1970s, we held an exhibition of Japanese industrial automation products in Beijing. There are two products in this conference, one is CNC machine tools and the other is industrial robots. At this time, many scholars in our country saw this direction and began to study robots, but the research at this time was basically limited to the theoretical discussion stage. Then the real time of robot research is during the Seventh Five-Year Plan, the Eighth Five-Year Plan, the Ninth Five-Year Plan and the Tenth Five-Year Plan, with the fastest development. It was in 1986 that our country set up the 863 program, which is a high-tech development plan and takes robot technology as an important development theme. China has invested nearly hundreds of millions of dollars in robot research, which has made China develop rapidly in the field of robots.

At present, the main institutions are Shenyang Institute of Automation, Beijing Institute of Automation, former Ministry of Machinery, Harbin Institute of Technology, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tsinghua University, Beijing Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, etc. I have done very important research work and achieved a lot of results. And in recent years, many institutions in our country are engaged in robot research, and many graduate students and doctoral students are engaged in robot research. At present, the representative research in our country, including industrial robots, underwater robots, space robots and nuclear robots, should be at the leading level in the world. Generally speaking, there is still a big gap between our country and developed countries, mainly because our country has no fixed and mature products in robot industrialization, but we have made many distinctive research results in these underwater, space, nuclear industry and some special robots.

Let me briefly introduce some information about industrial robots. Up to now, industrial robot is the most mature and widely used robot. At present, the world's total sales volume is 165438+ 10,000 sets, which is the statistics of 1999, but this 165438+ 10,000 sets has been equipped and used, and this amount is also 750,000 sets. Generally speaking, Japan ranks first in the field of industrial robots, becoming a robot kingdom, and the United States is also developing rapidly. At present, the number of newly installed robots has surpassed that of Japan. China has just entered the stage of industrialization, and a variety of industrial robot prototypes have been developed, but some of them are used in production in small batches, which is also the comparison of industrial robots in Japan, the United States and China.

This is a spot welding robot, mainly aimed at automobile production line, to improve production efficiency, improve automobile welding quality and reduce workers' labor intensity. Its characteristic is that when the robot is used to spot weld two steel plates, it needs to bear a large electrode holder, which is usually more than tens of kilograms, so its speed needs to move at a high speed of 1.5 to 2 meters per second, so it generally has five to six degrees of freedom, the load is 30 to 120 kilograms, and the working space is very large, about two meters. Such a spherical workspace moves at a high speed, so the concept of freedom, that is, the number of parts that move relatively independently, is equivalent to our human body. The waist is a rotational freedom. Our big arm can be lifted and our small arm can be bent, so these are three degrees of freedom. At the same time, the wrist also has three degrees of freedom to adjust the posture. Therefore, the general robot has six degrees of freedom, and can completely realize three positions and three postures in space. Of course, there are also robots with less than six degrees of freedom and more than six degrees of freedom.

Arc welding robot is also an important aspect of industrial robot. For example, when the rear axle of our car is welded, it is welded continuously, so its characteristic is continuous trajectory control, so it requires very high trajectory accuracy, generally speaking, it is also five to six degrees of freedom. Because its welding torch is relatively small, it can weigh five to ten kilograms. On the one hand, it is a kind of robot widely used at home and abroad, on the other hand, it is like handling and riveting. In these workplaces, such as handling, robots are mainly required to have high speed and great carrying capacity. For example, the Daku robot in Japan can carry 300 kilograms, grab, carry and stack.

The second category is service robots. With the development of industrialization, especially in recent ten years, the application field of robot development has been expanding. It is a very important function at present. As we all know, robots have gradually shifted from manufacturing to non-manufacturing and service industries. The automobile manufacturing mentioned just now belongs to the manufacturing industry, but the service industry includes cleaning, refueling, ambulance, emergency rescue and disaster relief. All belong to non-manufacturing and service industries. Then compared with industrial robots, it has a very important difference. It is mainly a mobile platform, which can move and move. There are some arms on it for operation, and at the same time, it is equipped with some force sensors, vision sensors, ultrasonic ranging sensors and so on. It judges its own movement and completes some work by recognizing the surrounding environment, which is a basic feature of the service robot.

For example, here are some pictures. This is in America. They developed the cleaning work like a large passenger plane. If people do it heavily, then the huge body will be heavy and inconvenient to clean. Then they use this robot to achieve these cleaning tasks like airplanes, including some countries developing cleaning robots like tall buildings, and also robots in service industries, including home use. There are also some hotels and some public places that use this cleaning robot to clean the ground, including tennis courts that can automatically collect scattered balls. These robots also exist.

