Why do we need robots?

Summary

This script explores the numerous benefits of robotics in various fields. It highlights robot-assisted surgery that enhances precision with minimal incisions, exoskeletons that amplify human strength, and robots for asset management in hazardous environments like pipelines and power lines. The script also underscores the role of robots in environmental monitoring and space exploration, emphasizing their ability to venture into places too dangerous or expensive for human exploration, acting as our proxies to gather crucial data.

Takeaways

• 🤖 **Robotic Surgery**: Robot-enabled surgery allows highly trained surgeons to perform intricate procedures with precision using 3D imagery and joysticks to control tools inside the patient's body.
• 🔍 **Enhanced Vision**: Surgeons can virtually 'see' inside the human body with the aid of small cameras, leading to less invasive procedures and better patient outcomes.
• 🦾 **Exoskeleton Technology**: Wearable robots, or exoskeletons, augment human strength, providing support and power to assist in tasks that require heavy lifting or physical exertion.
• 🏗️ **Asset Management**: Robots are utilized for inspecting and maintaining infrastructure such as power lines, water, and gas pipelines, which would otherwise be labor-intensive and potentially hazardous for humans.
• 🚀 **Planetary Exploration**: Robots are deployed to explore environments that are too dangerous or expensive for human exploration, such as deep oceans, rain forests, volcanoes, and other planets.
• 🌪️ **Environmental Monitoring**: Flying robots are developed to enter and monitor dangerous weather systems like hurricanes and cyclones, providing valuable data for understanding and predicting extreme weather events.
• 🌿 **Ecological Preservation**: Robotic systems are being created for monitoring the health of ecosystems, such as the Amazon rainforest, using blimp-based or underwater exploration robots.
• 🛳️ **Marine Research**: Autonomous underwater robots are designed for deep-sea exploration, capable of conducting photographic surveys, mineral exploration, and assessing the health of marine assets like coral reefs.
• 🚀 **Mars Exploration**: A series of robots have been sent to Mars for exploration, starting from the small Sojourner in 1997 to the larger Curiosity rover in 2012, demonstrating the progression in robotic technology and its application in space exploration.
• 📸 **Visual Documentation**: The Curiosity rover has captured and transmitted images of Mars, showcasing the capability of robots to provide detailed visual data from distant environments.
• 🔬 **Scientific Research**: Robots serve as proxies for humans in collecting sensory information from environments that are either inaccessible or pose significant risks to human life, facilitating scientific discovery and understanding.

Q & A

What is the main purpose of robotic surgery?

The main purpose of robotic surgery is to enable highly trained human surgeons to perform procedures with enhanced precision and minimally invasive techniques by using robotic tools and 3D imaging.

How does robot-enabled surgery differ from traditional surgery?

Robot-enabled surgery allows surgeons to make very small incisions and control tiny tools and cameras inside the patient's body through a 3D display, reducing the need for large openings and improving patient outcomes.

What is the role of the surgeon in robot-enabled surgery?

The surgeon interprets the 3D imagery, controls the motion of the tools inside the patient's body using joysticks, and applies their medical knowledge to perform the necessary procedures.

What is an exoskeleton and how does it augment human strength?

An exoskeleton is a wearable robot that straps onto the body and monitors the wearer's movements. It is made of strong materials with powerful motors that move with the wearer, augmenting their strength to handle heavy loads more easily.

How do robots assist in managing societal assets such as pipelines?

Robots can be placed in pipelines to perform inspections, reducing the need for labor-intensive and potentially dangerous human inspections, especially in environments like sewer systems.

What are some of the challenges of inspecting power lines?

Inspecting power lines can be dangerous due to the risk of helicopter crashes caused by flying too close to the wires. Robots can be used to perform these inspections more safely.

Why are robots used to monitor the health of our planet?

Robots are used to inspect and monitor the health of our planet because they can access dangerous or environmentally sensitive areas, such as hurricanes, volcanoes, and deep oceans, without risking human lives.

