Why do we need robots?
Summary
TLDRThis 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
- π€ **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.
- π **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.
- π¦Ύ **Exoskeleton Technology**: Wearable robots, or exoskeletons, augment human strength, providing support and power to assist in tasks that require heavy lifting or physical exertion.
- ποΈ **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.
- π **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.
- πͺοΈ **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.
- πΏ **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.
- π³οΈ **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.
- π **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.
- πΈ **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.
- π¬ **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
π€ 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.
π οΈ 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.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘Robotic Surgery
π‘Stereoscopic Display
π‘Teleoperation
π‘Exoskeleton
π‘Asset Management
π‘Pipe Inspection Robot
π‘Environmental Monitoring
π‘Underwater Exploration
π‘Mars Rovers
π‘Autonomy
π‘Proxies
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.
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