On the other hand, the application of service robots in automobile refueling robots is also very interesting, including some gas stations, which all use automatic metering devices to realize automatic metering, but they are still operated by people. However, it can be seen that on some highways in the United States, there is a lot of traffic, including refueling cars at night, and the work is very complicated. Therefore, many countries are now developing this kind of automatic refueling robot, which can automatically measure and release.

The guide robot is similar to the shape of a puppy, considering the safety of the blind. It can judge some obstacles, moving vehicles and pedestrians on the road to guide the blind to walk safely, which is very necessary to improve the safety of the blind.

Then there is the guide etiquette robot, which is also a service robot, reflecting a kind of intelligence and representativeness. In many big companies, it needs to promote its products. It makes robots with various cartoon shapes, which can have simple conversations with people and introduce products. You can receive some guests in some hotels and so on to increase the social influence of enterprises or hotels.

The housework robot is mainly embodied in that it can regularly clean and vacuum carpets and floors. It is an interesting robot, it has sensors, it can identify furniture and people, it can automatically clean the ground according to a law, which is also the performance of some robots in housework.

Nowadays, many countries are developing large parks such as zoos, recreation centers and Disney. In order to increase the interest, it developed imitators and packaged them into various people. It can talk, sing and perform, so that it can communicate with people. This kind of robot also includes packaging robots into various interesting animals, such as dinosaurs, elephants, lions and some cartoon animals. It has done some imitation of actions like animals, imitated its voice, and can communicate with people at the same time. What is particularly interesting is a robot playing the piano. In the early days in Japan, it played a world-famous song, which caused a great sensation in the robot world at that time. Therefore, the characteristics of this robot require that the fingers are very flexible and have great freedom, and in the process of playing, it also needs strong control and sensory control, so it is relatively speaking.

There are players like this robot, including its violin playing, which is the most complicated and difficult instrument. It can play the violin through music, as well as control, coordination, speed and so on. It must be automatically selected or judged, including that this is also a robot performing, and so on. It is a very wide application field in service robot, which is more and more close to people's needs. So to sum up, there are four key technologies. One is a mobile mechanism, which is different from industrial robots. Most service robots are mobile, including wheeled robots, crawler robots and walking robots, including combined robots. This kind of mobile mechanism has the ability to perceive the environment, which is also the most important feature of the service robot, because its environment is not like the fixed environment of industrial robots. Fixed frame, fixed appearance, then the environment may be unknown, may be changing, including cleaning robots, the shape of the house, the appearance of each family, the placement of furniture is different, and even some people are walking. These unstructured environments enable it to describe, perceive and judge accurately. In this respect, it shows that the service robot has certain functions of human intelligence.

On the other hand, energy technology. As we all know, early humanoid robots were all equipped with "braids". Because of its insufficient energy supply, the battery energy is very small. Therefore, this service robot now requires high density, relatively constant output voltage, low internal resistance, high temperature resistance and low cost, especially in high density. Therefore, energy technology is the key issue for the future development of mobile robots, and so is control technology. In the process of perceiving the environment, control technology also needs to interact with people. Since it is a service, people always contact it, so how to interact with people needs an open and friendly connection interface, including voice function and graphical programming.

On the other hand, the world has made some significant progress in agriculture, forestry and livestock robots. We are also discussing whether agricultural robots and forestry robots are necessary in China. So for some developed countries, the agricultural population is very limited, including the collection of some agricultural and sideline products and pine nuts, which is a very troublesome thing. In this case, the robot can handle fruits such as tomatoes and apples by shape and color. Judging its maturity and then picking, this research has really improved one aspect of agricultural automation, including our country has successfully developed a grafting robot, which can automatically connect two branches after grafting and robot picking, and then wrap the branches. This research has been successfully developed in China Agricultural University, and it also includes forestry robots, which mainly pick agricultural and forestry products, such as pine nuts, as well as tree roots. When logging, pull it out and plant trees. More interestingly, there are many kinds of sheep in animal husbandry, including Australia. An industry with the largest output in their country, such as sheep, has a large amount of shearing wool, so its manpower is limited, so it is committed to developing a shearing robot. First, it fixes a sheep by a manipulator and recognizes its shape by a camera. Using this so-called scissors, and then automatically picking out the wool according to its shape, without damaging its skin, because a sheep looks very similar, so its operation is very difficult, and its perception of the environment is very high, so this technology is also very complicated.

