Page 46 - Robot Builder's Bonanza

TETHERED VERSUS SELF- CONTAINED ROBOTS 15

Figure 2-3 A telerobot requires a human
operator to control it. The robot is usually
semiautonomous, taking basic instructions via
wireless feed and performing intelligent tasks.
(Photo courtesy iRobot Corporation.)

video camera that serves as the eyes for the human operator. From some distance— perhaps
as near as a few feet to as distant as several million miles— the operator views the scene before
the robot and commands it accordingly.
The teleoperated robot of today is a far cry from the radio- controlled robots of the world’s
fairs of the 1930s and ’40s. Many telerobots, like the world- famous Mars rover Sojourner, the
first interplanetary dune buggy, are actually half remote controlled and half autonomous. The
low- level functions of the robot are handled by a microprocessor on the machine. The human
intervenes to give general- purpose commands, such as “go forward 10 feet” or “hide, here
comes a Martian!” The robot carries out basic instructions on its own, freeing the human
operator from the need to control every small aspect of the machine’s behavior.

G The notion of telerobotics is certainly not new— it goes back to at least the 1940s and the short
story “Waldo” by noted science fiction author Robert Heinlein. It was a fantastic idea at the
time, but today modern science makes it eminently possible, even for garage- shop tinkerers.

Stereo video cameras give a human operator 3D depth perception. Sensors on motors and
robotic arms provide feedback to the human operator, who can actually feel the motion of the
machine or the strain caused by some obstacle. Virtual- reality helmets, gloves, and motion
platforms literally put the operator “in the driver’s seat.”

Tethered versus Self- Contained Robots

People like to debate what makes a machine a “real” robot. One side says that a robot is a
completely self- contained, autonomous (self- governed) machine that needs only occa-

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