EAP 508 Writing Sample – Literature Review

 

The Edge of Science and Technology: The Approaches in Developing Biologically-Inspired Robots

 

1. Introduction

  • Background

Over these years, robotics has evolved and it keeps getting advanced by human for the sake of technology. The advancements of robots have been very useful for us, especially in certain aspects, such as social, medical, political, or even financial aspects. Robotics aims to help and assist human in doing such activities that would lead them to live effectively and productively.

According to Gracia et al., the robotics research is categorized into three different areas: robot manipulators, mobile robots, and biologically-inspired robots [6]. For each of the categories, robots serve different purposes, and they also have different forms. Firstly, in the area of robot manipulators, the robots are in the form of arms, which could directly assist people in devising or creating something. Secondly, the robots are in the form of transporters (helicopters, aquatic submarine, etc.) when it comes to the area of mobile robots, and serves the purpose of transporting or moving something from one place to other places. Lastly, the robots have been developed into the most difficult forms to be created which people are interested in, the “biologically-inspired” form; inspiring the anatomy of human’s body or animals’ anatomical parts [6]. Most of them do not serve any purpose; only do simple activities such as walking, climbing, grasping, etc. That is why biologically-inspired robots still need further research, especially humanoid robots. Humanoid robotics is the most complex thing and the research and development are still being done by the robotics engineers around the world.

  • Importance or Value

From all the literatures I have read, all the matters discussed are about some features of robots that have been created, the steps of creating certain development of robots, and their impact toward our social lives. These articles are very important and very helpful for me in answering the research question I have driven up: What can we learn from the research on biologically-inspired robots in order to develop an integrated humanoid robot with human functionalities and superhuman abilities? The findings from all literature review I have researched on are categorized into three big ideas: the positive and negative impacts of biologically-inspired robots toward human’s lives [2][5][8], anatomy and technology of biologically-inspired robots [1][2][3][9][10], and special abilities of separate components of biologically-inspired robots [4][7][9]. These articles provide critical things which would help me in doing my research.

There are current problems that we are as electrical engineers still facing in our field. The first one is, the existence of robots is receiving mixed feedbacks. Certain people could not just accept the robots to live among them, because it could harm them in any ways. Secondly, the boundaries in workspaces of human and robots, sometimes robots are dangerous enough to be in contact with. In order to solve that, limitation in robot’s movement and position is needed. Lastly, biologically-inspired robots, especially humanoid robots, have not been in use among human as partners and assistance in routine activities.

  • Gaps

Nevertheless, I found in all of the literatures that there is only a few that have finished their research on humanoid robots, while it is not completely in the form of the whole body of humanoid robots. Most of the articles describe the steps of analyzing one body part of humanoid robots, such as the robot’s hand [1][3], the robot’s spine (chest) [3], and the robot’s tactile sensors (skin) [9]. The research of creating and inventing a humanoid robot as in the form of a whole body of human should be done. While it is true that the development of robots impact the human’s social lives, the research is only done with the elderly people [8]. The research of the impact of the development of robots should be done toward diverse population, and with all range of age or genders of people, because the real challenges come from the people all around the world, who would more likely not accept the existence of robots. Finally, there are only few and limited abilities implemented as the feature applications of robots [4][7][9], which need further research and development in order to make the robots look more like human.

  • Selection Criteria

I selected sources based on the criteria of robotics and humanoid robots. I looked at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots on the year of 2012 and issue number 12, which provides the latest research information that have been done about robotics and humanoid robots. Subsequently I used the bibliography from each of those sources to locate other relevant sources. I also looked at the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine and the journal of Auton Robot, to find the background information of the development of robots throughout the years and the latest ability of robots that have been implemented.

 

2. Findings of Literature Review: Evolution of Humanoid Robots

There are some findings that converged in this literature review related to the development of humanoid robots, which is a branch of the biologically-inspired robotics. These findings are divided into three categories, and will be discussed sequentially to provide a view of how research of developing humanoid robots has challenged electrical engineers.

