Servo - July 2010

(or smaller) as the Raven from AeroVironment (Figure 6) or as large as the long range jet Global Hawk/Euro Hawk variation shown in Figure 7. These are certainly ‘robots’ by most definitions.

Is There A True Definition Of A Robot?

If we steer clear of the early definition of a robot that was derived from the Czech word ‘robota’ (which is best translated to ‘indentured slave or worker’), we can include the several modern definitions relating to automatic machinery, humanoid bipeds, and programmable mechanisms. Even the first use of the term was long after sophisticated programmable machines were being built in Europe and America, such as the automaton from the Franklin Institute called Maillardet’s Automaton — a carefully restored mechanical masterpiece from the early 1800s. It is able to draw four different drawings and write three different poems with its pen in hand, all from its mechanical memory. If the intricate clockwork were hidden, a technical person of today would swear it was controlled by a computer and many servos — is certainly a robot by definition.

Final Thoughts

In the movie, Bicentennial Man, actor Robin Williams’ character, Andrew, desires to change from a robot to a man — a process that takes 200 years in the film. Many of us who build robots attempt to do the same thing — give our robotic creations a ‘human touch,’ no matter how small. That touch may be speech recognition, speech itself, an arm with articulated fingers, or some sort of advanced