What types of robots are used for underwater exploration?

Autonomous underwater robots equipped with sensors are used for missions like photographic surveys of wrecks, mineral exploration, and examining the health of assets such as coral reefs.

What is the significance of robots like Curiosity on Mars?

Robots like Curiosity on Mars serve as proxies for human exploration, providing valuable information about the Martian environment through pictures and data collection, which would be too dangerous or expensive to obtain with human missions.

How do robots serve as our agents in environments that are inaccessible or dangerous for humans?

Robots serve as our agents by collecting sensory information from environments such as deep oceans, rain forests, volcanoes, and other planets, allowing us to learn about these places without risking human lives.

What is the common theme in the use of robots for various environmental and space explorations?

The common theme is that robots are used to perform tasks in environments that are either too expensive, too dangerous, or currently inaccessible for human exploration, providing valuable data and insights.

Outlines

00:00

🤖 Robotic Surgery and Exoskeletons

This paragraph introduces the concept of robot-enabled surgery, emphasizing that while robots assist, it is highly trained surgeons who perform the actual skilled work. The technology allows for minimally invasive procedures by using small tools and cameras controlled by the surgeon through 3D imagery and joysticks. The benefits include reduced trauma for patients and improved outcomes. Additionally, the paragraph discusses exoskeleton technology, which enhances human strength through wearable robotic devices that move in sync with the wearer, providing additional power for tasks that require heavy lifting or physical exertion.

05:01

🛠️ Robotic Asset Management and Environmental Exploration

The second paragraph discusses the role of robots in managing and inspecting societal assets like power lines, water, and gas pipelines, as well as sewer systems. It highlights the development of pipe inspection robots that can autonomously navigate and inspect these infrastructures, reducing the need for hazardous human inspections. The paragraph also covers the use of robots in environmental monitoring, including flying robots for weather systems, underwater exploration, and monitoring the health of ecosystems like the Amazon rainforest. The importance of robots in exploring environments that are either too dangerous or expensive for human exploration is emphasized, with examples of robots sent to Mars for planetary research and the use of autonomous underwater vehicles for deep-sea exploration.

Keywords

💡Robotic Surgery

Robotic surgery refers to a procedure where a surgeon uses robotic systems to perform complex surgeries with enhanced precision. In the video, this concept is explained as 'robot-enabled surgery' where the surgeon is virtually placed inside the patient's body, using joysticks to control the motion of tools equipped with small cameras. This allows for minimally invasive procedures, reducing the need for large incisions and improving patient outcomes.

💡Stereoscopic Display

A stereoscopic display is a technology that presents images in a 3D format, providing depth perception. In the context of the video, it is used by surgeons to interpret the 3D imagery from the cameras inside the patient's body during robotic surgery, enabling them to perform precise and intricate operations.

💡Teleoperation

Teleoperation involves the remote control of equipment or vehicles from a distance, often used in hazardous environments. The video mentions teleoperation in the context of robotic surgery, where the surgeon controls the surgical tools from a distance, similar to how one might manipulate radioactive material remotely.

💡Exoskeleton

An exoskeleton in the video refers to a wearable robot designed to augment human strength. It is equipped with motors and strong materials that move in sync with the wearer, enhancing their physical capabilities. The script provides an example of an individual effortlessly handling a large weight using an exoskeleton.

💡Asset Management

Asset management in the video pertains to the maintenance and inspection of infrastructure such as power lines, water, and gas pipelines, and sewer systems. It highlights the use of robots to perform periodic inspections, reducing the labor intensity and risks associated with manual inspection.

💡Pipe Inspection Robot

A pipe inspection robot is a specialized type of robot designed to navigate through pipelines for inspection purposes. As mentioned in the video, these robots are equipped with wheels, lights, and cameras to perform inspections in environments that are unsafe or unpleasant for humans.