 

a. Positive and Negative Impacts of Biologically-Inspired Robots

The existence of robots have affected human’s social lives, advantageously and disadvantageously. Wada and Shibata investigated the social and physiological influences of a seal-robot, Paro, living with the elderly people in an elderly care house within two months [8]. The reason they chose elderly people as the object of the research is because they are socially remote from their families. The abilities of Paro to communicate and do such activities like a normal pet, bring positive influences for the elderly men and women. It strengthen the social ties between each of them. It also affects their behavioral activities positively, and certainly make them feel happy. As it is concluded in the article written by Wada and Shibata, we know that robots are highly accepted in the environment of our social lives, especially with the elderly people [8]. Robots could bring a whole new life for a certain group of people, and could make feel comfortable to live in such an environment, and become more sociable with each other.

In addition to the positive impact of robots toward human’s lives, Kawato added the usefulness of a brain-controlled robot [2]. In his research, he found that robots can be manipulated using Brain Machine Interface implemented in it. As results, the movements of the robots can be controlled by only using our brains as the commanders. It definitely brings a lot of positive effects for disabled or handicapped people, who need these robots as their second body parts, in order to make their life easier to live on.

On the other hand, Park et al. investigated the psychological effects on human playing video games with the robots [5]. They gathered all participants in one room to firstly practice and master a sample video game, which is called Pro Evolution Soccer 6, and subsequently ask them to play a demo game with a human player as a teammate or an opponent, and lastly play a demo game with a robot player as a teammate or an opponent. The robot used in this research is called Nao Robot; a robot similar to human, which was researched by making it sat down nearby the participants [5]. At the end of the research, the participants were encouraged to fill out some questionnaires about the experience they felt in playing the demo video game; how they felt to play with a human player and with a robot player. As results, people were bored in playing with the robot, because of the monotone style of playing that the robot did [5]. In this case, robots are not accepted in some ways, contrarily to prior research mentioned above. In playing video games like this, people would rather have fun by playing with other human. Unlike humans, robots can only be too good in video games, or too bad in video games, because they can only be programmed and controlled to do specific things, not various.

 

b. Anatomy and Technology of Biologically-Inspired Robots

Several researchers have developed the technology of body parts of humanoid robots. They have been researching on the adaptive ability of humanoid robot’s hand and the concept of detail musculoskeletal humanoid robot, called “Kenshiro.” Nakanishi et al. aimed to overcome the problems of limitation of implementation technology for designing robots by changing and simplifying the tendon and bone shapes of the robots, referred to human body [3]. The most important parts in implementing human body system to Kenshiro are the tendon and joint arrangement. These need complicated calculation about human bones and tendons, and implied to the calculation of robots’ body. It also needs some materials which are strong and perfect to be moved around. They have to be made flexible, so the musculoskeletal humanoid robot “Kenshiro” can do spinal rotation around its body. It drives the robot to move with full-body motion, similarly to human’s movement [3]. With these new data, the gap of creating humanoid robots has been filled up. Step by step, the future humanoid robots can be a reality for us humans. Therefore, robots can be made to look like real humans, by designing the muscles and skeletons of the robots, to be similar to human’s body parts.

Another research about humanoid robot’s body parts has been done in two other articles. Both of those researches are discussing about the development of the adaptive abilities of an artificial robot’s hand. Tomovic and Boni aimed to create an artificial hand with sensing ability towards various circumstances by using sensors and stimuli [10]. They use the model of human’s hand and make it looked like a real one. The hand can grasp something if there is a stick or something on it. It was a great improvement of such an artificial hand, which could be adapted toward certain environment. The adaptive control of the hand is successfully implemented, because it already could detect something and do something properly to those things, such as grasping, touching, holding, and many reasonable ways [10]. On the other hand, Catalano et al. provide an information of creating and developing a robot hand named THE UNIPI-hand [1]. The purpose of his research project is to actuate the development or creation of humanoid robot hand with adaptive synergies by analyzing the grasping performance of the robot hand. The method used by the authors is using PID control, specifically on actuators, to experimentally validate the measurement of maximum grasp force and holding torque. The hand is experimented by grabbing/holding some ordinary objects. This source explains about the capability of the humanoid robot hand UNIPI-hand to adapt to certain circumstances using the knowledge and technology of soft and adaptive synergies. In this case, electrical engineers can use the method of creating this robot hand to implement it to other parts of robot’s body. In the next research project, I suggest to forward this article’s project by using the knowledge about the adaptive synergies for hand, and use it the other parts of the robot’s body. As electrical engineers, we will be able to make one artificial human-like robot that can move its hands, and combined with the research paper by Nakanishi et al., that focused their research in musculoskeletal humanoid robot, so the robot can move its hands and also can move its body.

