Pass the paintbrush . . . to a robot

Press, 25 November 1982, Page 21

Pass the paintbrush . . . to a robot

Already there’s a domestic robot that can hammer, saw, drill, paint; check its work against blueprints — and ask advice if it goes wrong. Within four years, it could be helping with the chores in your home!

By

BRUCE SANDHAM

Features International

If you hate being handy around the house but can’t afford to employ professional help, then roll on 1986. That’s the year when you should be able to hire a robot to help with the painting and decorating. ~ :

That’s the prediction of America’s Chapman Corporation, a Chicago-based electronics combine that has perfected a robot called Garco, a man-shaped jack-of-all-trades controlled by more electronic gadgetry than is found in an airliner.

It’s perfectly feasible that such. gadgetry should be a commercial reality by the end of the decade, says an expert of Britain’s Science and Engineering Research Council. And the facts seem to back him up. For instance, Garco can be set to work to build simple wooden or metal constructions entirely without supervision, once his control system has been programmed.He can hammer, saw, drill,' mix and apply paint, check his work with blueprints, and ask advice, if things go wrong. . .. >„ • “You should be able to tick him 2 off if he picks up the wrong brush or is using paint of the wrong 'consistency,” says a Chapman Corporation official.

It may sound like fUturis-

tic fiction, but it isn’t Already, an iron army of robots is marching quietly but inexorably into our lives. Keith Rathmill, of Cranfield Institute of Technology, the first professor of robotics in the Western world, explains: “A true robot must be able to manipulate and transport objects through lots of different movements.

“When it is no longer needed for one set of tasks, its electronic brain will be programmed to perform another sequence.”.. The Japanese are working on a robot project which could make fire-fighting by humans totally obsolete

It is an idea which also intrigues Professor Robert McGhee, of Ohio State University, who has. developed ways, of using automatic systems to provide limbs for the handicapped, then extended the idea to robots.

“My robots, called Hexapods, could be programmed to carry fire-hoses into blazing houses, build spice stations, and help clear up after disasters like * earthquakes or floods,” he says. A hexapod can be just 16 inches’ high with six legs "and

six knees powered by hydraulics. An umbilical cord links it to a computer and the operator controls it with a joystick. The idea is that the human controls the body motion and the computer is programmed to make the legs.follow suit..

Soon, says Professor McGhee, Hexapods should even be able to sense danger. “If it thinks it is going to hurt itself or the operator, it will stop,” he adds. The professor .is currently developing a microscopic motor which can help simulate human muscles in a robot with maximum accur-

acy. ■, ?■'" " ■ If successful, there is a ready market waiting. The science of robotics is booming in the United States. General Motors has announced that it will spend > one billion dollars on. robotics in the next eight years. Some |45 million was invested in robotics by British industry during 1981 — a sum, it is argued, which can easily be won back in savings in’ energy costs.’ . • • Warehouses, for example, normally heated to keep humans comfortable, could.

by using robots, be maintained solely at the necessary, temperature and humidity needed to keep contents in good condition. “Our children are going to look askance at many of our Emt • robots. They are , daft, dumb devices screwed to the floor,” says Mr Peter Davey, who runs the Science and Engineering Research Council’s Industrial Robotics Initiative. •. . “He -predicts- that vastly imore-intelligent -robots will be starting to appear in the United States and Japan within the next year or two.

Hitachi,, for instance, has plans to spend $6OO million a '/’year on.,its seven robotics J laboratories. .Critics , argue that more : robots could lose most of us our jobs.-. On the other hand, they could also save lives. Professor McGhee says: “I predict that future genera.tions will consider us stark crazy to have sent frail human beings into blazing buildings.' “Robots, properly pro- , grammed, will be able to cope with danger far better than we can.”