In foreign countries, the usage and demand of construction robots are gradually increasing. Construction robots mainly solve this problem. Like our road-building robots, they also need construction robots, including spraying and excavators, including modular prefabricated panels of some buildings, and all need some automatic equipment, including home decoration, such as wall painting, which is also very big and dirty and harmful to human body. Now some foreign companies are developing family-oriented painting robots.

There are things like food packaging and sewing, that is to say, service-oriented families and food applications, including sausage packaging, actually improve the level of automation on the one hand, but also improve the level of hygiene on the other. Otherwise, human participation will always bring some unsanitary factors, including clothing cutting. Nowadays, people are increasingly pursuing individuality when making clothes. So now some universities are studying, including what you want. This includes scanning your body shape after you stand in this area. Robots can automatically design shapes suitable for your body shape. Through your selection and modification, the manipulator will automatically cut its fabric. Finally, some production lines can sew automatically. In Britain, many countries are also developing this kind of robot device.

It also includes fire rescue robots, which are developed in Japan, so once a fire breaks out in a high-rise building, everyone knows that it is a very dangerous and painful thing. Then, with the help of the robot, people are rescued from the tall building, and then rescue is carried out, including when the tall building is on fire, it can use this machine to climb into the building, spray water, or cut off some cables. Can be done by robots.

Therefore, medical robot is a new application field that has developed rapidly in recent five years, so we can also see several aspects, including that human beings are very precious creatures, so human eyeballs, nerves and blood vessels are very fine. Therefore, if a doctor operates when a person is operating, one is very tired, and the accuracy of the other manual operation is still limited, then this is Germany, and some universities are facing the human spine, such as lumbar intervertebral discs. There is also a rehabilitation robot. For example, patients with hemiplegia and hemiplegia have a relatively high incidence. When he recovers from treatment, he needs to exercise and restore his limbs. If doctors are limited, it is impossible for a doctor to massage or pull patients every day, then family members are at work and have no time to take care of them. Then a robot can be used to influence his hand. It is dangerous to force him to exercise every day to achieve the best recovery of human muscles. Many universities and some hospitals are developing human-like brain surgery. However, there are already good examples, including the work of locating and drilling human brains by Beihang University, and there are more than 0/000 robots operating on human eyeballs in the United States/KLOC. This robot also includes remote control. To achieve this operation on the human gastrointestinal tract, you can see on TV that a finger-thick manipulator is inserted into the abdominal organs and operated on the screen, while treating the lesion with laser. In this case, people don't have to destroy people's bodies to a great extent, which is actually a kind of liberation for people, and it is a good robot, and the medical robot is also very complicated. On the one hand, it is difficult to complete all kinds of work automatically. Generally speaking, people are involved. This is an example of Lindbergh operation developed in the United States. People control another manipulator through the remote controller on the screen to realize the operation of human abdominal cavity. At our national exhibition a few years ago, the United States has successfully achieved surgery and bypass surgery on human heart valves, which has already existed in the field of robots. It caused a great sensation, including Aesop's surgical robot, which can actually check some pathological changes of people through some instruments, operate some parts of people through a manipulator, and remotely operate the manipulator. Many doctors can perform operations with the participation of robots, including robots taking pliers, tweezers or knives for doctors to replace nurses' work, and automatically linking the lights with the doctor's actions, doctor.

Then there are several examples, such as the operation of human shoulder joint, including neurosurgery and neurosurgery, so this operation should be very difficult and risky, but with the participation of people, it is very beneficial to the recovery of human body. Another research that reflects the degree of robot application display is underwater robot. First of all, we have to answer why we should develop underwater robots. Then people have realized that with the continuous consumption of land resources, how can we get more resources? People have turned their attention to the universe and underwater, so the resources of the ocean are very rich. Including copper, manganese, nickel, cobalt and other mineral resources, these resources are thousands of times more than the ground resources, this resource is very large, including space. Then there are seabed exploration, salvage at sea, underwater investigation and risk removal, including the movie Titanic we watched. Probably we saw a small robot shooting underwater, including a Russian nuclear submarine. After the accident, in fact, many universities want to participate, and robots can be used to rescue them. On the other hand, robots play an important role in underwater applications, because it is very dangerous for people to work under the sea. In this respect, it should be said that the research level of the United States, France and Russia is relatively high, so this is an underwater working robot in France. In Japan, the submersible "Hai Gou" has reached several kilometers underwater, and has carried out seabed exploration and collected some minerals on the seabed.