There are also two articles that were doing research on the development humanoid robot’s body parts, especially the brain and the skin (tactile sensors). Brain controlled robots, written by Kanato et al. has been mentioned above, and it also has a relationship with the anatomy and technology of humanoid robots, while it is implemented in the head or brain of humanoid robots [2]. In another case, Elkmann et al. investigated and developed a mobile service robot called LiSA (Life Science Assistant) to be able to optional task, by using the tactile sensors implemented in the body of LiSA [9]. They used artificial skin to cover up the segments of LiSA’s body, and the tactile sensory systems are implemented and buried underneath the skin, therefore triggering the motion control of the robots whenever something attract the sensors. Due to the artificial skin, the LiSA robot can detect forces, and that make it able to move. The movement of LiSA robot is triggered by the motion control. The motion control is using the Cartesian model and special model, which are very complicated with algorithm and lots of calculations. They aimed to add another functionality to LiSA robot to become more useful in everyday lives by implementing tactile sensing systems to the robot’s skin. The real purpose of their project is to make a safer functionality of robots by using tactile sensing to ensure the safety of the human-robot interaction, because nowadays, robots are not safe enough to be used and controlled in the lab, especially in ordinary people’s lives.

 

c. Special Abilities in Separate Components of Biologically-Inspired Robots

There are some ability testing of the development of humanoid robot’s body parts being done in several researches. Firstly, the ability about the tactile sensing for safe physical human-robot interaction has been discussed above. Although it talks about the development of the anatomy and technology of humanoid robots, it also has some connections to the ability testing which applies the tactile sensing ability underneath the skin of the robots [9].

Secondly, Sommer and Billard developed a project of creating a face recognition by using touch of a humanoid robot hand [4]. The robot used here is called iCub, a robot whose arms are capable of detecting and classifying the face recognition. They used iCub robot’s arms to detect and classify the recognition of faces of many kinds of dolls as experiments. With the system of hand trajectory, iCub’s arms could recognize the faces of the dolls only by using its fingers. When the process of touching is done, there is a tactile sensing which is implemented at the end of the robot’s fingers, which is used to sense the face’s structure. They aimed to develop the tactile sensor of the iCub’s robot arms to do the face recognition of the dolls. The probing mechanism mentioned in their article expands the understanding of the capability and functionalities of one robot’s hands that can do face recognition of many dolls. In fact, it can be implemented and used for the real humans’ faces, and can be very useful in certain ways, such as used for blind people in recognizing other people’s faces, medical needs, security necessity, etc. The problem of this article that drives the authors’ project is the limitation of other sensors of robotic hands.

The last research about the ability testing of robots is the article about a quadrupedal robot, which has the capability of walking up and down hill [7]. Zhang and Zheng created a quadrupedal robot which has the ability to walk up and down the hill by using the neural and postural reflex system. The robot is made by basing the structure of biologically-inspired robotics. Quadruped means four-legged, which relates to the form of four-legged animals, such as cats. They were doing research on developing a robot to be capable of walking down the hill, and also capable of climbing up the hill. It would not be possible if they did not use the postural ability of four-legged animals, in this case they use cat as their object. They aimed to overcome the technology of creating a four-legged robot that capable of walking even upwards and downwards the hill or wall (vertical state), not only walking in horizontal state. The key concept of this article is implementing the cats’ behavioral activity. They used the “postural reflex behavior of a cat” [7] by calculating the adjustments of the real postural reflex of cats, and they integrate them into the system of the robot. They use four-knee style – the same as a cat – to actually relate the system with the animal. This helps us understand that “biologically-inspired robot” was not always human-like, but can also be like animals. That is why they are called ‘biologically-inspired’. It also applies to the development of the ability of humanoid robots.