💡Environmental Monitoring

Environmental monitoring involves the use of technology to assess and track the health of ecosystems and the planet. The video discusses various types of robots used for this purpose, including those that can fly into weather systems, explore volcanoes, and monitor the Amazon rainforest or underwater environments.

💡Underwater Exploration

Underwater exploration in the video refers to the use of autonomous robots to explore and study the ocean depths. These robots are equipped with sensors and can perform tasks such as photographic surveys of shipwrecks, mineral exploration, and coral reef health assessments without the limitations and risks associated with human divers.

💡Mars Rovers

Mars rovers are robotic vehicles designed to explore the surface of Mars. The video script mentions several rovers, including Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity, each of which has been sent to gather information about the Martian environment and geology.

💡Autonomy

Autonomy in the context of the video refers to the ability of robots to operate independently without direct human control. This is particularly relevant for underwater and space exploration robots, which are sent on missions to perform tasks in environments that are either too dangerous or too remote for human presence.

💡Proxies

In the video, proxies are robots that act on behalf of humans in environments that are either too dangerous or too expensive to explore with human presence. They collect sensory information that helps us understand these environments, serving as our agents in places like deep oceans, rainforests, volcanoes, and other planets.

Highlights

Robotic surgery is actually robot-enabled surgery, with highly trained human surgeons as the key part of the system.

Robotic surgery allows surgeons to make very small incisions, improving patient outcomes compared to traditional large openings.

The surgeon controls tools inside the patient's body using 3D imagery and joysticks, virtually placing them inside the body.

Exoskeleton technology augments human strength, with wearable robots that move with the user and provide additional power.

Exoskeletons are demonstrated in a video showing a person effortlessly handling large weights.

Robots are used for managing assets such as power lines, water, and gas pipelines, which require periodic inspection.

Pipe inspection robots with wheels, lights, and cameras are developed to perform inspections in pipelines.

Power line inspections are conducted using flying robots or robots that crawl along the lines, reducing helicopter crashes.

Robots are being developed to inspect and monitor the health of our planet, including flying into dangerous weather systems.

Blimp-based robots are used for monitoring the Amazon rainforest, while underwater robots explore the depths of the oceans.

Underwater robots are autonomous, equipped with sensors for missions like surveying wrecks and examining coral reefs.

Robots have been sent to Mars for exploration, with examples including Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity.

Mars rovers like Curiosity take pictures and provide information about the Martian environment, showcasing their size relative to humans.

Robots serve as proxies for humans in environments that are too expensive or dangerous for direct human exploration.

Sensory information from robots is used to learn about environments like deep oceans, rainforests, volcanoes, and other planets.

The importance of robots in performing tasks that are dangerous for humans, such as inspecting sewer systems, is emphasized.

The development of robots for asset management highlights the reduction of labor-intensive and unpleasant inspection jobs.

Robot technology is presented as a means to extend human capabilities, from strength augmentation to environmental exploration.

Transcripts

In this section, I'd like to talk about why robots are useful. Why do we need robots?

The first example I am going to give is what's called robotic surgery but that is a bit of

a misnomer. It's actually robot-enabled surgery. And highly trained human surgeons are the

key part of the system. The robot part of the system is shown over here and there are a

number of tools which are inside the body of the patient. There are tools which carry

very small cameras and the information from those cameras is presented to the surgeon

in a stereoscopic or 3D display. The surgeon looks at this 3D imagery and adjusts what

we could consider as some small joysticks. Those small joysticks control the motion of

tools which are also inside the patient's body.

So the surgeon is doing all the skilled work. He's using his eyes to interpret the 3D imagery.

He's using everything he knows about medicine in order to control the tools inside the human

body to do the job that needs to be done. The key innovation here is the surgeon is

virtually inside the human body. In the old days, we needed to make very large openings

in the human body so that the surgeon could get his very large hands in there to do the

work that needed to be done.

