Page 75 - Concise Encyclopedia of Robotics

Cylindrical Coordinate Geometry
the science of cybernetics. Computer-controlled robots that interact with
their environments are cybernetic machines.
An example of a cybernetic process is pouring a cup of coffee. Suppose
someone says to a personal robot,“Please bring me a cup of coffee, and be
sure it’s hot.” In the robot controller’s memory, there are data concerning
what a coffee cup looks like, the route to the kitchen, the shape of the coffee
pot, and a relative-temperature-interpretation routine, so the robot knows
what the person means by “hot.” A personal robot must go through an
unbelievably complicated process to get a cup of coffee. This becomes
evident when one tries to write down each step in rigorous form.
CYBORG
The word cyborg is a contraction of “cybernetic”and “organism.”In robot-
ics, the term refers to a human whose body is comprised largely, or even
mostly, of robotic elements, but who is still biologically alive.
If a person is given a single robotic hand or arm, it is called a bionic
body part or prosthesis. Science fiction carries this notion to the point
that a person seriously injured might be reconstructed significantly, or
even almost entirely, of bionic parts. Such a being would be a true cyborg.
Technology is a long way from creating cyborgs, but some scientists
believe they will someday be common. A few futurists envision a society
comprised of human beings, cyborgs, smart robots, and computers. This
has been called a cybot society.
While enthusiasm for the idea of a cybot society runs high in Japan,
there is somewhat less interest in the United States and Europe.Americans
and Europeans think of robots as serving mainly industrial purposes,
but the Japanese think of them as being in some sense alive. This might
be why the Japanese are so much more active in developing human-
like robots.
See also ANDROID and PROSTHESIS.
CYLINDRICAL COORDINATE GEOMETRY
Cylindrical coordinate geometry, also known as cyclic coordinate geometry, is
a scheme for guiding a robot arm in three dimensions. A cylindrical coor-
dinate system is a polar system with an extra coordinate added for elevation.
Using this system, the position of a point can be uniquely determined in
three-dimensional (3-D) space.
In the cylindrical system, a reference plane is used. An origin point is
chosen, and also a reference axis, running away from the origin in the refer-
ence plane.In the reference plane,the position of any point can be specified
in terms of the reach, or distance from the origin, and the base rotation,
which is the angle measured counterclockwise from the reference axis.