Additionally, from this knowledge of these articles, I need to forward this by authorizing it and basing it to my further research about biologically-inspired robotics, and I will be focusing more on humanoid robots which is one of the biologically-inspired robots. I will try to argue against the development of animal-like robots, and try to persuade people to do the further research on humanoid robots because they are accepted in society, and humanoid robots bring more assistance toward humans’ lives.

 

3. Conclusion

From all the literatures have been discussed above, it can be concluded the development and existence of robots, especially humanoid robots, bring a lot of positive and negative impacts. People might accept to live with the humanoid robots as their assistants to do certain activities, while some people might deny the help from robots, and still believe that robots are not useful and would only bring danger. The functionalities of robots are helpful in certain situations, thus they have to be used wisely, in every needed aspect.

Beside the impacts, researches are close enough to build an entire body of a moving humanoid robot altogether with the “super” abilities it has. Starting from the hand of the robot, which is the most complex part of the humanoid robots to be created. Researchers are already successful in developing it. They also have done the research on developing the humanoid robot’s chest part, the musculoskeletal robot. In this case, they have successfully made the chest part of the robot to move with the spinal movement and other capabilities. It is really closer and similar to human’s body part’s system, and could be integrated with the artificial hand of the robots. The abilities implemented in each of the robots’ body parts are the optional features which might help the development of the robots for the future in the usefulness aspect of humanoid robots.

After reviewing through all 10 literatures, there are some new questions appeared, which are useful for the next research, and making it closer to the real creation of humanoid robots. Those questions are:

  • Are there any other impacts humanoid robots might have on diverse populations (e.g. age, abilities, etc.)?
  • How could robots help us in doing our routine activities in our social lives (i.e. human functionalities)?
  • How can we integrate a complete body of biologically-inspired robots, especially humanoid robots, in order to produce a robot with superhuman abilities and improve human lives?

For the future research, we as electrical engineers can use other new methods that would bring conclusions for the impact of robots toward human’s social lives. We should use a humanoid robots in a full form human, and analyze the effects that it would give to the people in various range of age or various fields of work. Another future research should be done in the area of humanoid robot’s body parts such as under body parts, which is I reckon to be second most complex in human body parts. Researchers also should do further research on the other new capabilities and functionalities of the artificial robot hands. By doing all of these things, a humanoid robot would be invented, and we, as electrical engineers, would successfully overcome the challenges in developing humanoid robots.

 

REFERENCES

  • G. Catalano, G. Grioli, A. Serio, E. Farnioli, C. Piazza, and A. Bicchi. “Adaptive synergies for a humanoid robot hand.” 2012 12th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pp. 7-14, Dec. 2012.
  • Kawato. “Brain controlled robots.” HFSP Journal, vol.2, pp. 136-142, June 2008.
  • Nakanishi, Y. Asano, T. Kozuki, H. Mizoguchi, Y. Motegi, M. Osada, T. Shirai, J. Urata, K. Okada, and M. Inaba. “Design concept of detail musculoskeletal humanoid ‘Kenshiro’ – toward a real human body musculoskeletal simulator.” 2012 12th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pp. 1-6, 2012.
  • Sommer and A. Billard. “Face classification using touch with a humanoid robot hand.” 2012 12th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pp. 120-125, Dec. 2012.
  • Park, S. S. Kwak, K. J. Kim, and A. P. del Pobil. “Robot as teammate vs. opponent in video gaming.” 2011 11th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, pp. 47-52, Oct. 2011.
  • Gracia, M. A. Jimenez, P. B. de Santos, and M. Armada. “The evolution of robotics research.” IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, 1070-9932, pp. 90-103, 2007.
  • Zhang and H. Zheng. “Walking up and down hill with a biologically-inspired postural reflex in a quadrupedal robot.” Auton Robot, vol. 25, pp. 15-24, 2008.
  • Wada and T. Shibata. “Social and physiological influences of living with seal robots in an elderly care house for two months.” Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2007. RO-MAN 2007. The 16th IEEE International Symposium on, pp. 107-112, 2007.
  • Elkmann, M. Fritzsche, and E. Schulenburg. “Tactile sensing for safe physical human-robot interaction.” Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction, pp. 212-217, 2011.
  • Tomovic and G. Boni. “An adaptive artificial hand.” IRE Transactions on Automatic Control, pp. 3-10, 1962.