With this robot surgery technology, we are able to make a number of very very small incisions

in the body of the patient into which we insert these very small tools and cameras so the

outcomes for the patient are a whole lot better. So robotic surgery is really a misnomer. It's

like the teleoperation system that we looked at earlier on which was used to perform manipulation

of radioactive material. It's a very similar technology being used here to virtually place

a surgeon inside the body of a patient.

We can also use robot technology to make us stronger. This is a technology called an exoskeleton.

It's a wearable robot. We strap ourselves into it. It straps onto our ankles, onto our

knees, onto our thighs and onto our trunk. It monitors how we move. And it's made of

very strong materials and it's got very strong motors. So as we move, it moves with us and

its strength augments our own strength.

Here is a video of an exoskeleton system at work. This is some video that I took at a

robot exhibition recently. We can see the gentleman wearing the exoskeleton is able

to handle this large weight quite effortlessly.

There we go. So this is a way that limitations

of human strength can be augmented by robot technology. The intelligence in performing

the motion or performing the action comes from the human being but the raw strength,

the brute strength comes from the robot that he is wearing.

Another really important role for robots today is managing assets, as a society we have a massive

investment in assets in terms of power lines, water pipe lines, gas pipe lines and sewer

systems. And in order to maintain the health of those assets, they need to be periodically

inspected and that's very labor-intensive. And some of these inspection jobs are fairly unpleasant.

Imagine if it was your job to inspect sewer systems. It's dark, it's unpleasant, and actually

a little dangerous. So people have been building robots that can be placed in the pipe lines

to perform the inspection without sending human beings down there. So robotic researchers

have been developing robot systems for performing this kind of inspection work. And here we

see an example of a pipe inspection robot. It's got wheels to propel it through the pipe,

it's got lights and cameras.

A massive amount of money is spent each year on inspecting power lines and there's a couple

of approaches to doing this. One is to fly a robot along the power line or else to build

a robot that can crawl along the power lines. Flying helicopters near power lines is a dangerous

business. And each year, a number of helicopter crashes are caused by the helicopter coming

into too close proximity with the wires that it is inspecting. So this is exactly the sort

of job, a dangerous job that a robot should do.

Perhaps our most important asset is the planet on which we live and researchers are developing

all manner of robots to inspect and monitor the health of our planet. A few of them are

seen here. They are flying robots that could be flown into dangerous weather systems such

as hurricanes or cyclones, robots that can explore the inside of volcanic craters, blimp-based

robots for monitoring the health of the Amazon rain forest, underwater exploration robots

and Antarctic exploration robots, and even robotic boats for monitoring the quality of water

in the storages that provide drinking water for cities.

It's a dangerous business sending humans beneath the surface of our oceans. Human divers are

limited in the depths that they can dive to. They also require a support vessel on the

surface from which they dive and for which they return. Because of this limitation on

humans under the water, there's been an enormous amount of research over recent decades in

building underwater robot systems. These are completely autonomous. They've got a number

of sensors on board and we can send them off to do missions like photographic survey of

wrecks, exploring for minerals and examining the health of assets such as coral reefs.

Another place that humans cannot go is to other planets. And here is a collection of

robots that have been sent to Mars. Here in the front we have the small robots. Sojourner,

which was sent in 1997. Behind that is a robot which is a copy of Spirit and Opportunity

which were sent to Mars in 2003. And over here, we have this giant robot, Curiosity,

which was sent to Mars in 2012. Here is an example of some pictures of Mars taken from

the Curiosity rover. And again, here we can see the size of the Curiosity rover with respect

to a human engineer.

The important message here is that there are environments that we want to go to learn information

about the health or the state of the environment. The deep oceans, rain forest, volcanoes or

other planets. But it's currently either too expensive or it's too dangerous to send human

beings to those places. So we send robots there instead and they serve as our proxies

or our agents and we use sensory information from those robots to learn about that environment

rather than having to send human beings carrying instruments to those places.